Kim O'Hara wrote:
Criticising and ridiculing other people where they won't see the criticism, let alone be able to respond to it, can't serve to educate them. At best, it can only reinforce DW members' good opinions of their own stance; at worst, it will encourage arrogance and intolerance.
I have seen a lot of criticism and ridicule directed at those who post in the atheist quotes.
Kim O'Hara wrote:
Forbidding members to discuss - reasonably and rationally, one would hope - the quotes after they are posted means that DW members' opportunities to actually learn anything from the quotes they post are very limited.
I haven't seen any forbidding going on. There is this discussion, other threads, one 398 posts long. I haven't seen any censorship, deletion of posts, or any stifling of discussion on this issue. I have seen a lot of
argumentum ad nauseam, but no censorship, nothing being forbidden.
Sarva wrote:
I don't think it is wise to promote Atheism (or Theism or arguably even politics) in pure Buddhism. I think it is useful to consider their roles and their effect on one another's mental formations...
What is pure Buddhism? Is Buddhism not non-theistic? The devas and other celestial beings hardly compare to an Almighty-Creator-God with a capital G.
There is a lot of talk about attachment to views. There are two sides to that coin as there are two sides of this issue. I see some clinging desperately to the notion that Buddhism is not atheistic and all who do so are heretics, parasites, and other derogatory terms.
Also, another point; equating whatever evils might exist in scientific-materialist-atheists with Buddhists is just simply the
guilt-by-association logical fallacy. Both can be non-theistic but disagree on other issues.