--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Stu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens all make arguments about the absurdity > of the label atheist. The only place I have seen the word used was > by religious people as a pejorative. This writer was clearly > reacting against these writers. > > Harris makes an effective argument saying that it is much like the > term racist. Racist is a clear term to identify a KKK member, but > there is no term to identify those who fight racism. Because not > believing in racial superiority is not a characteristic of any one > group.
The problem with 'atheist' is that it has gathered about itself *subliminal* pejorative meanings. Like the word 'cult.' Look at the dictionary definition of it, and see if you can find anything that even hints at the negative reaction most people have been trained to have to the term 'cult' when they hear it these days: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult 'Atheist' is a "loaded phrase," a word that is supposed to *connote* bad things about the person it is applied to. And you are correct, Stu, that that "loading" came from the ranks of organized religion. As I've said before, I prefer the term "non-theist." > Free will does not necessarily follow from faith. And is antithetical to the dogma of many faiths, including the "not the doer" dogma of the TMO. If you ain't the doer, someone/something else is. If you *can't* do, then you live in a predetermined universe. And yet, these people claim that by *doing* TM they are making advancements in their evolution. Go figure. > Augustine, Calvin, > and Luther (and many others) all argued strongly for the doctrine of > pre-determination. Bringing it all back home, on this forum, we have several examples of predetermination. It is possible to predict what their posts are going to be like and who and what they are going to spend them putting down with uncanny accuracy. Percentage-wise, there is almost no variance from week to week. Curiously, most of those posters are strong TM supporters, who have been practicing (or claiming to practice) that technique for decades. Then you have the "posting atheists," who mix it up and who post about *different* things. You can't really predict what they're going to post about or who they'll support or who they'll rag on. The pre- determinists even criticize *this* as inconsistency on the part of the "posting atheists." On the whole, these posters are NOT true-blue TMers. Therefore, I suggest that, based on the semi-scientific experiment that is Fairfield Life, TM tends to create predeterminists (those who consider themselves "bound" by God or by His Holy Euphemism the Laws Of Nature) to keep doing the same old things over and over and over, and that a "stepping back" from TM tends to produce a-theists, those who do not consider themselves "bound" by any deity or cosmic laws or sense of what they "should" do or "shouldn't" do, and who can think for themselves. :-) :-) :-)
