The New Atheism movement
 

I've seen a shit ton of coverage of this lately, so much that I'm more inclined to think it's a sign from God not to be an atheist than to take them as being right. Most recently I watched the video Metal linked in the ATI board, but I figured I'd respond more in focus here.

I don't really care to talk about what proofs there are and how well they work or how badly they fail. For one thing, from a theological perspective it wouldn't make sense for a god to leave abounding evidence of his existence around for the fact that it would defeat the purpose of life as a test of virtue. At this point, we have reasonable explanations for every facet of why existence is the way it is, except for why we have existence in the first place. To say that the existential buck stops at God or at the big bang, neither one is more intrinsically rational in and of themselves.

Obviously, personal conviction is and should be the biggest factor in one's faith in God or lack thereof. I think the biggest problem that the New Atheists movement fails to consider is that some people are perfectly justified in believing in God just from statistics. Like, if someone wins the lottery right when they need it, to them personally they are likely to find divine order that the millions who didn't won't find. It's a given that one person in a million or whatever will win, but for that person it's a one in a million to be him. Does this provide objective proof? No, absolutely not. But it falls to the realm of rational personal conviction.

Another thing that really annoys me is that the new atheist movement has a total condescending attitude toward inter-religious dialog. There's no credit they can possibly give to rational theists who hold rational views and use them in a rational manner, because to do so would threaten their paradigm. As such, the only language they are capable of using is hyperbole. Religion is de facto synonymous with racism, fanaticism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anything else that's bad. In his most recent book, it was famously pointed out that Richard Dawkins consults no scholastic authority whatsoever from the theological camp. No academic journals from theological sources. At all. He has publicly stated that theology is a non-subject. Seriously, how can he talk about something when he has no idea what it really is? Isn't that a little, umm, propaganda-ish?

The main strategy they seem to use is to caricature a Christian as being all things bad, then suggesting that "If Jesus was homophobic then he obviously didn't exist". Seriously, how much sense does that make? Ironically, it's been quite the meme (a term Dawkins invented) to associate Jesus as the symbol of naivete, and thus an automatic L-O-L symbol. Really, is it a good idea to promote the idea that atheists love their neighbors, when they deny the existence of the person to whom we have ascribe the Beatitudes?

To take a totally naturalistic perspective on Christ, you would have to say that he was born of a non-virgin, he died and rotted in the ground somewhere, and nowhere in between did he raise the dead or walk on water. But, it's totally asinine to suppose that he didn't exist and that he held no lasting influence on the culture around him. In particular, The God Who Wasn't There uses patently wrong history (mostly in the introductory segment) to achieve its ends. Anyone who's surprised that Christ was ascribed an amalgamation of different mythological attributes is a moron--atheist, Christian, or otherwise.

The most annoying form of condescension I see employed is counterfactualism. It's very popular to suggest that if the Crusades or the Inquisition never happened, a perfectly secular world would have turned out better and the present would be prettier. Even on the faulty grounds that both the Crusades and the Inquisition were both mostly secular in operation, any supposition that to remove religion from the picture would give a prettier portrait is totally speculative and vacuous. I personally believe that were there a drastic paradigm shift, society could operate to some extent lacking consensus in religious ideology. That is, the world wouldn't fall apart if we were suddenly atheist. But, it's totally moronic to suppose that an atheistic society would be in any way immune or even less susceptible to bigotry and warfare. I would have to take a long ordeal to explain why, but an atheistic society would by nature exacerbate social relations between classes. Maybe wars would happen less frequently, I doubt it, but when they did break out then in the absence of total long-standing plurality of nations there would be total chaos. Humanitarian concerns would be forgotten.

Plus, what exactly does the New Atheist movement wish to achieve? They could be as right as right can be in regards verisimilitude, but to think that they're going to make a lasting mark in their own lifetimes regarding the religious status quo is more far-fetched than saying that a divine figure once turned water into wine. Be they right or be they wrong, they're not going to do anything productive besides marginalize themselves. There are what I would consider to be worthwhile atheist activities, but these tend to run the line of Atheists for Jesus or Secular Humanism. Statistics show that Americans trust Muslims on average more than they do atheists, and they have only themselves to blame. If they want to make a difference, then they should work for a positive change rather than bitch. Really, the New Atheism movement is founded on bitching about how stupid they think the rest of the world is. They can hold their opinions all they want, and talk about them til their tongues fall off. But really, what besides bitching are they really accomplishing? In the end, all they're saying is "I'm going to oblivion when I die, and boy does that feel good." What moral or message or enticement is that, really? Even to put aside Pascal's Wager, why should cognizance of life's supposed futility be anything of which one should brag and prosylitize? If they really think that the fact that Jerry Falwall is an asshole affects an underlying metaphysical truth of theistic ontology, then they really have no claim to the term "bright".

I can't respond to this in full now due to lack of time, but I will say that the term "bright" is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. They say it's not supposed to be associated with the obvious connotation of "intelligent" but it very obviously does.

I didn't much care for that video, either, but then again it's just another piece of the same crap that every atheist with a webcam and a YouTube account puts out at some time or another. It was condescending and guilty of a lot of the same fallacies he accused Christians of being guilty of. Like when he showed that timeline with Satan bouncing about and saying that the first Easter was celebrated in 2300 B.C. or whatever and not showing any proof of it, even a bloody snapshot of an archeological dig.

That and he used that god damn "this is just a simulation" song that every atheist video ever uses, so he loses points for that.

Plus, I think I would've been more shocked if he had asked those questions to theologians who couldn't answer it than people on the street who couldn't answer it. Most people on the street can't tell you what a quadratic equation is either, but you don't film them stumbling around for an answer with the caption "MARTHA JOHNSON: MATH STUDENT FOR 14 YEARS" underneath them. The fact is, any random person you meet on the street isn't likely to know much about any random topic you thrust in their faces.

every atheist "Philosophy" or whatever I've read has been full of... well... i hate to say bigotry or prejudice but it practically is. In my experience most Atheists will talk/write more about how Christians are stupid than whether or not there is a god (which actually works if you're talking about psychology and sociology but this is clearly about God and the universe), they also don't discuss (or discuss very little of) any validity of the philosophic/theological claims, and if they do it seems like they just find some weak, nearly irrelevant claim to consider.
Even when they do discuss psychology and sociology even that seems irrelevant and misleading.

I am an Atheist. I personally couldn't care less what anyone else believes, as long as they don't try to shove it down anyone's throats. I don't think a person's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, necessarily define them as a person.

Problems arise whenever any group thinks that their way is best, and anyone who doesn't see it their way is stupid. So, though I agree with their Atheism, I don't agree with deriding anyone who believes otherwise.

People need to shut the fuck up and keep this silliness to their selves. Religion/Spirituality/Whatever is an extremely personal thing. Leave me out of yours, and I'll leave you out of mine.

Re: The New Atheism movement
 

I've been reading Dawkins' "The God Delusion" (the release of which can be reasonably said to have sparked all of this New Atheism coverage we've been seeing) and I think it's actually quite good.

Is it fair to call this a "movement"?

A lot of people would like to see it that way.

I just had a movement myself.

I just have a problem with Christians who think they have the right to shove their blind faith down everybodies throat. They think it's their job to save everybody on one hand, then stage God Hates Fags rallies with the others. If Jesus did exist, he was a very tolerant and accepting guy, something modern Christians seem to forget when it's convenient. If there is a God, it's highly unlikely that it's sitting up there judging everything you do, whereas his followers do nothing but judge everyone else.

The fact that the Bible has been re-written several times throughout history to fit the needs of whatever ruling class there was at the time doesn't speak much towards it's credibility. It's also missing books thanks to the Vatican picking and choosing for you what you need to know about Jesus' time on Earth.

Thank you, Dan Brown.

:lol

I think the aim of this "movement" (or at least a large portion thereof) is to bring atheists together as an organized body. Which seems like a really bad idea to me. I think that kind of goes against what most atheists stand for. It's too much akin to organized religion for my tastes.

While the Bible has been "re-written" several times throughout history, I generally think that the most rewrites have come about via translations, and in that some of the actual meaning has been lost. I won't deny that I think some of the Bible was changed in order to fit more with the ideology of the current day, though whether or not this occurs to fit in with the ideology of the ruling class or just the general public is uncertain.

And, yes, I do have a problem with the books that are considered canon having been handpicked and most of the other manuscripts destroyed or locked away, but I think some of the ones that Vatican chose to do wtihout were practical choices. I mean, I'm a fairly spiritual person, and even I would be hard pressed to believe some of the shit they wrote in some of the other scriptures, such as the Infant Gospels.

Just my two cents, anyway.

You do know that we have the original Greek texts of the New Testament, and the Old Testament in both the original Hebrew and Greek, right?

"We" meaning you Illuminati folk, right?

I know, but mainstream Christians don't exactly usually go and pick those up to read. You have a valid point, though. However, at the same time, translation, even if you yourself are reading through those texts and personally translating it, requires, to some extent, interpretation as to how some of the words are being used. It wouldn't be hard to mistake some of the meaning of the original text when attempting to translate/read it.

Intelectual circle-jerking is really all it is. I just don't get atheism in general anymore. I used be a full atheist in middle school, until I realized that saying there is absolutely no god is as retarded and fallacious as saying that there is. I now hover somewhere around agnostic and deist. I don't think I could ever actually believe any religion, unless Jesus were to come down from heaven and miraculously make my cock 14 inches, or something. But you all have heard this shit before. I'll shut up now.

That used to be my logic except for the fact that it doesn't really hold up when you use the same logic in a similar situation. For example, if it's a matter of faith to say "I believe God doesn't exist," it's another matter of faith to say "I believe Zeus doesn't exist," or "I believe unicorns don't exist," or whatever you want to substitute. And yet nobody would say that they're agnostic about those things, and it's a perfectly respectable position to say that you don't believe any of those things exist and be "certain" of it.

That's exactly why I'm always reluctant to give any kind of name to whatever the fuck the higher order is. I have an inkling that there is something greater than this universe, but not proof. I also do not know what the fuck it is. God? Aliens from another dimension? I don't presume to know.

Just checking: it doesn't like I misunderstood your post, does it Emu? Please correct me if you think I did.

Well said. These are my thoughts exactly.

Praise Science!

I've never even read the DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons, you fail.

And Science dammit!

I'm glad the joke was lost on you, Mr. Deduction.

You're the one that conveys a stark ignorance of history, and I'm the one that fails because of it? Brilliant.

The Wired article I read on the subject was pretty interesting. In the end, the writer decided that he wants to be an atheist, but everyone he interviewed was a total douche regardless. I guess the main crux of the movement is that religious tolerance shouldn't be a given any longer.

I see no stark ignorance of history in my post. It is a known fact that the Vatican is sitting on top of a veritable mountain of historical, theological, and cultural documents, that for whatever reason, they refuse to release to the public. They don't even deny this fact. As far as the rest of religious history goes, I know plenty about Christianity's very violent and bloody rise to prominence. It's history is downright repulsive, and is littered with the ashes millions of so-called non-believers. Organized religion has brought plenty of death and despair to the world throughout it's time.

When was the last time that religious tolerance was a given in the world? Muslims for sure don't believe in it, and every Christian evangelist I see on the TV sure has a wealth of hate speak to share about non-Christians. It works both ways. Except hate speak is perfectly acceptable when it's coming from underneath the shroud of God.

It's nice that instead of rebuffing my claim that calling the West's history of persecution "bloody" is vacuous and counterfactual, you simply repeated the fact that you don't know shit.

Seriously, the Vatican Secret Archives? Anyone high enough in academia can request to read any damn thing they want in there, it just requires a lot of red tape because you're talking about 11th Century folios in there and not some geeks comic collection.

So, for having never read Dan Brown's books, you sure make a great fan of his.

I mean, seriously. People who whine about how terrible the Crusades were don't have a fucking clue what the Crusades actually were. It's not like centuries of those thoroughly secular conflicts came remotely close in terms of killing to what the antitheist regimes of the 20th century did.

You should look into that stark ignorance of history, it's kind of problematic.

It's incredibly rediculous to debate over whether or not God exists when we cannot even come to a consensus as to what our concept of God should be.

Whenever one speaks of God, he should probably define what he means. Only then can any decent criticism of God be given - with, of course, respect to that particular account.

"Ridiculous."

No, I don't think that's the problem. Dawkins and his ilk have said they don't oppose "Einsteinian Theism" (which by their description matches nothing of what Einstein believed) on the grounds that it's not really theism at all. Their claim is that religion is intrinsically bad and should be abolished... somehow. They seem to think that being condescending pricks will do the job, 'cuz that's all they really do.

Especially in light of Sam's post, I didn't intend this to have anything to do with belief in a god or lack thereof. If someone wants to not believe in a god because that's how her convictions stand, that's perfectly reasonable. However, right now antitheism is being repackaged and is trying to inundate the media. (No, I don't believe in that "liberal media" bullshit, the media simply gives people what they want to pay to hear because that's how money is made.) Nothing they say is new, which is why I'm so curious as to how and why it's such a big movement now. I mean, the same strategy was employed in France in the 1790s, and boy did that turn out swimmingly. The big difference, however, is that in the 1790s most everyone was well-read in theology. The new atheists rant about how far-fetched Zeus is, then insist that all theism is the exact same thing with different names.

God says to shutup OAO

Damn straight.

What makes you say that? From what I've seen everything I've seen Dawkins and others talk about has been right in line with what Einstein apparently believed.

No

Einstein's actual writings on religious experience were very explicit.

“The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.”

Albert Einstein in a letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 217.

“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.”

Albert Einstein, 1947; from Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein Creator and Rebel, New York: New American Library, 1972, p. 95.

This is EXACTLY what they mean by "Einsteinian god." And the New Atheist movement doesn't oppose this kind of view, and in fact kind of espouses it in some ways.

Almost, but not quite. Spinoza was more or less a pantheist, and that is what Einstein was going for. Einstein states above that God is not "personal", but every other source on him I've read implies that he believed in some kind of teleological direction of the universe. That's what pantheism is. Atheism in all of its forms rejects this outright, lest its members really be pantheists.

I've always interpreted it as meaning that the universe is a fundamentally lawful place ("God does not roll dice," etc.) and that any teleological direction like you've mentioned could and would have to arise naturally from those laws in place, not that there was a concious motivator behind everything, which is perfectly compatible with an atheistic viewpoint.

first, i'd like to say that i agree with everything sspadowsky said. ;o

second, is that book full of big words, emu? i've been meaning to pick it up, but i don't like reading a million big words at once. :X

The political scientist Eric Voegelin basically says that for reality to have a knowable "order of being" that can be studied, there must be a transcendent source of being.
I think what he meant by that was that for reality to be a 'fundamentally lawful place', and thereby a place where a scientist can potentially know things about the fundamental order of the universe, there has to be something eternal to the universe. Otherwise, you basically have the universe being ordered by the roll of the cosmic dice. If the natural order of the universe was only immanent, and had no transcendent origin, there might not be any reason to assume that they are actually eternal and hence constitute a knowable order to the universe. If reality is limited to the immanent, sensible, temporal universe, then even something like the law of gravity may have been the result of the conditions of early cosmic history. If gravity was just something that happened when the big bang had caused certain conditions, then is there any neccesary reason to suppose that such a supposed 'natural law' could not be fundamentally changed again by cosmic-historical circumstances? Couldn't the same be said about other 'natural laws'?
Without a transcendent source for the existing universe, what happens is you have what Voegelin called "the decapitation of being", where reality and the teleology you mention comes from immanent history, and is subject to fundamental change through the process of immanent history.

Well, I didn't want this to devolve into an argument for or against a god's existence, but since it's pertinent I just thought I'd augment by alluding to Dawkins' appearance on The Colbert Report. Dawkins said "but who created GOD??", then Colbert said "God is outside of time!" then Dawkins went on a rant about how that's a non-answer.

The thing is, it's not. Theology in the Neo-Platonism era delved deeply into that question, and if he wants to rebuff it he's certainly not going to do so in two breaths or less. However, having publicly stated that theology is a non-subject, Dawkins castrates himself of the potential for any meaningful discourse on that subject.

Here's what I was getting at with my statement: I see Dawkins and his cohorts much in the same way I see Pat Robertson: a loudmouthed fringe douchebag who claims to represent the majority of his group, but doesn't even come close.

Live and let live, baby.

Yeah kinda but I think it's pretty accessable over all.

I wouldn't put Dawkins on the same level as Pat Robertson, but I do kind of agree wtih you on that part. Robertson has an unabashed political agenda, and I think Dawkins at least has good intentions for what he does. I don't like the evangelistic stance he's been taking lately but on some level I guess I can see it as necessary to accomplish any kind of goal of bringing atheists together as a recognized minority, which desperately needs to happen when we're getting reports that atheists are far and away the last trusted minority group in America, beating out Jews, Muslims and even homosexuals. Most families would let their Christian children marry Jewish or Muslim or what-have-you faiths before they would let them marry an atheist. I wanted to link to the actual article but the site's being a cuntjob right now. In the event that it comes back up, here it is:

http://www.ur.umn.edu/FMPro?-db=rele...&ID=2816&-Find

I am worried that this evangelistic stance may end up turning a lot of atheists into the quasi-religious bigots that a good portion of theists make us out to be. But you could argue that that kind of coherence is what atheists need to make any kind of social progress for themselves. The Christian mainstream in particular have a difficult time thinking of a group of people without some kind of "stereotype of ideas" that they all share -- for themselves it's the Bible, for Muslims it's the Koran, soforth. It's arguable that any minority group you can present has at least some kind of coherent culture that pulls them all together as a group, but atheists don't have that. The only thing any atheist has in common with any other atheist is that they don't believe in God. Any of their other beliefs can be as radical as anybody else's.

I think what I'm getting at is that yeah, Dawkins and the rest of them are loudmouthed, but MAYBE something good could come of it if they can get atheists to become a recognized minority group.

I see where you're coming from, Emu. I do think Atheists get a bum rap, and I would like to see more recognition and respect. Still, I'm wary of any kind of herd mentality, even if I agree with the philosophy, and I don't think that damning the other groups is the way to go about getting respect.

Why is it so bad that America trusts athetists less than Muslims and Jews and homosexuals?

And how in God's name do they come up with an accurate survey to find out such random information that I imagine is different from person to person.


Maybe families want their religious traditions or some form of a religious tradition to be an important part of their children's lives. I'm sure having a die hard atheist as one half of a marriage(where the other person is religious) could be stressful around religious holidays if they are anything like Dawkins.

I personally am an anti-theist.

Dawkins et al. may be pricks, but who cares.

Well, speaking solely for myself, Ant

Like I said, I am a secular person. It just so happens that I fell madly in love with a fairly devout Christian, and she feels the same way about me. Neither of us want our relationship to have to end based on those religious differences, or have them even be a source of problems. So what did we do? We talked it over. We discussed, and continue to discuss from time to time, ways to negotiate through our differences.

For example, I have no problem accompanying her to church from time to time, despite the fact that I will likely never believe in what they talk about. I have no problem engaging in religious holidays, as I have done that my whole life since before I lost faith. If we ever end up getting married and starting a family, she may raise the children as christians, as this is really her primary concern. Neither of us will force our beliefs on the other. So you see, it can work out. You just have to want it to and not be afraid to work it out.

So you capitulated. Good man!

Yeah, I'm sure it looks that way, but it honestly doesn't feels like it. What she wants is signs that I accept her for who she is, and I give those to her. All I ask for in return is that she not bug me with any "convert or burn!!!" stuff. So it's not that I threw in the towell; I just have fewer demands.

It is a movement in the sense that some Atheists now want their lack of belief recognized and catered to. I don't know if politicized Atheism is new, but the thought that anything hinting of a religious belief is an offense to their sensibilities is definetly being brought to the forefront.

Isn't it about time?? We've had to bow to the christians for the last 2000 years. It's OUR turn.

Ok, granted, I'm biased because my sister is a religious freak, and I have to listen to her say "God really blessed me that time!" and "If I hadn't stalled RIGHT THEN, I'd be DEAD! God took care of me!" and "I'll pray for you." I still want to shove broken glass up her ass.

Like gays or the fact celebrities are racist or drunks? Religion is basing your countries vote of who is worthy to run your country instead of who is capable or intelligent enough. Imagine an intelligent guy that didn't believe in God running for President :/

Your right. That's exactly all religion is. Thank you for the groundbreaking discovery.

You don't understand that anything that is acknowledged is a Gold medal in my books :( Thank you and fuck you have two meanings.

Um, most of the state laws restricting the rights of homosexuals have been people driven initiatives. What has the president done?

There's a reason people like Pat Robertson could never be the president of this country. People like someone with faith because it supposedly speaks about their character, or it shows that they have a foundation in their values, which might give a glimpse into how they will govern.

It applies to Southern conservatives when they protest abortion, but it also applies to Catholic governors when they oppose the death penalty.

How would having an intelligent atheist as president of a country with a large Christian population be better in your atheistic, secular-humanist, Canadian socialist perspective...?

Not necessarily true. While Christians have held quite a bit of power before, they've also faced severe persecution before. Granted, Christians are hardly the most persecuted people in the world, but it's not like we've had supreme power/control over the governments of the world before, let alone here.

:| Huh? Out of curiousity, could you clarify what you just said, because I have no idea as to what the fuck you're talking about.

Really? I did not know that. Thank you so much for clearing that up.

I will say this, however; while a Christian, I wouldn't mind having an avowed and open atheist as President as long as he proved to be capable and intelligent. While I wouldn't exactly approve if he made all his decisions based on his own personal religious belief, neither do I approve of those Christians who make all their decisions based around their religious beliefs.

I'm a strict supporter of separation of Church and State, and as long as you do a good job in office, I don't care what you are, as long as you don't sacrifice babies to Cthulhu or some shit.

Bob, old buddy old pal...you're full of shit. More people have been slaughtered in THE NAME OF GOD than in any 3 wars you can name put together. Christianity is DRENCHED in blood and power. Nowadays they dont' murder for god, they just try to control everything for god. Bastards.

Yeah, but atheists in the 20th Century killed more people than Christians did in the previous 19 centuries combined. That's even if you throw in the Crusades, which in reality had virtually nothing to do with religion. Do you really want to speculate on who would have a better track record had atheism dominated the common era?

Really? Do you have some comparative numbers? I'm curious.

How many people died in the Crusades, and then how many died in Cambodia under Pol Pot? How about Mao or Stalin? Did they murder for Christianity?

People will always find a reason to kill each other. Don't blame that on Jesus.

EDIT: I was responding to Wart.

You're both assuming that these "non-religious" killings are because of atheism, which is totally wrong. You're lumping other murders committed for political agendas with people killing because they DON'T believe in god. You're just muddying the waters now.

No, they murdered for political reasons, which had nothing to do with christianity, and can't be counted.

I'm not. I'm blaming it on people who kill in THE NAME of god.

No dipshit, what I'm saying (I wouldn't dare venture to speak for Seth on these matters) is that mankind has killed itself over and over for a lot of reasons. The 30 Year War is a fine example of religion being used as a political excuse, not as a catalyst for war and death.

And while we're at it, my examples weren't about atheism? What were the Khmer Rouge killing for? What do the teachings of Communism say about religion?

If you want to compare apples to apples, it's been exceptionally rare that any sizable group has been executed simply for having certain beliefs. However, religion is a convenient label in history to see where people set their alliances. You can't really rationalize the cooperation seen between select groups of Christian and Muslim mercenaries in the Crusades if each group mutually saw the other as subhuman and worthy of annihilation, as revisionists like to paint. However, it was very convenient to say "hey, this whole shebang was started by the Muslims, so let's go for Christian unity in a war about control over land mass."

If you want to talk about the Inquisition, especially the Spanish one, you had better have a great deal of research behind you because it's quite a complex issue. At any rate, the Church lacked the authority to condemn people to death, so the few tens of thousands that died in it did so at the hands of the state.

The same goes for the other side. For example, a family friend of mine is pure-bred Vietnamese, but his great-grandfather was executed for being Catholic. Were those responsible all that concerned about his religious beliefs? No, but to be Catholic implied a political bond or at least sympathy with the French, and that's why he lost his head.

And going back to apples to apples, there is nothing fundamentally antitheist about far-left political ideology. However, Marx and his followers made the brash assumption that religious affiliation would espouse a conflict of interest in a worker's uprising, and hence historical attempts at communism followed suit and executed indiscriminately for any allegiance other than to the state. So, it's absolutely idiotic to say "Christians killed because they're Christian, but atheists killed because, umm... they felt like it."

Show me where I said "Christians killed because they're Christian, but atheists killed because, umm... they felt like it."

"No, they murdered for political reasons, which had nothing to do with christianity, and can't be counted."

And that's not the same thing AT ALL.

Why did Pol Pot kill so many people? Mad men like him were in fact driven by atheism. Religion is the opium, blah blah, right?

Let's go back to an earlier comment:

"You're both assuming that these "non-religious" killings are because of atheism, which is totally wrong. You're lumping other murders committed for political agendas with people killing because they DON'T believe in god. You're just muddying the waters now."

Why then was religion banned in Cambodia?

People who kill "in the name of God" are killing for themselves. I mean, it's not exactly like these wars were fought trying to sacrafice their own first born son or something. Atheists also kill for themselves. As far as I can tell the entire atheist idealogy is doing things for yourself rather than "in the name of God", in the name of country or whatever. Yet most people who do things "In the name of God" are doing them "For themselves". So really what we're talking about is humanities inherent selfishness. I think people pretty much have the same motivations no matter what religous/cultural background they come from.

also it's probable that although the church may not have been able to directly condemn anyone to death I don't think it changes the fact that they riled people up enough to be capable of condemning others to death. I mean, religous followers feel guilty about killing sometimes, religion is a pretty good excuse to kill. so is the interests of national security, patriotism, democracy and the american dream!

I see no difference in fighting for a religous institution or a political institution as far as "justice" "goodness" or "Rightness" go, because what is good, right and just is often decided by the religous and political institution. (same with any social institution)

I don't recall ever having denied this. Of course Christianity was drenched in blood and power, and this occured when the Christian church attempted to become more of a political body than a religious body, because the oldest form of establishing a powerful political body was through war and violence.

However, I find it ironic that you didn't even bother to address what I actually said, that being about the persecution of Christians in response to your idea that Christians have always ruled. Are you meaning to say, sir, that Christians have not been heavily persecuted throughout history? I'm certain that history proves you wrong. Now, before you bitch and say that I'm just trying to use this as an excuse for what the Church did, I'm not. What the Church had done in an attempt to elevate itself in power in the political arena, while using the excuse that they were agents of God, was an atrocity. But several other groups have committed equal atrocities, as well as other religious groups having said they killed in the name of God other than Christianity. Don't make it seem as if Christians pioneered killing in the name of a deity; it was done far before they came into power.

I think united athiest alliance is a better name, science damn those Otters,

I knew it'd be only a matter of time before some retard brought up South Park.

Atheists have been responsible for all the wars, therefore they should be eradicated.

Honestly, guys like Falwell or crazy Islamists add more fuel to the atheist movement than Dawkins or Dennett ever will.

Okay, but one of the fundamental tenants of "new" atheism is that there's no such thing as moderate theism. That's the irritating part.

Moderate theism in terms of what? Like an agnostic theist or a non-fundamentalist?

I get a sense of legs being pulled of instead of answers being sought.

I get a sense of legs being pulled off instead of answers being sought.

Rule #1 for internet posting in general: Never argue politics with a Canadian.

Rule #2 for internet posting in general: Never argue logic with an atheist.

I think it's pretty much a matter of extrapolation that arguing with atheistic Canadians is only a pastime for dumbasses.

Well, I meant moderate theism as in, those who may or may not follow some brand-name faith but at any rate do not carry them to the point of some arbitrarily-defined notion of extremism.

I think there is definitely something atheistic about extremist ideologies. The main assumption underlying extreme ideologies like communism or nazism is that the world is infinitely malleable by ideology and power. Why else would they think that they could create some kind of utopian master race/universal homogenous communist state by killing loads of people? If you seriously believed that God created the universe, and didn't have a severely pathological idea of what that means, then you wouldn't try to alter God's creation in a radical way by trying to destroy as much of it as you can. If the human race, and the universe in general was created by God, then killing several million kulaks or jews or people who wear yellow socks isn't going to allow you to become a creator. A seriously religious person would have a greater degree of respect for the dignity of humanity, since he would not view it as a malleable substance for his will, since he would believe in a will greater than his that prohibits his intereference in the order of the universe.

And as for those people that think that God is telling them to kill people to do His work, that kind of view is dependent on an attitude about God that is quite frankly closer to atheism than it is to theism. The implication in God telling you to kill someone to do His work is that you (human) are the divine creative agency, and that you have more power over the order of being then God. This is not a serious theistic attitude. Someone who thinks that he can ram a plane into a building, or do whatever violence you people seem to think Christians love to engage in, and by doing such violence against creation bring creation closer to a divine order are in a spiritually diseased condition.

Seriously, people who argue that atheism is morally superiror to religion are absolutely asinine. I used to be one of those people, and it's not like I'm a religious fundamentalist now, but I can at least see the obvious fact that atheism is not a good, liberating thing. When I listen to this Sam Harris guy that wrote "Letter to A Christian Nation" and such talk about how his morality is better than religious morality because religious people just do it for some cosmic pay off and he does it because he's "altruistic" I want to fucking gag. Altruism, a word that tries to imitate a Christian idea, invented by an atheist that tried to imitate Christianity. Bleh, and his talk about how religion keeps us from efficiently dealing with our grief when people die. I'm sure in His atheist nation, we'd all be well supplied with plenty of stoma to help us forget those to whom we've had a history of mutual altruistic relations.

But ya, read a bit about the history of totalitarianism in the 20th century before you talk about how great the 'tolerance' of atheism is. When you don't believe in anything, you may be have a reason to be supremly tolerant, but you also have a reason to have supreme confidence that anything is possible.

Edit- sorry, i forgot to go to the next page and didn't raealize Seth had already taken care of this. :/

Ok, so for the life of me I can't find the book I'm looking for, I think it was this one, not one of the silly one's about his love life, but I'll try my best nutshell at least MY impression of one of Einstein's letters on the subject. This is the furthest thing, by the way, from quoting the man, as everything in my head is filtered through all the other stuff in there...

Essentially, he felt that human beings typically experienced spirituality on three different levels. The vast majority of people relate to it on a basis of fear, wherein "If I do something wrong, I will get punished by a wrathful God." A smaller minority of people utilize their sense of spirituality to gain reward, as in, "When I do good things, I receive blessings from a kind and loving God."

Einstein counted himself in the third group of people, and he guessed that most high achievers in the world no matter their field of study also experience spirituality on this level: something in the way of "I understand the ebb and flow of things that is beyond our ability to comprehend, and I am necessarily a part of that." Again, this last bit is probably the hardest part for me to recall exactly, as it's the most interesting part and thus the one I've blended the most with other things. I'm pretty sure that's as close to what he actually said as I can get from memory.

Now, I'm no Einstein, but what I extrapolated from his thoughts on the subject led me to believe that atheists also exist in the three level structure as he defined it. I honestly believe that it's impossible to live on this planet while being completely detached from the idea of God simply for environmental reasons. I believe most atheists reject the idea of God as understood by those living in one of the first two levels, and seek something less threatening or crass to base their lives in.

I also believe there is room in the third level for a kind of atheistic existence, even though from my point of view that person would have to be a pretty foul dude... maybe an "anti-theist," though I don't think that quite names him. I know that it's gonna be easy to say that Einstein was talking about science, but he was discussing spirituality outside of Physics, the supernatural, not science. I think he saw that "ebb and flow" in personal relations and human interaction with the other bits and pieces of the universe in terms of morally right or wrong choices that, though they may be within us to understand, they are not of us.

That being said, Einstein contradicted himself many times in his life, and he was also wrong on a few of his assertions. If you really wish to understand what he really felt about anything, even science, the absolute worse thing you can do is snatch a few random quotes from here or there and say you get what he meant. You couldn't do that with the Theory of Relativity, could you?

Now, if you are simply trying to count a great man on "you side" in any argument, throwing disembodied quotes around is the perfect way to go about that. Einstein never wrote a book about God, and he wasn't known to have spent a hell of a lot of time studying the matter. He also wrote that were mankind to refuse to wholly accept the precepts of Socialism that refusal would spell it's own doom. I suspect he was part inspiration for Dr. Simon Pritchett in Atlas Shrugged, even. He was a smart guy that accomplished unbelievable things in his time, but to seek his wisdom in the unpublished part of his life requires a bit of extrapolation from much of his work, not just a casual sentence or two out of context with the rest of his life.

I wish I had that book. Meh... If I quoted it now, I'd probably wind up looking like a dumbass.

"Seriously, people who argue that atheism is morally superiror to religion are absolutely asinine."

That's kind of the point I was trying to make. How can you call something morally superior while people aren't being guided by their moral compasses? Obviously, the morality of a person couldn't be decided by such a means. The morality of an entire system, maybe, but still not on an individual level. Christians have their moral compasses set by a religion they often don't understand, and more or less follow blindly. Atheists usually have their moral compass set by a political institution or something similar. Very few atheists set their own moral code, most of them probably think morals are too religous or something.

I just don't see how you can say something is morally superior that promotes the somewhat blind acceptance of any given order, when morality by all means is always about the mind frame/actions the individual person does. Atheism in this regard would seem to have a heads up on christianity in that it's all about personal choices, but still most of them become selfish and so interested in what is theirs and what could be theirs that morality is lost ;/
Really there's no other solid atheistic philosophy that arises beyond the fact that because God doesn't exist only we exist as the creators and formers like you said. That opens the door up for way to many immoral choices if our morality is essentially that anything is acceptable so long as we will it to happen.

I think it's very hard to judge someone morally who does things in the interest of the state or "God"/religion. Really what you are judging them for isn't so much their "lack of morals" but their ignorance and stupidity for following a ridiculous system even into the territory of extremetism.

I think both of them have the same potential for morality. Then, I don't really understand the extent to which the new atheist movement strives.

I find it interesting that about 80 years ago Bertrand Russell wrote something fairly similiar to what Dawkins wrote, and he was banned from teaching in New York. Dawkins writes his book, and starts a movement.

I wonder what that says about society today

Please, do not read that as me trying to say we are evolving intellectually or anything. It just makes you think, doesnt it?

Oxford is the epicenter of the movement now. 800 years ago, it was created to foster Catholic theological education.

I dont even know how to explain something like that. I really doubt its a result of people getting smarter. Maybe people are just getting more cynical.

Technically, I'm a registered Unitarian (i was registered when i was born i guess). If you were to ask me anything about Unitarianism, i probably wouldnt be able to answer you. I consider myself an agnostic.

The Ivory Tower isn't immune to the caprice of fashion. Really, that's all there is to it. I think the main reason why Oxford and Cambridge were so conservative until recently is that they didn't want to dirty themselves with Continental ideals, which by and by were quite liberal for their time. Like, I doubt that Darwin would have been sanctioned and ridiculed so heavily if his ideas weren't so heavily influenced by French Enlightenment-era thinkers. Sad as it is, intellectualism is defined by fashion mentality. I went to a school synonymous with minimally obstructed capitalism (the "Chicago School of Economics", being not the school itself but the movement fostered by its faculty) yet I had more socialist professors than I did conservative ones. However, the socialist ones were tenure-hunters and the conservative one was already a celebrity, but still.

FUNNY STORY: My Marxist history professor was so egalitarian that he wouldn't give advice on papers for his class because that would instill an unfair advantage against those students too lazy to ask for his help.

Back to the aforementioned, a fellow board member showed me an article talking about people finally venting their frustration at string theory. The argument is that too much attention is being given to it because it's fashionable, when in fact it's astronomically improbable that we'll see any applications of it for the real world during any of our lifetimes. As a result, we're wasting our time on useless knowledge that we can't possibly prove to even be true. I argue to the contrary that the quantum revolution would have been slowed down substantially if medieval Arab mathematicians hadn't wasted so much time discussing imaginary numbers for which they had no application.

In the end, I think that most respectable institutions have acquired the discipline to always maintain a diverse intellectual palette. Intellectual fads will linger and abound, but when they're translated to mass media their importance is bound to be overstated. Going back to string theory for an example, real string theorists spend most of their time analyzing hypothetical messenger particle interactions and reformulating mathematical identities to look for similarities along different models. However, this all gets turned into headlines like "SEXY BRAIN BRIAN GREENE SAYS WE LIVE IN 11 DIMENSIONS, HOLY FUCKING SHIT".

I knew a teacher that liked to scratch his balls, then wipe the residue of his lunch on our homework :(

I think most people that don't believe in religion hope no one will notice and just leave them alone while the religous try and kill each other :/

why does the fact that none of the atrocities ennumerated in this thread were religiously motivated neccessarily excuse a given religion from culpability? if the religion and its mouthpieces werent around to provide justification it would have made it that much harder for the real power interests to mask their actual motives and quash dissent.

Some people are just dicks.

You can't blame God for that.

Would you rather have a God that would force you to behave?

Jesus Christ, guys... You can't possibly be atheists because people suck at practicing religion. People suck at everything!

im agnostic because i dont see a good reason to believe in a god ;o

"We would be living on mars if it weren't for plato and socrates. I mean, those motherfuckers spent an inordinate amount of time on an unfruitful inquiry into the nature of the human soul, and inspired others to do the same."

Are you serious? "unfruitful"?? Doesn't modern psychology pretty much mimic socrates and platos notion of the soul? Isn't their inquiry into the soul about human motivations behaviorisms?
I'm guessing you're joking but you know just curious.

"if the religion and its mouthpieces werent around to provide justification it would have made it that much harder for the real power interests to mask their actual motives and quash dissent."

I kind of mentioned that in my first post in this thread, actually. It's on the page before this if you're interested.

What is this about making things "harder for real power interests"?
If religion didn't exist then powerful people would have a harder time being powerful? Are you serious? Cliched as it may be to bring up the nazis and communists again and again, they had a pretty easy time of it masking their "power interests" without seriously pretending to be religious.


The powerful don't need religion, useful as it can be to them, to deceive people. People can be deceived by any pretense to morality. Environmentalists, human rights advocates, social workers, government functionaries and freedom fighters, you name the secular do-gooder, and they can and often are ambitious, selfish assholes using popular conventional ideas about morality to mask their self interest. Religiosity is only one of the five qualities Machiavelli mentions as being useful for masking ones power interests. And in case you bring up how much Machiavelli reccomended the use of religion to mask interests, read the rest of chapter 18 and see why Machiavelli thinks a prince is justified in being such a great hypocrite and a liar.

And what would be so great about living on Mars? Is the Earth not good enough for you? In the words of Henry Rollins, fuck Mars.

Although, I suppose you could argue that most secular and atheistic moralists are basically just stealing moral ideas from religion anyway, and are therefore nothing more than 'mouthpieces' of religion anyway.

i remember you saying a while ago you were christian :eek what happened there

big papa goat that's completely ignoring any type of relativity. I wouldn't dare to say that wars wouldn't have happened without the church, but then on the same token I wouldn't say they didn't kindle the fire or get everyone riled up. Regardless of if they condemned anyone to death, they still gave publicity/morale speaches about killing unholy invaders to people who may or may not have felt like killing was bad. Again as i stated before the church would often tell them that killing unholy invaders is not wrong and it's a service to god, which is basically an excuse to kill. A justification, if you will. That has some type of effect, especially in a culture where believing in God is a big deal.
What's important in nazi germany is not important in all times. Furthermore I stated that blind, emotivated following of whether a church or a politicized power are pretty much the same things when it comes down to morality(or call it deception instead of immoral i guess). Similar to the Machiavelli thing, i suppose.
Not only that but since nazi germany was "Atheist" why would religion even be an issue? A NON RELIGOUS STATE BEING NON RELIGOUS? WHAT THE FUCK'S GOING ON?

I keep wanting to talk about beyond good and evil and how "evil" the church was because they were powerless but still had some control over the minds/psychologies of their believers.

i got bad friends :x

How do New Atheists respond to nontheistic religions?

Like everyone else, they get a good chuckle.

Really now? I wasn't aware that Buddhism was a laughing matter.