Reply to Nick_A:
First things first.
I have already provided explanations and justifications for your making prejudiced statements supported by ignorance. You have not denied them because you are unable to argue against the claim.
In my last post I accused you of either not reading my posts or being dishonest. This, I followed with,
“If you can think of another explanation which reflects you in a kinder light, then I would like to hear it”. You haven’t offered an alternative explanation. So which is it, ignorance or dishonesty?
I hope we are clear now that, based on
“silly assertions without ever explaining anything”, my 27 levels of reality top your two or three.
I have demonstrated your lack of understanding in relation to a text which you selected in order to try to back up one or your assertions and which, in fact, contradicted it. So, when you say,
“Without the experience of pondering you cannot understand these things yet you would want to argue about what you don’t understand”, I suggest that you are left with a great deal to ponder.
I am reminding you of some things which you would clearly find it more convenient to ignore.
Now to your last post.
It is refreshing to note that you have taken the trouble to look up a definition. I shall remind you, however, that the last time I did this – to research ‘vertical time’ – you ignored it. I shall not do likewise.
I accept a definition of atheism which distinguises between those who assert that no god exists and those who think it unlikely but are unable to prove the notion. You call this a distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’. The far more common labelling these days is between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ atheism and it is that terminology which I shall use.
I have little sympathy for hard atheists. I can think of no way in which such a position can be proved or demonstrated, in the same way that I do not believe that the existence of God can be proved. I have argued with the only one I know who holds such views on this forum. I can name nobody else in the world who proclaims such a belief. If you can provide a name, then I would very much like to know it. They are certainly in a tiny minority of all atheists.
In none of your previous statements about atheists, however, have you acknowledged or refered to this distinction. You have lumped them all together. So why are you making this distinction now? Have you just found out about it?
None of this answers my simple question;
“What belief is held in common by atheists which enables you to criticise them?”
Telling me that there are two types of atheists does absolutely nothing to answer this question. If you are unable to answer – as was the case with my very first question – then I shall refer you back to one of my previous statements:
“My accusation is based on your condemnation of whole groups of people, based on what you think you know about a selected few. That is prejudice. It is based on ignorance”.
Prejudice. Ignorance.
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source.”
That may well be the case. But to assume that all religious people are fanatics or that all non-religious people are fanatics would be to exhibit prejudice and ignorance. You have refered to ‘secularists’ and ‘atheists’. You did not qualify your selection. You did not say, ‘fanatical atheists’, or ‘hard atheists’ or ‘some atheists’ or ‘a few atheists’. You generalised, ‘atheists’. Prejudice. Ignorance.
How do you think it would sound if I claimed that Christians are ignorant, or that Mormons want to repress all others? Is there a difference? Prejudice based on ignorance.