Atheism

[Augustus]

They've all read Kahneman, and I've heard them all say "I don't know" many times.

I was talking about how you communicate if you genuinely desire to influence people to change their minds, rather than to stir up your followers.

I know you don't think this false dilemma exists, so this is some heavy duty spin you're tossing out here

I never presented it as a dilemma, the spin is all yours.

If religions decline then they will be replaced with a diversity of alternative ideologies. Some will be 'rational' and some will be emotional. Some will be benign, and others will be harmful.

From history, a lot of these 'new moralities' have been very harmful, that's just a fact. People arguing against religion tend to compare religion to a baseline of zero rather than an average of all non-religious ideologies.

Based on the evidence, why should one assume that non-theistic ideologies, on average, will be more benign than theistic ones?

 

[icehorse]

I never presented it as a dilemma, the spin is all yours.

I'm happy to admit my rhetoric, can you do the same?

Most of the counter examples you listed were simply efforts to replace religious dogmatism with new flavors of dogmatism. Borrowing from Hitchens, show me a society built on the principles of the enlightenment that has similarly run amok, and then we'll have something to debate.

 

[Cephus]

One could well argue that it is atheists who are living in fantasyland. To have even the FAINTEST hope of chamging anyone's mind you have 2 offer them something better than their existing beliefs. Atheism simply cannot offer the kind of comfort that most religious beliefs offer. So it is never going to be anything other than a minority belief system.

Except it's the fastest growing "religion" out there.

 

[Augustus]

Most of the counter examples you listed were simply efforts to replace religious dogmatism with new flavors of dogmatism.

'Rational' or 'scientific' ideologies that assume they are objectively correct find it easy to justify harmful acts for the 'greater good'.

Borrowing from Hitchens, show me a society built on the principles of the enlightenment that has similarly run amok, and then we'll have something to debate.

You might want to check the history of some of the examples I listed.

Modern proponents of 'Enlightenment Values' tend to do a fair amount of whitewashing of that which doesn't meet their ideological assumptions.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

From history, a lot of these 'new moralities' have been very harmful, that's just a fact. People arguing against religion tend to compare religion to a baseline of zero rather than an average of all non-religious ideologies.

Based on the evidence, why should one assume that non-theistic ideologies, on average, will be more benign than theistic ones?

In my experience, people who argue against religion generally do it from a humanist and/or skeptic stance, and they're arguing for getting rid of religion through an increase in humanism and skepticism. It's that increase in humanism and skepticism that's expected to make things better, not the decrease in theism by itself. It's just that the theism is incompatible with what will improve things.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

'Rational' or 'scientific' ideologies that assume they are objectively correct find it easy to justify harmful acts for the 'greater good'.

Thank goodness for skepticism, then, which argues that the principles of skepticism should be applied to everything, including skepticism itself.

 

[icehorse]

Social Darwinism, eugenics and scientific racism; Marxist Communism, Jacobinism and the Reign of Terror from the 'rational' tradition and Nazism from the Romantic tradition have all been alternatives to religious morality.

You think that fans of the enlightenment are fans of any of these? I would say overwhelmingly not!

 

[Augustus]

You think that fans of the enlightenment are fans of any of these? I would say overwhelmingly not!

Most religious people are no fans of the fanatics, but they seem to get lumped together with them by anti-theists.

Like I said, if you want to get rid of religion, you take the rough with the smooth when it comes to alternatives. That modern Humanists think the Enlightenment was purely benign doesn't mean it actually was. The Enlightenment produced many very illiberal ideologies, that's just a fact, and these were just as much a product of the Enlightenment.

 

[icehorse]

Most religious people are no fans of the fanatics, but they seem to get lumped together with them by anti-theists.

Like I said, if you want to get rid of religion, you take the rough with the smooth when it comes to alternatives. That modern Humanists think the Enlightenment was purely benign doesn't mean it actually was. The Enlightenment produced many very illiberal ideologies, that's just a fact, and these were just as much a product of the Enlightenment.

I apologize if I lost the gist here, I wasn't talking about religious fanatics?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Most religious people are no fans of the fanatics, but they seem to get lumped together with them by anti-theists.

If a religious person knowingly supports with their tithes, say, campaigns to make homosexuality illegal, then I'm going to count them as supporters of this , even if they say it goes against their beliefs.

In general, the most dangerous fanatics are funded by moderates. Without those moderates, the fanatics would often just be ineffectual, isolated cranks.

That modern Humanists think the Enlightenment was purely benign doesn't mean it actually was.

Which modern Humanists believe this? Please give some specific examples.

 

[Augustus]

Thank goodness for skepticism, then, which argues that the principles of skepticism should be applied to everything, including skepticism itself.

Normatively, although rarely positively.

In my experience, people who argue against religion generally do it from a humanist and/or skeptic stance, and they're arguing for getting rid of religion through an increase in humanism and skepticism. It's that increase in humanism and skepticism that's expected to make things better, not the decrease in theism by itself. It's just that the theism is incompatible with what will improve things.

Humanism is just secular liberal Christian ethics with Divine Providence replaced by Reason. As such, ultimately it is no more rational than its father. Also it is arrived at through culture and/or subjective personal preference rather than 'scepticism'.

There's nothing wrong with it as an ideology, but there's no reason to believe it is universal or that a Rationalist worldview should lead there.

 

[Augustus]

I apologize if I lost the gist here, I wasn't talking about religious fanatics?

I know. Was pointing out your double standard.

 

[Cephus]

In my experience, people who argue against religion generally do it from a humanist and/or skeptic stance, and they're arguing for getting rid of religion through an increase in humanism and skepticism. It's that increase in humanism and skepticism that's expected to make things better, not the decrease in theism by itself. It's just that the theism is incompatible with what will improve things.

The decrease in theism will, by definition, increase skepticism and rationality, precisely because theism is incompatible with those things. Those things tend to be inversely proportional, at least within the religious realm.

 

[icehorse]

I know. Was pointing out your double standard.

Are you willing to do a recap here, I'm not sure I can reassemble your argument.

thanks

 

[Augustus]

Are you willing to do a recap here, I'm not sure I can reassemble your argument.

thanks

Was saying that just because most modern Humanists don't support those ideologies, doesn't mean they were not based on 'Enlightenment Values' favouring scepticism, science and reason.

 

[icehorse]

Was saying that just because most modern Humanists don't support those ideologies, doesn't mean they were not based on 'Enlightenment Values' favouring scepticism, science and reason.

ok got it - thanks. I'd say that the ideologies you mentioned cherry-picked values, and almost always created a new brand of dogma. so the combination of cherry-picking and new dogma renders these ideologies "not really enlightenment based" - imo.

 

[Augustus]

ok got it - thanks. I'd say that the ideologies you mentioned cherry-picked values, and almost always created a new brand of dogma. so the combination of cherry-picking and new dogma renders these ideologies "not really enlightenment based" - imo.

That's just hindsight bias. At the time they were seen as being rational and based on real science. You can research them if you like to confirm this.

 

[icehorse]

That's just hindsight bias. At the time they were seen as being rational and based on real science. You can research them if you like to confirm this.

we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.

 

[Augustus]

we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.

That tends to be the response of 'sceptics' when faced with anything that challenges their preconceived beliefs, just dismiss them out of hand.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The decrease in theism will, by definition, increase skepticism and rationality, precisely because theism is incompatible with those things. Those things tend to be inversely proportional, at least within the religious realm.

There are uncountable many way to be irrational that don't involve any gods at all.