The new Athiest Humanities downfall?

[robocop (actually)]

No, I don't think so. The stalker who thinks that some hot movie star is in love with him, and feels it so strongly that it must be true -- well, that may be enuf for him, but it doesn't make it true. And I rather think it could quite easily be falsified.

In so many ways, believing is NOT enough. There must be some way to find out. And that way is not some new "revelation" with a new truth that must be believed, it's through reason, the ability to think rationally, to work things out, to see that what doesn't make sense is very likely to be false.

No, sorry, but sometimes, "a very different way of seeing things" is the same as not being able to see them at all.

Evangelicalhumanist, I've never had a problem with you letting me believe what I want.

 

[Augustus]

So what is needed to bring about the unity of the entire human race?

A completely different brain that evolved from a completely different evolutionary history.

The more pertinent question is how do we create a world where diverse and divided peoples who may not like each other due to their differing values cooperate to a sufficient degree to avoid major problems and minimise outbreaks of violence.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

A completely different brain that evolved from a completely different evolutionary history.

The more pertinent question is how do we create a world where diverse and divided peoples who may not like each other due to their differing values cooperate to a sufficient degree to avoid major problems and minimise outbreaks of violence.

I do not think it can work unless and until we show genuine love to all people.

That can still be done in different frames of references.

Regards Tony

 

[Colt]

Doesn't your belief also claim life came from dust(figurative speaking) but was created?

Yes, but it didn’t invent itself, there was mind behind the creation. In creation via evolution the potential was always one step ahead if the actual. In the Godless theory of evolution, the actual is always ahead of the potential and magically keeps falling uphill.

 

[Colt]

That's tricky language. So, no evidence?

That's tricky language. So, no evidence?

Throughout any stage of the unfolding of evolution the “potential” (Gods plans) were always greater than the actual (where evolution was at any point). Looking at the totality of all things it’s so obvious, but focusing on any one part makes it elusive.

 

[Colt]

Total non-sequitur. And perhaps just silly.

The sponge was an “actual” at its place in evolution. A Tesla was a potential at the same time. Potential has always been supreme over the actual.

explains it better:


THE SUPREMACY OF PURPOSIVE POTENTIAL

Although the establishment of the fact of belief is not equivalent to establishing the fact of that which is believed, nevertheless, the evolutionary progression of simple life to the status of personality does demonstrate the fact of the existence of the potential of personality to start with. And in the time universes, potential is always supreme over the actual. In the evolving cosmos the potential is what is to be, and what is to be is the unfolding of the purposive mandates of Deity.

This same purposive supremacy is shown in the evolution of mind ideation when primitive animal fear is transmuted into the constantly deepening reverence for God and into increasing awe of the universe. Primitive man had more religious fear than faith, and the supremacy of spirit potentials over mind actuals is demonstrated when this craven fear is translated into living faith in spiritual realities.

You can psychologize evolutionary religion but not the personal-experience religion of spiritual origin. Human morality may recognize values, but only religion can conserve, exalt, and spiritualize such values. But notwithstanding such actions, religion is something more than emotionalized morality. Religion is to morality as love is to duty, as sonship is to servitude, as essence is to substance. Morality discloses an almighty Controller, a Deity to be served; religion discloses an all-loving Father, a God to be worshiped and loved. And again this is because the spiritual potentiality of religion is dominant over the duty actuality of the morality of evolution.” UB 1955

 

[ChristineM]

And the scariest.

Regards Tony

Yes so many religionists, including the one i quoted do not even recognise it

 

[ChristineM]

I came into the world with nothing, and was disheartened to learn I can take none of it will me when I leave.



John

And that give you the right to abuse atheism does it?

You could note my signature. Spend your nothing wisely

"I started life with nothing and i still have most of it left."

 

[oldbadger]

Atheism as a movement is a dark and evil force when it attempts to undermine religious faith.

Hi .....
Religion as a movement is a dark force when it attempts to undermine everything but itself.

 

[Colt]

Hi .....
Religion as a movement is a dark force when it attempts to undermine everything but itself.

It’s true that religion is tardy in reforms but we’ve seen societies that eradicated religion altogether.

 

[joe1776]

they still exist
You got some catching up to do.

I'm caught up. That's why I said "they still exist' in the paragraph you quoted.

 

[blü 2]

I found this interesting.

"The ‘new atheism’ is the name given to contemporary atheism as spear-headed by the work of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.

The new atheism has twelve characteristics that define its nature:

(1) A commitment to explicit, strong or dogmatic atheism as the only rational
choice for modern, independent, free thinking individuals. The new atheists reject
agnosticism as too weak a response to the dangers of religion.
(2) A categorical rejection of any and all super-sensible beings and realities and a
corresponding commitment to ontological (metaphysical) materialism in explaining all phenomena;
(3) A militant agenda and tone which opposes not just of religion itself but even the tolerance of any religious beliefs in others; this agenda and tone is driven by the belief that religion per se is pathological in nature;
(4) A strident, aggressive, provocative and insulting way of expressing themselves and
indulgence in all kinds of polemical and rhetorical shenanigans;
(5) Commitment to the ability of science to answer all human questions by means of the scientific method with its criteria of measurability, repeatability, predictability,
falsifiability; quantifiability;
(6) A belief that faith is inherently an enemy of reason and science and no reconciliation
between them is possible. Religion is inherently irrational. They are naturally in a
perpetual conflict that must end with the victory of one or the other. Faith is defined
as “belief without evidence.” They adhere to the conflict model of the relationship
between religion/faith and reason;
(7) A belief that religion is part of our past but not of our future, i.e. part of our evolutionary heritage that we must learn to overcome;
(8) An insistence of reading scriptures literally (in order to condemn religion) and a
consistent rejection of centuries of non-literal theological interpretations of the
relevant scriptures;
(9) An insistence that humankind has an innate and reliable moral sense or intuition that does not require the guidance of religion; morality is not inherently connected to or based on religion and our morals have less to do with religion than we tend to think.
(10) Presentism: judging past ages by the standards of today, which is, in effect, a failure to recognise progressive revelation. (also the logical error of anachronism);
(11) Their belief that religious faith is either a mental illness or a criminal offense
comparable to child-molesting or an anti-social act that ‘dumbs down’ society as a
whole;
(12) Their rejection of the freedom to be religious; because religion is so damaging
religion is not a legitimate choice in society."

Spoiler: Source

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...cQFnoECAYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2oB623Tqdht2YN3zoQRQ6K

Edit - A Link that is not a PDF The New Atheism

This may become mankind's greatest challenge, is it the height of materialism, the downfall of the human race as described in prophecy?

How do you see it?

Personally I can leave them to their thoughts, but since some here come up with these replies in their posts on religious threads, I thought it worth discussing.

Regards Tony

First, a happy new year to you!

Second, I don't think religion is necessary for morality. If we act towards others with decency, respect and inclusion, in my view we've done what's morally important. Both forms of religion and forms of atheism have been known to be antagonistic to those aims. Both forms of religion and forms of atheism have been known to support those aims,

Our morality comes in no small part from our evolved tendencies as gregarious primates, living in cooperative groups. Those, like empathy and conscience, are part of the kit whether religion is or not.

 

[joe1776]

There is a number of misconception about the Soviet Union; first it was not a communist State. It was State Socialism. This was enshrined in the official Party line in the 80's. It was to be the beacon toward communism not communism itself. It also renounced its objective of finishing the revolution to instead focusing on keeping itself working as it was and wait for a better time or other circumstances to help "finish" the revolution. There are entire books written by Soviets leaders and academics as to how their own country followed and deviated from Marx's ideals and "the state of the revolution".Prohibition against organized religion waxed and waned over time. It wasn't linear nor was it the same for all religion. How many or what nature those restriction will also vary. It's also rather fallacious to say that because I believe that religion exist in modern society mostly as a balm and that as our society progresses and flourishes it will disappear though will attempt to slow down that progress to continue its existence that I would agree with any and all policies and methods of repression used to destroy organized religion. That would be like saying that because I dreamed of an end that I will support all the means to it; that's completely false. Plus, it's not like seeing the means couldn't possibly shatter my dream either and radically change my views on things. It makes Marx, no longer a human being with ideas, but ideas with a meatsuit of human. It's a common error in historiography to confuse the men with their ideas.

Did Marx famously make the statement about religion that I quoted? Yes
Was Marx's thinking influential in the Soviet Union's Communist Party? Yes
Did the Party restrict religion? Yes

 

[PureX]

Im not saying that it is, but a lot of what Richard Dawkins and these atheists are fighting for and saying is shared amongst many of us atheists, not all of it.

Yes, and that was the point of the OP. "All of it" is not relevant. "All of it" rarely is relevant as reality doesn't work that way. Which is why I get annoyed when people try to claim that if that extreme isn't being met, the whole point must be dismissed. Its a common tactic used by people who will stoop to irrationality and dishonesty to try and "win their point" because all they want to do is win their point. As opposed to actually UNDERSTANDING the point, and recognizing it's significance. In fact, that's exactly what they are trying NOT to do.

But its not like these people are on the far side and the other atheists in a completely different ball park. So making accusations such as atheists "encourage" the ideas of dehumanization and would support the idea of inhumane cultures, when we are in fact in support of the exact opposite.

What people THINK they support, and BELIEVE they support, and what they actually support by their ideas, words, and deeds are often very different things. Just saying "I'm a humanist" doesn't make it so. When these same "humanists" claim philosophy is meaningless intellectual sophistry, that religion is the cause of man's inhumanity to man, and art exists only for entertainment purposes, we are not seeing humanism being expressed. So they can call themselves humanists til the cows come home but I'm not buying it. I suspect that if we asked the general German population in the 1930s if they were "humanists" most of them would have said they were, and even believed it. Even as they were enabling one of the most inhumane cultures and political regimes in history. People are liars; especially about and to themselves. So excuse me if I'm not buying the "we're just secular humanists" mantra. Many atheists are. But the zealots that we are discussing, here, are not. Zealots of any stripe are rarely humanists. And to whatever degree you support their zealotry, you aren't a humanist, either.

I find that view interesting and would like more explanation of how exactly you have reached this conclusion. Because to me it seems like you are basing this on feeling offended by their different views rather than actual things that they have done.

I am offended by the dishonesty of their claims. And by the continued dishonesty of their attempts to defend their claims. I am not offended at all by atheism as an ideal. That is a choice that any of us is free to opt into.

For instance that subjective morality is an issue? That Richard Dawkins might not value philosophy as much as you. None of these seems to be valid reasons of why atheisms is dangerous? Lots of atheists support the idea of objective morality, such as Sam Harris, even Richard Dawkins might, I have no clue.

Most of the atheists that I encounter that disregard philosophy do so because their absurdly irrational claims can't hold up in the face of the kind of logical scrutiny that philosophy engenders. So they simply dismiss philosophy as a valid human endeavor. This is what I mean when I refer to the frustrating dishonesty and willful ignorance of a lot of modern atheism, and atheists.

I understand that you are not referring to all atheists, but I did ask you to pick those atheists that you felt were the most extreme and how those could be considered dangerous and you said that it would lead to "inhumane" conditions.

How do you propose I "pick them"? I'm not going to name names. So I am explaining the identifying behaviors, instead. As the OP has also done. You can identify them, yourself, from that.

 

[joe1776]

Why, his idea was to inspire a fairer society, by creating what he perceived as a fairer economic system, he saw religious belief in an afterlife and reward, as a barrier to action while we are alive.

Why he said it is irrelevant in this very limited discussion. His statement was dismissive of religion and that's all we need to know about it.

Firstly they knew that throughout Europe, state religions like Christianity had endorsed the divine right of the Tsars as absolute rulers. The people lived suffered and died in a totalitarian state, and religions endorsed and benefited from this, so it's hardly surprising the revolutionary powers distrusted those religions. They have not "eased somewhat" there has been a massive upturn in religion, and in religious intolerance in the former Soviet countries.
Except your rationale seems to be it was the root cause behind the state atheism of the former Soviet Union, but it wasn't, and it certainly wasn't what Marx was saying.

Root cause? No, that's not my claim. I don't know how you got that.

Marxism is an economic ideal that doesn't really work, it has little directly to do with atheism, which is simply a lack of belief in any deity. The suppression of religion had more to do with trying to end the idea of divine right of kings, and of course Stalin's paranoia could not have allowed any organisation to rival the state machine, as he wanted absolute power. Since atheism has no dogma or doctrine and atheists are not an homogenous group in the way Christians were, the rationale quite clearly was that they would be easier to control and manipulate.

Interesting but irrelevant to my posts.

Now for the sake of argument let's say all that isn't true, your idea doesn't seem to have any relevance to the accusations levelled at new atheists, as they are not advocating for a communist or a totalitarian state, and though they might hope for a secular government, that only means the separation of church and state, which we still don't have in the UK.

Your points in this post seems to have little relevance to my posts.
My first post on the Marx issue was simply a response to the post I quoted asking if there was such a thing as a dangerous atheist thought and Marx's thought about religion as an opiate came to mind.

 

[PureX]

Most atheists I know are agnostic about God in the same way they are about any other thing that hasn't been reasonably demonstrated. Such a thing may exist, but we have no reason to act like it does until such time as we have good reason to believe as much.

But I know the logic of this has been explained to you before, in excruciating detail. By me, even. So I really don't know how else to walk you through it. We just disagree.

The problem is that IT'S NOT LOGICAL. You can call it logical and pretend it's logical all you want, but it's still not logical. Its not logical because not knowing something to be so does not logically lead to the presumption that it isn't so. And no matter how many times you claim it does, it still does not. The atheist can choose to believe whatever he wants about it. That is our right. But when he claims his beliefs are based on logic, and everyone else's isn't, he becomes a LIAR. Because it is not logical to claim an unfounded belief is based on logic. That's not logical, and it's not true. It's a lie.

And once people start accepting this lie as true, they have to start telling themselves more lies to maintain the first one. It happens with theists that lie to themselves about "knowing God" and it happens to atheists that lie to themselves about it being logical to assume that no gods exist based on no evidence. In both instances, the first lie leads to more and more supporting lies until the liars can't see the truth of anything. Even as they are constantly spewing to everyone what the truth is. Atheism is developing a fundamentalist streak akin to religious fundamentalism, based on blinding arrogance and profound dishonesty. It's not all atheists, or even most. But the poison is there, and it's spreading. And we need to talk about it.

 

[Sheldon]

Neither are christians.... But some atheists and some christians are.

Then it follows we can remove the descriptors, and simply say, "some people are sinister, or pernicious". What they believe, or do not believe, would need to be demonstrated as significant or causal to that, and to what degree.

 

[Revoltingest]

No, I don't think so. The stalker who thinks that some hot movie star is in love with him, and feels it so strongly that it must be true -- well, that may be enuf for him, but it doesn't make it true. And I rather think it could quite easily be falsified.

That scenario is falsifiable, but let's change one thing.
Replace "movie star" with "deity", & now it's religion.

In so many ways, believing is NOT enough. There must be some way to find out. And that way is not some new "revelation" with a new truth that must be believed, it's through reason, the ability to think rationally, to work things out, to see that what doesn't make sense is very likely to be false.

No, sorry, but sometimes, "a very different way of seeing things" is the same as not being able to see them at all.

Of course they're different perspectives.
That's why we're discussing them.
Some prefer belief based upon a feeling that's not
falsifiable, ie, things that are "not even wrong".
Others believe only falsifiable things, ie, verifiable
by objective means.
All that matters to me about other people's beliefs
is that they be good neighbors.

 

[Sheldon]

Why he said it is irrelevant in this very limited discussion. His statement was dismissive of religion and that's all we need to know.

Never mind the facts, you have made up your mind? I suspect before this discourse as well. I have seldom heard such a closed minded dismissive. However despite your vapid hand waving the facts do not support the claim that a) the statement was sinister, or b) that is was motivated by atheism. Just because any opinion is perceived by you as dismissive of your religious beliefs, is insufficient to determine it is sinister, that is risible bias.

He offered an observation that the pervasive belief in religions, of a rewarding afterlife, was a barrier to improving the general lot, and reducing the suffering of people in this life, and he quite demonstrably had a point. That this criticises an aspect of some religions doesn't make it sinister, nor motivated necessarily by atheism.

 

[Revoltingest]

The problem is that IT'S NOT LOGICAL. You can call it logical and pretend it's logical all you want, but it's still not logical. Its not logical because not knowing something to be so does not logically lead to the presumption that it isn't so. And no matter how many times you claim it does, it still does not. The atheist can choose to believe whatever he wants about it. That is our right. But when he claims his beliefs are based on logic, and everyone else's isn't, he becomes a LIAR. Because it is not logical to claim an unfounded belief is based on logic. That's not logical, and it's not true. It's a lie.

That post made me think....
Fundamentalist Vulcan

Logic is rather irrelevant to religious reasoning.
Without "true" premises, there's nothing to reason from.
So a better foundation is....
Definition of rational | Dictionary.com