Slandering Others In Order To
Validate One's Own Existence
'Analytic Phil'
From: "Analytic Phil"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: March 04, 2004 11:25 PM
Subject: Positive_Atheism_Letters_Section
I am a noncognitivist with respect to "God"-talk -- "noncognitivist" for short. The row of alphabet letters "God" does not refer to anything I know how to think about. That makes it no different from sounds like "Zaf" or "Loz". Those does not refer to anything I know how to think about either. They're just sounds. The only difference between "Zaf" and "God" is that people don't get all emotional if you said "Zaf" like they do when you say "God".
I not only despise theists' saying "God is something that exists" I also despise atheists' saying "God is something that does not exist!". I also despise agnostics' saying "God is something that we can't tell for sure whether it exists or not".
I despise all "God"-talk whether by theists, atheists or agnostics.
I'm a noncognitivist. Theists do not like noncognitivists. Atheists do not like noncognitivists. Agnostics do not like noncognitivists.
And it's too damn bad.
Phil
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Analytic Phil"
Subject: Re: Positive_Atheism_Letters_Section
Date: March 06, 2004 2:54 AM
I do not despise self-proclaimed noncognitivists for slandering atheists and lying about the nature of atheism. Life is too short to even worry about such things, much less get one's undies in a bunch about them! However, I do resent the behavior of slandering liars.
Atheism, as I have shown you (so many times that I'm tired of even dealing with you, "Anylitic Phil"), is the simple absence of a god-belief, according to the prevailing self-definition provided by almost three hundred years' worth of atheistic writings.
A person either grants assent to a god-claim or does not grant assent to that claim. Whether or not the person can grasp the meaning of that god-claim is irrelevant.
Therefore, a person who is not a theist is an atheist.
This definition does not take into consideration whether or not one is too dense to understand what certain people mean when they make their god-claims, and thus applies to all noncognitivists -- like it or not.
Neither does this definition reveal a given atheist's personal feelings toward self-proclaimed noncognitivists, bona fide noncognitivists, self-proclaimed agnostics, traditional agnostics, self-proclaimed theists, bona fide theists, or anything else. It reveals only the presence or absence of assent to the god-claim. That's all.
Many atheists, however, do not like slanderers (or any liars, for that matter). I am one of those atheists. But one's position on slandering liars has nothing whatsoever to do with one's atheism: many atheists are themselves slandering liars of the first order. In fact, I have encountered one slandering, lying atheist who claims to be a noncognitivist; I have encountered numerous slandering, lying atheists who claim to be agnostics.
Being resentful of the behavior of the slandering, lying self-proclaimed noncognitivist, I will do what I can to expose the dishonesty of said individual.
Having done that to the behavior of "Analytic Phil," I have now placed his e-mail address into the most aggressive filter that our anti-spam program has: Further e-mail from "Analytic Phil" will not even come to rest on our server.
Politesse demands that we accept a person's or group's self-definition. But they whose self-definition incorporates the degradation of others outside their own group make it very difficult for us to do this.
Have a nice life -- assuming you can grasp that concept. (And I think you can.)
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Eight-and-one-half years of service to
people with no reason to believe