Atheism (page 3)

THE GLADIATOR

james_woods It all takes time - like turning an ocean liner around.

THE GLADIATOR

james_woods It all takes time - like turning an ocean liner around.

If the Atheists here are so much more sophisticated than the Believers, why don't the Atheists just let the Believers have whatever Belief they want instead of starting verbal arguments about the subject?

So James, are you then discouraging discussion? Like when there is a thread that asks the question, 'what is a militant atheist' should we then all just shut up and not respond? Do you have the same standard for believers? Should they bow out of conversations on atheism? Is that the proper course? Is sharing our opinions the problem? Would you like us to just keep the peace and let the believers play? What exactly are you saying? Are we always the ones starting these debates? Are we persecuting the believers? I don't even know where you are coming from, but if you'd like for us to just remain silent, could you please also tell beleivers the same?

NC

corpusdei

The question then becomes - should atheism be actively preached to those people?
Should those people even be forced to accept atheism "for the good of all"?
I don't think so - for one thing, it is against basic human rights. For another, I think it would be culturally a disaster.

While I look at religion with a fair amount of ... disdain, to put it politely ... I do agree wholeheartedly that forcing the issue by political or marshal power would be morally culpable. On the same note, however, I think it critical that public secular groups, particularly government, must be maintained as belief-neutral and antheistic as possible. Otherwise that same political and marshal force will be used to legislate religiously based morality, something that organized religion has shown itself quite willing to do time and time again.

james_woods

There are two ways to go about it, NewChapter. One way is to start arguments on the subject and try to FORCE others to accept your viewpoint.

The other way is to quietly state your own position, but not belittle the position of others. This is the way I prefer.

A second point is that while I am personally agnostic and do not care to participate in any religion -

I am quite skeptical that current Atheism/Agnosticism could recreate human culture successfully if all the cultural history of religion were somehow removed. This is a naive viewpoint, IMHO - not unlike (ironically) the notion of the JWs that they can just cast aside over 5,000 years of human cultural development and simply replace it with their small-minded lock step religious view.

What I am saying is that there is a lot more to religion than just the "God-theology" given its role in human customs and cultures - things that no sane person would really want to lose.

FlyingHighNow

Atheism isn't a religion. But some atheists behave as if it is. Want evidence? Read everyday on this forum: it's not hard to find.

james_woods

I agree with you about governmental involvement in religion, corpusdei.

Separate church and state - but allow religious freedom so long as it does not trample on the rights of other citizens.

FlyingHighNow

From a good friend of mine who is a psychologist by trade. We have been discussing this subject here and there. He has been listening to a series of lectures and posted this on his facebook in recent weeks:

Tyler Roberts, M. T. S., Th.D. (2009), employing critical thinking in evaluating the work of pop atheist Sam Harris, said, “For all his claims of religion’s irrationality, some of which do hit their target, Harris’ own failures to think carefully about religion leave him as a kind of mirror image of the fundamentalists he attacks. More specifically, Harris fails to think historically enough about ...religion, and, as a result, he takes modern fundamentalism and its literal interpretation of scripture as the essence of religion without realizing … that fundamentalism itself is a distinctly modern phenomenon, a product of the 19th century. And this 19th-century fundamentalism is itself deeply ahistorical; that is it takes its own view of scriptural inerrancy as somehow the original view of the Bible when, in fact, Christians from a very early point in the tradition were reading the Bible in much more complicated ways. So Harris’ ahistorical effort to reduce all religion to a single essence, shaped by one form of religion, reflects what I would call a kind of secular fundamentalism. To make his argument he, like the fundamentalists he criticizes, ignores a vast amount of historical and conceptual complexity and paints the world in black and white.” (from "Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition," Lecture 33, Track 3.)

NewChapter

Same here. Which is why I am very reluctant to try to convince them that their illusions are not real until they realize it for themselves. So long as they are not practicing human sacrifice or such, of course.

On the one hand, you seem to be telling atheists to be the mature person and not enter into debates. A core tension in these debates is that the believer feels we are disrespecting THEM because we cannot respect their beliefs. It's a fuzzy line, and I'm sure it gets crossed regularly, as believer or not, we are human and we do things like that.

Now comes the above comment. I often compare believing in god to believing in other mythical creatures. It's snarky, I admit, but there is something more to my purpose. My purpose is to try to help the beleiver see things from my POV. I am as able to believe in a god as I am in unicorns. It is impossible to me.

But to say things like the above, you are acribing to the believer very child like traits, ignoring how much adult thought they have given this subject. Children are different than adults, in spite of some external similarities. Children believe in Santa cuz their parents told them so, and through their inexperience they believe until they are told differently. Adults have investigated their god belief, and they believe they have found evidence. They believe they can back up their view, and have made the decision with intent. Saying that we shouldn't 'convince them their illusions aren't real' like we would allow a child to believe in their make believe friends is quite insulting. These are adults that are able to defend their position.

So should I just nod my head sadly, and say nothing while I patiently wait for them to 'grow up'?

I make the assumption that when they enter these debates as adults, they do so willingly and with conviction. I don't think of them as children that need to be protected from the reality of their illusions. My assumption is that they have entered the debate with the desire to argue their side. And they are prepared to be argued against. Are they fragile little flowers that can't take the debate? Maybe. But I think it is insulting to assume so.

We live in a society that is seriously damaged by such beliefs. Discrimination, anti-science, anti-critical thinking, laws that have no foundation but for belief, political powers that increasingly push to legislate their beliefs. These are adult issues, and can lead to great harm. As adult issues, I don't think anyone needs any coddling. If I ran away licking my wounds everytime someone told me I was going to burn forever in hellfire, than one could question the convinction of my views.

All I can say, is that if you feel fragile, that is your right. We all have our sensitive spots. But if you feel that way, then maybe the healthiest thing would be to not challenge an atheist and then become hurt when they don't back down. Debate is different than preaching----and when posters fill up so much space defending their belief, laying it out for challenge and discussion, then getting irritated at the person that takes them up on it does not seem reasonable.

NC

FlyingHighNow

New Chapter, how long has it been since you believed in the WT religion and practiced it?

Atheism

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