Nickolas said- Those who say ridiculous ideas need to be ridiculed are morons.
Really? What definition of ridicule or ridiculous are you using?
adjective: ridiculous
1. deserving or inviting derision or mockery; absurd.
By definition, a ridiculous idea is one that's worthy of ridicule (and note how both ridiculous and ridicule contain the same root). So saying ridiculous ideas don't warrant ridicule is as illogical as saying that praise-worthy ideas don't deserve praised. Huh?
Perhaps you meant to say that someone else's ideas don't deserve ridicule, since everyone's entitled to their own beliefs. I don't necessarily agree, since that would require denying the existence of SOME ideas that ARE so completely absurd and ridiculous, but the question is who gets to decide (aka values vary)?
That's why we rely on logic and definitions of words: it's a shared agreement to meanings, and we're not entitled to just make up ideas or redefine words, and then expect to be taken seriously.
Nickolas said- Tammy has every right to voice her thoughts. You have every right to ignore them. Tune out. You are otherwise not so much an atheist as an anti-religionist. Big difference. Zealotry takes many forms.
Atheism has NOTHING to do with any other issue than stating simply one's position of their nonbelief in God(s). Period. That's it.
It doesn't mean the person who professes atheism is necessarily a skeptic (one who demands proof before accepting beliefs), since there's some atheists who also carry a belief in spiritism/ghosts/supernatural forces, etc. Some atheists reject a God belief without basing it on any evidence other than their intuition, i.e. they simply don't WANT Gods to exist. They're the flip-side of those believers who simply WANT God TO exist without being able to offer any evidence besides their intuition and who rely on faith to fill in the gaps. Both are essentially the same, and offer equally vapid and shallow reasons to believe or not, since they allow their desires to control their beliefs, and not evidence.
At any rate, if someone dares to state their beliefs on the issue of God's existence (whether it's the claim of believing or NOT believing in Gods, i.e. the 'hard' form of theism/atheism alike), then THEY carry the burden of proving their claim to others.
Now if they cannot provide any ammunition, then there's nothing compelling them to open their mouthes and speak the claim. Point being, in a public forum, one doesn't HAVE to to open their mouths, and they likely shouldn't, if they're too fragile to withstand a response or criticism in return. They can always just keep their mouths shut, in essence sticking to the agnostic position (i.e. 'not knowing', unable to decide and hence, they haven't yet come to a conclusion on the issue to share with others, other than to ask questions).
But expecting theists to enjoy some kind of advantage and the right to spew their nonsense without experiencing a counter-argument to emerge constitutes "special pleading", and fortunately we're long-past the age when atheists were killed for expressing their heretical and blasphemous thoughts, while believers enjoyed favored and privileged positions to sing their hosannas on every corner.
PS Viviane, you're right. Thanks.
I've been citing the "tu quoque" fallacy so often that I failed to post a link this time, but here it is:
From Wikipedia:
Tu quoque / t uː ˈ k w oʊ k w iː / , [1] (Latin for "you, too" or "you, also") or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view based on criticism of the person's inconsistency and not the position presented [2] whereas a person's inconsistency should not discredit the position. Thus, it is a form of the ad hominem argument. [3] To clarify, although the person being attacked might indeed be acting inconsistently or hypocritically, this does not invalidate their argument.
OR in plain English, from:
http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/tuquoqueterm.htm
"Of all human instincts, not even the urge to say 'I told you so' is stronger than the response called tu quoque: 'Look who's talking.' To judge from children, it is innate ('Cathy says you took her chocolate,' 'Yes but she stole my doll'), and we don't grow out of it . . ..
Point being, the fallacy includes the element of "you did it, too", and YES, TEC is frequently known to play that card when she is running out of ammo as a false charge of hypocrisy of last resort, and I've pointed it out repeatedly, hoping it'll stick (if not with her, at least for the education of others).
Rather ironic that 'tu quoque' comes up, in a thread entitled "fallacies about faith", as if the tu quoque fallacy is a last-ditch effort to protect one's faith!
Adam
