Hitchen's Challange

[leroy]

There are none.

Genital mutilation of children.

An atheist cant mutilate a child ?

 

[leroy]

To show that claims that a "moral society" is not possible without religion are nonsense, I would guess.

I am not aware of any theist that would make such a claim

 

[leroy]

That is not an "ethical action", especially if you are worshiping the wrong god, or the god you worship is a monster, like the Abrahamic god.

No idea what you are on about here. And I suspect, neither do you.

If god exist then Worshiping would be an ethical action,

 

[leroy]

It debunks the claim that a moral society requires religion.

And who is making that claim ?

 

[leroy]

I think it's subjective. For instance, I would consider cutting off the foreskin of baby boys to be torture and morally wrong, but others do not.

Yes but "others" are wrong (i would say)

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What I mean is that secular humanism hasn't got a track record, and there are plenty of examples of countries which tried to oust religion only to enshrine leaders as little gods. For all we know that could be how Egypt got its first pharoah.

Which countres "tried to oust religion" without having another ideology to replace it? In other words, which country "tried to oust a religion" without having another dogma with which to replace it?

There are very peaceful countries where religion has retreated far into the background, but not through being "ousted." And none of them bends the knee to some other -ism.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Which countres "tried to oust religion" without having another ideology to replace it? In other words, which country "tried to oust a religion" without having another dogma with which to replace it?

There are very peaceful countries where religion has retreated far into the background, but not through being "ousted." And none of them bends the knee to some other -ism.

Well, yes. Yet even democracies have -isms. We just take them for granted as we are also the product of nature and nurture.

 

[Audie]

Which countres "tried to oust religion" without having another ideology to replace it? In other words, which country "tried to oust a religion" without having another dogma with which to replace it?

There are very peaceful countries where religion has retreated far into the background, but not through being "ousted." And none of them bends the knee to some other -ism.

Japan has a lot of rituals they enjoy but very little religion.
Very peaceful and orderly.

 

[PureX]

Not most of the time.

Most of the time. It became the essence of his career.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Japan has a lot of rituals they enjoy but very little religion.
Very peaceful and orderly.

Yeah, we understand religion differently.

 

[PureX]

No. Religion also tells us to kill witches, people who work on certain days, rebellious children, people having affairs. To mutilate the genitals of children. That people with different ideas are inferior. That women don't deserve the same rights as men, etc.etc...

I don't think you have any real idea what religion is or how people use it. I think that to you, religion is all and only the demon that your imagination has conjured up for you hate on, and you aren't the least bit interested in learning anything different.

 

[Sheldon]

So the best answer to what ethical or moral choice or act a theist can make that an atheist can't, it the arbitrary "WORSHIP god". Genius...

Why that sarcasm? The challenge was fulfilled.

By pointing out an atheist can't worship a deity, as I said genius.

The problem is that you don’t reed posts. I said that if you are a determinist you cant lie. Because “lying” implies a conscious choice.

What you actually did was arbitrarily assign views to atheists based on your own subjective opinion or belief, here:

And if you reject libertarian free will (like most atheist do) I would include things like

- Lying / being honest

- Decide to do something good rather than something bad

- Comitte suicide

- Murder

What's more it's wrong, free will is more complex than this facile and unevidenced claim suggests. One need not subscribe to theistic notions of free will, in order to accept humans have some autonomy of choice. So as I said of course atheists have the same aeronomy as theists, to decide all of the actions you listed.

Morality is subjective, all morality and that includes religious morality.

 

[Sheldon]

Atheist ideology has also lead to many wicked acts against the children of God.

There is no such thing as atheist ideology. Though there are ideologies that are atheistic, atheism itself has no dogma or doctrine. Since atheism is just the lack or absence of one single belief, it cannot be an ideology, as each atheist is free to believe whatever they want or not, apart from holding any belief a deity exists.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There is no such thing as atheist ideology. Though there are ideologies that are atheistic, atheism itself has no dogma or doctrine. Since atheism is just the lack or absence of one single belief, it cannot be an ideology, as each atheist is free to believe whatever they want or not, apart from holding any belief a deity exists.

No, they are all humanists, secular, believe in democracy and so on. Otherwise they are wrong and in effect religious. Didn't you get the memo?

 

[Sheldon]

That is false. Most abolitionists were inspired by their religious beliefs.

Despite their religious beliefs more like, Exodus 21 hardly inspires abolitionism. Though may courageous abolitionists were of course Christians, this is hardly news, since during that period the vast majority of people were theists. With many many more Christian slave owners citing the bible as justification for owning slaves. Whilst I'd recognise the courage of those abolitionists regardless of their beliefs, and that they cited other aspects of their beliefs as motivators for their support of abolitionism. It'd be asinine to imagine the bible wasn't equally a motivator for may Christians to justify owning slaves.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Despite their religious beliefs more like, Exodus 21 hardly inspires abolitionism. Though may courageous abolitionists were of course Christians, this is hardly news, since during that period the vast majority of people were theists. With many many more Christian slave owners citing the bible as justification for owning slaves. Whilst I'd recognise the courage of those abolitionists regardless of their beliefs, and that they cited other aspects of their beliefs as motivators for their support of abolitionism. It'd be asinine to imagine the bible wasn't equally a motivator for may Christians to justify owning slaves.

Yeah, your world would be much easier if everybody else different than you were old school Christian fundamentalists. I mean all this cultural relativism must be hard for you. Only black and white and nothing else.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Which countres "tried to oust religion" without having another ideology to replace it? In other words, which country "tried to oust a religion" without having another dogma with which to replace it?

Thanks for humoring me.

I associate totalitarianism with theocracy because of how I view human psychology, so to me they are sides of the same coin. If you take any person and make them total dictator you risk accelerating and unveiling psychological problems: imposter syndrome, narcissistic disorder, borderline personality disorder and others. If the egg is already cracked you have added pressure to a cracked egg. You take their issues and make them public You take them away from the boundaries people need. The person becomes dissociated from normal people. I think every person is potentially a Jim Jones in such a situation. They need boundaries to stay sane, such as a parliament or advisors or some enemy to fight or monotheism -- something that gives them meaning that connects them to the reality perceived through boundaries and limitations. I view totalitarianism as instant theocracy.

A modern example is N. Korea where the leaders have been enshrined as deities. I think that the Kims originally believed they'd be good leaders but that their position as total masters of the country messed with their heads. They began by claiming they would turn the country to communism and subdued and made illegal all religion in their borders.

Another less clear example is modern Turkey which has become Erdogan's country. Ataturk in the 1930's tried very hard to separate church and state completely, but after he died his Turkey began to turn away from both Islam and secular humanism. It is becoming nationalist surrounding a golden leader, tossing away its chances for a democracy in favor of a strong leader. That's not a perfect example of the religion vs theocracy, but it is an example of political backsliding from monotheism toward theocracy/totalitarianism. They tried to force out religion as like extracting water from gelatin, and there was nothing to replace it. The secular government became filled with graft, people acting not in the national interest but in personal interest. I admit the country is still very Muslim and its government claims to be Islamic, but it behaves like an Erdogan fan club. What complicates this is Islam's political nature, however I think the underlying point I'm trying to make is that Turkey tried to make a government that had no religious connection. It acted as if religion was not part of the underlying support for the government, that people were not religious and were rational in nature. The people proved otherwise that are not strictly rational and that simply subtracting religion results in what we see today.

I'm not saying that secular humanism cannot work in Europe. I'm saying it remains to be seen (so Hitchens challenge is to small, too much on the individual scale to be of political import). If the people really believe in its affirmations and act like it then the system can stand, but if they don't then the countries will see failure as happened in the USSR and Turkey and other places where religion was driven out with no substitute.

There are very peaceful countries where religion has retreated far into the background, but not through being "ousted." And none of them bends the knee to some other -ism.

True. How long has this been the case? How are they doing? Are they experiencing graft and moving towards nationalism and falling into strange economic situations due to having no actual moral backbone? How's China, lately?

 

[Sheldon]

The theist answer woulb be ether:

1 you are misrepresenting the text

2 there are morally good reasons to justify that action.

This is why I said that it is moraly wrong to torture a child for fun, if you have a higher purpose you can (and should) torture a child and you will still be morally good, (a dentist or a doctor performing a hard and painful procedure would be examples of this)

So you think it's ok to torture a new-born baby to death then, as long as it's not for fun? We're having a rare glimpse into theistic morality here. There was no interpretation involved or required, the text states a deity was angered at King David murdering the husband of a woman to have sex with her, and because she conceived a child in an adulterous relationship that deity "smote" the new-born boy, and it was gravely ill for 7 days and then died.

FYI, my secular morality can't conceive of any circumstances where torturing babies is moral, no matter what the motivation. It is a barbarically cruel act, but luckily there is no objective evidence for the biblical deity.

 

[Sheldon]

If god exist then Worshiping would be an ethical action,

That would depend on your ethics, and the deity, I would never consider it ethical to worship a deity that committed and endorsed relentless and indiscriminate acts of murder, including infanticide, and mass murder including ethnic cleansing and global genocide. Or a deity the encouraged humans to sex traffic virginal female prisoners, or that endorsed slavery in any way. Luckily there is no objective evidence that such a cruel and sadistic deity exists.

 

[sun rise]

That is not a religious value, it is a descriptor we assign a range of complex human emotions. More pointedly beyond loving an imaginary deity, there is no love a theist is capable of that an atheist is not.

"descriptor WE assign" - more properly you assign and you limit the range and scope of love.