Features

FartinMowler · #76

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

Preechr · #77

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.

Sethomas · #78

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.

Big Papa Goat · #79

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.

DuFresne · #80

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emu

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

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

Preechr · #81

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emu

“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.

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.

kahljorn · #82

"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.

Rongi · #83

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?

Sethomas · #84

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

Rongi · #85

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.

Sethomas · #86

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".

FartinMowler · #87

Quote:

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.

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 :/

derrida · #88

Quote:

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.

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.

derrida · #89

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.

Preechr · #90

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!

liquidstatik · #91

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

kahljorn · #92

"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.

Big Papa Goat · #93

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Machiavelli

Everyone sees what you seem to be, few touch upon what you are, and those few do not dare not contradict the opinion of the many who have the majesty of the state to defend them

Ordinary people are always deceived by the appearance and outcome of a thing; and in the world there is nothing but ordinary people

And men are so simple-minded and controlled by their present needs that one who deceives will always find another who allows himself to be deceived

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.

Big Papa Goat · #94

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.

Emu · #95

Quote:

Originally Posted by MR. DANNY TATOM

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

i remember you saying a while ago you were christian

what happened there

kahljorn · #96

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.