Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Karradin, Up until recently, I'm under the impression, that most people were theists of one stripe or another. Atheists were a significant minority. I'm not sure it's historically appropriate to presume many people were atheists but just didn't say they were out of fear. There is no way to test that particular hypothesis, is there? For the record, It was and is, never okay to threaten people for being of a different faith or no faith at all, but if there wasn't a large group of people who publicly identified themselves as atheists it is very difficult to say that they: 1) existed; and 2) stayed hidden out of fear of persecution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyKC Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 10 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said: I invoke Poe's Law. Edgar Allan Poe was supposedly very anti-religion, and yet his stories are filled with people being punished for their sins by the supernatural. Seems you might want to do a bit more reading between the lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnionAhaiReborn Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 It just keeps getting better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 ok, best new boarder award nominee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Scot - If you are going to pretend that there was no pressure in previous times and everyone had the same faith just by remarkable good fortune, and ignore what happened to people just for minor things like reading the bible in English (follow that thought along and imagine if an atheist would have met a different fate) and pretend that wouldn't have had an impact on numbers of atheists around to be persecuted then this conversation is more pointless than I thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyKC Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 8 minutes ago, sologdin said: ok, best new boarder award nominee. Thank you, but the real biggest celebrity isn't KC, it's JC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 2 minutes ago, karaddin said: Scot - If you are going to pretend that there was no pressure in previous times and everyone had the same faith just by remarkable good fortune, and ignore what happened to people just for minor things like reading the bible in English (follow that thought along and imagine if an atheist would have met a different fate) and pretend that wouldn't have had an impact on numbers of atheists around to be persecuted then this conversation is more pointless than I thought. Karradin, Is that what I said? I'm sure there were people who were athiest and stayed silent out of fear. My point, and my only point, is that you are only going to be able to guess at what those numbers were because people didn't talk publicly about being atheists. Is that a good thing, nope not at all. But you seem to want to presume that to mean there were a significant minority of people who were atheists throughout history but stayed silent out of fear. What I'm saying is that we cannot say that catagorically due to a lack of information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 y'all killed poor socrates, scot. and If i show up in south carolina, your cute local constitution states: Quote No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution. WTF scot! WTF! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyKC Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 3 minutes ago, sologdin said: y'all killed poor socrates, scot. and If i show up in south carolina, your cute local constitution states: WTF scot! WTF! The first amendment promises us freedom of religion, not freedom FROM religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Sologdin, Oh, it's embarrassing and incredibly unconstitutional. Socrates wasn't an Atheist, to the best of my knowledge, despite his prosecution for allegedly being an Atheist. This'll teach me to let Facebook comments get my goat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Lol. The 8 years comment was telling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueMetis Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 32 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Karradin, Up until recently, I'm under the impression, that most people were theists of one stripe or another. Atheists were a significant minority. I'm not sure it's historically appropriate to presume many people were atheists but just didn't say they were out of fear. There is no way to test that particular hypothesis, is there? For the record, It was and is, never okay to threaten people for being of a different faith or no faith at all, but if there wasn't a large group of people who publicly identified themselves as atheists it is very difficult to say that they: 1) existed; and 2) stayed hidden out of fear of persecution. Why is it difficult? It's true now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 TM, If people, in the past, did not mention that they were athiests then there is no way to know, with certianty, how many people were actually atheists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 I'm saying we don't need a count, or even to prove that there were atheists hiding their beliefs. Religion has been so hegemonic that for most of recent human history that there wasn't even a choice in the matter, which goes beyond atrocities in the 20th century by several totalitarian regimes. Particularly when there is still an awful lot of persecution happening right now by religious people, or those who claim justification in religious values to suit political purposes, against people of different faiths, atheists, lgbtqi people, women and on it goes. Next year a bunch of you will go off to St Petersburg as a side trip from world con in Helsinki. The same country as the atrocities that prompted you to start this thread no less. I will not be going, it would not be safe for me to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Karradin, There is no justification for Russia's terrible actions toward the LGBQT community. The laws they have are wrong and immoral, regardless of any justification offered. It is a crime that you cannot safely see St. Petersburg. My ultimate argument is for tolerance, all around. I can't make it to Helsinki. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueMetis Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: TM, If people, in the past, did not mention that they were athiests then there is no way to know, with certianty, how many people were actually atheists. The absolute numbers? Of course not, just like we can't get an good idea of the number of gays and trans people back than. We can however get a good estimate using what we know now. Which is more than enough to claim atheists existed and stayed hidden out of fear of persecution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 TM, Sure, you simply cannot reliable quantify that number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueMetis Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: TM, Sure, you simply cannot reliable quantify that number. So what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 TM, All you can discuss is the presence or absense of oppression never its scale or prevelence. That makes for fairly shallow analysis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueMetis Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: TM, All you can discuss is the presence or absense of oppression never its scale or prevelence. That makes for fairly shallow analysis. I can absolutely discuss it's scale and prevalence, for thousands of years people couldn't openly profess that they didn't believe in deities. I can't give you population numbers with certainty (though I'm sure I could get a reasonable estimate if I wanted too) but again so what? That's really not the important part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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