"Not sure what kind of point you imagine making since I never mentioned "wickedness"."
You mentioned immorality. My point is that immorality (or wickedness in Websters) has nothing to do with atheism--just as morality has nothing to do with God.
"And you said it was ridiculous of me to point out that you were dogmatically opposed to dogmatism"
Ridiculous because you were pointing out the nature of your own views--not of mine.
"Sounds like atheism is a dogma and a creed to me"
Your post indicates just the opposite of what you now state. One wonders why you would state the opposite of what you have shown from your dictionary link? You need to learn how to use the english language instead of bastardizing it. Most words in english have multiple meanings and shades of meaning dependent on context and usage. The meaning of "doctrine" as used in the definition is "a principle or position". In other words: "a disbelief in the existence of deity; the POSITION that there is no deity. "THAT there is no deity" is a simple proposition. There may be a rationale for the belief (one hopes so, at any rate), but the belief is just a BELIEF--an OPINION about the existence of God. It is not an opinion about whether a Viper can outrun a Lexus.
"and there are certainly extreme, dogmatic, fundamentalist, atheists"
You keep missing the point and I think you are missing it intentionally: The disbelief in God may be strong or weak. I believe I have posted atheistic commentary on that matter. But it is stupid to say that someone "extremely" doesn't believe in God, or "dogmatically" doesn't believe in God, or "fundamentally" doesn't believe in God. That is plain STUPID! Do we say that a theist "extremely" believes in God and so forth??
"As Joe's post demonstrates once God is jettisoned evolution becomes the explanation/excuse for everything."
Joe's post by a Christian schoolmaster proselytizing on a Christian web site demonstrates nothing of the kind. Not all humanists or atheists or secularists believe in the validity of evolutionary theory--although they all ought to. It is demonstrated. But it is only the explanation for evolutionary change--NOT for EVERYTHING! :-)
"The fundamental evolutionary ethic is "might is right"."
I hate to caution you once again, but please don't make such ridiculous comments. There are no "oughts" implied in evolution, and Nature certainly shows herself to be amoral. Let us look at a proper definition of evolution from Douglas J. Futuyma :
"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."
- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986
Evolution in no way shape or form excludes religion or religious possibilities. It excludes YOUR religious dogmas of dinosaurs on the ark with a syphilitic family. It excludes obvious nonsense. It does not oppose religion, per se.
"Stalin was just being a consistent atheist."
NO, dummy (do you play bridge?). Stalin did much more than not believe in God. He was a brutal tyrant and murderous seeker of power. He was unhinged.
"You have no logical basis to say what he did was evil, there is no evil in atheism"
Sigh...You really must get away from your glazing for a few weeks. Again, he is not evil because he did not believe in God...but for the reason that he was a murderous tyrant with a fanatical ideology of Bolshevism. DUH! Millions of atheists and humanists do not believe in God! And they are far under-represented in the prison system where we send bad people for either punishment or correction!
Let me help you with this: A person is not EVIL because they DO believe in God. But if they torture people then they are evil. I use "evil" to follow your usage and for the sake of convenience. Consider my usage of it as synonymous with hurtful or wrong.
Trying to proclaim a lack of belief in the Christian God as "evil" is fundamentalist claptrap. And it demonstrates perfectly why so many great people worked so hard to separate the Church from the State. |
