Atheist Threat
Oct 10th, 2008, in News, by Patung
Young atheists on the internet, and eradicating atheism and communism in Indonesia.
Governor of North Sumatra, Syamsul Arifin, said on 8th October at an occasion marking Pancasila Day that all elements of the nation must continually fight against and eradicate atheist beliefs among the people.
Atheism, which seeks to erase Pancasila and which once threatened the nation in the guise of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), and still does, has to be guarded against, particularly because it still finds support among sections of the poor.
Syamsul said children should be taught from primary school through to university to hate atheism, so that the creed could as far as possible be obliterated.
A 4th ‘T’ – Rakyat tidak ateis.
The butchery of the atheist-PKI backed murderers of the September 30 Movement of 1965 (G30S PKI) could not be allowed to happen again, he said, hence the need to struggle against atheism. beritasore
Young Internet Atheists
On the internet at least some Indonesians seem happy to declare themselves as unbelievers.
Running an “affiliation” search on the social network site Friendster.com for “atheist” brings up about 144 matches friendster.com, while “ateis” produces 185 odd results friendster.com, although more than a few seem to be claiming to be atheist as some kind of joke.
On the same site, created on January 23rd, 2007 is the “Atheist Indonesia” group friendster.com, with 76 members and a fairly active message board, and some of its members seem to be active in an Indonesian language Atheist Wikipedia. ateisindonesia.wikidot.com
1,311 Comments on “Atheist Threat”
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Patrick says:
@Arrie Brand – You said “Hoyle meant it as an argument against abiogeneis i.e. the idea that life can emerge from non-living matter.” Duh!!! That’s what evolutionist expect us to believe!!! Thats the explanation often given by Evolutionist how the first “LIVING CELL” was formed and later it’s decendents morphed into every living thing on EARTH!
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Arie Brand says:
That’s what evolutionist expect us to believe!!
Yes , but creationists want us to believe in a deity ‘breathing life’ into lifeless matter. Dawkins had a felicitous term for that: “the ultimate Boeing747 gamble”.
I think many of your co-believers are still so much influenced by the biblical story of creation that they conceive of abiogenesis too as a one-step rather than a sequential process requiring, as the fellow to whose video I gave a link in my previous post said, about 500 million years.
I am not a scientist so have to go by impressions regarding the side where the heavier guns are in position. The brigade of the creationists then seems to me armed with napoleonic artillery.
Here is a link to a refutation of Hoyle’s computation. I can only hear the thunder – impressive:
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Who cares?
No atheist has ever threatened me. No religious person has either.
What matters in the here and now is whether you’re a caring and ethical individual, not what team you support.
Too true, Ody.
Personally I actually enjoy the to and fro with Patrick and his ilk Am I ever likely to drag him kicking and screaming into the rational world?..nagh. However, it harms none as it is after all on thread that suggests the traditional religious teachings would be questioned. Not like some one has hacked into the “Catholics are us” website and posted water to wine jokes.
That said, I am surprised and highly amused at the foaming of some who come to a thread like this and then claim offense. Like buying a house at the airport and complaining about noise…
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Who cares?
No atheist has ever threatened me. No religious person has either.
Well Ondinius I am pleased to hear that but I didn’t have the impression that this thread had anything to do with your present or future wellbeing. Apart from the fact that there are places in the world where it can be definitely uncomfortable to be an open atheist (and I would have thought that Indonesia is one of them) some ‘ultimate’ questions are interesting in themselves without any regard to anyone’s comfort or life chances.
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Well Arie,
Despite some of the issues and some very very unpleasant incidents, we need to be careful that we don’t think everyone in Indonesia is howling for blood.
Fact is, my religion (or lack of) generally elicit nothing more than good natured pity.
Are you scared that God will be “p*ssed” when you meet him type of thing. When the unspoken answer is obviously I am more concerned who has the bye in the football this weekend as it will affect my points spread at the TAB.
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Odinius says:
Arie, you managed to miss the point spectacularly.
People shouldn’t care what others believe or don’t believe. I know too many people–in the US, in Indonesia, in Europe and elsewhere–who feel the need to impose their religious views on others (and we’re talking both intra- and inter-religious here). But I’m also including what you could call “evangelical atheists,” who feel the need to “disprove” the existence of god or gods to any and all they encounter. Some people in this thread–they’ll remain nameless–seem to think they are doing the lord’s/prophet’s/darwin’s work by demonstrating the superiority of their pre-ordained metaphysical viewpoint. Or, in other words, their team. To these people, I say: “who cares? What matters in there here and now is whether you’re a caring and ethical individual, not what team you support.”
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Fact is, my religion (or lack of) generally elicit nothing more than good natured pity.
Oigal this might be your experience as a foreigner. Are you sure that good nature would also come out in dealings with a homegrown atheist?
Cp. the following fragment of an AFP report of Jan 24 2009:
Anti-communist propaganda during Suharto’s 32-year rule mean atheists are often conflated with communists, a stinging charge in Indonesia, where Cold War paranoia has never fully subsided.
It was such a stigma that prompted a 35-year-old teacher from West Sumatra, known online as “XYZMan,” to start an email mailing list in 2004 to allow atheists to discuss their beliefs. The list now has more than 350 members.
Despite the success of the mailing list, XYZMan said he is forced to keep his own atheism secret in the real world, and has already suffered the breakdown of a marriage with a Muslim woman due to his non-belief.
“If everyone knew that I’m an atheist, I could lose my job, my family would hate me and also some friends,” he said in an email interview.
“It’s also more likely that I could be physically attacked or killed because I’m a kafir (unbeliever) and my blood is halal (allowed to be spilled) according to Islam.”
The idea that atheism is next door to communism did not just come about in the ‘orde baru’ it seems. In Achdiat Karta Mihardja’s novel “Atheis” which dates from 1949 the atheist, Rusli, is also a convinced Marxist.
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deta says:
But the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
That’s right. This the agnostic paradigm. But as long as there is no evidence whatsoever why postulate the existence of a supreme being as fact and make it to a creed? Unless of course you want to play it safe.
Actually, ET, it cuts both ways. If you’d just read it without presumption, you would’ve seen that what I meant by “evidence” is not only evidences for the existence of supreme being but evidences to fill the holes in evolution theory, or any other theory following it. And that statement of yours “no evidence whatsoever” is not quite correct either, unless, of course, these evidences are considered as “not scientific enough”.
Hardly a honest and brave attitude, if you ask me.
Whatever, sweetie. Enjoy your weekend.
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Arie, you managed to miss the point spectacularly.
Ondinius, I haven’t checked but from memory this has been your standard retort to any of my reactions to your posts. Either I am particularly obtuse in failing to pick up specifically your points or there is some awkwardness in the way you present them. I tend to the latter hypothesis. The reference to your personal fate as if that had any bearing on the question discussed seems to me a case in point.
Incidentally, do you see all discussions about ethical/metaphysical/scientific questions as a matter of competing ‘teams’? That seems to me a rather extreme form of ‘sociolization’.
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Darwin used to encounter the argument about the fossil record by his opponents by asking whether any of them could show the transitions between the wild dog and the greyhound or a bulldog.
Seems also a bit of a false analogy since we are not talking about different species here. An interesting question though.
Not really that interesting as breeding within species has been going on for centuries but guess what? No new species have ever been created!
Archeopteryx,”In fact the first transitional form was found two years after the publication of The Origin of Species viz. the Archeopteryx, a half way station between reptile and bird”
From my readings the debate rages on as many scientists view it strictly as type of bird and not reptile. But even still, doesn’t it strike you as odd there are no other fossils demonstrating transition? Think of it, tens of thousands of species and you Darwinist advocates can only find one that attempts to fit the loose decription of a transition species? Come on guys $millions of USD have been spent on digs all over the world and the best you dould do was attempt to claim one? Why none today? Oigal once tried to make the excuse that it takes millions of years for mutations to occur when I asked him why specific Phillippine tribes living on the sea full time do not have web feet or gills despite living like this for centuries. Did anyone ever wonder why it took so long? And why would these mutations be an advantage as we well know that the Earth’s climate can change drastically in just a few centuries? How is this even an intelligent proof of evolution? Geesh guys!
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“sociolization” – not the ideal term. I was looking for the equivalent for the social sciences of the concept “scientism” for the natural ones. “Sociologese” wouldn’t do either – is more suggestive of a style of writing. Any suggestions?
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The word I was looking for is ‘sociologism”
Patrick wrote about the archeopteryx:
From my readings the debate rages on as many scientists view it strictly as type of bird and not reptile.
Here is a summing up of both its avian and reptilian characteristics:
Archaeopteryx was decidedly a bird as it possessed feathers, which are exclusively avian structures.
Also like birds, it had rounded cranium with fused bones ; jaws modified into a beak ; forelimbs modified into wings ; three fingers ; four toes, first directed backward, 2—4 forward ; and U-shaped furcula.
(b) Reptilian Characters of Archaeopteryx.
Like the reptiles, Archaeopteryx had teeth in the jaws, claws on free fingers, a long tail with free caudal vertebrae and bearing tail feathers on the sides and keelless sternum.
Thus, Archaeopteryx represents a stage midway between the reptiles and birds, and is often called the lizard bird. It suggests the path of evolution of the birds from the reptiles. Huxley aptly described birds as the glorified reptiles.Patrick hasn’t done his homework again:
Think of it, tens of thousands of species and you Darwinist advocates can only find one that attempts to fit the loose decription of a transition species?
The archeopteryx was the first clear specimen found. That explains perhaps the interest for it. I referred you to a list of other transitional fossils in Wikipedia. Did you look at it? I bet you didn’t. Here is another link referring to which is probably equally futile:
http://www.tutornext.com/missing-links-transitional-forms-ancestries-individual-ani
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Sorry, that reference got mutilated in the copying. Here it is again and now you get two for the price of one:
hivittp://www.tutornext.com/missing-links-transitional-forms-ancestries-inddual-animals/11783
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2c.html#conc
I quote from the latter one:
When The Origin Of Species was first published, the fossil record was poorly known. At that time, the complaint about the lack of transitional fossils bridging the major vertebrate taxa was perfectly reasonable. Opponents of Darwin’s theory of common descent (the theory that evolution has occurred; not to be confused with the separate theory that evolution occurs specifically by natural selection) were justifiably skeptical of such ideas as birds being related to reptiles.
The discovery of Archeopteryx only two years after the publication of The Origin of Species was seen a stunning triumph for Darwin’s theory of common descent. Archeopteryx has been called the single most important natural history specimen ever found, “comparable to the Rosetta Stone” (Alan Feduccia, in “The Age Of Birds”). O.C. Marsh’s groundbreaking study of the evolution of horses was another dramatic example of transitional fossils, this time demonstrating a whole sequence of transitions within a single family. Within a few decades after the Origin, these and other fossils, along with many other sources of evidence (such as developmental biology and biogeography) had convinced the majority of educated people that evolution had occurred, and that organisms are related to each other by common descent.
Since then, many more transitional fossils have been found, as sketched out in this FAQ. Typically, the only people who still demand to see transitional fossils are either unaware of the currently known fossil record (often due to the shoddy and very dated arguments presented in current creationist articles) or are unwilling to believe it for some reason.Emphasis added (A.B.)
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Arie said:
Ondinius, I haven’t checked but from memory this has been your standard retort to any of my reactions to your posts. Either I am particularly obtuse in failing to pick up specifically your points or there is some awkwardness in the way you present them. I tend to the latter hypothesis. The reference to your personal fate as if that had any bearing on the question discussed seems to me a case in point.
Aduh, Arie…you’re a smart and well-educated guy, but you have a tendency to cherry-pick one sentence and disregard the broader point,or context, of the post in question. Don’t think anyone else had any problems with it, so perhaps it’s a “responded too quickly” problem?
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Lairedion says:
Oigal once tried to make the excuse that it takes millions of years for mutations to occur when I asked him why specific Phillippine tribes living on the sea full time do not have web feet or gills despite living like this for centuries. Did anyone ever wonder why it took so long? And why would these mutations be an advantage as we well know that the Earth’s climate can change drastically in just a few centuries? How is this even an intelligent proof of evolution? Geesh guys!
They live on houseboats clustered near beaches, not in the water like the Man from Atlantis. But here’s an idea. Throw them into the water and let them live there for a couple a million years. Perhaps they develop web feet or turn into fish completely. If not, then it must be I.D. from a supernatural being.
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Inderdaad Arie, waarom ben je altijd zo boos op Odinius?
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Don’t think anyone else had any problems with it
Well, to coin a phrase, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. You came late into this discussion (as indeed did I) and then declared it with the exclamation “Who cares” more or less vacuous – the evidence for which seemed to be the fact that neither a believer nor an atheist had ever boxed your ears.
Sorry, I don’t want to nitpick, but that is the way it came over.
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In some cases natural selection can work over short time scales among humans. I found a nice example in Sagan & Druyan’s book “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”:
People who endemically suffer from malaria could finally cope better through a mutation called the sickle cell – a form of the red blood cell that is conducive to the destruction of the malaria parasite. This is not an unalloyed benefit. The offspring of two people who both have the gene for sickle cells suffer from anemia and obstruction of the small blood vessels. But over the whole population the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
Well now, Dutch slave traders transported some three centuries ago people from the West coast of Africa (where we now have Ghana) to Surinam and the island of Curacao. There is malaria in Surinam but not in Curacao. Now, three centuries later, people in Curacao only rarely have the sickle cell (which is merely a disadvantage there) whereas the Surinamese show the trait quite frequently.
That a mutation such as the sickle cell confers evolutionary advantages is a matter of luck. A mutation does not come about because it would be so nice and handy to have one. Hence for the time being no web feet for those Filipino swimmers.
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Inderdaad Arie, waarom ben je altijd zo boos op Odinius?
Lairedion, ik ben vaak meer geirriteerd dan boos. Ondinius heeft naar mijn indruk een neiging om laat een discussie binnen te vallen en dan op te treden als een cijfers uitdelende meester die eigenlijk boven de discussie staat. Dat was m.i. heel duidelijk in dit geval.
Ook zat het me van de aanvang niet lekker dat hij zich zo laatdunkend uitliet over de Nederlandse vorm van kolonialisme hoewel hij daar, naar mijn stellige indruk, weinig van af weet en zijn opinie ook haaks staat op die van veel buitenlandse vooroorlogse waarnemers.
Mooi dat we zo in onze dieventaal kunnen ‘roddelen’.
Sorry people this was a private chat between Lairedion and me.
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ET says:
Odinius
To these people, I say: “who cares? What matters in there here and now is whether you’re a caring and ethical individual, not what team you support.”
… so let’s all get together and sing kumbaya.
But that’s not the way of the world and fortunately so. If people wouldn’t care what others believe or don’t believe and everybody agreed – or pretended to agree – on everything the world would become a dull and boring place and progress would come to a halt. However we humans have the ability to reach higher levels of understanding and integration by juxtaposing opposing views (Hegel’s thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics).
In plain French, du choc des idées jaillit la lumière. -
@Lairedion says “They live on houseboats clustered near beaches, not in the water like the Man from Atlantis. But here’s an idea. Throw them into the water and let them live there for a couple a million years. Perhaps they develop web feet or turn into fish completely. If not, then it must be I.D. from a supernatural being”.
Ya that’s clever as you expect us to believe cold blooded reptiles living on the ground grew wings and learned to fly. Were they commiting suide jumping off cliffs and poof one developed wings and flew away??? ha ha ha! Try to follow some sort of logic if you can? 🙂
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Dawkins once said that he was not willing to debate creationists for the same reason that geographers are not willing to debate flatearthers – it would give them a status they don’t deserve – or as that Australian scientist once said in reaction to such a debating invitation: yes it would look good on your CV but not so good on mine.
There is no medicine for wilful ignorance.
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@Arie – yes all of you neo-atheist are so smart so I am truly bewildered how you already have lost the philosophical debate concerning the existence of God? Let’s face facts I can sit here all day picking ur false god of Evolution apart all day long. It loses because the gaps being filled with conjecture just don’t fit do they? What a farce being passed off as real science. You lose because you can’t explain why or how a single cell came to life and then morphed into every living thing on the planet? You lose cause even mathematically all you expect us to believe doesn’t add up! Remember the young genius from Indiana who calculated that the amount of Carbon needed to form the earth just could not have been produced by such an explosion. I can see why Dawkins would not want to debate creationist because his brand of science isn’t really science but as I said conjecture & with more holes than Swiss Cheese! Remember all ye faithful Darwinist, it is a THEORY & not FACT! So prove its fact or shutup about how superior Evolutionist are because they are not, as proven, over and over again on IM.
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Why can’t chickens fly like other birds? Was it a minor mistake from our creator? Or was it to make it easier for us to catch and eat them?
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Remember all ye faithful Darwinist, it is a THEORY & not FACT!
This is an oldie but not a goldie. It goes back for at least a century and more. What did William Jennings Bryan, one of the main protagonists in the so called “Scopes Monkey Trial” say again about evolution “guesses strung together”.
One of Mencken’s writings that I have most enjoyed is his account of this trial. This is his description of Bryan who, mind you, was a three times presidential candidate and a former Secretary of State:
This old buzzard, having failed to raise the mob against its rulers, now prepares to raise it against its teachers. He can never be the peasants’ President, but there is still a chance to be the peasants’ Pope. He leads a new crusade, his bald head glistening, his face streaming with sweat, his chest heaving beneath his rumpled alpaca coat. One somehow pities him, despite his so palpable imbecilities. It is a tragedy, indeed, to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon. But let no one, laughing at him, underestimate the magic that lies in his black, malignant eye, his frayed but still eloquent voice. He can shake and inflame these poor ignoramuses as no other man among us can shake and inflame them, and he is desperately eager to order the charge.
See http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/menk.htm
Imbecilities and ignoramuses are of course the keywords here.
A theory, Patrick, though it means in daily life something like a guess, means in science a model that explains the known facts and provides testable hypotheses. Most biologists, and in fact most educated people, accept that the theory of evolution is the most robust model thus far to explain the known facts. In that sense evolution is a theory.
The slogan ” it is a theory not a fact” is an infallible give away for ignorance about the scientific method (and probably a lot else).
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Incidentally, what is a “neo-atheist”?
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So prove its fact or shutup about how superior Evolutionist are because they are not, as proven, over and over again on IM.
Nothing has been proven here on IM, it’s just a small community of people exchanging views.
What has been proven is you having serious mental issues with your personal insults, obsession with Marisa Duma, blaming David for your own cut-paste errors, suspecting me and Oigal are the same person, schizophrenia (lomboksurfer) and now telling people to shut up because they hold different views? What happened with your friend granting all of us free will.
In general whenever the discussion touches non-creationist ideas, views and theories your hysteria flares up.
However do continue, I enjoy reading it. 🙂
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Patrick still hasn’t answered my question about what he means by the term “neo-atheist”. Would he, by any chance, be referring to the folk responsible for this:
According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the ‘Big Bang’ and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets.
In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5 – 4 billion years ago.
Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution.
This was a statement by a theological commission headed by then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI
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deta said
That’s right. This the agnostic paradigm. But as long as there is no evidence whatsoever why postulate the existence of a supreme being as fact and make it to a creed? Unless of course you want to play it safe. As long as it doesn’t hurt it’s OK and si non e vero bene e trovato.
Hardly a honest and brave attitude, if you ask me.