Is Atheism Significant Only to Theists?
Judging by the word itself, it seems apparent that atheism would, by definition, address theism only. Is atheism then a concern of theists only, and atheists concerned only with refuting the theist conception of God? Is anyone but a theist or a person who is interested in defending, or explaining or justifying theism interested in denouncing atheism or questioning it?
It strikes me that someone who isn't a theist would find it hard to be perturbed by atheism, or even interested in it. It's difficult for me to imagine someone holding, for example, the Stoic view of God or that of Spinoza from being so riled by atheism as to do battle with those who claim to be atheists. Nor do I think atheists would be very eager to denounce or renounce pantheism or deism, They could, of course, claim there is no evidence for either belief, but who would care? What is there to get excited or indignant about?
Theism breeds all sorts of convictions, demands, wishes, conclusions, dreams, hopes, institutions,strictures and emotions (not to mention wars and other forms of violence). Theists are invested in theism, they rely on it. God created the universe, and me, and you, and so that means a plan, a destiny, a purpose, etc. which is to be defended, or revered. Thus the favorite claim of 19th century folk suddenly encountering reasons for disbelief--"Without God, anything is permitted!" Characters in Dostoyevsky novels, without God, rush around killing old ladies and themselves.
The debate over atheism thus seems to me to be one engaged in only by those whose view of God is narrow and personal. That's not to say that atheists should be silent when challenged or attacked, but only to comment on the limitations of the dispute.
It strikes me that someone who isn't a theist would find it hard to be perturbed by atheism, or even interested in it. It's difficult for me to imagine someone holding, for example, the Stoic view of God or that of Spinoza from being so riled by atheism as to do battle with those who claim to be atheists. Nor do I think atheists would be very eager to denounce or renounce pantheism or deism, They could, of course, claim there is no evidence for either belief, but who would care? What is there to get excited or indignant about?
Theism breeds all sorts of convictions, demands, wishes, conclusions, dreams, hopes, institutions,strictures and emotions (not to mention wars and other forms of violence). Theists are invested in theism, they rely on it. God created the universe, and me, and you, and so that means a plan, a destiny, a purpose, etc. which is to be defended, or revered. Thus the favorite claim of 19th century folk suddenly encountering reasons for disbelief--"Without God, anything is permitted!" Characters in Dostoyevsky novels, without God, rush around killing old ladies and themselves.
The debate over atheism thus seems to me to be one engaged in only by those whose view of God is narrow and personal. That's not to say that atheists should be silent when challenged or attacked, but only to comment on the limitations of the dispute.
Comments (244)
I think that question would arise, yes, if that turns out to be the case.
The only way I know of to do that, here, is if those who are atheists respond to the OP saying they refute belief in any form. I'm not aware of any book or article addressing atheist views on Spinoza's God, for example.
An insightful OP.
There are brands of atheist who are skeptical of any kind of transcendent claim as @Janus has stated. Idealism, higher consciousness, certain interpretations of QM are all in scope.
I don't believe in ontological idealism or in higher consciousness either (I don't say they are untrue, I just have no good reason to accept them at this point) but these beliefs are separate to my disbelief in god/s. God of course is just a word and understood by some (Rupert Spira springs to mind) as more primitive language for oneness or higher awareness.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Indeed. The shrill claims of fundamentalism primarily has turned many atheists into verbal pugilists.
Nor am I.
I'm partial to the thought of an immanent deity, and think that the universe evokes a belief in such a deity, as some Stoics claim (and perhaps Spinoza as well), or as C.S. Peirce suggests with his "Musement." I find that more reasonable than a theist God in that it's less preposterous. But evocation isn't proof and I wouldn't pretend otherwise.
Well, there's certainly no evidence that Theists have everlasting life, and they rarely behave as though they actually believe it.
Yes, there is an asymmetry, one might even say a fundamental misunderstanding, there between atheism and (at least some forms of) theism. I'm referring to the non-propositional aspect of religion; religion as praxis; atheism would seem to entail no particular praxis.
Atheism and theism do mirror one another in their guises as fundamentalisms; as counterarguments about "what is the case". They also mirror one another in their guises as ideology; purporting to know what it is right or best to believe for everyone in general.
I think the perceived sociological, and even affective, implications of theistic belief or lack of it, are not insignificant concerns for either atheists or theists, or at least not for the serious ones.
Quoting praxis
That's a rather sweeping statement!
That's for sure. Nor do they seem to be morally superior to non believers or the practices of other religions.
Quoting Wayfarer
I guess this can be true for a certain segment of believers, especially at the shallow end of the pool where most of the noise is. But the Christians I know do not necessarily think there is a heaven or even that God can be understood in any way. They totally get atheism as a reasonable view, just don't share it - sensus divinitatis and all that.
Quoting Janus
I think they can come to mirror each other more because to a great extent atheism's chief fight is with fundamentalism, which, for all the claims of faith, is founded on argumentation - proofs of god, etc, which has shoehorned a lot of freethinking into contesting these arguments. And fair enough.
Australia is largely secular and most atheists I meet here have no interest in the arguments about god in either direction and have no internet in atheism as a thought system. They just take it for granted that god ideas are irrelevant. Good on them, but I prefer to try to justify my beliefs, even if this is hopelessly romantic.
I don't seem to have stirred up any disagreement.
Yes, I share atheism's anti-fundamentalism, but when this becomes itself a fundamentalist crusade against all forms and shades of theism, I part company with atheists.
I don't think fundamentalists are really concerned with any rational arguments for the existence of God; I think they generally take scripture as being the literal word of God, and believe that God speaks to them through the Book.
I have a personal bias against "proofs" of God; I think they, like any deductive arguments, are only as good as their premises, and the premises come down to faith, even if many claim to directly know via personal experience.
I think that such claims ignore the fact that experience doesn't directly tell us anything propositional at all about the nature of reality, about God, immortality or freedom.
As Kant pointed out practical reason is always the handmaid to faith and conviction.
Atheism is not a thought system. Theism is. Mostly.
I raise my hat to Australian secularists. (What's the difference between a secularist and an atheist?) According to my understanding, secularism is a movement that strives to separate politics from religions. The word has developed a taste of atheism, but that is not necessarily true. Secularists simply secule the state from the church.
Atheists don't form clubs because there is not much to discuss about atheism. "Are you an atheist, too?" "Yes, I am." "Me too." And that's where the conversation ends.
The only thing that atheists can discuss, are the faults with theism and with religions. And boy, do we do that vigorously.
To answer the OP: atheism is significant to atheists as much as theism is significant to theists; and atheism is significant to theists as much as theism is significant to atheists. In my opinion, anyway.
Disagreement with your statement or with your justification for making it? I don't pretend to know whether there are many theists who act as though they believe in everlasting life, since I have met so vanishingly few of them in relation to how many there presumably are in the world.
I don't see how atheists can be partial to non-fundamentalist religions. Unless, of course, they practice patience, and the atheists do not try to proselyze.
Yes. But I don't understand the need, or even the desire, they would have in engaging with atheists, unless they feel it's possible to contend with them on their "home field" as it were. I've never understood Christian apologists like C.S. Lewis and Chesterton, or Cardinal Newman, because I think their arguments, such as they are, don't work. Nor is there any need (or so I think) to for them to debate with atheists. They need only believe.
I have some experience with Pure Land Buddhism. This is very much a faith-based religion, where enlightenment is realised through recitation of the name of Amidha Buddha. One of their articles of faith is 'not engaging in religious disputes'. Probably wise.
Did you mean to write "and the theists do not try to proselytize"? Otherwise I can't make sense of your statement.
Right now the presuppostionalists (via Kant's TAG) are huge in evangelical Christianity, as are the Lane Craig neophyte apologists who are all about Aquinas 5 ways arguments. Curiously many are better on reason than they are on the Bible which most appear not to have read. The internet is bursting with Christians and Muslims proving god via reason.
Quoting Janus
Much debate to me seems to be emotion dressed up in rationalist clothing.
Quoting god must be atheist
I know a few Christians who are secularists on the premise below:
Quoting god must be atheist
A secular society can support the state to nourish ecumenical expressions of faith in a manner a theocracy could struggle to do.
Of course there is a track record of conversion into religions by apologists - hence proselytizing culture - and I've also seen this in reverse having met a number of atheists who left fundamentalisms because of arguments they encountered against their version of god. People do change teams and it's usually a process.
That was the phenomena I was trying to think of how best to put.
I kept getting stuck on possible uses of arguments for different teams, but I think the phenomena of people switching sides explains a lot of these terms.
Would you say they qualify as fundamentalists? My idea of fundamentalists is that they believe the bible is literally the word of God and thus is infallible.
Quoting Tom Storm
I agree. What I wanted to highlight there, though, is the idea that if you experience God speaking to you, then you have direct knowledge that God exists.
I think the same goes for claims that karma or rebirth is real; if someone who has permanently attained a state of non-dual awareness says that they are real, then they must be real because the claim that they are real comes from the direct knowing that is believed to characterize enlightenment.
I disagree with that because I don't believe anything discursive (dualistic) can be known non-dually. All such experiences are subject to subsequent dualistic interpretations, usually in terms of the metaphysical beliefs embedded in the cultural context the enlightened one or non-dual experiencer find themselves within.
More and more I'm more attracted to the label apatheist. @Postmodern Beatnik introduced me to the term and it took a minute but now I like it. @Ciceronianus In God's Great Country, as you put it, it has a stronger connotation than one might suspect up front.
But it only has appeal because I think the a/theist terms "make sense" in certain parts of God's Great Country.
Quoting Janus
Are there not grades if fundamentalism? But you may be right. My grandmother was a fundamentalist - Dutch reformed. She had not read the Bible (like many fundamentalists as I was later to discover). They hold this position of inerrancy without even knowing the text. Probably no different to believing in god with no evidence. :joke: I asked her about man landing on the moon. "Didn't happen,' she said. 'I know god is up there, not astronauts. The Bible says so.' Not all fundies are that fundamental.
Quoting Moliere
Thank you, that's a really evocative way to put it.
fundamentalist
noun [ C ]
religion
uk
/?f?n.d??men.t?l.?st/ us
/?f?n.d??men.t??l.?st/
someone who believes in traditional forms of a religion, or believes that what is written in a holy book, such as the Christian Bible, is completely true:
Muslim/Christian fundamentalists
The organization had been taken over by religious fundamentalists.
From here:
Also see Fundamentalism.
I expect that anyone who believes in life everlasting would not be materialistic, for instance, yet Christians, at least in the US, seem quite ordinary in that regard.
Sounds like it is a category open to a range of possibilities. I think fundamentalism is aspirational - rarely achieved. Because few of them seem to follow many of the Bible or Koran's requirements. Believing something is true is not the same thing as knowing what it is or living as if it is is true, right? Sartre might even call this bad faith, but then he's a philandering Commie heathen.
They aren't materialistic.
It's their spirituality which grants them the right to their bounty.
The classical metaphysical arguments have been overwhelmed by developments in physics and logic, but it is hard to see that amongst the regulars on these fora, where opinion supersedes argument.
Atheism of course is by it's nature a reaction to theism. It is a return to attempts at rationality after it's abnegation with the fall of the Western Empire. A return to independence from scripture.
The discussion is to a large extent a proxy for ethical issues - the ubiquitous presumption of theists that it is they alone who engage with morals. Hence the need felt by Lewis and Chesterton and Newman.
Quoting Wayfarer
The asymmetry is conspicuous. On one hand, every theist is also an atheist with respect to deities s/he rejects whereas atheists consistently reject all deities (at least for the reason the theist inconsistently reject all but one / some). And on the other hand, in the modern era, atheism is a second-order belief that 'theism is not true' whereas theism is a first-order belief that 'g/G is real'. Practical & theoretical asymmetries, respectively.
Origen and Augustine both condemned fundamentalism in the first and fourth centuries AD, respectively. Nowadays, it's mainly a revolt against the unprecedented range and speed of change in modern culture.
Quoting praxis
I expect that a good number of conscientious Christians don't spend a lot of time arguing.
Yes, that too sounds ordinary, and I imagine the same is true for conscientious atheists.
Yes, Sir, that's what I was trying to figure how to spell. Thanks for helping me out.
Your OP is very coy. Oh...why would anyone object to the things that atheists say about religion. It ignores the fact that our culture, and this forum, are full of atheists who aggressively attack religious beliefs and show disrespect for religious institutions. They are not passive. They are self-righteous and bitter. Many clearly are reacting to bad experiences with religion in their youth.
Which is fine. Just don't act all surprised when religious people respond back. The atheist's attacks on religion are more than that. They are often also political attacks on traditional culture and spiritual values masquerading as rational argument. I am not a theist, but I am interested in atheism because I think it is generally a mean-spirited, irrational, and generally poorly argued sham.
It doesn't have to be, but the aggressive type I am talking about, and that we often see here on the forum, usually is.
Quoting god must be atheist
This is absurd.
Quoting god must be atheist
I appreciate that you're so straight ahead about this. You lay your position out on the table, unlike @Ciceronianus's cutie pie faux surprise.
By thought system do you by chance mean science? Science is probably better described as a method.
:up: Like philosophy is one.
As @Tom Storm pointed out, that'll be because of conservative christian attacks that prevent policy improvement.
I suppose fundamentalist christians have the advantage of not even pretending to rationality.
Yes, that and the current state of a significant part of the religious world around the planet, from the Trump phenomena, to Modi's Hindu nationalism and all nasty shit done in the Middle East on behalf of Islam.
I think maybe atheism can be dividend into two groups anti-religionists and antitheists. I think I have sympathies for both groups.
Indeed.
Not necessarily. Spinoza categorizes logic (i.e. laws of nature / natura naturans) as "divine" and understanding logic this way (via scientia intuitiva) as "blessedness". As a naturalist freethinker, this interpretation of "the sacred" appeals to me.
Name names. Which TPF members do you think "aggressively attack religious beliefs and show disrespect for religious institutions ... not passive ... self-righteous and bitter ... clearly are reacting to bad experiences with religion in their youth"?
So... It seems you are acknowledging that it's primarily a political conflict rather than an intellectual one.
I wasn't thinking about science in particular. Ciceronianus said this:
Quoting Ciceronianus
I think it's reasonable to apply something similar to the atheistic worldview.
There's no such squared circle.
I see that as a pretext like the whole religious war thing. As if atheists aren't just as capable of genocide, massacre, and total war as religious believers.
No thanks.
Quoting 180 Proof
I disagree.
Quoting Banno
"Intelectual". :rofl:
Hadta post this somewhere! :lol:
Quoting Agent Smith
according to some doctrines, evil cannot be absolute, for it comprises the privation of the good.
Have you read The Battle For God: A History of Fundamentalism by Karen Armstrong?
Somehow I believe you. :up:
Interesting. That wiki article on pandeism says in part:
(Presumably because to have affirmed it would be to court heresy, which I think he was suspected of and which in his time amounted to a death sentence.)
Dermot Moran has a book on the influence of Eriugena on German Idealism (via the medieval mystics).
You've done this philosophy thing longer than me but isn't that just an equivocation fallacy right there? It does nothing to address the point about the horrendous continued human rights abuses, bigotries and other crimes all around the world brought to us by specific religious responses.
And if you're saying religion and atheism are equally dreadful then you still seem to be saying religion has nothing better to offer than no religion.
And besides, I am yet to hear of a single case of an atheist war, one where everyone killed, blew up buildings and subjugated their enemies in the name of 'no god'. Political wars certainly. Even several that had atheism in the mix. I am as suspicious and doubtful of political parties as I am of religions.
But come at me again with a witty and scathing riposte and we can leave it there as this kind of argument is old and neither of us will change our minds on the issues. :wink:
I like it nevertheless.
Quoting T Clark
It is a political political conflict, no doubts. The Church has always been another part of the status quo filled with a lot of power (more than I ever can imagined...) and tend to persuade people with their dogmas or religious doctrines. There are even some states that the rule of law is based on sacred texts such as Saudi Arabia or Iran.
So yes, one of the main causes of atheism is fighting against a super-political machine. Don't forget about Vatican City and how the popes can take part in diplomatic issues between countries (for example: Chile and Bolivia conflict on the access to the sea of the latter)
It is a political debate since all religious authorities act as political actors in the arena and instead of convincing with "intellectual" dogmas they do it with persuasion (as a good politician would always does...)
Well, I was talking about religious wars, but we can talk about this broader subject. What are the worst human rights violations in the 20th and 21st centuries? How about the holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, the genocides in Ukraine in the 1930s and 40s, the genocide in Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide. That doesn't even count World Wars 1 and 2, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Iraq War. Religion did not play a significant role in any of these. Of course there are some that had specific religious roots - the Iran/Iraq War, the Balkan wars of the 1990s, ISIS. If you go back further you find things that are similar - there are some wars and genocides that were religiously motivated, but most had to do with power, land, and money.
I didn't say that. What I said is that people gonna war. Religion doesn't seem to make it any better, but it doesn't make it any worse. If you want to interpret that to mean religion doesn't have any value, that's your conclusion, not mine.
Quoting Tom Storm
I don't think atheism is a force for evil, but I don't think religion is either.
Quoting Tom Storm
You're ugly and you smell bad.
I think up until the 19th century at least, you couldn't really separate the the state from the church. I'm not claiming that religious institutions were a force for peace, only that religion generally is not what causes wars.
:up:
True. And yet "Gott mit uns".
:up:
Quoting T Clark
Yet, Palestine and Israel war (or conflict context) have as a principle cause religious disparities.
In a historical perspective: the persecution of Jews and Muslims after the "reconquista" in Spain had religious causes.
Probably, religion is not the main cause of each war. Nonetheless, I see that is a motive of conflict between people.
One war I'm not sure about is the conquest of southern Europe by the Ottoman Empire. The Empire was certainly strongly religious, but I'm not sure if that was a major driver for the wars.
I am agree with the fact that religion was not the principle cause of wars and conquests in Europe. Yet, at least, it seemed to be a motivation for each emperor, sultan, Kingdom, etc... I can't remember a commander or general who spread atheism in the conquered territories.
A theist view at the minimal end is that God is a sensible proposition, and at the maximum end that God is the necessary foundation of all things.
An atheist view is at the minimum end predicated on a view of things where God doesn't appear to be necessary to explain anything, and at the maximum end that God is an absurd impossibility.
At the very least
God is not necessary to explain anything
And
God is the foundation of all things
Are different (world?) views.
I don't know what a worldview is apart from a view.
Aren't all views views of the world?
For example, part of the meaning of modern atheism are the unsustainable life-styles we associate with consumer-capitalism, life-styles that Baby Boomers in particular often justify on the basis of their metaphysical belief that "you only live once" . Atheism both drives, and is driven by, consumer capitalism, e.g. retailers preaching to us that we must live this 'one' life to the fullest.
If my opinion is correct, then the rise of sustainable environmentalism throughout the world will be correlated with a rejection of today's widespread atheistic beliefs for metaphysical belief systems that give moral incentive for individuals to live sustainably.
One of the oversights of common-sense atheists is that they reject the existence of the transcendental on the basis of a lack of evidence, and yet they tend not to consider the semantic possibility that the very meaning of transcendental concepts refers to the world. For isn't the psychology and behaviour of a Christian preacher fully accounted for by the physical causes of his behaviour? In which case, what so-called 'claims' asserted by the preacher should the atheist be sceptical about?
It could be that. But this is what it is. I put to you that you never attended a meeting of atheists. They don't talk about what they believe is non-existent. They talk about how others talk about and what they say about what the atheists think is non-existent.
I really don't know why you said "This is absurd." It was not. It was a plain fact.
I appreciate your appreciating my straightforwardedness. That was very nice to hear.
I equate the divide, and the argumentation to defend and to proselytize ones' belief, including atheism, and types of religion, to a form of tribalism. Tribal societies forced annexed or adopted members to assume their faith. Until then the annexed / adopted don't have the right (in my opinion; not researched) to marry, and to take equal proportions of the available wealth, but only much less. They are not allowed to partake in waging wars. Once the incoming tribal member honestly accepts the faith, he is a fully fledged citizen.
Our arguments, between theists and atheists, are the manifestation of the outcome of genetically programmed values. The value is to beef up the number of people who share the same belief system.
If I believe in an ideology, I must grow the number of people to have the same ideology. This way we can be safe to not attack each other; to be powerful and unified against attacks from outside.
Ideology is a social cohesive force, which animals don't have, but all humans share.
If the above was true, then how come the greatest consumer society with the most staunch and with the strongest capitalistic tendencies exists in the USA, where 96 percent of the population is a devout Christian? The statistic may have changed, but it was certainly true in the nineteen-fifties. If the overwhelming majority of the population is Christian, and everyone supports Capitalism and everyone believes that economic growth is good, and is achieved via consumerism, then how can you POSSIBLY blame atheists for this?
Conversely, in communist countries of the old, people were almost totally exclusively atheists, as well as poor. They used much less of earth's renewable and non-renewable resources per capita than Americans and Western Europeans.
I think your opinion is right if you only consider speculative thoughts. But if you consider the facts, things as they were and are, then your opinion is biassed, wrong, and useless.
Many of the atheists I have met don't conform to this trope. Some believe in astrology, reincarnation, crystal healing, all manner of New Age stuff. It's just gods they don't believe in.
Quoting sime
I think that's a clitche. I spent much of my younger life with Buddhists, theosophists, and assorted members of the New Age movement, many followers of various Hindu gurus and mystics. Hard to find a more materialistic group than these folk, who saw prosperity as a sign of karmic reward. Then there's all those Christians around the world who follow the 'prosperity gospel' which is also ferociously materialistic and a common manifestation of the faith these days.
It would be an error to mistake people's professed beliefs as a direct analogue for the way they actually live. I'd say a lot of atheists are into environmentalism and minimalism. They are often surprisingly spiritual.
:fire:
This line of interpretation is always super interesting to me. It reminds me of Hegel.
I think I'd say that the atheist is skeptical about all of the claims of the preacher, or at least the important ones. Atheism is a more universal doubt than a particular doubt -- not the single claim by the preacher, but everything the preacher preaches is false. That's because the doubt is with respect to the justification of the whole way of life -- even in material terms, if God is the community's way of making it all hang together, atheism is the expression that none of it hangs together. The community is wrong.
Which means that it's partially defined by the rejection -- atheism is the I-am-not-that. For some that's a very boring proposition, because they've never been that. Their parents were atheists, and they are atheists, and all these debates seem like an inconsequential circus of thought. It's not their own community which is wrong, it's the other people's community which is wrong and they are arguing over nothing at all, like astrologists arguing over what it truly means to be a Cancer.
But for others it's different.
Oh dear. I'm never cute. It's true, though, that I'm not surprised by much. Still, "cutie pie faux surprise" is interesting. In what sense did I express surprise? If I did, how was it faux? How was it "cutie pie" (unless that's intended to qualify "faux" and not "surprise", in which case how was the "faux" "cutie pie")?
Oh here it is. Sorry.
quote="T Clark;777432"]Oh...why would anyone object to the things that atheists say about religion.[/quote]
I can think of some reasons. But what I'd like to address is the reasons for the intensity of what strikes me as a futile debate.
Quoting T Clark
I'm not surprised. I wonder why they bother to do so, however, when in doing so they defend their religious beliefs (belief in God, I mean) as established by proofs which they think rebut claims made that there is no proof. Why is rebuttal important to them? Why should there be proof of the existence of God?
One can also wonder why atheists find it necessary to establish there is no proof. The claims of the "new atheists" (I haven't read them) seem directed more to religious institutions than to proving there is no God, but I may be wrong. Those I think are fair game. But if one goes around proclaiming there is no God, proselytizing as it were, I wonder why they bother to do so.
:up:
It may be more accurate to say they believed there could be no morals without theism, or rather their brand ot it. Lewis and Newman were odd ducks to begin with, I believe. Lewis seemed to believe that Christianity was "manly" is some sense. Newman thought the real world wasn't this one. Chesterton could be witty and I think would have been good company.
Theism seems to tend towards exclusivity. I wonder if that may explain some of the intensity of the debate. Some of the ancient pagan philosophers thought traditional pagan religious beliefs, largely polytheistic and non-exclusive, to be unfounded and even silly, but as far as I know there was no debate or dispute between them, and pagan philosophers would participate in rituals or favor compliance with them or at least tolerate them.
Of course. I think that the most significant difference is that the religious system relies on absolute authority. Thats a big difference because it allows leaders to lead without having to rationally justify anything. Indeed, to the delight of their leaders, many religious followers are decidedly anti-rational.
Atheists have no absolute authorities.
My response to this is as it always is, and that is the Christian theology you reject isn't the only form of theism. That is, there are plenty of theists who don't proselytize, reject science, or care at all about atheism's potential threats.
If I told my rabbi I were an atheist, he truly would not care.
The idea that theists must convert others, save souls, trust blindly in certain items of literature, reject reason over doctrine, or hold firm to the faith to escape any sort of punishment is something held by a particular religion, but not theism per se.
Quoting god must be atheist
Atheist groups:
And there are dozens more. Hundreds.
Quoting Tom Storm
I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out what theists expected me to believe and what, therefore, I was supposed to not believe as an atheist. And it doesnt seem to matter all that much. Not that there arent good political reasons to combat religious intrusion in state functions, but there are good personal reasons to not let this battle distract us from our immersion in the symbolic, as if having saved secularism, we are ideologically pure and free.
Seems to me the conflict functions largely to create pointless distinctions among those whose everyday lives are mutually defined and confined by a more powerful cultural conditioning. At least where Im from, if you subtract the nod to ritual, youd never be able to tell an atheist from a theist. Its all about the inner life, apparently. But what potency therein? Seems like this inner life is mostly either folks congratulating themselves on their piety or on their lack thereof, and entrenching their effective uniformity.
Our cultural salesmen tell us theism is clearly intellectual bunk and atheism wins; and that atheism is clearly moral bunk and theism wins. This is the "intellectual" and moral ground on which we're supposed to line up and fight. But there's another level where the dichotomy itself is a symptom of a cultural disease where the sacred, as @Wayfarer calls it, is always lost or degraded. Because its supposed to be. Were either supposed to blindly follow mommy and daddys stories or blindly reject them, and then go back to watching TV. Seems a better route might be to divorce ourselves from that whole deal and those peddling it.
I agree. Although to be fair, many of the arguments we have on the forum are futile. I respond with intensity because of the self-righteous intellectual dishonesty of many anti-religious people. As I said, I am not a theist. I can understand skepticism. doubt, and even strong disbelief in the existence of God or gods. If I paint all atheists with two wide a brush when I get in these paint slinging fights, chalk it up to rhetorical overexcitement.
Quoting Ciceronianus
I agree. If they would shut up, so would I, at least about this. Seems like that should be sufficient incentive to get them to stop. Alas.
I don't find that a convincing argument. As I've said many times before, I think religious feeling ultimately comes from personal experience of God. As you note, it's true that many religious believers lean heavily on the Bible and similar religious documents.
At the most advanced levels, theists present a god so abstracted and atheists a physics so abstracted, there''s hardly more than terminology between them. But naturally we want to lump people into categories that allow for a good ol' scrap.
Quoting Baden
Good posts. If people would just follow your advice, I would shut up. Or maybe not.
It could only be a religious feeling if whatever is experienced is inline with a religion, otherwise its just an experience, perhaps a spiritual experience.
Atheism minus response to historical dogma = ?
Call it what you will, but it is part of what it means to be a theist.
Its part of a particular tribe of theism if it is religious.
Different people interpret it in different ways, which is not unusual.
You paint a rosy picture. I'll mull over that.
I am more concerned about the bit where theists influence what we can read or do with our bodies or how the Supreme Court should look, or whether women should drive and how many gays should be executed, or if climate change is real, or whether contraception should be permitted. It doesn't always look like harmless nonsense from where i sit. If it were just funny costumes and charades, I wouldn't give a shit.
And yeah, people may also make stupid and base choices for a whole range of culture and political reasons, but throw in god's will and the problem reaches a new level.
America is more the exception than the rule in advanced democracies on that score. But yeah, I'm saying the categories themselves are destructively ideological and should be rejected. Sacred theists/atheists (sacreists) ought to join forces against profane theists/atheists (profeists) and dance naked around burning television sets while @T Clark watches and nods approvingly.
Hallelujah :cheer:
Good stuff. I'm particularly intrigued with where you end -- but I'm having a hard time digging in.
I think I'm attracted to apatheism because it has this "third way" quality -- and around here, where having a blessed day is just a way to say goodbye to an absolute stranger, it strikes people as not quite as aggressive (but, when you think about it, it's almost more aggressive -- because the relevancy of the belief decreases)
I generally think that family life is the economic component of religious life. It's the economy of the home, or perhaps, a community which puts the economy of the home and its continuation as central to its purposes. (But note this is very much a reflection of my background, too -- family life is usually what's emphasized in Morman culture, but there's enough similarity between faith communities I tend to see this same pattern, even though I'm sure there are actual differences)
Family structures and how they work together as a communal unit is where my first guess would take me. (which would also explain why sexuality is so often central to religious communities -- since the family is produced sexually, sexual mores would have to be dealt with in any way of life constructed around the perpetuation of a community of families)
But, even more so, I think this is why I like philosophy so much, at least in part. It allows our minds to breathe more than the cultural categories tend to. Maybe a/theism without historical baggage just is philosophy of a certain (non-academic) kind.
I'm not overly optimistic on that score. It's not so much about things to do but ways to think. We tend to like ideas that are under threat from some other idea because it gives our idea more emotional salience. And I think that works for all sorts of categories.
Not unusual at all. A Buddhist might experience emptiness (no God), for example, and someone else might experience something more akin to a sky-father. If the experience doesnt align with or isnt affiliated with any religion then its not a religious experience, though it could be the birth of a new religion, if the experiencer possessed sufficient charisma.
Yes, I think because the idea is that your behaviour does not change regardless. If you can say "I behave thus because it has value in itself", rather than "I behave thus because a god exists/doesn't exist", it's quite powerful. It's not my idea and I can't remember who said it originally but if you deem yourself an atheist who relies on that non-belief to direct your behaviour (you would behave differently if God exists) then you need God in some sense--the concept is relevant to you and tied to who you are (as defined by your actions). And so having a term that dissolves that issue while keeping a different kind of meaning alive is useful.
:100:
I think you're partly right but it's more than a 'particular religion', right? Islam and Christianity and various proselyting Hindu/Eastern spirituality schools and 'cults', and the fact that there are dozens and dozens of Christian based schisms alone, which are like separate religions and disagree on doctrine and how we can be 'saved'. There must be thousands of 'one truth" type operations active in the world today. It's not like it is just those weirdo Baptists on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor...
"You only live once" isn't a metaphysical belief, it's a slogan embraced regardless of religious / metaphysical belief; in fact, probably because of its wide appeal. It far predates Baby Boomers and currently in YOLO form means the equivalent of Carpe Diem, which was employed by writers and poets from the Roman, Horace, to Robert Herrick--who was a clergyman (was he secretly yearning for a pair of uninvented sneakers?). Absolutely no connection to atheism whatsoever. And I'd gladly take your "atheist" Baby Boomers and raise you the prosperity Bible crowd (they do love their sneakers!) if it helps demonstrate that the issue you're raising relates to superficiality of engagement with culture and is a cross-cultural problem of the sort I've alluded to above.
Nice, you can be Archbishop!
What utter twaddle.
Your fallacy is....
:lol: That's not how it works, actually. When you abandon reason things can get rather counterintuitive.
:up:
Quoting Baden
That's for sure. When my partner worked for the Greens movement a few years ago the folk involved were almost entirely atheist and anti-consumerist.
In the 'aesthetic' critique of atheism I often hear in these debates, there seems to be a notion that atheism robs the world of mystery and a type of beauty (Weber's disenchantment/ the outcome of enlightenment rationalism) and is therefore crass, acquisitive and unsophisticated.
I suspect that rather, they held it of the utmost import that other folk be made to behave as they themselves thought appropriate. Advocates for conformity.
In The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit Of Capitalism, Weber believed that the Protestant ethic was the driving force behind the mass action that led to the development of capitalism. Importantly, even after religion became less important in society, these norms of hard work and frugality remained, and continued to encourage individuals to pursue material wealth.
:up: And maybe the final nail in the coffin of @sime's bizarre thesis is the empirical reality that the US is at once one of the least atheist and the most consumerist of the advanced nations.
Ironically, it's just that sort of superficial view that robs the world of its mystery and beauty, reducing it to lazy categories and conceptual jars in which to trap them.
Quoting Moliere
:grin:
Or maybe more to the point, Deus Vult!
True. Very relevant, here.
"Merely" the Creator of the universe, i.e. one that having done so, does not intervene, is not influenced by worship or prayer--is the First Mover and nothing more;
Immanent--a part of the universe and therefore which can be known only through the universe, not supernatural, but an active, generative force guiding it (Fate or Providence).
Again, the issue is ethics rather than metaphysics.
I agree with this but can I check the ethics point? What if gaining god's favor ends up involving rituals or leaving presents for god as a sign of respect? Does that count as ethics? Or does it only become an issue, if the ritual impacts upon other's lives in some way?
Quoting Ciceronianus
I'm assuming you mean here a god that can't be pleased by any human actions or gestures? I guess the debate would have no where to go.
There'll doubtless be those who hold that others must behave as they do - the core conservative value: do just as I do. Given a chance they will be checking that you offer a cock to Asclepius and will have a nice crop of hemlock just in case.
Is that not deism?
After attempting to express a place for the atheist, I'm now tempted to preach for Epicurus.
Quoting Banno
I think that's the extent to which I care. As the tetrapharmakos says:
As you might imagine of a script that's been copied from the ancient world, there's more than one way to think about this. ;)
One way to interpret the first part (God holds no fears) is that there are no magical forces which will make your physical life better upon acting in a certain moral way. The Gods, which I'd say Epicurus seemed to believe existed, are Gods precisely because they are already perfectly happy and self-contained.
I'm always mindful about where I put my cock.
Quoting Moliere
Nice. If the O.T. is anything to go by Yahweh is a kind of empyrean Trump figure who needs adoration and worship despite an endless series of fuck ups.
The problem arises when people criticize those sorts of people, both the theist and the atheist.
The problem arises when folk do stuff. Criticism is just words. Refusing choice to women, removing books from schools, teaching children that masturbation causes holes in their brains - these are what counts.
Sure, not just criticism, but imposing views as well. That would hold for theists and non-theists as well. It's not as if every atheist is non-bigoted, open minded, and a believer in increased human rights.
The key difference being that an atheist wouldnt be doing it based off of atheism while the theist is basing it on their theism.
It bears repeating: good people will be good and bad people will be bas but for a good person to be bad you need religion.
This false equivalency between atheism and theism is so tiresome.
Edited for grammar
In order for this to be true, one of two things must also be true.
1) Atheists must do bad less than religious people do. I see no evidence of this.
2) Religious people must be better people than atheists are.
I dont see it. Atheists and theists are people, people can be good or bad. The same is true for vegans and non-vegans, farmers and not farmers, etc. people being people.
The difference is that the atheist is not referencing his religious belief system for instruction, the theist is. That is why it is a false equivalency. For example:
You got a bigot against gay people. He is a bigot because of his deep insecurity that he might be gay cuz he got a boner in the boys locker room in highschool and everyone made fun of him. This person could be atheist or theist, it really doesnt matter.
Now you have a non-bigot. They are a non bigot because there was no such incident as a catalyst/reason. This time however, whether or not they are an atheist or theist certainly matters, because the theist can read and learn from religion to be bigoted. The atheist has no such reference he can make to atheism, his atheism cannot be the reason for becoming a bigot.
So it bears repeating, good people do good things, bad people do bad things but for a good person (i dont hate gay people) to do a bad thing (oh I hate gays now, bible says its a sin) you need religion.
So, Ill fix your statements (sorry, you left out key components in service of your false equivalence)
1) Atheists must do bad based on their atheism less than religious people do bad based on their theism. I see plenty of evidence of this.
2) Religious people must be better people based in their theism than atheists are based on their atheism.
To which my reply would be 1) is correct. 2) is incorrect because nothing is based on atheism.
You might have a point if you were talking about anti-theists, but alas with atheists your point doesnt land at all Im afriad.
If atheists and theists are both naturally equally good people, and if, in addition to that natural proclivity, theists can be corrupted by their religion, then more theists should behave badly than atheists. I don't see any evidence of that.
Where did you look and how hard? :roll:
As in the example in bigotry towards gays above, you can reference any instance where someone who is otherwise good, commits some immoral thing based solely on their theism. Have you seriously never seen evidence of that?
Or some other ideology.
Are you saying that theists as a group do more bad things than atheists? I'm skeptical. Can you provide any evidence for that? Individual instances of bad behavior by theists is not legitimate evidence.
Unless the atheist"s lack of morality arises from his atheism, which might characterize some atheists, just as there are some theists whose lack of morality arises from their theism. The equivalency being that neither immorality is inherent in either theism or atheism, but is a characteristic of just certain forms.
Atheistic proselytizing is prevalent. It is typically characterized by attacks on simplified versions of fundamentalist beliefs, equating beliefs with anti-intellectualism, anti-science, and bigotry, with the message being that the light of reason rests with the atheistic ideology and conversion to it will lead to some sort of higher state.
That you have arrived at a reason not to be a Shiite, for example, has very little bearing on the question of the value of theism, but just to a particular form.
No. Im saying theists as a group do more bad things based on their theism than atheists do bad things based on their atheism, and that theism can be the basis for a bad act by a good person.
You keep leaving out the based of on their theism/atheism part in service of your false equivalence.
Leaving that bit out is entirely different, because then you are just talking about groups (as opposed to what those groups do according to the groups theistic structure). Once you broaden the scope by talking about groups in that way theism and atheism become a false dichotomy, for we know that they are far from the only moral factors/basis. Thats another discussion Id be willing too have, but its its not the same thing that I am discussing here.
I'm not "leaving it out." It's not relevant.
Quoting DingoJones
Another reason it's irrelevant.
Yes, agreed. To be honest I think theism takes some unfair blame for what is just tribalism.
Your case to make.
It most certainly is relevant. Its what Im talking about, and what you are commenting about. I just explained in my previous post exactly why its relevant. You choosing to ignore it in service of your pet false equivalence doesn't make it irrelevant.
You're obviously deeply invested in equating theism and atheism, have at it. Ive made my point clearly and dont think Ill add more.
Quoting T Clark
You are the one who broadened it out! :lol:
You were being a word weasel, rephrasing what I said, leaving words out or adding them as you needed to in order to service your false equivalence. I point it out and your response is bah its not relevant anyway. Hilarious.
Im beginning to understand this isnt a discussion for you, but rather some adversarial trolling. So doubly hilarious for you I guess, congratulations.
Theists can also have a Platonic, Buddhist, or animistic world view.
Some would say unless you subscribe to classical theism, you are an atheist. But then what do you call someone who claims to know or believe in God but rejects religion?
A theist.
It's not unusual for a theist to reject religion. When they belong to a particular religion they are called a Christian or a Muslim, etc. We just use the term 'theist' as a cover all so we don't have to specify the religion.
:lol: but it is a belief (about theism - that it's false). Ergo, atheism can't say of itself that it's a lack of belief, oui?
This issue must be setttled once and for all, to the satisfaction of both parties (theists/atheists) involved.
But what is a naturally good person? Nature doesn't create good and bad people; it creates biological strategies, which are then moulded by social contexts and judged through ideological lenses. To make the idea of a "good person" intelligible, you have to point to a social context and ask how that person fits in. Cultural beliefs are part of that context. So, if you want to find a good person, find a good social context and ask what kind of person would get along in it. If your good social context is theist, that person is a theist. If your good social context is an atheist, that person is an atheist. It all reduces to your ideological view. You can even find the perfect person. Just invent a perfect world and ask what kind of person best fits it. Unfortunately, philosophers tend to get things backwards and create perfect people that don't fit anywhere.
But that's the defiency of naturalism, and the hope that naturalism will provide some kind of moral compass. At best, as you say, it can provide a means of orienting yourself to your social context, hopefully positive. But nature is indifferent to good or bad, there's only the well-adapted, and then those who aren't - presumably departed.
I think it's necessary to peer behind all of the socially-conditioned concepts of "theism" to ascertain if there really is a true good, a true north which the ethical compass must orient towards. Of course as soon as you say that, it sounds like an appeal to religion, and is then opposed on those very grounds. But if there is to be any kind of real ethical principle, then I don't see how it can be avoided. Perhaps it can be re-articulated or re-mapped as existentialism attempts to do but deep down it's grappling with the same level of elemental truth - suffering is bad, love is good, life is transient, success is perishing, all we hold dear will pass. And so on.
One of the essays I often hark back to is Anything But Human, by Richard Polt, a Heidegger scholar, arguing against the reductionism of much modern thinking. He makes no appeal to theism, yet strangely his ideas, like those of Heidegger, echo those concerns in a more contemporary idiom. Because absent "theism" - a word I'm sure only sprang into popular usage with the Internet, as that to which "atheism" is a foil - then what is it to be human, other than a highly-evolved animal or not-very-efficient computer?
Maybe the rejection of "theism" often, maybe always, results in the loss of something more than an archaic social institution. Maybe "atheism" is right, but whether it is or not, it ought to be of concern to everyone.
I'm kind of with you on the first part but I reject the idea of accepting vs rejecting here in favour of creating vs being created. If your perfect world is theist, create for yourself that context and live in it. Whether or not it's "really right" or atheism is really right is a distraction imo--talking to ourselves about something that effectively makes no difference, i.e. the terms are defined so that we can't know in a way that we can confirm socially (someone can always justifiably doubt us). And I consider the dichotomy unhelpful as I said before. What matters imo is the degree to which we are consciously and purposefully creating our reality vs being created by it. We can do that both in a nominally "atheist" and "theist" world.
So, how about we define our ideal character, extrapolate from that our perfect world, and create to the best of our ability that world (starting with our immediate context and working outwards)? How "good" we are then is how good we are at doing that. How "right" it is is how well it works. The good becomes not some impenetrable free-floating idea nor defined from the outside in, but the experienced harmony between intention and manifestation that bonds us to ourselves and the world. And the "right" becomes the observable degree to which such a world becomes (as in fit) us.
As in, create the existence that justifies its own terms, rather than look for justifications to exist.
Quoting Agent Smith
I'm saying atheism amounts to a belief about theism that 'beliefs about god/s' are not true and is not itself a 'god-belief'.
Good question and I agree. I was responding to claims that "theism can be the basis for a bad act by a good person." Of course it's much more complex than that, but I was working with what I was given.
Quoting DingoJones
If my recent experience with you is representative, your response to posts you don't like is to question the motives and good will of those you disagree with.
I think so.
That's what I mean, yes. So, can we say then that the debate is driven by the belief in a God influenced by human conduct? [Wow, this is what Socrates must have felt like]
I dunno. That would seem to make ritual tantamount to ethics. According to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (OHCAC), for example, we ought to partake of or participate in the Sacraments. But I doubt it would consider doing so to be a matter of ethics.
You can't complain about religious oppression by theocracies and not complain about religious oppressions by atheistic governments. The immorality expressed by both is clear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism
https://www.uscirf.gov/release-statements/uscirf-releases-report-state-controlled-religion-and-religious-freedom
If this argument then turns into an attempted breakdown of which atheists count as true atheists and those not, then the equivalency will be complete because I will then start distinguishing which theists I want you to look at which I don't.
And all of this is to say that what has been done in the name of religion and what has been done in the name of atheism can be called immoral, but nothing in either position is inherently good or bad.
THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHICS
By Immanuel Kant
1780
Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott
..if ya cant beat em, join em?
State religions aka "autocracies" (e.g. China, Russia, North Korea) are manifestly indistinguishable from theocracies (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan) also with purges, inquisitions / show trials, invisible enemies, leader-cults, official scapegoats, etc. Secular states, in fact, are anathema to "religious oppression" as policy, unlike sectarian / one party states.
But this is the problem throughout, which is to try to identify "classical" theism, as if there is a standard which we all know of and then there are various fringes that we wonder what to do with them. It comes from the fact that there are certain predominate religions that overwhelm us into thinking that is all there is. To live in the West is to think religion = Chritianity, and so I had this confusing conversation with some atheists where it was explained to me that my theism was based upon fear, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they were talking about until it dawned upon me that they must be talking about fear of hell or damnation, things entirely foreign to my belief system. The same holds true for many of these fairly recent fundamentalist belief systems, as if the Bible is literally true. The Gospels are so wildly inconsistent, those views are hard to take seriously, and certainly should not be considered as containing the essential elements of what it means to be theistic.
The manifest disintinction between China and Iran is that the former is atheistic and the latter theistic, which was responsive to the question of what immorality has been committed in the name of atheism.
This response does answer the question.
An atheistic nation need not be secular, which I take to be that which you define as one allowing religious freedom. Obviously, if atheism is defined in such a way as to demand tolerance of all other forms of belief, then there would be no reason for me to seek to answer the question of when atheism has been oppressive to human rights because I'd be arguing from the created tautology. The same would hold true if I denied your every attempt to show an example of a theist denying religious freedom of another by submitting that the definition of theist entailed that the person be religiously tolerant.
I am not denying that any more. I am just saying that there is not much to say about atheism. "I don't believet there is a god or that there are gods." "Me too." There is not much more to say about atheism after that. But there is plenty more to say about religions and theism.
After a while that gets tired, too, so the conversation veers towards why atheists are also moral and ethical, what is the price of a good cut of beef at the butcher, and have you heard about Mrs. Holloway and Mr. Sputnik?
Apparently 63% of the USA population is Christian now and it was 90% 50 years ago.
My conclusion was based on your responses. Maybe my conclusion is incorrect.
You DID rephrase what I said and tried to put words in my mouth. When I attempted to clarify what I actually meant you said it was irrelevant. You quoted my points partially and followed up with short rebuttals that ignored most of what I said. You didnt clarify points but quickly chalked them up to I dont know, atheist dogmatic responses?
It all gave me the impression that this wasnt a discussion for you. It seemed like you were annoyed and sorta fucking with the source of your annoyance. If you were actually interested in a good discussion you would have listened better, or so I imagined.
It wasnt because I didnt like your post though, Im not that petty. A good discussion needs disagreement.
I am understand where youre coming from, I admit I do rely on assessment of motive and good will when I cannot think of better explanations for peoples responses. Its the internet, a shitshow of personality disorders and the bravely anonymous. One must exercise caution.
The point you are missing is that an atheist government doesnt do anything based on its atheism. What they do, they do for other reasons. You really need to get this bit down. Its important.
To which of course you will reply with a reference to the lack of theism being the source of any immorality.
Go ahead and make the case, Im listening.
Of course they do. It's part of their ideology and it's why the offer restrictions on religion. The atheism you find in communist countries isn't just an innocuous mission statement, but it informs the way they control their people and beliefs, and it's also part of their fundamental Marxist ideology.
Quoting DingoJones
You are taking the tack suggested by @180 Proof which attempts to muddle the distinction between atheism and secularism. The former refers to any person's belief system as it relates to the non-existence of a diety, with no reference to government. The latter references a government that seperates the church from the state.
It is therefore possible (and quite common) for a theist and an atheist to be secularists, meaning they have whatever beliefs they might have, but they don't believe government should involve itself in enforcing those beliefs.
What this means is that I disagree with your comment I quoted above, where you assume what my response to you would be. That is, I do not believe a theocracy can be secular because that is a self-contradictory statement. If a nation has a religious belief system and they use it as law, that would not be secularist, but would be theocratic, and it would be immoral.
By the same token, a government that has taken a formal stance on the issue and determined itself atheistic and then attempted to impose those beliefs on others would be as immoral as the theocracy I described above.
That is, I have provided you the very example you were looking for, which was that of an oppressive atheist. What you are trying to say, which is simply false, is that the communist nations cited just happen to be atheist, just like they may happen to have red flags, and those two facts have nothing to do with their immorality. What I am saying is that I fully understand your distinction between relevant and irrelevant causes of the oppression, and I am saying that the atheism factor looms large as one factor among many in informing the cause of communistic oppression.
To say that the offical atheistic stance of China is irrelevant to the oppression of its people is as incorrect as to say that the official theistic stance of Iran is irrelevant to the oppression of its people.
I don't see how to understand that in a coherent fashion. What is ethics if not what one ought do?
But I see a few posts that take a more restricted view of ethics, as if moral acts are only a sub-class amongst the things we do. Seems to me that it would be difficult to make it clear which of one's acts have no moral import.
The New Atheists had people in them who were just as eager to punish believers, too.
I have no doubts that atheists can be as faulty as theists. I think it's human.
Atheism has no ideology. Thats why you always have to mention communism and marxism etc along with the atheism. Atheism alone has no edicts, no rules, no goals its merely a position on theism. Quoting Hanover
Uh..ok. I stand corrected as to what your response was going to be.
Quoting Hanover
Agreed, but that immorality wouldnt have atheism as its source.
Quoting Hanover
We are talking about atheism, not communism.
Also, Im not saying they just happened to be atheist.
Listen:
Im saying that atheism is not the reason for their immorality. Atheism is not a ethical system, nor a system of belief of any kind. Again, this is why you must attach your criticisms of atheism to communism.
:100:
Ah, good. As delightful as it is to compare China and Iran, I'd prefer to explore the motivations of theists (or other believers, to the extent they're involved) and atheists in their dispute about God.
Now, I suppose it's possible that theists engage with atheists because they think atheists are unethical, it being necessary that God is accepted in order for mere mortals to be moral. And, I suppose it's possible atheists engage with theists because they contest that view. But that doesn't seem to be the origin of the debate, nor does it account for its intensity. It's just not juicy enough, as it were.
Intolerance would account for the intensity, which sometimes devolves into contempt. But intolerance by atheists seems inappropriate where there is simply belief, without demand that others believe as well or behave as if they believe, or that others support the belief. If someone claimed to be a follower of Mithras, I'd be eager to find out just what that means (I wish we did), but wouldn't feel obliged to say "There ain't no Mithras" and argue the point with him/her. If someone claimed to be an atheist, I wouldn't feel obliged to argue that God exists, though I feel there's something which may be called divine.
So, is that all there is? Intolerance on both sides, which flares up whenever someone claims there is or is not a God?
As a comparison, in Orthodox Judaism, there are 613 commandments, each of which is a moral imparitive, with no distinction being drawn between the ritualistic and the ethical. All are the law of God and so must be followed.
With modernity, new branches of Judaism formed, most generally referred to as Conservative and Reform, both at least partially on this question as to how to seperate the purely ethical from the ritual. If that distinction could not be drawn, then no theological justification could be reached for why only certain of the moral tenants should be adhered to.
This seems to be @Banno's response, which is how such a distinction can ultimately be drawn, and it remains a challenge for the non-orthodox versions of beliefs systems, but without making them more palatable, they hold more limited appeal.
Well, OHCAC says I should "drink the wine and chew the wafer" (as Tom Lehrer sang in his magnificent song The Vatican Rag, which you should listen to if you haven't already), which is to say participate in the Eucharist. Now, am I acting ethically when I do so? What is it that's "good" about the drinking and the chewing? What if I merely chewed? Am I being "bad" if I do neither? What if I skip drinking and chewing a few times? Am I unethical? I think not. One doesn't drink and chew because it's good to do so, but that it shows one's devotion to and belief in OHCAC and Jesus.
And that, still speaking generally, is the root error of deontology.
And orthodoxy.
It can have an ideology, which might include the supression of theism. By the same token, it's not necessary for a theist to subscribe to a particular ideology.Quoting DingoJones
Yes, the source would be atheism.Quoting DingoJones
You're acting like you're making a point that isn't heard. The criticisms go both ways. I'm not talking about Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Hindu. I'm talking about theism. It's just as possible to distill out the simple statement "I believe there is a God" as it is to distill out "I do not believe there is a God" and deny anything negative from either of those distilled out statements. But, if the question is whether a theistic belief has done harm, the answer is yes, just as the question of whether an atheistic belief system has done harm is also yes.
Must atheism be bad? No. Are certain iterations of it bad. Yes.
Jesus Christ! Oh. Sorry.
I'm not sure what would be moral about...well, I don't know what all those commandments are, so you have me at a disadvantage. Does one of them have to do about not eating unclean animals (I'm not trying to be funny or sarcastic). If so, how would refraining from doing so be moral?
It's not so much what you might think that is at issue here, as what Cardinal Pell might have said. And i take it that he would have preferred that everyone partake of the sacraments, as appropriate, according to the catechism. That is, and here we can return to my theme, he wanted everyone to do as he does.
Psychological insecurity which presents as intolerance maybe. In mixed and relatively open societies, I'd hypothesize that most atheists have an inner theist trying to get out and most theists have an inner atheist trying to get out. In argumentative situations then, these inner aliens are fed by opposing interlocutors with predictably unpleasant results.
If atheism consisted merely in a lack of theism; I wonder where the motivation to argue for it would derive.
It seems to me that atheism would in many cases consist merely in lack of theism, and it seems likely that we don't get any argument coming from those people; we probably don't hear their voices, just as we don't hear from probably the vast majority of theists, who just live and let live.
There seems to be no doubt that in many cases atheism is actually anti-theism; and in those cases it would certainly count as an ideology. Likewise theism may or may not be anti-atheism.
On both sides, I would argue, we find the ideologues; one side arguing that everyone ought to believe in God and the other side arguing that everyone ought not believe in God.
I think the problem is what those claims/beliefs may lead to. If someone's worldview is predicated on a magic man who intervenes in life, then they will make life choices which reflect that thinking. Claims about god generally include concomitant claims. In some instances - that children should be beaten and that women are property and gays should be in jail or executed. Claims about where atheism leads often involve a denigration of the moral positions held by an old book. Subsidiary claims may include that atheists endorse GLBTIQ and women's rights and environmental concerns and science education which are against the truth and God's will. The god/atheism debate seems to be about the frames and worldviews that stem from belief.
Clumsy thinking still. Communism, for example, is not an iteration of atheism in the way e.g. Judaism is an iteration of theism. Theism is a broader category containing all religions, such that they can be considered subcategories or iterations of it--or "theistic belief systems" in a proper sense. Atheism is an element of communist ideology. There is no sense in which communism is a subcategory of atheism or an iteration of it. And to call it an "atheistic belief system" is misleading because it suggests that this element is the primary ideological force behind it when its not as it's a socioeconomic theory. I'm not going to deny communist ideologies have inflicted harm on religious believers in pursuance of encouraging atheism as part of their projects. But your approach to this is illogical and your reasoning is faulty.
It's 613 minus those related to acts performed at the temple (since it was destroyed) mostly related to animal sacrifice.
All would be moral commandments. No distinctions is made related to the performamce of God's law.
This is probably in part why Christians creatively found a way to do away with the law of the OT, but, even there it required some creativity.
And why some Jews hand a string around their neighbourhood. Again with the failure of deontology.
True...
But I think I'd say this has more to do with the way we use words. I think the implicit claim, at least, is that since there have never been atheist wars atheism seems a lot more respectable in that way, at least. However, given some iterations of the Marxist project (I'll parenthetically mention Liberation Theology, with special mention to the Latin American variety) -- while I understand that most atheists of the New Atheist variety (like me, and others, at least in a time-bound category sense, if not ideologically) are very much opposed to that and are motivated by calls for religious freedom, I think it's still worth noting if we're making claims about atheism and theism in the broad sense -- atheism won't shield someone from declaring war. Hitchens, in particular, with his statements on Muslims, came to mind for me as an example of New Atheists not being quite tolerant.
Nicely put. And the harm communist parties inflict on religions (and most alternative value systems) is largely a product of the totalitarian approach that would allow no competition to the dominant ideology, much as the Catholic church expunged pagan faiths and alternate doctrines in history.
You've just described a socioeconomic theory that doesn't require God. Hence if you read Capital, you'll find it's 99.9% socioeconomics and almost zero percent theism vs atheism.
The motivation is self defense. When theism wants to teach creationism in schools or prevent gay people from getting married then we must argue.
If theists didnt do those things, people wouldnt have nearly the same reasons to argue.
When a theist uses their theism as a basis for things that effect other people, I think its perfectly reasonable to ask them to justify the theism. Thats where most of the arguments begin.
Quoting Janus
I agree, I think antitheism is what most people are criticizing when they criticize atheism. I dont know if antitheism is an ideology, but its at least a position on theism which goes beyond the simple binary stance on theism that atheism is.
Quoting Janus
I dont think you need to be an ideologue to argue against theism, as mentioned above theists give you plenty of reason to argue without the need to be an ideologue.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index-l.htm
How many about atheism? None.
I feel strongly about my points because I am angered by the level of disrespect that religious beliefs are shown here on the forum. As I tried to show in my posts, I think it is not justified. At the same time, I think my arguments were reasonable and civil. I intended that they be responsive to your points. I'll try a bit harder next time.
Maybe it's the assertion that I'm OK with, but a causal link I'm not? But I'd probably assert that with both -- a/theism.
Quoting DingoJones
Right, but there are no doubt many theists that agree that the state should not have policy dictated by religion, and this doesn't happen much nowadays in the West in any case.
Quoting DingoJones
I think it is because it proclaims that humanity would be better off without theism.
Quoting DingoJones
Yes, in a context like this forum where people are here to express their views, and should be prepared to have them critiqued, I agree that those arguing on either side are not necessarily ideologues.
But if those on either side are heavily invested in the idea that humanity would be better off with or without God, then those people would count as ideologues.
:100:
There has been militant anti-theism, for sure. And awful crimes have been committed against religious believers. But there seems to be some very confused thinking going on around the nature of atheism and communism and what an ideology is and isn't.
I'm pretty sure we're all confused at the moment. :D
I'm guessing we're using general terms in close enough ways that there's a sense of sense, but different ways that there is confusion.
See, this is why I wanted to mention Liberation Theology.
I grant that orthodox Marxism, which I think Marxism-Leninism is the canonical case of (with an incredible amount of records to boot), is atheistic. But I want people to know there really are other variants.
While there's certainly a kind of architectonic to Marxism, the commitment to science has actually managed to make developments in its theories. Mostly as adapted to localities.
Yes, as I said, that is an element of Marxist theory. One that he spends a tiny proportion of his writings on and that one line is all many people know of Marx, which is a pity.
Quoting Moliere
:eyes: :up:
Thats why I referred to it as your pet false equivalence. It was clear the issue sticks in your craw. I realize you dont think its false of course but when I made comments like in service of your false equivalence I meant it to allude to your passion for this issue. Its obviously important to you.
I believe you, so apologize for chalking it up to a bit of trolling (which btw, doesnt really offend me). Ive made a note to myself so that I too will try harder in our next exchange.
That seems fair to me.
Although a tiny proportion of Marx's writings may treat of theism, atheism seems obviously to be a central plank of his theory. The masses need to be mobilized and how are the masses to be awakened if they are mesmerized by theism?
Quoting Moliere
Yes, I agree and was only addressing orthodox Marxism. Theism, insofar as it promotes the idea of loving thy neighbour as thyself is more at odds with capitalism than with socialism per se.
:cool:
It's an element of his theory as I've said. An element that you appear, with all due respect, not to be familiar with beyond one line. And the salient debate is over the idea that Marxism is primarily an anti-religious theory rather than a socioeconomic one. That's false. Even the justification for claiming Marxism's unswerving hostility to religion doesn't fare too well when you read beyond the oft-quoted line. Certainly the suggestion he was advocating for violence against the religious isn't supported.
[quote=Howard Zinn]Wheen enjoys showing the inanity of Marxs detractors, as when they reduce his complex view of religion to unconditional hostility, quoting repeatedly his statement that religion is ?the opium of the people. The full quotation, from his 1843 essay, ?Toward a Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right, shows a more nuanced and sympathetic understanding of the social role of religion: ?Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions, it is the opium of the people.[/quote]
https://inthesetimes.com/article/karl-marx-howard-zinn-birthday-capitalism-200
[quote=Marx]Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.[/quote]
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
+
[quote=Wiki]Marx did not object to a spiritual life and thought it was necessary. In the "Wages of Labour" of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx wrote: "To develop in greater spiritual freedom, a people must break their bondage to their bodily needsthey must cease to be the slaves of the body. They must, above all, have time at their disposal for spiritual creative activity and spiritual enjoyment.
There are those who view that the early Christian Church such as that one described in the Acts of the Apostles was an early form of communism and religious socialism. The view is that communism was just Christianity in practice and Jesus as the first communist. This link was highlighted in one of Marx's early writings which stated that "[a]s Christ is the intermediary unto whom man unburdens all his divinity, all his religious bonds, so the state is the mediator unto which he transfers all his Godlessness, all his human liberty"[/quote]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism_and_religion
Again, I don't object to pointing out the evils carried out against the religious by those who are nominally atheist or communist. But I do object to the fuzzy thinking, misrepresentation, and caricature going on here.
I read what you have quoted as a statement that religion is a poor substitute for "real happiness" and that people must be called upon "to give up a condition that requires illusions" (theism) so that they can "give up their illusions about their condition".
It seems clear that Marx thought that religion entailed illusions that would keep the masses slumbering. He may have felt sympathy for people's illusions, but that does not mean that he did not want them to give them up. It seems clear to me that this is central to his project. If you disagree, fine, but you have offered nothing that brings me to be less certain of my interpretation.
The suggestion that my thinking on this is "fuzzy" a "misrepresentation" or a "caricature" needs some actual argument to support it.
The last line referred to the recent discussion in general. I may have misunderstood you as having something relevant to say with regards to the debate I was pursuing with @Hanover as that's where you interjected.
I did have something relevant to say which was to disagree with this:
Quoting Baden
Despite your protestations I still think it is justifiable to say that communism (Marxism) is an atheistic belief system, even an anti-theistic belief system, which is clearly attested by Marx's statement you quoted above.
It would not be justifiable to refer to it as an atheistic belief system if the sole criterion for counting as such was that it was predominately concerned, and spent most of its discourse, with arguing against theism; that much I would agree with.
Also, I'm not entirely happy with your characterization of my response as an "interjection"; this is an open forum, man.
My point was it is "misleading" to posit it as such in this context as doing so suggests the same sense that individual religions are theistic belief systems (the relevant comparison). But the primary ideological force behind individual religions is obviously and clearly theism and this is not the case with Marxism as it relates to atheism. So, if you could call any belief system that has atheism as a significant element "an atheistic belief system" and do so in any context without being misleading, you would be right. I don't accept that's the case but I can agree to disagree.
Great, I can go to bed now. Whoopee! :grin:
All yours, bruv. :wink:
To me the question is not whether or not atheism is significant to just theism but instead what is the significance of theism and whatever that significance is will explain what else atheism is significantly relevant or correlational to. You cannot live without either being theistic or atheistic in some degree.
Atheism is significant not just to theism but also to the fundamental questions of life and existence, to metaphysics, epistemology and ethics - because as an atheist there is a fundamental absence of theism to where atheism then begins to question or inquire the unanswered questions of metaphysics that theism claims to have absolute knowledge to. To me, without this inquiry or curiosity we are looking at an agnostic position which is an absence of information and data.
A better word to me is dependent on or necessary for, theism is necessary for atheism in a dualistic sort of relationship but both are significant to more than each other because of the fundamental claims they both (sometimes) make.
No, it's not. My comment related to the Chinese government's adherence to atheism and the oppression resulting from it. Your diversion into what the dictates of Marxism are isn't much part of that conversation.
If a question is presented asking for an example of an immoral theistic institution, reference to one that denies the secular principle of a religious inclusion would be cited. The same thing would be referenced if one wanted an example of an atheistic institution.
The argument that you must make, which I disagree with, is that the atheism of China is incidental and insignificant with regard to what makes it oppressive.
This is to say, sometimes when committed atheists convene they oppress the views of others, just like when theists.
I don't follow this. The string (eruv) is an orthodoxy, not an attempt to avoid an imperative.
One man's imperative is another's orthodoxy.
I understand the idea was to create an "enclosure" so as to make it permissible to carry stuff outside, in accord with a sabbatical imperative. the point that it is not just "Christians" who "creatively found a way to do away with the law of the OT, but, even there it required some creativity".
But I don't really give a fuck, beyond a vague bemusement by the ridiculous.
Perhaps it was creative in an effort to make life more livable, or perhaps just the outcome of a hyper-legalistic tradition.
The curiosity of the orthodox is that the faithful increase their religiosity, while the less faithful liberalize.
Like a bad case of OCD, more rules are created over time, which then become standardized and part of the orthodoxy. This law I suppose was derived from the basic notion of being required to rest on the sabbath, which took a whole lot of processing to arrive at rest means don't work means work happens outside in the field means fields are those things without walls means walls are enclosures means enclosures can be made with strings.
You'd have thought "rest" might have meant just sitting down at some point and life wouldn't have involved climbing phone poles with strings.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv
[quote=Pierre-Simon Laplace]Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.[/quote]
It's a distinction which is highly predictive of a bifurcation in ethical views. Each branch defines its subsequent ethical and political views largely circularly on the reasons for that original theism/atheism distinction.
Don't know much about Cardinal Pell. Apparently, he wanted the priest to perform mass while facing away from the congregation rather than facing it, a position (literally) I would endorse if I cared, first because that's the way it was when I became an altar boy and second because the priest isn't the star of the show.
But as a Cardinal, I assume he wanted everyone else to be a Catholic, of the old school if he was old school. There are things Catholics do as part of being Catholic, just as there are things chess players do as part of playing chess. I don't think it's "good" that I make moves according to the rules of chess, but I ought to do so if I want to play chess.
Aha! So you think there's a difference between those issues? Perhaps that's because one is an ethical issue and the other is not. I win!
I can only speak for myself, but no. I'm not intent on refuting anything. In everyday life I don't give a second thought to God or religion.
It's only when confronted with the religious that I even consider it. And I only care about it if religious beliefs are the driving factor behind some injustice, e.g. mistreating others because of something that their religion (falsely, I believe) claims to be wrong. If someone is homophobic or pro-life because of their religion, and if their religion is wrong (which as an atheist I believe it is), then what they believe matters, and it's important that the victims of their misbeliefs (homosexuals, pregnant women wanting an abortion, etc.) are protected from them.
People might be entitled to their beliefs, but a false belief isn't a justification for doing wrong to others.
:up:
Quoting Ciceronianus
Yes.
That's the crux of it. Also, many religious people oppose environmental protections because they 1) think God's in charge of creation and has it covered or 2) the rapture is coming, so why worry?
They also oppose those protections because religious people tend to be politically conservative and they don't want restraint on trade that will reduce the size of the economy.
I've always felt that if there were evidence that burning coal was the best way to preserve the environment, conservatives would be arguing that we should burn coal to save the fragile planet. Not that there's not a way to make the same point about liberals in an opposite way, but it seems to me the real reason for many of these positions relates to whose ox is being gored.
Great post. Am I wrong, you seem to be participating more in the actual discussions here on the forum rather than just thinking up new ways to torture us. You've had some really interesting things to say.
Cheers, bruv. :up:
This would mean that Judaism sprang from a belief in God. But not everyone who believes in God makes an ideology out of it
It could be that the tendency to create or follow ideologies has nothing to do with a belief or disbelief in gods, since we see both believers and non believers with and without ideologies.
[quote=William Kingdon Clifford (Clifford's Principle)]It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.[/quote]
It seems our priority is not to lose touch with reality (don't lose your sanity). Reality usually gives you a sound beating if you, even for a second, forget its rules.
[quote=Philip K. Dick]Reality is that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it.[/quote]
However, William James (?) had a different idea. Life is not just about facts, it's more than just knowing jumping off the balcony means broken bones or even death. Truth? Post-truth is prescient in James' views. For example, people, some, are no longer interested in truth, they just wanna be happy.
They decided a fake happiness avoiding reality or truth. Like when a drug addict consume narcotics because he is engage to the "fantasies" or "trips" that the drugs provide to him. Paradoxically, he wants to avoid truth but at the same time is addicted to an artificial lie :chin:
:up: