Reasons you may be a Fundamentalist Atheist

[pamiam]

Wow. Thanks for that. Well done!

[wyguy]

I didn't write these - I'm not that smart!

I was listening to a Christian radio show and they mentioned them. I c/p'ed them from a site that I can't remember today.

[jeffnevins]

Ah- so that's where they're from.

Quite a read. Just finished. Thanks for the post.

[Guest]

I didn't write these - I'm not that smart!

I was listening to a Christian radio show and they mentioned them. I c/p'ed them from a site that I can't remember today.

Could check your browser History section. Most default to 30 days or so, so the site might be in there . . .

[Guest]

You May Be A Fundamentalist Atheist If...

This list was originally compiled by GakuesiDon and has been added to and updated by Tekton Apologetics Ministries.....

Existence of God

You became an atheist when you were 10 years old, based on ideas of God that you learned in Sunday School. Your ideas about God haven't changed since.

You think that the primary aim of an omnibenevolent God is for people to have FUN.

You believe that extra drippy ice-cream is a logical proof against the existence of God, because an omniscient God would know how to stop the ice-cream from being extra drippy, an omnipotent God would have the ability to stop the ice-cream from being extra drippy, and by golly, an omnibenevolent God wouldn't want your ice-cream to be extra drippy.

Although you've memorized a half a dozen proofs that He doesn't exist, you still think you're God's gift to the ignorant masses.

You believe the astronomical size of the universe somehow disproves God, as if God needed a tiny universe in order to exist.

You think questions like, "Can God create a rock so big that He cannot lift it?" and, "Can God will Himself out of existence?" are perfect examples of how to disprove God's omnipotence and ultimately how to disprove God. When someone proves to you the false logic behind the questions (i.e. pitting God's omnipotence against itself), you desperately try to defend the questions, but then give up and go to a different Christian site to ask them.

Related to the above, you spend a great deal of your spare time writing to Christian websites asking them these very questions.

You declare on a public forum that you are "furious at God for not existing."

You spend hours arguing that a-theism actually means "without a belief in God " and not just " belief that there is no god" as if this is a meaningful distinction in real life.

You consistently deny the existence of God because you personally have never seen him but you reject out of hand personal testimony from theists who claim to have experienced God as a reality in their lives.

You can make the existence of pink unicorns the centre-piece of a philosophical critique.

You insist that "the burden of proof is on he that alleges/accuses", and "it's impossible to prove a negative",then state "That's what Christians do. They lie. Their most common lie is that they were once atheists." When reminded about the burden of proof bit,you reply with, "Well,prove Christians don't lie!"

You adamantly believe that the "God of the gaps" idea is an essential tenet of orthodox Christian faith espoused by all the great Christian thinkers throughout history.

When you were a child, someone came down with a deadly disease and prayed and prayed for God to take it away. God did not remove the disease and your friend died. You ask other Christians why they had to die when they were such a nice person and never harmed anyone. Dissatisfied with their answers, you suddenly decide that there is no God and that all Christians are nothing but lying, conniving con artists and hypocrites....all that is except for your friend who died.

You call a view held by less than ten percent of the American public "common sense".

You're a spoiled fifteen year old boy who lives in the suburbs and you go into a chat room to declare that, "I know there is no God because no loving God would allow anyone to suffer as much as I...hold on. My cell phone's ringing."

You attack your fellow atheists, who hold the "belief that there is no god", calling them "liars," and state that, "I do not deny the existence of any god. I just don't believe in any." Then you tell someone that their God is "made up." When someone calls you on this,you state, "I never made such a claim."

Going with the definition of "without a belief in God",you insist that all people are born atheists, and that dogs, cats, rocks, and trees are as well. You make statements like, "My dog is an atheist. Ask him about his lack of belief."

You believe that if something cannot be touched, seen, heard, or measured in some way, then it must not exist, yet you fail to see the irony of your calling Christians "narrow-minded".

[Guest]

You May Be A Fundamentalist Atheist If...

Origins

You believe that planes, computers, calculators, compasses, etc, were "all obviously designed," yet the human body, being intricately more complex was "obviously a product of biological evolution." It seems the more complex the apparatus, the more obvious the "fact" that it was not designed.

As a member of the Skeptic's Society you pride yourself on being skeptical of extraordinary claims. You also pride yourself on silencing everyone who is skeptical of the extraordinary claims of evolution.

Isaac Newton does not count as an example of a great scientist who believed in the Bible since he died before the Origin of Species was published.

When you watch a punt returner run a 93 yard touchdown, you marvel at what evolution has done for the human race. But when someone gets cancer, you blame God for it.

When you're discussing the origin of the world, the phrase "uncaused cause(God)" is a stupid, meaningless thing to say. You will, however, settle for "uncaused effect(the world without God)".

You descended from apes.(Think about it.)

You think that humans are products of chance but when it comes to human reason we can believe in logic! Think about it

You think you arrived at your position because you are a free-thinker who rationally weighed the evidence, and then freely chose atheism over theism. YET, you also believe that your thinking and actions are nothing more than the FIXED reactions of the atoms in your brain that are governed by the Laws of Chemistry and Physics.

You love to castigate Christians for being "anti-science" if they deny evolution from goo to you via the zoo, and to preach that they should adapt their thinking to the "science" of our day. But you also castigate the Church of 400 years ago for being anti-science, when it DID adapt its thinking to the science of ITS day, i.e. Ptolemaic cosmology, then joined with the Aristotelian scientists of the universities in rejecting Galileo!

You think that some guy named "Dr Dino" with no scientific credentials represents mainstream Evangelical thinking and scholarship about evolution and creation, and thus by spending inordinate amounts of time attacking him you are somehow dismantling the arguments of scholarly dissenters from evolution, creationists with earned Ph. D.s in science, and of advocates of intelligent design.

You claim poker-faced that "social Darwinism" and its spawn of eugenics have absolutely no connection to the biological theories propounded by Charles Darwin in "On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"

You have recently stuck a Darwin fish on your car in the hopes the people with the Jesus fish on theirs will be offended.

You also claim that not only is there no connection between Darwin's theories and the doctrines of social Darwinism and eugenics (despite the fact that the term eugenics was coined and advocated by Darwin

[Guest]

You May Be A Fundamentalist Atheist If...

History

Any scholar who believes in a historical Jesus must be a theist. If they are an atheist, then they must secretly want to be a theist.

You insist that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", then claim that Jesus never existed.

You contend that no war in history has ever been created by non-belief. Yet, when you are told that 176 million people lost their lives in wars during the last century, created by non-believers like Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Hitler, to name only a few, you reply that those wars fought were fought in the name of ideology and not

[Guest]

You May Be A Fundamentalist Atheist If...

Christians

You think if a Christian won't address your arguments, they are too frightened to do so, or know they can't answer them; but if they do address your arguments, you think it is because they are "threatened" by them.

Missionaries who give up their personal comfort to aid starving, impoverished and persecuted third-world people are actually "corrupting ancient tribal cultures with western religious dogma", while you sit at home and complain about the price of KFC.

You believe that any Christian who claims to have once been an atheist is either lying or was never a "true atheist."

You think that John Shelby Spong is a reputable theologian but that Ben Witherington is merely an ignorant biblicist.

You assert that the crimes and failings of some Christians (acting inconsistently with the teachings of Christ at that!) disproves the whole edifice of Christianity but that the crimes and failings of some atheists (acting consistently with the fact that atheism can provide no basis for objective morality!) should on no account be held against the philosophy of atheism.

You assert that there is no absolute categories of good and evil, that all morals are merely personal, social and evolutionary constructs but then you can still describe Christians and Christianity as absolutely immoral, repugnant and evil and a danger to humanity and not feel even a twinge of hypocrisy at the monumental illogic of your position.

You think that Josh McDowell represents the apex of Christian scholarly apologetical thinking and you lump all Christians in with whatever religious fruitcake is the flavour of the month, while living with the delusion that there are no atheistic weirdos out there.

You KNOW that religion causes violence and repeatedly tell this to everyone, hoping to save the world, but you don't believe that TV violence causes any real life violence. In fact, you are offended by this objection, and you have already started to figure out how to refute it. To increase your fundy factor, you have decided not to study social sciences. (Once you heard about Rodney Stark's For the Glory of God - you certainly would not bother reading it - you thought that sociologists were Christian fundamentalists in stealth mode, trying to push religious worldviews.

You think that taking the Bible seriously is the obsession of a fanatical fringe group of right-wing, extremist Christians who do not represent the views of the historic Church or of contemporary enlightened, liberal, skeptical "Christians" who according to you supposedly "fill" the mainstream churches and who on close inspection pretty much reflect your own politically correct views and values - and skepticism - about God. [sort of like former Bishop Spong].

You claim that the theories and opinions of certain liberal scholars are absolute facts although you shy away from debating such issues with someone equally or better informed than you are.

You get angry when Christians tell you you're going to a place that you don't think exists.

You're convinced that people only believe in God because they're afraid of going to hell...despite the fact that if there is no God, then there's probably no hell either.

You consistently decry Christians for soliciting financial support yet find no problem in atheistic 'missionaries' doing the same thing."

You think that 'mission statements' on Christian websites proves the authors are biased which automatically renders the material on those sites weak and unscholarly yet you see no problem with 'mission statements' glorifying naturalism found on atheistic websites.

When a group of Sydney University (Australia) academics, including a historian, sign a public statement saying the Jesus Christ is "one of the great figures of history" and that his claims to be Son of God "bear up under closest scrutiny", this is a gross abuse of their position. But when Richard Dawkins uses his position as an Oxford professor to pontificate on his atheistic religion and related philosophical matters outside HIS field (animal behavior), that is a responsible use of academic freedom.

Further to the above, you're paranoid that these Christian academics will disciminate against you, even though their statement hasn't the remotest hint of that. But you applaud Michael Dini, a professor at Texas Tech, who refuses to recommend students for Medical School, even if they got "A"s in their courses, unless they not only understand but BELIEVE in goo-to-you evolution. And you're disgusted that creationist medical doctors have the gall to think they know more about medicine than Dini (who never practised medicine or even went to medical school), because by definition an evolutionist is more knowledgeable than a creationist on ANY subject!

You think Christians are narrow-minded for believing in only one religion, but atheists are open-minded for believing in absolutely none.

You believe that Christianity discriminates, because you have to join their religion in order to be a member of their religion.

You feel that Christians who go into atheist chat rooms are "shoving their beliefs down people's throats", and that atheists who go into Christian chat rooms are only trying to educate.

You think it is a "slam dunk" proof against God when you ask why He doesn't stop horrible things like, i.e., child rape, but evade the reply that you obviously don't want God stopping your own sins by pointing out that it isn't your problem because you don't believe in God in the first place.

You are disgusted with Doctor Paul Vitz

[Guest]

You May Be A Fundamentalist Atheist If...

Contemporary events

You demand that theists explain news items where bad things have happened to theists, even though no theists on the board have claimed that belief in God is some kind of a lucky charm that wards off bad luck.

You demand that theists explain news items where theists do bad things, even though no theists on the board have claimed that it is impossible for theists to do bad things.

The only Commandments you know are the ones that are unconstitutional.

You can't remember if she was Mother or Sister Teresa, but you can name every pedophile priest listed in the media over the last seven years.

You feel that Marilyn Manson is really, really profound.

You think the song "Dear God" by XTC is really, really, really................really meaningful.

You are funding or filming a movie called

[Guest]

You May Be A Fundamentalist Atheist If...

Bible criticism

You become upset when a Christian says that not everything in the Bible should be taken literally.

You dislike how liberal theists try to interpret the Bible for themselves, while you create your own interpretations of the Bible for yourself: (a) Exodus 34 contains a new set of 10 Commandments; (b) Jesus asked His disciples to slay all His enemies.

You have actually calculated, for purposes of "argument by outrage," an estimate of the number of people drowned in The Flood.

You can quote from the bible better than most missionaries...at least the parts where someone dies.

You label all scholars that actually believe the Bible as "biased fundies" while those who don't believe it are known as "honest" and "accepted scholarship."

You insist that the Bible cannot possibly say anything about homosexuality being a sin,because they did not even have a concept of homosexuality at the the Bible was written...then insist that the Bible says that David and Jonathan were married. AND you produce a long list of verses containing the words "children","touching",and "bowels".

You think you have refuted the whole Trilemma because you've added another alternative to it.

You dismiss any attempt to harmonize the resurrection accounts by saying "one says A, the other says B, but none say A+B", then go on to offer your own elaborate conspiracy theory of what happened to the Jesus' body, describing A+B+C+D, none of which are said ANYWHERE let alone together.

You think that Isaac Asimov was a world-class authority in Biblical Studies.

You make a point of referring to Jesus as "Yeshua" and to God as "Yahveh" in order to hint that they are no different from Molech or Baal.

You use one,or more,of the following alternate spellings: GOD-"gawd" JESUS-"jeeezus" "jayzus" "jebus" "jeebers" BIBLE-"bibble" "babble" "wholly babble" "buy-bull"

You refer to the crucifixion of Jesus as the "cruci-fiction".

When a Christian's interpretation of a passage (based on the social/literary context) solves one of your favorite contradictions, it is only their personal interpretation, and can be dismissed as such. But your interpretation (based on a "plain" reading of the text) to arrive at the contradiction in the first place is entirely objective, and is obviously THE correct interpretation.

You think that God would have made things a lot clearer for everyone, ranging from the medieval knight to the Chinese peasant, had He inspired His Word in modern English in words and concepts you could understand. You also ask, when told of the scarceness of paper in the ancient world, why God didn't provide enough paper to write a longer story.

You adamantly believe that "the Bible says pi equals 3" in 1 Kings 7:23 even though: (1) the verse does not make the slightest reference to the calculation of pi, (2) there are more measurements of the bowl from that verse in subsequent verses, (3) the bowl in question could very likely not have been a "perfect" circle with "perfect" measurements, (4) it's not unusual for ancient peoples using ancient tools (or even modern peoples using modern tools) to use round, easy to remember numbers, (5) asking an online math forum results in a refutation of your belief but you ignore what professional mathematicians plainly say (including that the Bible is not in error in this place) and twist their words to make it appear as if they are backing your assertion in order to continue to justify your belief (not that you ever had any intention of doing otherwise in the first place).

You consistently appear on discussion lists demanding that Christians accept your literal interpretation of various scriptural passages just so you can then launch into the usual "argument by outrage" - despite being told over and over that no Bible scholar or school of Christianity shares your particular bizarre literal interpretation.

You pontificate about the Bible as if you are an expert in theology, textual criticism, ancient languages and cultures and much more besides, when your knowledge of the Bible is just cut and paste from atheist discussion lists which cut and paste it from atheist websites which cut and paste it from embarrassingly unscholarly rantings by the likes of Messer's Freke and Gandy and Acharya S., etc.

You can quote Acharya S, Kersey Graves, John Remsburg,and Earl Doherty more fluently than Laurence Olivier could quote Shakespeare.

You create a web site: EvilBible.com,and post an Evil Bible Quote of the Day on usenet. The quotes always end with: "What kind of person would get their moral guidance from an ancient book of myths and magic that says it is OK to murder, rape, pillage, and plunder?"

You decry Christian missionaries for denying cultural relativism; denouncing their efforts to reform cannibalism, slavery and fear of animist spirits as judgmental intolerance. But your attacks on the Bible merely comprise anguished cries of "how barbaric" rather than reasoned arguments; and ignore all considerations of ritual cleanness, the evils of the Canaanites and the fact that ancient society was always one step from anarchy.

You think Secular Humanism actually promotes religious tolerance. Secular Humanism only tolerates religion; it doesn