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Post by pim on Sept 27, 2012 13:37:20 GMT 10
Whatever is said about atheism from here on, whether for or against, should bear in mind what Bertrand Russell, who was an atheist of integrity up there with Albert Camus, had to say about what it means to be an atheist:
A true atheist is one who neither believes nor disbelieves, someone who quite simply does not care. What comes after death is after death, I will or won't find out then.
'Tis said that on his deathbed Russell asked for a particular Catholic priest who was an old friend and intellectual sparring partner. This priest, whose name I don't know, had told Russell in one of their debates on the existence of God, that the imminence of death tends to focus an atheist's mind wonderfully and that many professed atheists experience a deathbed conversion. The story goes that when the priest arrived at the bedside of the dying Bertrand Russel, Russell looked him in the eye and said "There is no God!" And died.
Love that story. Can't confirm its truth value though.
I'm impressed by Russell's point that a true atheist's response to the question "Does God exist?" should be one of indifference. It exposes the sophistry, and gives the lie to the dogmatic claim by religionists that atheism is some sort of "religion", and on the other hand holds up a mirror to those self-proclaimed "atheists" who attack religion and lampoon faith, and reveals them as frauds and charlatans. The intellectual basis for their phony "atheism" is so shallow and empty that they probably will do as bertrand Russell's priest friend predicted, and undergo a deathbed conversion.
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Post by pim on Sept 27, 2012 13:43:28 GMT 10
Agnostics should get a serve too:
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Post by jody on Sept 27, 2012 13:45:36 GMT 10
"A true atheist is one who neither believes nor disbelieves, someone who quite simply does not care. What comes after death is after death, I will or won't find out then."
I quite like this Pim and will use it from time to time when talking to atheists I know....as I know they'll appreciate it too.
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Post by jody on Sept 27, 2012 13:48:32 GMT 10
Agnostics at least do believe there is something more to it all. They just haven't found what they want to believe in. I know people who really dsilike this attitude saying Agnostics need to make up their mind one way or the other. Personally I would prefer to be able to maintain the open mind that agnostics do seem to have than close it as atheists (not all) seem to do.
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Post by slartibartfast on Sept 27, 2012 22:39:17 GMT 10
Good quote, Pim.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 29, 2012 3:01:14 GMT 10
Whatever is said about atheism from here on, whether for or against, should bear in mind what Bertrand Russell, who was an atheist of integrity up there with Albert Camus, had to say about what it means to be an atheist: A true atheist is one who neither believes nor disbelieves, someone who quite simply does not care. What comes after death is after death, I will or won't find out then.I agree with this, but if that theory is to be believed, it's indefensible. --One doesn't argue on matters they don't care about. So if they argue, it's more accurate to say they are Anti-theists, or Miso-theists.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 29, 2012 3:05:57 GMT 10
If atheism is a religion, the the off button on a TV is a channel. Atheism is an 'ism' word. Like, Communism, capitalism, and egotism. That makes it a Philosophy. And philosophy is open to criticism.
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Post by jody on Sept 29, 2012 8:09:30 GMT 10
Veritas, a pastor I once knew told me to always be careful of "ism's" if they have to do with a belief of some kind. They should be given a wide birth
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Post by jody on Sept 29, 2012 12:37:06 GMT 10
As I said...any ism's to so with belief or religion. Can't be compared to a stamp collector.
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Post by jody on Sept 29, 2012 12:44:57 GMT 10
No I don't miss the point at all.
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Post by jody on Sept 29, 2012 13:21:35 GMT 10
I rarely come on the religion board for very good reason....I hate having atheism rammed down my throat. Only here at the moment helping to boost this group.
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Post by slartibartfast on Sept 29, 2012 15:50:18 GMT 10
I rarely come on the religion board for very good reason....I hate having atheism rammed down my throat. Only here at the moment helping to boost this group. Atheists hate having religion shoved down their throat. And there's a hell of lot more of that than the other way around! Do tell us the last time an Atheist knocked on your door with his/her beliefs as their reason for intruding into your home.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 29, 2012 21:43:40 GMT 10
Religion is the belief in a supernatural being or beings. Untrue. Zen Buddhism is a religion, and they don't believe in supernatural beings.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 29, 2012 21:48:42 GMT 10
Do tell us the last time an Atheist knocked on your door with his/her beliefs as their reason for intruding into your home. Are you really so naive to think that sort of thing doesn't happen to other religious people?
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 29, 2012 21:50:49 GMT 10
The religions do both, and in reality have people murdered and sexually abuse children. So all they do is lie, murder people, and sexually abuse children. Only on Tuesdays. On Saturdays, we are busy punching kittens, and pushing old ladies into traffic.
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Post by jody on Sept 29, 2012 23:19:42 GMT 10
so what about all the atheists who have molested children and murdered people?
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 29, 2012 23:23:30 GMT 10
Only on Tuesdays. On Saturdays, we are busy punching kittens, and pushing old ladies into traffic. All christianity has ever done is murder people and sexually abuse children. All denominations - not that denominations matter - have blood on their hands and have sexually abused children. So to be a Christian is to be part of that. ...As I said, only on Tuesdays....seriously.
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Post by slartibartfast on Sept 30, 2012 8:18:25 GMT 10
so what about all the atheists who have molested children and murdered people? They don't do it in the name of atheism. They are just criminals. Countries have fought wars because of religion.
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Post by pim on Sept 30, 2012 12:26:57 GMT 10
The use of "Darwinism" is absurd. What Darwin proposed - the evolution of species through natural selection - has been proved beyond any doubt with the understanding of the DNA molecule. To call the acceptance of Darwins idea - his theory - an "ism" is absurd. It is like saying that accepting Pythagoras and - his Theorem - is Pythagorasism. It is not an "ism" to accept a proven and provable reality of science. So the use of Darwinsim is as absurn as calling E=MC2 Einsteinism. Buzz's point, about the practice of religious fundamentalists to characterise any refutation of their own fundamentalism as just another "-ism", is an excellent one. Trying to be helpful here: regarding "E=MC2". I've often wondered how to type a "squared" diacritic without having to resort to a normal font "2". The solution is to use the ALT key and the numbers on the RH side of the keyboard. So to produce the "squared ²" press ALT 178 and you get E=MC². Looks better, no?
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 30, 2012 14:28:23 GMT 10
so what about all the atheists who have molested children and murdered people? They don't do it in the name of atheism. They are just criminals. Countries have fought wars because of religion. None, except Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. --Who've all murdered to abolish religion. (Anti-religious agendas can only be forwarded in the name or cause of atheism.) People have fought war because of politics; they've used religion as an excuse.
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Post by pim on Sept 30, 2012 14:58:54 GMT 10
People have fought war because of politics; they've used religion as an excuse. I didn't realise you were such a clausewitzian reductionist, Veritas. The Thirty Years War was "just politics" and religion was just an excuse?? Doubtless you'll point to the politics involved and declare "There! Point proved!" (you can say "proven", but then you're a "norteamericano" and your variety of English and culture come out of the Protestant Reformation - and I'll come back to that point in a moment. Ours is a later form of English that stems from a much more secular origin which was the English Industrial Revolution. We say "proved" as a past participle). But that would be simplistic and overly reductionist of you, Veritas. The European settlement of North America through the 1600s and onwards was in many ways a direct outcome of the religious convulsions gripping Europe. Are you saying it was "just politics"? The Puritans who settled along the eastern seabord and who contributed so much to American values. Just politics? Religion waqs just an excuse?? I beg to differ!! I'm not denying the horrors and human rights abuses of secular ideologies. I'll even acknowledge that the secular ideologies of Stalinist Communism, Maoism and Fascism have been in themselves "anti-religions" and bear parallels with the worst excesses of that which they sought to abolish - the parallels between the Spanish Inquisition on the one hand, and the Gestapo and the KGB on the other hand, is an obvious example. In fact these examples bear out the very point that George Orwell was making in his novella Animal Farm which ends with the pigs coming more and more to resemble the humans they had originally led the animals to displace. The old adage Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose does contain a deep insight and i'm not denying that. But for you to extrapolate from that that the most profound and shattering conflict that tore Europe apart in the 1600s, which had Germany as its battleground and which basically set the religious fault lines in Europe from 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia until the end of the Second World War when the Cold War and the Iron Curtain reshuffled the confessional (i.e. religious) deck of Europe once again with the massive population movements occasioned by the end of WW2 an the onset of the Cold War. To say that these shattering and cataclysmic events of the 1600s which turned what had hitherto been known as "Christendom" into what we call today "Europe" was just politics and religion was just an excuse .... I'm sorry, Veritas, that shows a capacity on your part to falsify and bowlderise history that would have caused Stalin to beam with approval. He'd either have slapped a Hero of the Soviet Union medal on you and had you made Commissar for Religious Bowdlerisation and Falsification on the spot ... or he would have had you shot on the spot. It depends on whether or not that caviar and vodka he'd just eaten & drunk was playing hell with his stomach or not.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 30, 2012 15:08:20 GMT 10
Just pointing out that blaming religion for all the world's woes neglects the simple fact that violence and degredation against one's fellow man is not limited to the religious sphere.
Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.
The pure clean water of spiritual truth is placed in rusty containers. The subsequent failings of the church down through the centuries should not be projected onto the faith itself, as if the water had always been the problem.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Oct 1, 2012 2:29:51 GMT 10
We don't approve of everything the RCC does. (Pst: That's kinda why Protestants exist in the first place.)
If you want to play that game. I could similarily say that all atheists are unwashed left-wing Comicon attendies who reside in their parent's basement.
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Post by slartibartfast on Oct 1, 2012 7:24:15 GMT 10
Well they don't and knucklehead suited you much better.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Oct 1, 2012 9:47:05 GMT 10
The name was 'canucklehead.' I was saving 'knucklehead' for you.
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