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Post by Occam's Spork on Feb 24, 2013 2:57:09 GMT 10
Atheism, has no creed, no principles, no philosophy, and can give no guidance. There whole philosophical existence is dependent on the absolute negation of a single theistic notion. As a result, atheists in general have no ethical guidepost to direct them away from moral decay. I am not for one moment suggesting, that atheists cannot be moral. Rather that 'morality' cannot be defined in an atheistic context.
Carefully consider history: The twentieth century, an experiment in secular governance, witnessed the deaths of more than 100 million people. That is more than all the religious wars in all previous centuries combined.
Consider Communist Russia: Sacrificing a few million people for the sake of building socialist paradise was always deemed an acceptable price to pay.
I challenge free thinkers to point to any society free from religious influence can point to no nation or civilization that was founded upon atheism, that we might call even remotely 'good.'
Certainly atheists such as Buzz are going to make a point of finding abuses of religion—the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, self-detonating Muslim extremists, snake-handlers, etc. (All low hanging fruit) But Christianity, whatever the faults of its adherents, has a rich intellectual tradition that has a comprehensive view of life. --Can atheism say the same?
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Post by pim on Feb 24, 2013 6:48:31 GMT 10
Dib you're describing secularism rather than atheism. In fact your whole post is so riddled with sophistry and phony assumptions that it really should be rejected out of hand.
For one thing, you assume that this thing you call "atheism" is in competitition with religion. It may well be in the fevered and tortured universes of the paleo-atheists of NTB, but it isn't in the general community, and I'll tell you why:
Apart from professional atheists like the late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, who each had axes to grind (if you'll pardon the expression - not sure you are familiar with it), what marks the attitude to religion of the average suburban Australian atheist in his suburban house with a car in the garage and a mortgage and who's trying to bring up his/her kids is indifference. Buzz may be obsessed with religion but then Buzz is pretty obsessive anyway. But a suburban atheist Australian who lives in a brick/veneer three bedroom house in Moonee Ponds or Emu Plains (examples drawn from the suburban wastelands of outer suburban Melbourne and Sydney) would obsess a lot more about the "footy" (Aussie talk for football) than about God. In fact "God" doesn't really figure. It's as Bill Maher says about religion: if you're an atheist it takes up very little of your time.
One more thing: religion is not an individual thing. Faith may well be individual and while faith is the basis of religion, religion is a community of people who share a given faith and who come together to express that faith in an act we call "worship". So religion is by its very nature communitarian. In fact the communitarian nature of religion is inherent in the very word "religion", as any linguist could demonstrate. Atheism, by contrast, is and can only be, individual. There is no basis for comparison so the premise behind your thread is a phony one.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Feb 24, 2013 13:48:30 GMT 10
he is the sort of religious nutter who turns people off religions If you really believed that, shouldn't you be encouraging me? You lack the muster of your convictions, Buzz.
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Post by slartibartfast on Feb 24, 2013 16:13:30 GMT 10
Well said, Pim.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Feb 25, 2013 6:55:17 GMT 10
I would like to discuss the post further with you, Pim. But instead of voicing your objections you were rather dismissive about the post in it's entirety. (And so, I really don't know where to go from here.) I would contend that the atheistic experience, like religion isn't an individualistic thing, either. We have many like-minded atheists here, to prove it so.
My main contention is mostly with the atheist activism, that is seen on boards like this. If atheists are going to convince us living a godless life is better than the life we are already living, then I assert they need to start with a better selling point than "Well, you'll save 2 hours on Sunday morning."
If God doesn't exist, I'll continue on a happy course--albeit deluded. But my ends will be the same as theirs. And so, what's atheism's appeal?
You're agnostic, and I know you can't really answer for them. But I'd like to hear their "sales pitch." Why should anyone consider atheism, if they really don't offer anything?
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Post by pim on Feb 25, 2013 10:05:11 GMT 10
I would like to discuss the post further with you, Pim. But instead of voicing your objections you were rather dismissive about the post in it's entirety. (And so, I really don't know where to go from here.) Dib if I was dismissive it's because what else can you do with sophistry but dsmiss it? One doesn't always have a spare hour to think through and type a point-by-point rebuttal. I thought I'd got to the nub of it with my point that there was no basis for comparison between religion and atheism because one is by its very nature communitarian and the other is by its very nature individual so I can't see how they can be in competitition. It "proves" nothing of the kind. The fact that you see a type of "atheist" (inverted commas deliberate and intentional) militancy here is just a feature of the dumbed down nature of what laughingly passes for "discussion and debate" on boards like this in which "debate" is more a race to the bottom in personal invective than a search for the truth. You call that "activism"? Buzz with his tedious repetitive harping on "God's family tree", always accompanied by his grandiose claims to be an ultimate authority, and his accusations and hysterical denunciations of anyone who fails to hail him as some sort of anti-God "Messiah" - you call that "activism"? Then there are the paleo-atheists on the board who refuse to engage with or respond to any nuanced argument and whose "argument" (inverted commas deliberate and intentional) is that anyone who listens to this bunch of fairytales is delusional. The fact that giants like Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King - and a whole lot of names from history going back centuries, were inspired to give effect to their acitivism (now they really were activists!) by the contents of this so-called book of fairy tales, is dismissed as of no account. You make that point and they refuse to deal with it. You call these intellectual midgets, these bottom feeders, these people who want to turn a discussion into a race to the bottom where the "winner" is the one who manages to insult the most fulsomely and who succeeds in dumbing down the most comprehensively ... you want to call them "activists"? No they don't! A person who rejects the biblical God doesn't have to "prove" anything. They argue - and they're right - that onus of proof is on those who make the claim about the existence of the God of the Bible. The mistake is to be drawn onto the arid and sterile ground of "proof". It's one I refuse to be drawn on. If the day ever dawns that I embrace religious faith it won't be because I've found the "proof". Besides, doesn't Jesus himself say something about "proof" in John 26:29? 26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.An atheist doesn't have to justify his atheism or even to explain it. Why bother about nothing? By contrast Christians are enjoined to proclaim their faith and to engage in worship. Christianity is public, as are indeed all the great religions. Worship is a public act. Christians believe they have been commanded to "bear witness". Atheists are not commanded to do anything since how can they be commanded by nothing? There is no appeal. See above. But your first sentence is an interesting one. I'll repeat it: If God doesn't exist, I'll continue on a happy course--albeit deluded. You're allowing for a little doubt to creep in here. No criticism or cheap shot intended on my part here, Dib! That statement of yours is faith-based, it certainly isn't knowledge-based. Unlike the paleo-atheists whose hallmark is shallowness and philistine ignorance, I don't despise faith. On the contrary I think faith is a fine thing and I admire it. If I ever acquire faith it's more likely to be through the sort of programme we used to get on Australian public radio late on a Sunday night which used to come from the BBC called Nocturnes in which a Richard Burton-type voice would intone verses from the Scriptures, followed by the voices of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, or else the Tallis Scholars, singing those verses in plainsong and polyphony. It was sublime. I guess that would be my pathway. You're right, I can't answer for them. But perhaps an atheist has no answer. I've read atheists of a depth and substance that would totally eclipse the KTJs of this world. In fact I'd say that Albert Camus (pronounce it as a French name) and Christopher Hitchens would rip the paleo-atheists on this board to shreds. As for Richard Dawkins ... hmmm, I dunno! He's too angry. He's made his point as far as I'm concerned and now he should get back to his biology. Dib, there is no "sales pitch" for atheism because there can't be one. I can't give you an atheist response but I could give you what a Christian might say: stop waiting for the atheist "sales pitch". There's a book by a French guy called Michel Riquet Le Chrétien, Face aux Athéismes Google mistranslates its original French title as "The Christian Face of Atheism" which makes me think that an English translation of the book doesn't exist. The French title really means "The Christian, face-to-face with atheisms". Notice how the title makes "atheism" plural and not singular? Does that mean that atheism is not necessarily a "one size fits all"? Intriguing! But what Riquet does in the book is refer to nos frères les athées = "our atheist brothers". It would seem to me that's a good Christian starting point!
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Post by pim on Feb 25, 2013 10:48:26 GMT 10
Earl Grey, there's an honorable tradition of Christian activism which is inspired by their faith. What do you think the Salvos are about? Anglicare? Vinnies?
The civil rights movement in the US was based on the black churches. How else would you explain Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers?
The movement for Irish home rule and independence was based on the Catholic Church. Polish nationalism was identical with Catholicism. It was the fact that the Dutch embraced Calvinist Protestantism that provided the impetus for Dutch nationalism to resist the Spanish Hapsburgs in the 1500s. The Hapsburgs as a dynasty were based in Spain back then as well as in Austria. It's why that part of the world was sometimes known as the "Spanish Netherlands" and at other time the "Austrian Netherlands" - but that's another story.
There's a long and honorable tradition of Christianity "getting out and doing something to improve the world".
You see, Earl Grey, that's where the low altitude flying, the bottom feeding and the race to the bottom comes in on a board like this. I spent an hour responding to Dib's #7 because he asked me to. A lot of thought and reflection went into my #8. Now I'm not criticising you personally for your #9. Mind you I would have thought you'd have known of the examples of Christian social activism that I gave above. But I don't know who your #9 is addressed to. Are you accusing Dib of being like Job (unfair to the biblical Job, BTW!)? Are you saying that Dib covers himself with sackcloth & ashes? I wasn 't aware that Dib is on some sort of mission in life to commmit himself to fasting and to do penance. I was rather of the impression that he's a family man who is bringing up kids along with his lady wife. None of our business of course and let's draw a respectful veil over Dib's private life. But if not that, who and what are you referring to?
But this is where the bottom feeding comes in. I'd fully expect, at this point, for KTJ to take this post - which has to be read as a response to your #9, and to be understood in that context, and to trivialise it and turn it into an unseemly race to the bottom by introducing a whole lot of "stuff" about child abuse. Which would annoy me because firstly it would trivialise the issues that Dib and I were trying to discuss, and secondly and more importantly it would trivialise the grave and extremely serious issue of child abuse within the Catholic church. It would swamp every other consideration and deprive of oxygen any attempt Dib and I made to explore the agendas he wanted to raise.
Twoi hours, now, that I've been on this board. Time I did something else.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 1, 2013 11:25:41 GMT 10
Another point to be made is: Rather than sit around like Job and cover yourself with ashes and wear sack-cloth, get out and do something to improve the world, rather than sit down and pray to an imaginary God. Reductionist. Who says you can't do both? Or even allow your actions come about as a response to your faith or convictions?
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 1, 2013 11:30:33 GMT 10
There's also a long and dishonorable tradition of wailing "It's God's will. Perhaps. But you can't judge a philosophy based on it's misuse. If it were so, humanity in general would fall short of the mark. Also consider the cultural context at the time when these atrocities were being committed... How many people were literate? How many had access to a Bible? How many people had religious knowledge at all, outside of what the (corrupt) priests were telling them? Have you also considered the possibility that there have been misguided atheists out there who hadn't tried their hand at murder for the sake of their ideologies? --For a "religion-free utopia"? (Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin..etc)
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Post by pim on Mar 1, 2013 12:06:13 GMT 10
I reject both positions: Earl Grey's There's also a long and dishonorable tradition of wailing "It's God's will". falsely portrays Christianity as a tradition that has fatalism at its core. If it's true that for most of its history Christianity has described the world as a "vale of tears" (not "veil" - this is no spelling mistake) it's because for the vast majority of human beings - whose lives were nasty, brutish and short until only the last 200 years - that's exactly what it was. If people covered themselves in sackcloth and ashes when the Black Death bubonic plague pandemic carried off a third of Europe's population back in the 1300s and did penance and prayed for deliverance. What else could they do in the absence of modern medical science when the best they could do was to "bleed" patient to relieve him of bad "humours", or when as far as they were concerned plague and pestilence came from bad "vapours". So to this day we call the disease spread by the anopheles mosquito "Malaria" which means, literally, "bad air". But you look at mainstream christianity over the past couple of centuries and show me that it isn't marked by charitable works carried out by charitable organisations that have their basis in the teachings of Scripture. "The Lord helps those that help themselves" can be used to justify greed and selfishness, that's true, but it can also be very empowering when the goal is to assist disadvantaged people to attain the dignity that comes with self-reliance. I've just been reading articles on the way Anglicans and Episcopalians are taking up the initiative of extending microcredit to poor Bangladeshis where even owning a chicken can be the first step out of poverty.
I also disagree with Dib's response where he describes it as a philosophy that has been misused. I disagree with it not necessarily because it's downright wrong - as I believe Earl Grey's post is wrong - but because it's a non-answer. You're not answering the point Dib because you're not even dealing with it. You're fobbing it off with waffle and bromides.
As for your silly point about atheists and eugenics, you're being misleading because there's a sub-text linking atheism with eugenics.
Bullshit
Eugenics is basically racism that has latched on to darwinism to justify itself. It reached its big moment as a philosophy during the Nazi period in Germany. While there were Nazis who were atheists, that didn't mean that all Nazis were atheists. And neither does it mean that all advocates of eugenics are atheists. In fact there's no shortage of white supremacists who bowdlerise and pervert the Scriptures to justify their damnable and evil philosophy.
So what I'm saying is that racists will latch onto anything to justify themselves. Some will latch onto Darwin, others onto the Bible, and still others onto both. Not surprising really given the intellectual bankruptcy and shallowness of racism.
Incidentally Dib, you asked me in #6 to address a couple of issues. So I did in #8. No response?
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 1, 2013 12:27:59 GMT 10
Incidentally Dib, you asked me in #6 to address a couple of issues. So I did in #8. No response? Don't take my silence as dismissal. I'm carefully contemplating your response. I will respond once I've considered what you've expressed. I do have some objections, but I haven't had the time to think about everything just yet.
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Post by pim on Mar 1, 2013 12:42:19 GMT 10
No worries, Dib. Take your time.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 1, 2013 14:56:03 GMT 10
I thought I'd got to the nub of it with my point that there was no basis for comparison between religion and atheism because one is by its very nature communitarian and the other is by its very nature individual so I can't see how they can be in competitition. It can, if you redefine the perimeters as "theism" and "atheism." Since "theist" and "religious", aren't mutually inclusive. On that I agree, but that is only if theirs is the claim that has been made. If an atheist opens with "There is no proof of God", or "Jesus was a fictional character" they are the aggressor and the onus lies with them. (And I don't buy that bit about atheism being a "non-position" since no one defends a non-belief) True. And I won't deny that I sometimes doubt. But doubt is different from unbelief. Doubt is cautiously withholding assent, unbelief is willful belligerence. Jesus never condemned Thomas for his doubt.
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Post by pim on Mar 1, 2013 15:13:29 GMT 10
I have to go, Dib. I'm overdue for some retail therapy. It's mid afternoon here and I have to dash to a shopping centre and from there to the airport to meet someone arriving on a flight from "interstate" which is a word we use here for somewhere in Australia that isn't in the state that you live in. It seems that in your #19 you've conflated in your second
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 1, 2013 15:16:02 GMT 10
Well, I meant to say that unbelief is a fair bit more hostile than doubt. I didn't mean it as a mischaracterization.
Apologies, Earl Grey--I didn't mean to offend.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 2, 2013 1:20:19 GMT 10
Certainly much stronger than doubt. I know where you are coming from, I've been on both sides of the "argument". Having been a member of both "camps" puts me in a rather unique position. And I appreciate that insight, Phil. As long as you don't presume to be the sole arbiter of all religious experience.
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Post by sonex on Mar 2, 2013 9:16:05 GMT 10
With faith and religion, it is not merely academic, it is personal. My personal experiences have brought me to the position of atheist. This follows from my personal experiences bringing me to Christianity. The stuff I witnessed in PNG where I was living in a microcosm of the world's Christian churches, were very deeply felt. There are numerous examples that I won't go into the details about. A couple of examples however ... Take the abuse of "house-boys" and "house-girls". Using servants in the home is justified along the lines of - we can be an example to them, they are getting paid which helps them greatly, etc. All very fine and reasonable arguments. However, when one sees a mother abusing a "house-girl" where the mother is yelling at the top of her voice, eyes bulging, neck blood vessels standing out, flecks of spittle frothing at the mouth ... Why? Because the "house-girl" failed to save the rinse water from the family wash. Just an example, but indicative of the poor attitude exhibited by the "Christian" people living up there. Other examples included business activity undertaken by a "Christian" organisation that was not only unethical, but downright fraudulent, backstabbing, lying, cheating, racism etc ... all in evidence from every church group in the town (and there were plenty from around the globe.) These and other events changed me. They broke my faith. That's why I am an atheist. I'm happier being an atheist and I don't expect to have a death-bed re-conversion. I believe that your experiences Earl and your subsequent rejection of Christianity may be down to the belief we were taught that there is a God who takes a day to day interest in us. He doesn't. I accepted that some years ago, and now I simply have awe and pleasure in the planet we live on and wonder at the myriad of life forms in the sea and land and how and why they evolved. The sea horse, why a sea horse, butterflies with all the different patterns, and so on and so on. I think religion sometimes gives hope to those who have a terrible life, sometimes through poverty, crippling diseases or the cruelty of other humans. They hope that their afterlife will be one of joy.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 3, 2013 2:31:03 GMT 10
I don't disagree that religion does that, Sonex. But there are some pretty big assumptions and generalizations made there.
But even if that were so, what's the harm in hope?
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Post by slartibartfast on Mar 3, 2013 6:53:58 GMT 10
False hope is cruel.
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Post by sonex on Mar 3, 2013 10:59:44 GMT 10
I don't disagree that religion does that, Sonex. But there are some pretty big assumptions and generalizations made there. But even if that were so, what's the harm in hope? Absolutely no harm in hope Dib, it is a panacea. Tell me, do you believe that God is taking a personal interest in you and the billions of other humans on a day to day basis?
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Post by sonex on Mar 3, 2013 11:01:57 GMT 10
But in this instance Slarti, if it is false hope then once people are dead they don't know this, and it may have given them some comfort whilst they are alive.
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Post by sonex on Mar 3, 2013 11:03:12 GMT 10
I agree with all that you said there Sonex. Well that is interesting Earl, except we have nowhere to go now.
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Post by jody on Mar 3, 2013 11:16:33 GMT 10
well whatever happens to you Phil....remember it was your choice.
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Post by jody on Mar 3, 2013 11:41:09 GMT 10
then can I suggest heaps of sunscreen
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Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 3, 2013 23:01:00 GMT 10
I don't disagree that religion does that, Sonex. But there are some pretty big assumptions and generalizations made there. But even if that were so, what's the harm in hope? Tell me, do you believe that God is taking a personal interest in you and the billions of other humans on a day to day basis? Yes, but I admit personal interest can only be substantiated by personal experience.
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