Atheism vs. Religion Dead Horse Beating Round 473!

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Thanks NOG.

Or we just heard versions of the same joke.


Morgoth

Are you an atheist? Not seeking an argument with you about it if you are and this is a bit but here it is.

I've recently been talking with a few atheists who have made the claim that atheism isn't an idea, belief, or doctrine. They claim that it is just the lack of (insert word for religious belief here). I've actually quoted a dictionary to them twice (describing it atheism as the belief there is no God) and their response was the dictionaries are wrong. This struck me as emotional attachment to ideology overriding reason and proper use of the English language. Is there a term other atheists have for their own members (only in the broadest sense) that are so stuck in an ideology that they may not see reason any better than the father in this tragedy?

 

It all depends on your perspective. I'm an Aetheist. I believe the dictionary definition you listed is correct. But it depends how the term is used to some. It can be used as a definition or a label. There are those(probably most of us in some capacity, not even realizing we are doing it) who will use terms like Aethiest, Bible-Thumper or what have you to label others. My guess is your friends are just fighting back against what they perceive themselves to be unjustly labeled or are afraid to be labeled in any case.

 

Don't go there pplr, I've asked the atheists on the boards the same question and all you get is a 5 page thread of argument!

 

That wasn't 5 pages Silvery, just one paragraph. Actually, I'm rather proud of myself!

 

There was a thread a while back that dealt with this topic, and it was huge and combative. Some idiot* who should have known better started the thread. In any event, words can have multiple definitions, even in dictionaries, so before using a hot potato word like atheist, it's good to know exactly what definition the other people in the discussion are using.

Obviously, though, anyone who does not believe in the existence of God will find that this guy is a 1000% nutter, while those of us who do believe in God cringe at the black eye whackjobs like him give to believers the world over.

*for those who don't know, I was the idiot who started it!

 

Ok Blades, thanks for the reply. I would say they aren't my friends though-at different times 2 of them seemed to actually talk about it (sometimes with a dismissive tone in their comments) and the 3rd had more anger in his comments than anyone I've discussed religion with (matching that of the people holding "God Hates Fags" signs to protest an AIDS walk I took part in).

If nobody has a hot potato discussion what would we do at family reunions?

 

In loose vernacular definition, atheism is usually an affirmative belief in a lack of gods (they don't exist). Sometimes it is simply a rejection of belief in gods (I don't believe they do exist, but I'm not sure they don't). More commonly, though, that last condition is called "agnostic".

Technically, though, gnostic vs agnostic speaks to certainty while theist vs atheist speaks to belief, so your friends are likely agnostic atheists (they don't believe in gods, but aren't 100% sure), whereas I'm a gnostic theist (not speaking to the Christian doctrine of gnosticism).

 

Pplr I think you would find some enjoyment and enlightenment if you dug up the thread being spoken about. I do not think it is that horrendously far down. I can't remember the name but if you are interested I am sure you can find it.

 

Not a bad suggestion joacqin.

I wanted to ask someone who was an atheist because I had a feeling more was going on than simple talk of (or even an argument about) religion. And I have doubts some of the atheists commenting here represent atheism as a whole-but I wanted to talk to an atheist to get his/her take.

It wasn't a discussion going on here.

This is a link to it.

http://www.davehitt.com/blog2/still-more-things-atheists-didnt-do/comment-page-12/

 

NOG and Drew.

One of the things about the list is it blames all religion (by implication) for the bad things done by extremists (it mostly does this, a few things are done by people who aren't even following the tenets of the specific branch of the religion they are part of-for example, very few religions officially approve of priests/officials being pedophiles) but leaves harmful actions of extreme atheists unmentioned. It is self-serving/self-congratulating in that way.

Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, and even Buddhists have been responsible for suppressing and killing members of other faiths or schools of thought at different times throughout history. Thus the list is one-sided and not the whole picture.

What I was looking for was an atheist's opinion about the long running discussion below the list, and in specific something said in it. I don't think the people commenting there represent all atheists but some of the thought patterns there seemed a bit off so I wanted a 2nd opinion/more info about atheist thinking in general to see how well it matched (or didn't) what was said.

At least one of the people in the discussion operates by insulting others who disagree until they go away-a reason why it is a good thing we have moderators. But as I said before, I don't think he represents all atheists.

 

Drew

Check out wikipedia. They try to lay out a history of atheism including "State Atheism". Alot of the nasties communists did were in the name of wiping out "superstitution" and religion was thrown in with that.

Stalin suppressed the Eastern Orthodox Church pretty brutally and allowed it to come back in a form he felt he could use to control people. Khrushchev also suppressed it but with less brutality.

Actually there was anti-religious discrimination in China to, some have remarked that the bigger the constitution the less the government actually enforces rights-and may even do the opposite. Note the "union" in China is more about government control than workers' rights.

Hitler in public often praised religion and in private condemned it so I wouldn't say the Holocaust was done in name of religion or atheism per say. There may be religious bigotry that even when along with it but I'd throw that in the bag of bigotry everywhere.

NOG

Actually I've come across a pro-life agnostic/atheist group.

 

PPLR, you are invoking a false dichotomy. A deed that wasn't done in the name of religion isn't automatically done in the name of Atheism.

I'm well aware that individual despots wielding absolute power have used often cruel means to further the "cause" of Atheism, but I assume you would agree that such measures never really had popular support. The USSR ultimately chose to leave the Russian Orthodox Church alone because the people supported it and nothing they did would change that, for example. The Inquisition, on the other hand, had popular support.

The problem with attributing that violence to the belief system known as Atheism is that Atheism isn't actually a belief system in the first place. "There is no God" is not a belief system. Communism or Marxism, on the other hand, is a belief system. In the Case of Stalin or Mao, atrocities committed have much more to do with the mechanisms of power than they do with the belief that there are no Gods. Their actions could correctly be attributed to Marxism or Communism, but not Atheism.

What such despots have done is no different than any of the despots before them, in that regard. They did what they did not because they did not believe in God, but in order to further their own power. If the point you and NOG are trying to make is that religion is not necessary to have despotism or humanitarian crises, I agree absolutely. If your point is that Atheism is used to justify war and other atrocities just as often or just as effectively as religion, I beg to differ.

 

Actually I do doubt they initially had popular support but over time soviet schools encouraged anti-religious biases so it eventually may have become so.

I met someone from an Eastern Bloc nation who told me she was told that religion was lies for the stupid and anyone smart or educated knew better. Thus she was surprised to find religious people with Ph. D. (in nonreligious studies) in the US.

Also some (note I say some rather than all) of atheist authors of recent have been accused (including by other atheists) of promoting intolerance for all religions-that may have an impact on some modern arguments on if bad things were done in the cause of atheism.

I'll be AFK for much of today (heading out of town) but if you want to talk about it more I'll be back tonight, over the week and so on.

 

Drew, a deed done specifically against all religion is done in the name of Atheism, and if you believe Stalin claiming otherwise, I've got a bridge to sell you in Manhattan.

As for Atheism being a system of belief, if we're talking about gnostic atheism (a positive believe that gods do not exist), then it is a system of belief. It is belief (whereas agnostic atheism is just a lack of belief), around which people build a system, just like any religion, organized or not. Now yes, that system was a part of a larger system, but so was Christianity in the Middle Ages. That doesn't stop people from blaming Christianity for the Crusades. The act was done, blatantly, to further the purpose. Other purposes may have been served as well, but that was the purpose that chose the target. Stalin and Mao could just as easily (probably more easily) have ruled through the Church, as so many other State rulers have done, instead of going against it.

Unless, of course, you're willing to conceed that no religion has ever really been to blame for any war or attrocity ever (after all, one can always come up with other reasons).

As for abortion, a quick google search shows that, in the US, non-religious folk are about 5X more likely to have an abortion. My point was that, again, the claim that the girl would be alive if her parents were atheists is iffy. As for the age, it doesn't matter when the hypothetical abortion was performed, the girl would still be dead. This is simply part of my claim that every large group has it's attrocities (and yes, I concider a voluntary, unnecessary abortion to be an attrocity equal to praying a child to death, but that's another issue).

 

NOG -- once again... Belief, as you are using it, is based on faith that a God exists. Because the athiest has no faith in the existance of a God, there is no belief system. Stating "I believe there is no God" is just that -- a statement. It is an athiests way of trying to be kind to believers.

Would you rather an athiest say "there is no God, you cannot even show the slightest evidence of a God, and so you must be an idiot"? Granted, this statement is quite over the top (although some on the boards have come close).

 

T2, in reference to the discussion pplr brought up, that is quite relevant, because most of them were saying it, and in reference to the political system, they went as far as jailing, torturing, and killing people for it. Also, I never claimed it was a faith, just a system of belief; though those two groups did seem to take it as a matter of faith...

 

The two are closely tied -- you cannot have one without the other. Athiests do not have a system of beliefs, they have a system of values and ethics which are not tied to beliefs at all (whereas the values and ethics of believers are usually directly tied to their beliefs).

I don't know of a gentle way to say this so I'll just be blunt (and risk the neg rep): I'm not sure if you don't understand where people are coming from on this or if it is so foreign to you that it is incomprehensible (I know my family has real difficulty on this point; to them either you believe, or you believe deep down but are misguided -- to them this issue is incomprehensible).

 

I think the problem is a difference in definitions. You seem to think religion, faith, and belief system are interchangable and equivalent, whereas I use the terms to refer to three completely different things.

By my definition, the Rule of Law is a system of belief. It is a system built of and/or upon belief, in this case the belief that it is right for all men to face the same law, regardless of status. In the same way, gnostic atheism is also a system of belief, as it is a system that defines the nature of the world, all based on the belief that there is no supernatural, that everything that happens can be explained naturally, and that, if it can't be explained naturally, it didn't happen. It is a system, based on and interwoven with a relatively complex belief.

A religion is an organized structure of belief concerning the supernatural, natural, and moral. By that definition, it doesn't require gods, and can say the supernatural doesn't exist, but gnostic atheism as a whole isn't an organized structure, nor a singular belief about morality, and so isn't a religion (whereas Confucionism is).

Faith, when not used as another term for religion, is something entirely different. It is action in the face of, and despite, doubt; similar to how courage is action based in the face of, and despite, fear. I've come to refine that definition recently, and I think it works much better.

 

I have internet access again.

About the argument over is "atheism" a "belief" or not. I would say it is in the sense that it is an idea about how the world works-the idea that there is no God nor has there ever been a God influencing things.

But I want to get to a much more relevant point.

Some years ago a history professor of mine passed out copies of a NY Times article about the former Yugoslavia (or somewhere therein). When the the students of a school the reporter talked about went to most of their classes (such as math) the student population was mixed. But something odd happened when it came time for history class. The students split along ethnic/religious lines and went to separate history classes. In these history classes they were each told how their particular group was the victim and the other groups were the ones doing the harm.

For each group you had students being told that they were good guys and the others were bad. When you teach a group of people only they are good, or victims even, and that others are bad you are teaching them to have bias/hate. This may have exploded with deadly results and all the ethnic cleaning that went on in/with Yugoslavia as it broke up.

Take what some authors like Richard Dawkins-who does not even have an undergrad degree in history. They claim that religion is largely responsible for the bulk of suffering throughout human history. If anyone wants I'll provide a wikipedia link if you want that mentions serious historians have had issues with his overemphasizing the role of religion with bad things happening. So now you have something similar to the situation of a group of people being described as bad.

Due to what I would argue is verbal acrobatics (and perhaps a bit of papering over just many bad things were done and the reasons given for why) you have people seriously denying both terrible events and more general (not murderous) discrimination carried out in the cause of atheism.
Thus atheists can claim that they (as a group subscribing to an idea and carrying out courses of action based on that idea) are good and nothing bad was ever done by atheists following/furthering their cause. Any unfortunate (bad) events were due to single actors operating for reasons outside of the cause of atheism. Thus atheism gets to be proclaimed as good by at least default (and if you run into people saying it is the only rational POV more than default).

New situation of one group (or school of thought/belief) bad and the other good. A set up for intolerance.

I'm pretty tired, and maybe being lazy, so if you want I'll post links with my next comment. There is another author I was thinking about other than Dawkins (who I wanted to mention for potentially filling in at least one part of the situation) and I'll mention him as well as the links in the next comment.

I want to emphasize that I'm not saying all atheists are religion haters. Far from it. But not dismiliar to the oddballs (one way of putting it) other groups have within their midst (including my own branch of Christianity) there are people who may be causing problems.

And my apologizes to everyone for going this far .

---------- Added 1 hours, 6 minutes and 38 seconds later... ----------

Edit (done being lazy):

Sam Harris,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris_(author)

look under "criticism and debate" it may be overblown but if he is actually talking about punishing people for what they think that is thought control and since I'm sure I've met a number of people from different religions (and branches thereof) without them doing harm to me or the reverse I'll say it is excessive and unneeded at best.

Richard Dawkins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

"In January 2006, Dawkins presented a two-part television documentary entitled The Root of All Evil?, addressing what he sees as the malignant influence of religion on society. The title itself is one with which Dawkins has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction.[83] Critics have said that the programme gave too much time to marginal figures and extremists,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Root_of_All_Evil?#Critical_reception

"However, Alister McGrath, a Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, was interviewed for the program, but was not included in the documentary.[12] McGrath claimed to have made Dawkins "appear uncomfortable" with his explanations of religious belief and the implication, made by McGrath, was that Dawkins's program showed journalistic dishonesty. In a lecture at City Church of San Francisco McGrath said that his interview was cut because he said things that did not promote the message that Dawkins and the producers wanted to get across.[13] The McGrath interview, together with other interviews not shown in the programme "The Root of All Evil?", was released in the DVD "Root of All Evil? The Uncut Inverviews".[14]

 

Dawkins is witty and has great entertainment value. It is good that he counters energetically that silly creationist nonsense.

What I dislike about Dawkins (or others), strongly, is that in his fundamentalist atheism makes a claim for authority (i.e. 'Geltungsanspruch') that is an equivalent to the claim for authority of the literalistic Bible (or Koran) interpretation by religious fundamentalists. It is that Dawkins makes (his own) reason king. He discounts religion as irrational, and thus irrelevant. Leaving aside the aspect of hubris, I can easily imagine that such a view, when put into ideology of a state or a social group, is no less repressive as the most repressive religious state. The rabid, rationalistic laicism of the French revolution comes to mind.