The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Atheists As Religious Kooks

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

LonBecker — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:05:19 -0000

Your point seems to be that atheism is not a belief system rather than that it is not a belief. But in general if one believes ones beliefs are more reasonable than the alternative (not a bad thing to believe) than one should do so on the basis of defending ones beliefs rather than trying to classify things so that ones beliefs are less in need of defending.

As for Atta, I seem to remember reading that some of those strong fundamentalist Muslims were going to strip clubs before the attack. Now maybe they were just impatient, or maybe they weren't as convinced as all that that they had their virgins waiting for them, or maybe they were just not as committed to all of the teachings of Islam as all that.

The only serious study on the subject concludes that being muslim is less a factor in suicide bombings than are other factors. There have been female suicide bombers, and non-religious suicide bombers. If one has an argument which explains why suicide bombing is a problem special to Islam when it turns out that suicide bombing is not special to Islam, then ones argument has a problem.

Atheists tend to give as one of the virtues of atheism that it is a view based on reason. And yet atheists seem as capable of anyone else of using ridicule instead of reason using arguments that only work in one situation as if they worked in other situations without noticing they no longer work and in general showing as much capability as anyone else in failing to use reason.

It is possible that the motivation of religious people is not always what their pure doctrine says it should be either.

In trying to make a case that is important for many reasons, like understanding what motivates muslim suicide bombers, it really is better to have actual evidence than to fill in what one wants to be the case based on circumstantial evidence.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

BreakerBaker — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:59:36 -0000

Now, if we're going to get technical, atheism and agnosticism are connected, but different concepts. What a lot of people here want to describe as a reasonable sense of atheism (myself included) actually falls closer to agnosticism than it does to atheism, which literally is about a belief that there is no God. If we want to expand it, as I sometimes do, it's about a disbelief in God, which allows for a little bit of intellectual wiggle room. Still, fundamentally, atheism is about a rejection of the belief in the Divine or the supernatural. The fact of the matter is that it's difficult to walk that line, to take on that title, and not come off like a dick. It just is. Particularly when you (not you) use it to attack the people of the world who have faith. No, many of them do not have a high opinion of atheists, but that doesn't mean they're responsible for all of the problems of the world. That doesn't mean the world would be a better place if they would all wise up and realize there's no such thing as Heaven or Hell. Or reincarnation. Or Nirvana. In fact, I do not question for a moment that the world would be a much worse place today if people stopped believing tomorrow.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

BreakerBaker — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:34:36 -0000

Carrington,

I’m sorry I never saw your response to this until this morning. I don’t expect you to see my response at all. But in case you do: you’re right, the 50+ million includes deaths by famine associated with the Great Leap Forward. It also includes executions numbering in the millions (during the period when he was securing power), and countless enemies of the Party who were driven to suicide. Here’s a quote:

“Along with land reform, there were also campaigns of mass repression and public executions targeting alleged counter-revolutionaries (Zhen Fan), such as former Kuomintang officials, businessmen, former employees of Western companies, intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect, and significant numbers of rural gentry. The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, 800,000 killed in the Zhen Fan campaign. Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were executed during the years 1949–53. However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution", the number of deaths range between 2 million and 5 million. In addition, at least 1.5 million people were sent to "reform through labour" camps. Mao played a personal role in ordering these mass executions. He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.”

Now, even if we remove the tens of millions dead due to the policies of the Great Leap Forward (I don’t think we should, but for argument’s sake), we’re still left with a mass murderer who killed well over 20 times as many people as the Inquisition and the Crusades combined.

Now, you can make the argument that he had a lot more people at his disposal. That's unquestionably true. But that doesn't change the fact that it happened. And it happened recently. And it had nothing to do with religion or God. It had to do with a human desire to conquer and to dominate and to rule. Now, I'm obviously not defending the Crusades or the Inquistion, or the people blowing themselves up in Pakistan. I'm saying that religion is a net positive in the history of the world. It continues to be a net positive today. There are a lot of people who use religion to justify the terrible things they already want to do and say. The question has always been who is weilding religion and to what aims. It's the same way with any powerful idea. Religion doesn't corrupt people. People do.

There. I've said my piece.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

ProfessorXavier — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:34:23 -0000

Lon, I think my problem with attaching the description of belief to atheism is that it lowers the standard of proof in the eyes of many that God exists, because it creates the illusion that theism and atheism are on the same plane of thought. They are not on the same plane of thought. For example, atheism does not require one to ascribe veracity to miracles, or to virgin births, or to angels that can recite entire holy books to an illiterate Arab. Atheism carries with it no baggage other than the doubt of such things. It is saying these things are probably absurdly not true and that you have vastly more reliable facts and ideas to focus on.

I agree that there is a lack of direct evidence that Atta and the gang were thinking they would go to heaven after being martyred on September 11, but they were strong fundamentalist Muslims who did believe in the Islamic teaching that those that die defending Islam will immediately ascend to heaven, and that they interpreted their attack as defending Islam. Just connect the circumstantial evidence.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

ThatPirateGuy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:25:28 -0000

You do realize how the rusty nail through the communion wafer thing happened right?

There was a college kid who kept the wafer without eating it and left a service. The kid was subjected to harassment and they tried to kick him out of his college. He even received death threats. PZ was able to have the death threats and other nonsense directed away from the college kid. The stunt was done to make the point that no idea is so sacred that it cannot be criticized. This is why there were pages from the Koran and the origin of species in the trash can as well.

People deserve respect by default. Ideas do not. This is the point of activities like blasphemy day as a protest against anti-blasphemy laws. People have rights, ideas don't.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

ChristinaK — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:37:48 -0000

True, but that doesn't negate the point that a bunch of people gathered together under a single banner (even if it's a Twitter hashtag banner), suggesting that there is more of a movement or group mentality in atheism than some would like to admit. That's not a bad thing. Just saying.

But I have to admit that it was rather funny to me that anyone would want to discuss philosophy on Twitter because, as you point out, it's not a place for nuance.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

BreakerBaker — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:11:33 -0000

stacy,

I absolutely believe that. Religion is, fundamentally a means of organization and a place where people find brotherhood and sense of commonality. I do not have religion, but I don’t dismiss the effect it has over people to recognize a shared humanity that transcends borders and ethnicities. I don’t dismiss the great (and quantifiable) contributions various organized religious groups provide in the form of charitable giving, medical aid, and any number of other obvious ways. I do not dismiss, as so many seem to, the hole that would open up if all of those outlets of giving and sharing were to disappear tomorrow. Nor do I think it’s very much of a stretch to imagine despair stepping up to fill that void. And from desperation, there will quite obviously come a greater amount of violence.

Now, if we’re talking about violence and how religion feeds fanaticism, you’ll have to forgive me if I think that’s a copout. Religion is a tool. People bent on regional, national, or global domination have long used it as a tool to those ends. It’s an effective tool. But it’s only a tool. There are other effective ones out there. Ask the Hutu. Ask the Khmer Rouge. Ask the Soviets. Ask the Nazis. Ask the Mongols. Ask the Greeks. We do not need a religion to justify the annihilation of our brothers and sisters. And history proves this out again and again and again. And everybody here knows this to be true. Even if we've had bad experiences with religion or religious people.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

tmv — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:06:17 -0000

You know, listening to this story, what really occurs to me is that, as usual, a great deal in life comes down to "don't be an &@%hole."

Strip away the window trappings, and extremists on both sides are often identical (which is why you so often see the real die-hards flipping with ease from one side of the spectrum to the other). An insult is an insult no matter what its flavor. If you're evangelizing for atheism, it's as annoying as if you were evangelizing for a religion. An atheist displaying a rusty nail through a communion wafer is just as obnoxious as a Christian feeding a Koran to a pig. Same intolerance with identical goals: to hurt, harass and bully.

Since it's fairly obvious that to walk up to a human being you've never met and give him a good, hard shove is no way to convert that person to your side, I'm more than slightly skeptical about the new atheists' claims to be trying to further their movement. It seems to be more about showing off the same kind of smug self-righteousness that religious fundamentalists exhibit. Oh, and if you sell a lot of books while you're at it, that doesn't hurt either.

Don't be an *&@hole. If you can't show respect, you don't deserve any in return. You're a kid throwing a tantrum. And that's true for both sides.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

ThatPirateGuy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:43:00 -0000

To Grok: Ghandi and MLK jr. are certainly not the average religious person. But that isn't religions fault, they were not the average person.

The probelm with religion is that Pope Benny and our friend Mr. Haggard are the actual leaders.

As one can never know what a person who wears the label christian believes I cannot assume that you believe in hell. But if you do it is a truly monstrous doctrine.

"As for me... there are tests that can be made and have been made that lead me to certain verities: mercy is better than cruelty; justice better than capriciousness; love is better than hate. However much these things have been obscured and oft ignored by religious people, they remain the central tenets of the faith."

regarding said tests, do you have a reference to them that I might examine? A link or a book reference will have to do as this comment thread is a bad forum for that sort of thing. I ask out of mere curiosity.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

brucds — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:45:44 -0000

Unfortunately his writing also helped blow several hundred thousand Iraqis away...

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

madmax0412 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:36:03 -0000

I agree with this. The report is quite sensational. Hitchens, while I agree with much of the substance of what he says, is a hardliner obviously. The soundbites from him in particular added to the illusion that there is some "schism".

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

madmax0412 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:23:10 -0000

Speaking personally the pressure to believe is tremendous. I live in the south and I'm married to a religious fundamentalist who interprets the Bible literally. Yeah, the whole creation story, Noah's Ark -- go figure. Her family, not surprisingly, are all fundamentalists as well. I get the condescending looks and the offers of praying for me even though I've politely declined and explained that I am a non-believer. So to answer your question, in my case, it's both a southern thing and a intra-family thing.

Where is this oasis that you speak of? I'd like to move there.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

JL — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:43:06 -0000

Even lumping the "New Atheists" together is problematic. The label encompasses a variety of approaches and perspectives.

I think my favorite New Atheist is the underrated Greta Christina. PZ Myers also ranks up there, though his rhetoric can be harsher than I personally prefer. I can't stand Hitchens, and it bugs me that he's probably the atheist that your average American is most likely to be familiar with.

One thing I've said on other blogs is that I see two aspects to the "atheist movement". You can be into both, and many atheists are, but some are not (and some emphasize one much more than the other). And they lend themselves to very different styles.

There's the civil rights/anti-prejudice/separation of church and state aspect (which is the side that I have cared about since I was a little kid and being bullied for being an atheist). These are groups like the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) and the Anti-Discrimination Support Network (ADSN), as well as, of course, individuals who don't belong to any group. This aspect of the atheist movement tends to focus a lot on building relationships with allies, and some of its groups are mixed atheist/theist groups.

And then there's the aspect that is promoting the atheist viewpoint. This side doesn't really have a concept of allies, because its goal is to persuade people of a certain idea, to convince them that you are right and they are wrong, rather than to achieve a social justice aim. A lot of the famous "New Atheist" books are dealing with this aspect. I have never had much interest in this aspect, though I think promoting your view in the marketplace of ideas is a totally reasonable thing to be doing.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

grawk — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:22:34 -0000

Your Beethoven analogy sucks. He was able to compose music after going deaf because he'd had perfectly good hearing for the first 25+ years of his life. Likewise, if I were to go blind tomorrow I would still be able to visualize my experiences both past and present. Duh.

Those paying closer attention to the debate will note that I said nothing, whatsoever, about Beethovens ability to compose music he could not hear. Whether or not Beethoven COULD compose music is quite beside the point that he DID compose music despite the fact that he could not hear it.

Show me a Beethoven who's been deaf since birth and I will begin to accept that the miraculous events that believers claim to experience every day are possible, and that god may be real

You should go find the fellow with whom you are having this argument, and continue it with him. I said nothing about the numinous. I was only replying to the contention written above, by you, that:

" we ought to reserve certainty for those things that can be proven, verified, or, at the very least, supported by something other than "I feel it."

Beethoven, quite apart from any religious experience, could not write music that, to a certainty, be supported by anything other than the statement "I feel it". The point.

Duh.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

grawk — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:49:13 -0000

The central point of skepticism is that none are without error.

How interesting! This notion of error (or 'sin' as we like to call it) is also, perhaps coincidentally (or not), the central point of Christianity... Um, what were we discussing again? oh yeah...

We are all deeply flawed at determining what is true. All have scales on their eyes. When one realizes this, they learn that they must be very careful about what they conclude is true as they very well could be horrifically wrong.

I think you might be interested in Maimonedes writings. He postulated that you can't make affirmative statements about God: you could not, for example, say "God is infinite", since you neither know nor can comprehend the infinite, but that you could say "God is not finite." He was very careful about what he could conclude...

As for me... there are tests that can be made and have been made that lead me to certain verities: mercy is better than cruelty; justice better than capriciousness; love is better than hate. However much these things have been obscured and oft ignored by religious people, they remain the central tenets of the faith.

This atheist thinks religion is dangerous not because it is inherently violent but because it is inherently resistent to rational argument and therefore change. It is dangerous because it blinds us, while telling us we are seeing better than any could imagine.

This is a fair point, if you assume that Ted Haggard and Pope Benny are the best that religion can provide. This Christian likes to believe that MLK jr and Ghandi are a good deal more representative of religion, however flawed they, indeed, were...

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

LonBecker — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:41:12 -0000

grok,

I am an athiest. I respect moral belief. You are making your argument by saying false things. That is the sign of a bad argument.

I am not sure why you think that atheists who respect Jesus' teachings do so out of utility rather than respect for moral principles.

You are now calling the major doctrinal differences between the various religions no more than a potato potatoh distinction. That is a far more condescending position to take towards the views of many religious people than I would ever take, at least to people who have given serious thoughts to their worldviews.

What you and the people trying to show that religious people are irrational have in common is this unfortunate desire to think that one cannot think that people are wrong without thereby thinking they are irrational. It is quite possible to respect beliefs that one disagrees with. It is possible to find wisdom, and not just utility, in the views of people with whom one disagrees even on very basic issues. Your idea that this is not true of atheists shows an unfortunate willingness to impose bad principles on people you disagree with. It does not say anything about atheism though.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

tinisoli — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:41:02 -0000

Your Beethoven analogy sucks. He was able to compose music after going deaf because he'd had perfectly good hearing for the first 25+ years of his life. Likewise, if I were to go blind tomorrow I would still be able to visualize my experiences both past and present. Duh.

Show me a Beethoven who's been deaf since birth and I will begin to accept that the miraculous events that believers claim to experience every day are possible, and that god may be real.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

ThatPirateGuy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:17:30 -0000

Um, if you look back at that thousands of years. Most of those years had slavery, the subjugation of women, fear and superstition leading to actions such as the witch-hunts going on in Africa today.

The central point of skepticism is that none are without error. We are all deeply flawed at determining what is true. All have scales on their eyes. When one realizes this, they learn that they must be very careful about what they conclude is true as they very well could be horrifically wrong.

All of human history is violence and danger with societies destroying themselves and each other.

This atheist thinks religion is dangerous not because it is inherently violent but because it is inherently resistent to rational argument and therefore change. It is dangerous because it blinds us, while telling us we are seeing better than any could imagine.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

CitizenE — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:13:13 -0000

@Grok. I certainly believe in God, but not an anthropomorphic God with moral imperatives or as a separate precursor from and handler of Creation.

Insofar as Jesus is concerned, at most I see him as a peer of Walt Whitman, Milarepa, and so on, and that you and I are equal chunks of the divine as well; to that I also admit rivers and the sound of thunder, certainly the ocean from whence life has originated on this planet.

I acknowledge awe and mystery, but I also believe that a great deal of religious belief is an ignorant substitution of literal for metaphorical understanding.

I do believe Jesus was accurate in saying you know people by their fruits, and the fruit of organized religion has been long and bloody.

In the above and other ways, I am someone who both believes in God and who is sympathetic with atheism that rejects the concept of anthropomorphism as the basic tenet of its skepticism and calls to task organized religion naked in its blatant and hypocritical posturing of moral high ground.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

Hugo Pottisch — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:09:33 -0000

Religion is a form of ideology. There are religions and ideologies that have always explicitly promoted equality and freedom among all humans, sexes and animals - I support all those. But to quote Abraham Lincoln: “I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it”.

The idea of "dominion" is one of the scariest things I have heard in my life, even if George W Bush's former speech writer Matthew Scully finds a nice way to interpret old words. A good ideology, in my book, does not leave room for long interpretations when it comes to the right to be free - it is clear.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

grawk — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:56:56 -0000

Now you're just doubling down. Typical.

Whatever incompatibilities and differences exists between Buddhism and and Christianity, or any religions, are derived from the differences in thinking about the numinous. One says potay-to, the other says potah-to. Any reconciliation that happens, as with Buddhism and Christianity, happens as a result of respect for moral belief.

But with atheism, the difference and incompatibilities ARE the belief. Any reconciliation between atheism and belief, as you yourself have just acknowledged, comes about merely for the sake of extracting utility from the teachings and discarding that which is deemed without utility. And the utility is deemed accidental or subconscious. Atheism, by definition, cannot respect moral belief. And the hostile, aggressive atheists are merely the most honest about it.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

Persia — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:39:45 -0000

And remember, Buddhism does not require belief in any deity.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

Tel — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:36:32 -0000

"Do you really find it ABSURD that violence would be lessened if religion were gone tomorrow? So you don't think that religion has contributed to violence at all in this world?"

The NRA has a line for this kind of situation: guns don't kill people, people kill people. If the FSM made all the religions disappear tomorrow, there would be a brief period of lessened violence. This would last until people invented a new reason to justify the mass murder of their fellows. ("They're taking my resources!" is a good candidate).

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

Persia — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:33:08 -0000

You're talking more about individual rights, though, Deborah. I would argue that, say, anti-evolution forces have done a lot of damage to American education. (And think about the ridiculous 'has Obama joined a church yet?' articles.) It's more insidious than feeding people to the lions.

Re: Atheists As Religious Kooks

Persia — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:22:03 -0000

Oh, yeah, his writing can blow me away. His case for returning the Elgin Marbles is a thing of beauty.