The Demonization of New Atheism and the Relative Desensitization to Religious Extremism

[Mock Turtle]

How do you figure that?

Our subjective experience really is the only thing we have to deal with reality - that which we experience. What the mind makes up - who the knows? It is certainly versatile and ingenious, but competent? Probably not.

 

[Augustus]

That is a fiction, and a misleading one at that. "New Atheism" is a substanceless label that implies circunstances that just are not there to be found.

Your objection is like pretending the term National Socialist is 'substanceless' because you disagree that the Nazis were socialists. We all know who the Nazis were regardless of whether the term National Socialist accurately reflects political theory.

This thread clearly demonstrates that countless people from diverse backgrounds are fully aware of what the term New Atheists refers to. The relationship between the sign New Atheism and its referent is symbolic. As such the term New Atheism could be replaced by anything else, for example the sign Chuzzwozzers.

As long as people were aware of this convention, the terms New Atheism/Chuzzwozzers would be functionally identical (like foreign languages). Were it 'substanceless', there would be no clear referent, which is obviously not the case.

 

[PureX]

Our subjective experience really is the only thing we have to deal with reality - that which we experience. What the mind makes up - who the knows? It is certainly versatile and ingenious, but competent? Probably not.

And yet we presume and claim that we pursue "the truth", and that we can and do obtain it. When in fact, all we can pursue is the relative functionality of some imagined truth, and that's all we're after, anyway. If it works for us, we call it "the truth" until something comes along that works better, or until it stops working as before.

Which is why atheism is no more honest, truthful, or reasonable that theism, is.

 

[PureX]

While I agree that some religious folks are more dogmatic than others, I still contend that most religions - by there very nature - demand dogmatic thinking of their followers.

You still don't seem to get that it's not the religions that are dogmatic, it's the way some adherents interpret them.

 

[Mock Turtle]

And yet we presume and claim that we pursue "the truth", and that we can and do obtain it. When in fact, all we can pursue is the relative functionality of some imagined truth, and that's all we're after, anyway. If it works for us, we call it "the truth" until something comes along that works better, or until it stops working as before.

Which is why atheism is no more honest, truthful, or reasonable that theism, is.

I wouldn't claim it was. But I think the nature of religions, as just stemming from human minds, has a lot going for it, and possibly more so than theism.

 

[PureX]

I wouldn't claim it was. But I think the nature of religions, as just stemming from human minds, has a lot going for it, and possibly more so than theism.

Religions are at least about functionality, as opposed to imagined 'Truth' (as with theism and atheism). But religion's function is directly tied to the ideals that come with the imagined theological truth. So I suppose they are integral in that way. Theology sets the goal, and religions enable people to function relative to that goal.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Religions are at least about functionality, as opposed to imagined 'Truth' (as with theism and atheism). But religion's function is directly tied to the ideals that come with the imagined theological truth. So I suppose they are integral in that way. Theology sets the goal, and religions enable people to function relative to that goal.

Morality fulfils this function perfectly adequately - if we all work towards a consensus (not that difficult) - such that, apart from any notion of God or gods, which some of us can leave on the shelf, we could exist perfectly well without religions. Plenty to occupy our minds besides religious beliefs after all.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

To reject a possibility based on ignorance is no less an act of faith than to accept that possibility based on desire.

Atheists miss the golden gems and throw them out in the trash. It is supreme recklessness.

It's so kind of you both to be concerned about us atheists, but I don't see where any of you has anything to offer to a person who has found peace and contentment without religion. Why would such a person introduce religion into his life? I realize that you see it as your job to assume that our lives are empty and to offer unsolicited and unneeded advice on how to live and think, but as explained, I'm good without your gems.

 

[icehorse]

You still don't seem to get that it's not the religions that are dogmatic, it's the way some adherents interpret them.

To me, a religion is a set of ideas that a group of people passes from generation to generation and the group uses those ideas - to some degree - to guide how they live their lives.

What's your definition of religion?

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

This seems a very narrow view of theism. While I respect that you may well have primarily experienced an environment in which this was all you were exposed to in this regard, I think it would be remiss if I didn't point out (as nobody else seems to have done so far) that even within Abrahamic religions alone, this view far from encompasses the whole. A great many people who could fairly be described as theists would disagree with this 'king ruling their kingdom' narrative of God.

While theism may have started out with the simple belief in god, it has evolved over time to mean much more than that.

I am suggesting that we need to relook at how we classify it.

Maybe you read my other comments, or maybe not, but I've qualified my statement elsewhere in the thread, read on in the thread and maybe you'll understand what I'm saying after reading those. In the meantime, take a look at this slide and think about it.

 

[Kirran]

While theism may have started out with the simple belief in god, it has evolved over time to mean much more than that.

I am suggesting that we need to relook at how we classify it.

Maybe you read my other comments, or maybe not, but I've qualified my statement elsewhere in the thread, read on in the thread and maybe you'll understand what I'm saying after reading those. In the meantime, take a look at this slide and think about it.

Sure, I looked at the slide, and I read many of your posts posts. But just cos there are various specific variations within theistic ideas doesn't mean that theism means some particular one of them.

By your definition, theism is rather fatuous. That's certainly fair to say. But that doesn't mean that that conclusion applies to variations of theistic thought found in the world.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

Sure, I looked at the slide, and I read many of your posts posts. But just cos there are various specific variations within theistic ideas doesn't mean that theism means some particular one of them.

By your definition, theism is rather fatuous. That's certainly fair to say. But that doesn't mean that that conclusion applies to variations of theistic thought found in the world.

You are fundamentally wrong.

The variations of theism (mono and poly) are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc

Deism has no variations

Pantheism has no variations

Panentheism has no variations

Variations of theism, the belief in gods that rule us as a king rules his subjects exhorting us to perform propitiations, etc, are the religions you see being worshiped all around you.

 

[Kirran]

You are fundamentally wrong.

The variations of theism (mono and poly) are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc

Deism has no variations

Pantheism has no variations

Panentheism has no variations

Variations of theism, the belief in gods that rule us as a king rules his subjects exhorting us to perform propitiations, etc, are the religions you see being worshiped all around you.
View attachment 21083 View attachment 21084

Dictionaries describe language, rather than prescribe it.

But either way, I don't see how that really addresses what I said. For example, what do you actually know about the variations of understandings of God found in Islamic, Christian and Hindu traditions? Have you exhaustively studied them and immersed yourself in them to such an extent as to be able to speak confidently on the fact that all subscribe to a 'King ruling His Kingdom' view of God? I have looked at them to nowhere near an exhaustive extent, but already know that there is far more variation in them than that. Within Christianity, look at the thought of Aquinas, or Meister Eckhart. Within Islam, Ibn Arabi or Moinuddin Chishti. Within Hinduism, Ramanuja or Vivekananda. Within Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov or Reb Zalman. Within Sikhism, Guru Nanak himself. Within the Chinese folk traditions, Wang Jueyi and many other Way of Former Heaven teachers, as well as much of the sources of the devotional Chinese movements (not to mention Laozi and Zhuangzi and later Daoist teachers!).

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Plenty of wisdom about the human condition in religions and their mythology as they are distillations of centuries of human experience. It would be foolish to ignore this simply because religions are 'made up'.

I don't need religion for wisdom, which I define as knowing what to pursue to be happy. Since I am happy now without religious input, I must disagree that it is foolishness to reject religious input. Doing so has worked quite well.

You misinterpreted what I was saying. The point wasn't that everyone must scour religions for the wisdom contained within, there's only so many hours in a day after all, but that they contain wisdom that may be discovered. Basically, it's foolish to believe that one couldn't possibly find any wisdom in religions.

You've moved the goalpost from it would be foolish to ignore religions to it's foolish to believe that one couldn't possibly find any wisdom in religions, an argument I didn't make.

As I've already said, I ignored religion, and it wasn't foolish. Wisdom is acquired by living life vigilantly and determining what things make one happy, not from a book or any ism.

And faith does not "expunge doubt", it gives us a course forward, through our doubts. Faith without doubt is blind pretense.

That is exactly what the faithful are exhorted to do - believe without doubt. You know, that voice in your head that nags at you that you are to recognize as Satan trying to steal your soul and ignore. Get thee hence and all of that. When people say that their faith is strong, it means that they don't experience doubt, or that if it does crop up, they squelch it immediately, perhaps by praying.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

Dictionaries describe language, rather than prescribe it.

But either way, I don't see how that really addresses what I said. For example, what do you actually know about the variations of understandings of God found in Islamic, Christian and Hindu traditions? Have you exhaustively studied them and immersed yourself in them to such an extent as to be able to speak confidently on the fact that all subscribe to a 'King ruling His Kingdom' view of God? I have looked at them to nowhere near an exhaustive extent, but already know that there is far more variation in them than that. Within Christianity, look at the thought of Aquinas, or Meister Eckhart. Within Islam, Ibn Arabi or Moinuddin Chishti. Within Hinduism, Ramanuja or Vivekananda. Within Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov or Reb Zalman. Within Sikhism, Guru Nanak himself.

The Oxford dictionary did a blog post about this topic...
Do you think dictionaries should:

• Describe language as it is being used
• Prescribe how language should be used
• Be a mixture of prescriptive and descriptive

The results were as follows: 70.27 % were in favour of a mixture, 16.22% opted for description, and 13.51% chose prescription.

It's fine that the dictionaries describe language, but they describe language so that everybody is on the same page in what is being said. They should be an "authority" that we can all go to to understand the meaning of a word. Consider just a few of the reasons why a person reaches for a dictionary in the first place. It might be to check the spelling of a word, or perhaps to find out what an unfamiliar word means...

Regarding the breadth of literature I've read over the years, don't ask me to recount every little detail of what I've read, but I've got a library wall in my home about 16 feet long and 8 feet tall chock full of books on all manner of topic. A great many of them, I'd say the vast majority of them have to do with theology in general, and Christian theology/apologia more specifically.

Aquinas, Spinoza, Andrewes, Bonaventure, Chesterton, Lewis, Sproull, Zachariah, Keller, the list goes on and on and on. I'm not completely versed in every religion's specific claims, no, but I've read enough of each of the major religion's apologetics to get the gist of what they believe.

The major religions in the world today, which account for more than 3/4 of the population of the world, are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism with other Hindu and Buddhist offshoots.

With the exception of Buddhism, they are all theistic in origin, or religions that believe in a god that created the universe and rules it, as my screenshot of the definition says.
.

 

[Kirran]

The Oxford dictionary did a blog post about this topic...
Do you think dictionaries should:

• Describe language as it is being used
• Prescribe how language should be used
• Be a mixture of prescriptive and descriptive

The results were as follows: 70.27 % were in favour of a mixture, 16.22% opted for description, and 13.51% chose prescription.

It's fine that the dictionaries describe language, but they describe language so that everybody is on the same page in what is being said. They should be an "authority" that we can all go to to understand the meaning of a word. Consider just a few of the reasons why a person reaches for a dictionary in the first place. It might be to check the spelling of a word, or perhaps to find out what an unfamiliar word means...

That's interesting!

Well, we can safely relegate my comment regarding description vs prescription to being my personal view then.

Regarding the breadth of literature I've read over the years, don't ask me to recount every little detail of what I've read, but I've got a library wall in my home about 16 feet long and 8 feet tall chock full of books on all manner of topic. A great many of them, I'd say the vast majority of them have to do with theology in general, and Christian theology/apologia more specifically.

Aquinas, Spinoza, Andrewes, Bonaventure, Chesterton, Lewis, Sproull, Zachariah, Keller, the list goes on and on and on. I'm not completely versed in every religion's specific claims, no, but I've read enough of each of the major religion's apologetics to get the gist of what they believe.

The major religions in the world today, which account for more than 3/4 of the population of the world, are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism with other Hindu and Buddhist offshoots.

With the exception of Buddhism, they are all theistic in origin, or religions that believe in a god that created the universe and rules it, as my screenshot of the definition says.
.

That's cool, definitely - if you've read on the thought of all that bunch, how come you're saying that theists (e.g. Christians) think that God's like a king ruling the universe?

Yeah, Judaism, Christianity and Islam can be fairly said to have theistic origins (again, I use theism to mean something broader than how you use it) but I'd quibble r.e. Hinduism, which can't really be said to have any kind of origin exactly at all, being an umbrella term rather than a tradition stemming from one guru like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, or a single tribal group, like Judaism.

 

[Windwalker]

Wisdom is acquired by living life vigilantly and determining what things make one happy, not from a book or any ism.

Understanding and integrating knowledge from others is part of Wisdom. Go it alone'ism, dismissing the knowledge of others because it doesn't fit easily into your present way of thinking, is not generally a path that leads someone to Wisdom. Wisdom is depended by have an open mind as well as an open heart.

That is exactly what the faithful are exhorted to do - believe without doubt. You know, that voice in your head that nags at you that you are to recognize as Satan trying to steal your soul and ignore. Get thee hence and all of that.

That is the teachings of the ignorant. That is the teachings of the fearful, who have no faith. That is a poor excuse for religious instruction by those who are themselves in the dark on these matters of faith and doubt.

When people say that their faith is strong, it means that they don't experience doubt, or that if it does crop up, they squelch it immediately, perhaps by praying.

That is not faith. That is stubborn beliefs. There is a difference between faith and beliefs. Faith allows for beliefs to change, and in fact, it is found it becomes completely necessary to do that in order for faith to allow you to grow. If you never changed your ideas, could never face errors in thought, you would be utterly stunted mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Doubt is the ally of faith, it is the servant of faith, not its enemy.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

That's interesting!

Well, we can safely relegate my comment regarding description vs prescription to being my personal view then.



That's cool, definitely - if you've read on the thought of all that bunch, how come you're saying that theists (e.g. Christians) think that God's like a king ruling the universe?

Yeah, Judaism, Christianity and Islam can be fairly said to have theistic origins (again, I use theism to mean something broader than how you use it) but I'd quibble r.e. Hinduism, which can't really be said to have any kind of origin exactly at all, being an umbrella term rather than a tradition stemming from one guru like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, or a single tribal group, like Judaism.

It is after reading the literature, and leaning on my own understandings, that I came to the conclusions I did.

Theism, while it had it's beginnings as just a word used to describe a person who believed in a god or gods, it has grown into more than that. It is now used to describe a subset of humans who believe god is a personal god to each person. That the god or gods care about our well-being and intercedes on our behalf. That the god or gods will judge our actions in this life and we get our reward either in some heaven of his design (Christianity, Islam, etc) or maybe that we'll be reincarnated in the next life in a form commensurate with how we lived this one (Hinduism), ie you may move from being a human in this life to being a fly in the next because you were a schitty human, or you may move up to the next class in the class system Hindus used to practice, and still do today in some parts.

Hinduism is polytheism

 

[Kirran]

It is after reading the literature, and leaning on my own understandings, that I came to the conclusions I did.

Theism, while it had it's beginnings as just a word used to describe a person who believed in a god or gods, it has grown into more than that. It is now used to describe a subset of humans who believe god is a personal god to each person. That the god or gods care about our well-being and intercedes on our behalf. That the god or gods will judge our actions in this life and we get our reward either in some heaven of his design (Christianity, Islam, etc) or maybe that we'll be reincarnated in the next life in a form commensurate with how we lived this one (Hinduism), ie you may move from being a human in this life to being a fly in the next because you were a schitty human, or you may move up to the next class in the class system Hindus used to practice, and still do today in some parts.

Hinduism is polytheism

When do you see it as having done that?

Also, no, Hinduism is not polytheism. Some Hindus might be called polytheists, but generally Hindus believe in one God. There is not a single prominent teacher in the tradition who teaches polytheism, at least for the last couple centuries, and generally speaking not before that either. Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Sai Baba of Shirdi, Sathya Sai Baba, Amma, Yogaswami, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi etc. None teach polytheism. I recognise that your familiarity is more focused on the Christian tradition.

 

[Augustus]

You've moved the goalpost from it would be foolish to ignore religions to it's foolish to believe that one couldn't possibly find any wisdom in religions, an argument I didn't make.

As I've already said, I ignored religion, and it wasn't foolish. Wisdom is acquired by living life vigilantly and determining what things make one happy, not from a book or any ism.

'Moved the goalposts'??? I explained that you misinterpreted what I was saying in to someone else, so I was clarifying it to remove this misunderstanding.

The context was the quote I was replying to:

"Hmmm. I'd say that psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy (to name a few), represent progress towards understanding human nature more than religion does."

to which I replied:

"The good thing about sources of knowledge is that they are complementary.

Plenty of wisdom about the human condition in religions and their mythology as they are distillations of centuries of human experience. It would be foolish to ignore this simply because religions are 'made up'. Especially the warnings against hubris."