Hey, it’s only fair. We’ve got a ton of the tropes we atheists can’t stand; can we put ourselves in the other person’s sandals for a bit and list some of the tropes that go the other way? In this, I’m going to accept any that apply to any religion, cos otherwise we’d have hundreds of posts collecting Catholic tropes, Southern Baptist tropes, Mormon tropes, Shia trope, Sunni tropes, Reform Judaism tropes, Seventh Day Adventists tropes, Wiccan tropes, Hindu tropes, Shinto tropes… you get the picture. So for purposes of commenting here, we may treat all believers alike. (continues after the jump:)
With that, my first nomination is the trope of treating all believers alike. It certainly is not true, any more than all atheists are alike. Not even all members of the same narrowly-defined religious sect are alike; first-generation Moonies are a vastly different thing than second-generation, and the second generation (children of the original Moonies) vary tremendously among themselves. And that’s a fairly regimented religion; variability among, say, Catholics has got to be greater still, from certifiable nutcases like Bill Donohue, to unthinking Catholics like my sister in law, to thoughtful, intelligent Catholics like the local priest in Cuttletown, who is as far removed from Donohue, or as far removed from the news collections of pedophile bishops, as I am from the pope (the dude is Catholic, near as I can tell, only out of inertia). Believers vary, among and within groups.
A second nomination—a personal favorite—is from a wonderfully catchy phrase coined by Stephen Roberts: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss al the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” It’s a great line, and I wish I had said it. It’s also wrong. As per the first trope, it’s likely to fit some believers, but (just for one counter-example) I’ve met people who don’t believe in other gods precisely because commandment one tells them not to. And that is certainly not why I dismiss theirs! I suspect that the vast majority of believers believe in their gods, and dismiss others, for pretty much the same reason that they speak their language and not others; it’s how they were raised. And some atheists were raised atheist, others were not… some believers have switched ranks to atheism, others to other religions. It’s all very complex. Roberts’ line is a great line, but if we care for accuracy, it’s a trope we can do without.
A third and fourth trope, as a matched pair of bookends: A) The assumption that we believe in a literal transubstantiation, when it’s clearly metaphor. B) The assumption that we believe in metaphorical miracles, when they are clearly literally true. Again referring to trope 1, we have variability. Just as atheists complain (justifiably) when believers assign our motives and thoughts to us, believers can understandably complain when we atheists assume X, Y, or Z about them.
(It is true that any given religious sect does have a positively defining set of attributes, that the adherent may or may not actually follow; it is also true that in any given argument, the atheist may be more aware of that definition than the believer—I have had to correct my sister in law on the things she allegedly believes. Perhaps the problem of a dancing bullseye—are we arguing against the ideal Catholicism or the real Catholicism?—is another trope, but is it one we can do without? I think it is one we need to be aware of explicitly.)
By all means, invite believers here to add to the list; more knowledge is always to be preferred, and more perspectives is a good thing. As I said in the other thread, I could go on, but that would defeat the purpose. What a theist tropes can we bury in an unmarked grave in Potter’s Field?
You completely missed all the important tropes! Like why does the catholic church get all the demon killing Satan stopping movies. Why can’t the presbeterians or Jehovah witnesses save the day :P
I like these. Good job!
Not taking people’s claims at face value. This is both an atheist trope and a theist trope. “You know in your heart of hearts there is (no) god” is just no fair.
I think there’s an iota of truth in this in terms of a visceral belief in the afterlife — I have observed that believers seem to grieve just as long and hard as us non-believers in the face of personal tragedy. But certainly that doesn’t at all change believers’ nominal belief in an afterlife, and it’s a dangerous line of argumentation.
In the Catholic League’s recent Adopt an Atheist bullshit, they were able to score a small point against David Silverman because he had said in a recent interview that many atheists “did not know it themselves.” This is doubtless true, but it’s a trope I think is worth avoiding. It’s insulting to those who aren’t in that condition, and it makes the speaker look delusional.
My church history professor (Church of Christ, but Jesuit educated) told us that generational differences were stark. New converts were disillusioned about the existing church (like a teenager who thinks nobody ever really understood sex before they discovered it) so they’d start new denominations. Their kids were raised with some of the fervor but not the sense of liberation that comes from conversion. Their grandkids could grow comfortable in what (for them) had become the “established church”. Their great-grandkids would rebel against the suffocating comfort, convert to some more personal interpretation of Christianity, and… start a new denomination.
There are differences, but the biggest difference, he said, wasn’t in the specific doctrines but in the number of generations between them and the denominational spark. He said that the Catholic church leadership could see that dynamic coming a mile away at the start of the Protestant reformation.
I’ve always thought that the first commandment was Yahweh’s admission that there ARE other gods, but he’s number one!
Bill Donohue thinks that we over emphasize the problem with pedophilia in the Catholic church such that people start to think most priests are pedophiles –when it’s just a corrupt few.
Mormons don’t like their underwear referred to as magic underwear– they’re “sacred garments”.
I think a lot of the complaints from theists have more to do with language– they don’t want their fantasies talked about in the way people talk about other myths, superstitions, etc. They don’t want people to think of their religion the way THEY think of all those other “wrong” religions, myths, superstitions, etc.
Hopefully some theists will pop by and give us the tropes they dislike.
articulett–
Probably the biggest fight (I thought it was an argument; the other party thought it was a fight) I’ve been in online was exactly what you say–I looked at belief as belief, and did not make a distinction between christianity and a considerably more modern cult, and was told that this was perhaps the meanest and most insulting thing anyone has ever done.
John Loftus has been running an interesting series of posts on why William Lane Craig is neither delusional, dishonest, nor evil. He’s been taking some flak for it, but I think he’s building up an excellent case for why the “liars for Jesus” trope should probably go by the wayside.
Along the same lines, I’ve been reading up on fundamental attribution error. That’s the cognitive bias where one attributes one’s owns behaviors to circumstances, and the behaviors of others to character traits. (E.g., “I stubbed my toe because of this stupid rock; you stubbed your toe because you’re clumsy and don’t pay attention.”) Fundamental attribution error is one of those things which, once you learn to recognize it, you see everywhere.
That’s not really a theist trope, but I see atheists falling into this bias all the time when discussing theists. (And vice versa, of course.)
Cuttlefish,
I know exactly what you mean– Christians go bonkers if you compare their belief to Mormonism or Scientology or Islam or Greek Myths– if you ask them why you should take their supernatural beliefs more seriously than they take the claims of those religions. In their mind, Christianity is so obviously more true– So much more worthy of deference and respect. But when you break down Christianity to the basics, it’s completely incoherent. A 3-in-1 god who becomes his own son to save the imperfect beings he knowingly created from the hell he created to send them and their descendants to?
I wonder if common Christian beliefs count as tropes– like the idea that Christians are more trustworthy or that Christianity is responsible for arts and science. And there’s the trope about Christianity ending slavery. And the one about America being a Christian country.
Or how about the notion that saying “Happy Holidays” is somehow an insult to Christians? Don’t they know that the supposed December 25 birthday of Jesus wasn’t “decided upon” until the 4th century– more than 300 years after Jesus was said to have died? Do they think it’s biblical? That’s the one trope that maybe bothers me the most at this time of year– this idea that Christmas started because of the birth of Jesus on December 25 in the year 0 or 1 or whatever else they decided to called the year that Jesus was presumed to be born more than 500 years after the supposed birth.
I know Christians don’t complain about these “tropes”… I’m not even sure if they are “tropes”– but they are themes that get repeated again and again by Christians.
“why does the catholic church get all the demon killing Satan stopping movies. Why can’t the presbeterians or Jehovah witnesses save the day”
Catholicism is basically the official Christian sect of Hollywood. Almost any time a generic religious building is needed in a movie or TV show, it’s a large cathedral-like Catholic church. Almost any time a generic religious leader is in the script, it’s a Catholic priest.
I suspect a conspiracy: the Vatican is secretly funding Hollywood to make pro-Catholic propaganda, while simultaneously encouraging the production of content they can condemn in order to spur donations and continue the cycle.
As an atheist, I always found the whole “You say you are a christian, and so you think all things in the bible are true” grating. That is completely invalid and uncalled for, except if they are saying that something must be done because it is in the bible. Replace bible and christian for whatever other combination of holy book and religion you can think of.
Also, in many ways we tend to consider the religious belief of the believer much more important than it really is, when most of the consequences we would cite as obvious from what they accept not things they think, but instead things whose logical conclusion they simply ignore.
“Witch”, “Wiccan”, and “Pagan” are synonyms.
All Witches are completely ignorant of their religion’s history, and think thousands of “Wiccans” and outspoken Goddess-worshipers were burned at the stake in Salem.
Wiccans only call themselves that because it’s teenage-trendy and KEWL.
I suspect the most common trope about religious believers is that they are all believers. A surprising number of ordinary Christians are quite uncertain what they believe about gods and miracles and heaven and earth. Yet still may be ardent members of their church. The theology — even at its most basic — they leave to their priests and preachers. Which just points out that there is more to religion than belief. The latter is what many of we atheists focus upon, for two reasons. First, it’s what we find objectionable about religion. Second, atheists as a group tend to be those who have put more thought into what they believe. And then we forget that not everyone is like us.
In both the opinion piece (thoughtfully expressed) and the commentary on aforesaid opinion piece (a bit more hit and miss), some of the theist and atheist tropes can be seen in the wild:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/good-minus-god/?hp
Your first trope I sorta agree with as being problematic, except for another part of the story: the tribalism. Even if most Christians disagree on big parts of their story, they’ll pull together to put down anyone (like an atheist) who disagrees with them, and they’ll also tend to be silent when one of their own is crazy.
Trope #2 I agree with entirely: I’ve previously written about disagreeing with the ‘atheists just have one god less than a Xian’ story.
#3, the metaphor vs. reality, is a problem. I once did something where I assumed everyone would rationalize away any difficulty by calling it a metaphor, but instead they roped me right in and insisted I had literally abused god.
I’d say that *some* (I wish I knew the numbers) will pull together; I have personal experience with a good many (which could be a drop in the bucket in the big picture, I don’t know) who do their best to call out the baddies. Of course, they get no press, and of course they tend to “no true christian” the situation, and say that the baddies misrepresent true christianity (which, yes, they then defend).
On #3, yes you certainly did! Of course, it is a lose-lose situation; if we claim the default is literalism, there are certainly sufficient numbers of metaphoricals to take us to task. Having a preponderant christian majority means that two diametrically opposed positions can each have greater numbers than atheists do.
On matters like the ideal Catholicism or the real Catholicism (folk Catholicism), Justin Barrett has an idea (which doesn’t and isn’t intended to account for all the differences).
Theological Correctness – Cognitive Constraint and the Study of Religion
doi: 10.1163/157006899X00078 | abstract:
Somebody else wrote a whole book sort of in response to this, called Theological Incorrectness.
PDF http://www.zshare.net/download/97597745d4351c9b/
Purely pedantic note: As a person with some background and interest in the Humanities, I should point out that we’re all using the technical term “trope” incorrectly. But then, everyone on the Internet does the same thing with “meme.” Eventually, the technical and popular meanings will exist side-by-side, just like “theory.”
And then, eventually, some public academic will start talking about tropes, and some moron in the audience will say, “What about Evolution? That’s just a trope!” What fun.
I erred. Barrett says:
So, it’s not about folk religion, as far as the author is concerned. Still an interesting read.
You do know why these tropes endure dont you? Its because there true.
Toot! Toot!
Moderation? Oh shit!
We had a good run folks.
1)Told to me about a week ago “gawd has special plans for you”. I have a relapsing/remitting MS which hits without much warning and renders certain body parts useless for a bit or extremely clumsy. I responded to treatment and the fatheist couldn’t wait to tell me this.
2) The second came after a recent scare with some hinky things going on with my bowels. Thickening of the the left descending colon and thickening of the right ascending colon. This dimwit wanted me to pray with her! All clear on the cancer front, so far,and I have to have regular checkups to make sure. So far, just a bunch of polyps, five ulcerations and four areas of erosion.
I made sure that both of them knew that the credit lies squarely with the skilled medical teams working on me and my own damned stubborn nature. I feel I showed great restraint in not grabbing the nearest I.V. pole and whacking the theists with them.
The one problem with this is that believers never seem able to make up their minds — or any sort of rational arguments for that matter — as to what parts of their fantasy are actually to be believed.
—
Russell #13:
Theology — as it always is — nothing, they’re still going to call themselves Christians and say they believe in god and jebus at the end of the day. The fact that most believers don’t give two shits about theology is only indicative of what it is: pointless, wishy-washy rationalizing meant for the pastors to placate the believers who have doubts, all predicated on the assumption that the beliefs themselves are true.
Believers believe. We know that. It would be insulting to the believers to deny their claim that they believe, and while they wouldn’t use the same words I’m quite sure they’d tell you where to take your thinly-veiled Courtier’s Reply.
Now, if you change “believers” to “pastors/priests/ministers”, you might be onto something…