Author Topic: Atheism  (Read 14485 times)

Lord J Esq

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #135 on: January 28, 2008, 07:41:27 am »
Burning Z:
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Just a few little questions I'd like to ask (and a couple of statements relating to your points), though I doubt you'll come back to answer them:

For you, sure, I’ll answer, since your questions are directed at me personally and do not reflect the topic at hand. I am finished with my commitment to the topic.

Oh, and ZeaLitY…dial back the tone a bit. If you’re right about something you don’t need to blow your stack, and if you’re wrong you never should. Easier said than done, but your mood is souring your message—and that’s coming from me, of all people.

Zeppy wrote:
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I noticed that between your attacks on Islam and Christianity, you have never questioned or criticized Judaism. Is there something within the Jewish faith that piques your interest, demands your sympathy, or maybe even makes you...believe a little bit of it?

Judaism has come up on occasion here, usually in passing. As far as I know, only Radical Dreamer and myself have any personal connection to it, so it has effectively zero champions here.

Judaism shares many of the same failings as Christianity and Islam. There is the matter of religious faith itself, which you know I hold in contempt. Beyond that is a religion of customs, creeds, and conventions that oppress, even abuse, its adherents—especially women.

However, Judaism is much easier to tolerate than Christianity and Islam because it is not a proselytizing religion. That is the crucial distinction. Christianity and Islam, by design, preach a message of converting other people into the religious fold. Judaism doesn’t have that, and as a result you just don’t see many Jews going around harassing non-Jews and telling them how to live their lives.  That spares the world a lot of trouble.

Indeed, the only victims in Judaism are Jewish children themselves, and only the ones who are raised into the strict branches of the religion. Judaism has three main branches, best described as progressive, conservative, and fundamentalist. The conservative branch still harbors some parochial ideas about women, racial minorities, and human behavior in general, but is on the road to modernization. The fundamentalist branch is totally crazy, just like all fundamentalism tends to be, and I feel very sorry for children raised into that tradition, but most other Jewish children are not damaged as the result of their religious upbringing.

As to your three questions:

1) No, there is nothing about Jewish faith that piques my interest. There are many facets of Jewish culture that I find fascinating, but that is also true of Christianity and so forth.

2) No, there is nothing in Judaism that demands my sympathy. However, on the subject of religious sympathy, it is my Jewish upbringing that convinced me of the importance of tolerance. Only sixty years ago, nearly one-third of all the Jews in the world were murdered in the space of a few years. The message “never again” has personal meaning to me. As much as I detest religion, I have no choice but to tolerate the desire of religious people to practice their faith in peace and privacy. That doesn’t mean I have to respect them for it. Indeed, I think of religious faith as a mental illness, and I work hard to undermine religion’s grasp on outsiders and children. Even so, I would never want to destroy the lives of individual people who have deliberately chosen to be religious. That is a kind of sympathy, but it isn’t limited to Judaism. It merely comes from having an insider’s perspective on the Holocaust.

3) No, I do not subscribe to any of the religious aspects of Judaism. As with any cultural institution, Judaism has its share of good ideas and satisfying traditions, but I harbor no delusion that Judaism has something irreproducible to offer the world.

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Religion is for the most part propagated virally, whether by preachers or parents, but is it not true that it is not so much because parents are told to spread their religion to their offspring, but rather because it comes naturally, like telling them how plants grow, how to eat their food and (eventually) where babies come from? Or is this subconscious education a symptom of the virus?

I disagree with you there. ZeaLitY or someone else who spent many years going to church might have more to offer, but I have been to enough church services in my time—always at the behest of well-meaning religious friends—to recognize the degree of overt indoctrination that occurs during worship. Indeed, I went to religious services of my own every Friday night as a kid, and while those services were not fundamentalist, I have gone back in later years to reread the prayer books we used, and I was astonished at the cult overtones and brainwashing contained in those pages. I never picked up on that side of it as a kid. Had I grown up to become a Jew, I would never have picked up on that side of it at all. That is simply how religion is.

To put it plainly: If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that most parents are not aware of deliberately trying to raise their children into religion. If so, then I think you are mistaken: Most parents explicitly strive to raise their children into religion. They may not realize that they are brainwashing their children by doing so, just as they may not realize that they themselves have been brainwashed, but that does not cancel out the sincerity of their religious commitment, or their desire to pass a similar commitment on to their kids.

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I have no idea what America is like. Atheism is a major "faith" here in Australia.

Those atheists for whom atheism is a faith are not understanding the basic premise of atheism, which is no faith. In the spirit of concession, I think that few people are equipped intellectually to successfully defend their position on these questions of the divine, and that includes those who take an atheistic stance. However, atheism itself is not an institution. It is a state of mind. So is theism, for that matter, but the comparison breaks down because theists have institutions we call religion, whereas atheists have nothing of the sort. The label “theist” tells us something about what a person is, but the label “atheist” tells us something only about what a person is not, and it is impossible to build an institution around that.

Therefore, any group or organization that claims to be working on behalf of an “atheistic” agenda is mistaken. They may be working on an anti-religious agenda, or a secular agenda, or a humanist agenda, but not an atheistic one. There is no such thing as a religion or institution or faith of atheism, by definition, and the religionists who suggest otherwise are either blowing smoke or do not understand the premise of “no faith.”

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But back to America, didn't many blacks, slaves and freemen, join the Church and other religious institutions because it gave them hope, a reason to live, and a feeling of brotherly equality? I am quite sure the original teachings of most religions did not teach racism

My command of Scripture is not as sophisticated as that of some Christians here, but I do recall Galatians 26-29, for which there is some commentary here. If I am correct, this is an excellent Scriptural basis for your claim, inasmuch as you would be willing to accept Christianity as representative of “most religions,” as you put it. (Although, how you are able to be “quite sure” that “most religions” did not teach racism, is beyond me.)

Now, recall, what does religion do? It builds community by providing a framework for morals and customs. But what is the context of these morals and customs? Conflict, of course. Tribal conflict is as old as the tribes themselves, and many of those conflicts were racial or ethnic. There has never been an egalitarian time in human history; a handful of modern states are the closest we have come. Human history is brutal, and religion arose in the midst of that, inseparable from that, and even became a way of validating that.

You place a lot of worth on the “original” teachings of religion, presumably because you believe the original teachings were inspired by god and are therefore more relevant than later interpretations, but I remind you that religion evolves anthropologically, with its teachings and thus its impact on society both changing over time, and thus, in questions of slavery and the like, what matters is not just the original teachings, but all the ones that came after.

Meaning?

Meaning that religion cannot be excused from its abuses simply because, at some point in the past, it might have been less abusive.

Therefore, it doesn’t really matter whether some of the earliest Christians were in favor slavery or not. Plenty of Christians throughout the ages were in favor of slavery, and their religion informed the practice of slavery. American history is testament enough.

I guess what we should ask is whether slavery owes much of its success to religion, and whether abolitionism owes the same.

The short answer is yes in both cases. Religious imagery and references informed and affirmed nearly all social norms, throughout history. Religion! The cause of, and solution to, so many of life’s problems. Hah.

The long answer is no more sympathetic to religion. Slavery benefited very much from religion, but abolitionism benefited only indirectly.

Religion’s role in slavery is straightforward. The reasons for slavery are nearly always either economic or tribal. In other words, slaves are taken either because their captors either need work to be done, or because they want to punish and exploit those specific people. Religion, as an engine of morality, provides the means to justify both kinds of slavery. What is a slave, after all, but someone who is the property of, and wholly subject to, another person? Religion is very good at providing people with the means to erect those kinds of interpersonal hierarchies.

Had religion not been around, people no doubt would probably still have found ways to justify slavery, but the blessings of the gods sure spared them a lot of troubled thinking. And, for that reason, religion probably prolonged slavery. I don’t think slavery would have lasted as long as it did were it not for religious precedent.

As for abolitionism, it is true that most of the abolitionists were religious. Many of these opposed slavery on the premise of “Jesus wouldn’t want that.” For as many as there were who used their faith to justify slavery, there were some who used their faith to oppose it. In America, churches comprised of sympathetic people provided aid and comfort to slaves, former slaves, nonwhites generally, and the cause of abolition at large. But that is irrelevant, because almost everybody was religious until very recently in history. The crooks and scallywags were religious too.

The genesis of abolitionism came not from a religious movement, but from the beginnings of the first anti-religious movement—the Enlightenement. The cultural reformations and social progress achieved from the 1600s onward in Europe and America, were not the result of religion, but of greater efforts in the arts and sciences. High technology arose, philosophy advanced, mathematics and engineering leaped into a new age, and culture flourished everywhere. Conditions slowly—very slowly—improved. When all these ideas began floating around, the stranglehold held by Christianity began to slowly recede, causing reformation even within the various branches of Christianity. As more liberal attitudes arose, people began to perceive the humanity in their fellow slaves, and naturally began to question it. But whether their basis for these ethical judgment was directly religious or not, it is not religion itself that gave rise to abolitionism.

I’m sorry; that was all very rambling and unsubstantiated. Don’t take my word for any of it. Use it merely as a starting point for your own investigation.

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I've read the His Dark Materials trilogy (I even made a thread about it here recently), but I haven't seen the movie yet, though I heard it was horrible. What is your view on the movie?

It was a very congested movie. Nearly the entire contents of the book were packed into that one film, which made it much too full, and that caused the quality of the film to suffer, yes. However, the upside to that is that everything is in there. The acting and effects are also great. The music is okay.

The movie was a lot for me to chew on, the first time around. However, I found that a second viewing really, really helped to clear it up.

If you’ve read the books, you’ll do fine with the movie. It’s a good story, and you should see it if you get the chance.

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You really dislike Krispin, don't you?

Yes.

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I have nothing else to add, except that I think for the first time I read one of your posts in its entirety.

The f-first time…?

The first time?!

The first time!!

You’ve conversed with me all these years and you never even…

Pardon me; I need a minute.

Thought

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #136 on: January 28, 2008, 04:07:45 pm »
Children should never be constrained or forced to believe in something. But what is wrong with saying that the existence of God is totally unlikely and unreasonable, which is true? And as for whether evolution is fact, look up Lord J's rebuttal of Thought's feelings on "fact versus theory". ITS JUST A THEORY is a common, ignorant cop out by the religious. Mathematics is just an imaginary system, but we needn't tell children that there's a 0.0001% chance that something better or divine exists.

Since you seemed to miss it, I do believe in evolution. If you find fault with my argument, I am afraid you can't use it against people who reject evolution altogether, just against my understanding of science and the arguments that stem from that.

And as you also seemed to miss this, I also stated that scientific theory is as good as fact. I merely maintained a linguistic separation between the two, as that separation (though largely insignificant when normally speaking of fact and truth) is what allows science to revise and advance itself. The Darwinian Model of the Theory Evolution was wrong, so now we have the Synthetic Model of the Theory of Evolution. In the future we might have a different model still. At no point was evolution itself discarded, but if the Darwinian Model had been maintained as absolute fact, the Synthetic Model could not have been developed.

However, I do reject the doublethink required to claim, in any situation, that Theory IS Fact. Theory is as good as, but it never is. It is sloppy of anyone to make such a claim, as indeed it allows people who reject evolution to say that it is just a theory. Instead of spending your time explaining why it is still true even though it is a theory (thereby addressing the real issue), you waste your time making the linguistically false claim that theory is fact.

As for what is wrong with saying that belief in God is totally unlikely and unreasonable is that such a statement is quite false. Indeed, if it were totally unlikely and unreasonable this wouldn’t be a question right now. Strawmen arguments are easy to attack, but when you are done tossing hay about, the real opposition is still there.

Burning Zeppelin

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #137 on: January 28, 2008, 08:35:28 pm »
Quote from: Lord J's interrogation
"..."
Thanks for answering my questions clearly. I agree with you on most parts, and I think I'll...try the Golden Compass before I watch it in cinemas. I see where you are going with Judaism - I have heard that it is actually hard to convert to Judaism, which is a long process.

When I said "most religions", I actually meant "most major religions", though many teachings of Hinduism do teach that the White Brahman is the highest level of reincarnation.

And don't worry, when I said "I read one of your posts in its entirety", I meant I read it word for word, and didn't just skim through and read the important parts (I'm good at noticing which parts of what you wrote are important, and which parts aren't ;)). Don't think I just replied to your posts with the opening line in mind. :)

Good night, and good luck,

BZ[/quote]

It may rain, and it may not rain, but if you step out of your house in a desert to clear skies, is it really worth considering "It may rain" in the immediate term?
Yes, the chance is slim, but possible. It has happened to me many times, when I though "it is impossible that it will rain on such a sunny day", and yet it did.

And since you mentioned it, abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is a function of life; it doesn't matter if life as we know it is the result of abiogenesis or divine intervention, evolution still marches along.
I completely agree. I am sorry if you misunderstood me, or if I was not clear enough, but I meant we shouldn't treat abiogenesis as a fact. Evolution definetely happens, and if you believe in genetics, you'll believe in evolution.

ZeaLitY

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #138 on: January 28, 2008, 11:21:23 pm »
What is the use? The backwardness of religion is self-evident to all of those not conditioned to believe in it or afraid of death and the absence of an afterlife. Faith itself has been vetted and exposed for the sham it is.

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A 2006 study by researchers at the University of Minnesota involving a poll of 2,000 households in the United States found atheists to be the most distrusted of minorities, more so than Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians, and other groups. Many of the respondents associated atheism with immorality, including criminal behaviour, extreme materialism, and elitism.

And as demographic studies have shown, atheism is on the rise; it will continue to rise as science and humanism chip away at the self-hating vestige of religious belief -- but not before many more are discriminated against, shunned, attacked, or outright killed because of it, motivated to action and belief by ancient, corrupted texts and vilifying agents of the Dark Ages.

~

As for this:

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dial back the tone a bit.

http://richarddawkins.net/fourhorsementranscript

[CH] Christopher Hitchens
[DD] Daniel Dennett
[RD] Richard Dawkins
[SH] Sam Harris

[RD] One of the things we've all met is the accusation that we are strident or arrogant, or vitriolic, or shrill. What do we think about that?

[DD] Hah! Yeah, well I'm amused by it, because I went out of my way in my book to address reasonable religious people. And I test-flew the draft with groups of students who were deeply religious. And indeed, the first draft incurred some real anguish. And so I made adjustments and made adjustments. And it didn't do any good in the end because I still got hammered for being for being rude and aggressive. And I came to realise that it's a no-win situation. It's a mug's game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude.

[DD] You know, they sort of play the hurt feelings card at every opportunity, and faced with a choice of, well, am I gonna be rude or am I going to articulate this criticism? I mean, am I going to articulate it, or am I just gonna button my lip?

[SH] Right, well, that's what it is to trespass a taboo. I think we're all encountering the fact that that religion is held off the table of rational criticism in some kind of formal way even by, we're discovering, our fellow secularists and our fellow atheists. You know, just leave people to their own superstition, even if it's abject and causing harm, and don't look too closely at it.

[CH] Now that was, of course, the point of the title of my book is there is this spell and we gotta break it. But if the charge of offensiveness in general is to be allowed in public discourse, then, without self-pity, I think we should say that we, too, can be offended and insulted. I mean, I'm not just in disagreement when someone like Tariq Ramadan, accepted now at the high tables of Oxford University as a spokesman, says the most he'll demand, when it comes to the stoning of women, is a moratorium on it. I find that profoundly … much more than annoying.

[CH] Insulting, not only insulting, but actually threatening.

[SH] But you're not offended. I don't see you taking things personally. You're alarmed by the liabilities of certain ways of thinking, as is in Ramadan's case.

[CH] Yes. But he would say, or people like him would say that if I doubt the historicity of the prophet Muhammad, I've injured them in their deepest feelings.

[CH] Well I am, in fact. I think all people ought to be offended, at least in their deepest integrity by, say, the religious proposition that without a supernatural, celestial dictatorship, we wouldn't know right from wrong. That we only live by …

[SH] But are you really offended by that? Doesn't it just seem wrong with you?

[CH] No. I say only, Sam, that if the offensiveness charge is to be allowed in general, and arbitrated by the media, then I think we're entitled to claim that much, without being self-pitying, or representing ourselves as an oppressed minority, which I think is an opposite danger, I will admit. I'd like to add also that that I agree with Daniel that there is no way in which the charge against us can be completely avoided, because what we say does offend the core, very core, of any serious religious person, (inaudible). We deny the divinity of Jesus, for example, that maybe will be terrifically shocked and possibly hurt. It's just too bad.

[RD] I'm fascinated by the contrast between the amount of offence that's taken by religion and the amount of offense that people take against anything else, like artistic taste.

(skipping ahead)

[SH] Right. I think this whole notion of … I think our criticism actually more barbed than that, in the sense that we're not … we are offending people, but we are also telling them that they're wrong to be offended. I mean, physicists aren't offended when their view of physics is disproved or challenged. I mean, this is just not the way rational minds operate when they're really trying to get at what's true in the world. And religions purport to be representing reality. And yet there's this peevish, tribal, and ultimately dangerous, reflexive response to having these ideas challenged. I think we're pointing to the total liability of that fact.

[DD] Well, and too, there's no polite way to say to somebody …

[SH] You've wasted your life! (laughter)

DD] do you realise you've wasted your life? Do you realise that you've just devoted all your efforts and all your goods to the glorification of something which is just a myth? Or have you ever considered - even if you say have you even considered the possibility that maybe you've wasted your life on this? There's no inoffensive way of saying that. But we do have to say it, because they should jolly well consider it. Same as we do about our own lives.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2008, 11:33:32 pm by ZeaLitY »

Azala

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #139 on: January 30, 2008, 10:55:54 am »
Yes, religion, in many ways, is backward and self-contradicting. But, there's STILL no proof or disproof of a God.

Kebrel

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #140 on: January 30, 2008, 05:01:06 pm »
I think for the first time I read one of your posts in its entirety.

That must be why I am so far behind.

FaustWolf

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #141 on: February 04, 2008, 11:03:37 pm »
Hey, Bill Maher is promoting his movie Religulous, a cinematic treatise on why religion should cease to exist, on Larry King Live right now.

ZeaLitY did not appear to be logged in during Larry King Live.

Is ZeaLitY Bill Maher?  :P

In any case, Maher's work should provide some food for thought for people on both sides of the religious divide, though I imagine most of his points will already have been discussed in this thread. Religulous will be released Easter 2008, apparently. How a propos.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2008, 11:13:15 pm by FaustWolf »

ZeaLitY

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #142 on: February 04, 2008, 11:49:21 pm »
It seems he has more of the same flair:

http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/17538811/dickheads_of_the_year

His sweeping condemnations are awesome and deadly accurate.

Azala

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #143 on: February 05, 2008, 12:33:47 am »
Now, now. You can't say religion is completely worthless.

I mean, after all, think of the wonders of civilization. Would the mysterious pyramids be built if religion didn't exist? I don't think so. And yet science has yet to discover how they were built. Religion has been a motivational aspect of many cultures.

Burning Zeppelin

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #144 on: February 05, 2008, 02:20:24 am »
Slave power is how the pyramids were built. I actually visited the pyramids. Just a pile of stones really.

Azala

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #145 on: February 05, 2008, 10:24:28 am »
There's still no confirmation. The slave thing's just a theory.

And the pyramids are more than just "piles of stones". They have vast underground chambers within them. That's where the dead kings and all of their important belongings were buried. Not to mention all the hieroglyphics that give insight to Egyptian culture. You can't call that a "pile of stones".

Thought

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #146 on: February 05, 2008, 10:42:02 am »
You can't call that a "pile of stones".

Actually, to be fair, the development of the pyramids can be traced back to basic buriel mounds, which were nothing more than a pile of stones (though even those had religious significance). So I suppose the pyramids are more of a fancy, refined, pile of stones, then ;)

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #147 on: February 05, 2008, 08:02:05 pm »
You can't call that a "pile of stones".

Actually, to be fair, the development of the pyramids can be traced back to basic buriel mounds, which were nothing more than a pile of stones (though even those had religious significance). So I suppose the pyramids are more of a fancy, refined, pile of stones, then ;)
the hell, it basically a neatly made pile of stones.

Azala

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #148 on: February 05, 2008, 10:19:01 pm »
Yeah, a neatly made pile of stones that matches up with the equation pi at its foundation, is aligned with the stars, and is made out of stones that even modern technology has difficulty lifting. No matter where you are on the religious spectrum, you simply cannot dismiss the pyramids as worthless. They are among man's seven wonders for a reason!

Radical_Dreamer

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #149 on: February 05, 2008, 11:41:56 pm »
Yeah, a neatly made pile of stones that matches up with the equation pi at its foundation, is aligned with the stars, and is made out of stones that even modern technology has difficulty lifting. No matter where you are on the religious spectrum, you simply cannot dismiss the pyramids as worthless. They are among man's seven wonders for a reason!

Pi is a number, not an equation. Aligning a structure up with the stars isn't terribly impressive, either, given the timeframes we're looking at. That's just a question of planning.