<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">You are assuming that beyond a certain level, enthusiasm turns into fanaticism, which is always bad, right? Just how does that happen? A desire to blow things up? Obsessiveness? Narrowness of focus? Anger with those opposing? Delusions of grandeur? (saving the world, etc.) Note how these factors are also those that start wars</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">I would add pollution and education to the list.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Feb 29, 2020 at 3:10 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">We should not do any super fanatic anything. <br>This why I so dislike super christians or super muslims. <br>Transhumanism should make us less fanatics, more universal, more accepting and embracing (not of death). The only fanaticism should be reserve to fighting aging and death. <div>Giovanni Santostasi </div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at 1:39 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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On 28/02/2020 07:34, Giulio Prisco wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>No trolling intended Ben, sorry if my post came across that way.
I consider some expressions of atheism as a religion, because they
exhibit many defining features of organized religions: Certainty of
having all the answers, us against them, intolerance of those who
disagree, at times open hatred. These are the bad features of
organized religions, so in a certain sense atheism (of the militant,
intolerant sort) is worse than traditional religions, because it has
the bad features of religion without the good ones. I often say that
atheism is the only religion with a really boring mythology.
Of course this applies to <b><span>*</span>some expressions<span>*</span></b> of atheism (of the
militant, intolerant sort). I consider open-minded, live-and-let-live
atheists as fellow seekers.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
You're talking about two different things.<br>
<br>
As Richard Dawkins has said, atheism is a religion in the same way
that not collecting stamps is a hobby.<br>
<br>
If someone asks me what team sports I participate in, I don't
(usually) reply "not playing football".<br>
<br>
If I try to stop other people from playing football, that's not a
consequence of my not playing football, it's a consequence of my
being an arsehole. Not playing football doesn't require one to try
to prevent football-playing in others. In fact, it doesn't require
(or, in itself lead to) anything except the lack of personal
football-playing.<br>
<br>
On the other hand, most religions do require their subjects to
suppress other religions, in various ways, up to and including
killing 'non-believers', in the more extreme (usually
'fundamentalist') versions.<br>
<br>
So if someone is an atheist, and a bigot, those are two different
things. Atheism does not require one to be a bigot. Christianity,
for example (in most of its forms), does.<br>
<br>
You may hold up the example of Jainism as an example of a
non-intolerant religion. Good for Jainism. That does't make atheism
a religion, though. Jainism is still a set of beliefs.<br>
<br>
Getting into the actual definition of the word 'religion' is a
rabbit warren, with no real satisfactory conclusion. Some people
have even concluded that the word is not really meaningful at all,
but most people have something in mind when they use it. And all of
the various somethings that they have in mind are not applicable to
atheism, because they refer to the <i>presence</i> of various
factors, not the lack of them.<br>
<br>
This is the core concept that it seems many people have trouble
understanding about atheism, and is maybe why it gets misrepresented
so much. It's not a belief, not a religion, not a social movement,
or a club or a political stance, or even a world-view. It's simply
the lack of a belief in supernatural beings and phenomena.<br>
<br>
The fact that some people who lack such beliefs are also bigots is
beside the point, and calling someone a 'fundamentalist atheist' is
meaningless. It's like talking about a temperature below absolute
zero (without any exotic physics, please). Similarly, calling
someone a 'militant atheist' is like calling someone a violent
non-golfer. They may be a violent person, but they cannot violently
not play golf, it's simply not possible. And if they violently try
to prevent other people from playing golf, well, they're just an
arsehole.<br>
<br>
--
<pre cols="72">Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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