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 Birks79 rated 7 months ago-
An excellent response to the charge of "fundamentalist atheist"
@demoveen a fundamentalist is nothing more than someone who believes fully in the dogma of their 'chosen' religion without allowing outside information to get in the way... in other words a person who actually...
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11 Reviews
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- Marullo rated 7 months ago
- A thumbs-up, but to be honest, I'm pretty tired of the "I'm-right/You're-wrong" mentality of religious (or non-religious) dogmata. I dont care what others believe, just keep your beliefs to yourself and out of my face.
- matthewbhere rated 7 months ago
- An intelligently-written piece about the idea of there being "fundamentalist atheists."
'"Fundamentalist atheist" is a term I hear thrown around every so often. It's almost always flung by a Christian fundie who is upset about something, probably yet another perceived persecution.
When the term crops up, usually a few atheists try to figure out whether such a beast is even possible. Let's look at the concept and see if there's anything to it."
 mysticalspork rated 7 months ago- Spend 10 minutes stumbling through the Atheist/Agnostic category, making sure to read all of the awful webcomics and pithy sayings in full, then come back and tell me that all atheists are tolerant, logical, agendaless geniuses.
- droe82 rated 7 months ago
- I'd be very surprised if anyone could find an authoritative, neutral source that states illogic as a necessary element of fundamentalism. No, Richard Dawkins doesn't count.If you believe in an atheistic universe, I presume that you came to that belief somehow. You reasoned it out. If you didn't, I'm not that interested in your opinion, frankly. To so reason, you had to start off with some fundamental beliefs about the universe--that human reason alone is sufficient to understand the universe, for example. (Am I wrong? Is this not a fundamental belief of atheism? If not, what other reasoning do any atheists use?) If you strictly adhere to these beliefs and are intolerant of others, you're a fundamentalist--not an American Protestant opposed to the liberal theological tendency in Protestantism in the twentieth century, obviously, but if the word means anything at all in any of the myriad other contexts where it's used and with the same moral effect regardless, a fundamentalist nonetheless."But I'm right!"Yeah, that's what they all say. You are right... if your fundamental assumptions about reality are correct. You've never proved them, so you're just in there with the rest of us, I'm afraid.
- SketchSepahi rated 7 months ago
- The cartoon made me laugh. No, of course there is not such a beastie as atheistic fundamentalism. There might be atheists, who are fundamentalists in regards to other adhered-to ideologies than their atheism per se - but that is another discussion entirely. The very concept of atheistic fundamentalism or atheistic dogmatism is ludicrously oxymoronic.
- ares2101 rated 7 months ago
- This is a very nice analysis of the idea of Fundie Atheists. The article is right, such a being is hypothetically possible, but are usually essentially mutually exclusive.
- Birks79 rated 7 months ago
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An excellent response to the charge of "fundamentalist atheist"
@demoveen a fundamentalist is nothing more than someone who believes fully in the dogma of their 'chosen' religion without allowing outside information to get in the way... in other words a person who actually believes the things they say they believe. A straw man argument is one that you set up yourself in order to knock it down... the "fundamentalist atheist" idea certainly did not originate in the atheist community, so I'm not sure how you arrive at it being a straw man argument. It is the current (poorly thought out and nonsensical) response to atheist arguments from the religious when they have no real answer to our very basic questions.
- phil989 rated 7 months ago
- i see what you're saying demonveen. i agree that if he is trying to scientifically prove the non-existence of fundamentalist atheists then perhaps a list of case studies referring to people with / without the traits he mentions woul be a better approach. however, as the writer states in the conclusion, "I don't know for a fact that they exist, but I think they could". he isn't trying to prove the non-existence of fundamentalist atheists, instead he is just commenting on the idea, and suggesting that just by looking at some of the requirements for a 'fundamentalist' you can rule out a large body of people that might be accused of being 'fundie atheists'. also its redundent to argue about the meaning of 'fundamentalism' as he is discussing one particular use of the word - to accuse people accusing people of being 'fundie atheists', such as richard dawkins. i think the writer pretty accurately nails the meaning of the word 'fundamentalist' in this context.
the weakest point for me was his automatic assumption that the celebration of under-education is a bad thing. its certainly debatable, but possible not from a scientific background - any more than faith is debatable from a religious background.
- F3nr1L rated 7 months ago
- The writer is quite wise. I expected one of those standard, constantly repeated arguments that atheists can't be fundamentalists, but instead I actually got a well thought out article that took an objective standpoint. It's quite nice. I get too many biased atheism stumbles these days.
- demonveen rated 7 months ago
- I think this article is in bad faith. The word fundamentalism is a force multiplier in an emotive argument -- it does not have a precise definition. Arguing that there are no fundamentalist atheists is a straw-man, and is mistaking a rhetorical flourish on the part of of sermonizes as a serious argument. The experience which lends weight to the sermonizes misuse of language is that there are people who describe themselves as atheists who are argumentative and emotional. Rather than worrying about how categories of people reason (and the quick answer is that they don't) why not focus on your own personal argumentative content and style? Or focus on specific fallacious arguments of others? The more specific the better...
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