Video About Problems With Atheism

[A Vestigial Mote]

The Cancer eating him away, like I mentioned in another thread. Who mentioned perversions? I gave examples of Atheists who are thinking and living and doing it the right way. Step up? Come on, you will not even step up to blatant Totalitarianism, then step up to me? Please. All fantasy, all fantasy.

Virtue? What, virtue? I'm Christian I have no virtue, I don't believe in the concept. Now excuse me while I smoke a joint, grab a beer, smoke a cigarette and be with my soulmate.

Oh, the cancer of thought eating him away...cannot enjoy life with cancer, the rumination as Nietzsche said, the fantasy they create.

I'm thinking perhaps one too many joints there, buddy?

 

[james bond]

A couple more problems I've found with atheism. Strange connections.

One is with Karl Marx of which I have said atheism leads to communism many times. One of the differences between atheists and the religious is that the atheists, physicalists, naturalism advocates believe that the mind and the brain are the same. Thus, all that exists are material. Dualism or the separation of mind and body into spirit and matter is not the norm, but that the mind is the output of the brain. This disagreement is called the mind-body problem.

Here is how Karl Marx addressed it in his dialectical materialsim problem.

"Like every philosophy, dialectical materialism must address the mind-body problem. Marxists rely on the key word reflect when addressing this issue. They contend that our mind reflects matter in a way that makes our perception accurate. For Marx, “the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.”1 However, Marx does not address the origin of this ideal. Lenin echoes Marx: “The existence of the mind is shown to be dependent upon that of the body, in that the mind is declared to be secondary, a function of the brain, or a reflection of the outer world.”2 To avoid calling consciousness supernatural, Marxists rely on the notion that consciousness is just a subjective reflection of objective reality.

Marxist Philosophy – Everything is Matter
For the dialectical materialist, everything must have proceeded from matter, even societal interrelationships and the mind. Maurice Cornforth writes, “Mental functions are functions of highly developed matter, namely, of the brain. Mental processes are brain processes, processes of a material, bodily organ.”3 Although Marxists may refer to thought as a reflection of objective reality, they must admit that in their view the mind is simply a function of matter."

Marxist Philosophy and The Mind/Body Problem

Another person of infamy to the religious is Baruch Spinoza. He had a strange philosophy of religion in that he advocated God, but not in the traditional God as transcendent way. He became well versed in the Bible, but taught God as a necessity because he is the cause of natural things. In other words, God was made equal with nature and wasn't the transcendent figure that is taught in the Abrahamic religions and the Bible. He was excommunicated from the Jewish community and was stabbed as a heretic. His fourteen propositions is strange to read.

Fifteen Propositions
"Proposition 1: A substance is prior in nature to its affections.

Proposition 2: Two substances having different attributes have nothing in common with one another. (In other words, if two substances differ in nature, then they have nothing in common).

Proposition 3: If things have nothing in common with one another, one of them cannot be the cause of the other.

Proposition 4: Two or more distinct things are distinguished from one another, either by a difference in the attributes [i.e., the natures or essences] of the substances or by a difference in their affections [i.e., their accidental properties].

Proposition 5: In nature, there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute.

Proposition 6: One substance cannot be produced by another substance.

Proposition 7: It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.

Proposition 8: Every substance is necessarily infinite.

Proposition 9: The more reality or being each thing has, the more attributes belong to it.

Proposition 10: Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself.

Proposition 11: God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists. (The proof of this proposition consists simply in the classic “ontological proof for God’s existence”. Spinoza writes that “if you deny this, conceive, if you can, that God does not exist. Therefore, by axiom 7 [‘If a thing can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not involve existence’], his essence does not involve existence. But this, by proposition 7, is absurd. Therefore, God necessarily exists, q.e.d.”)

Proposition 12: No attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be divided.

Proposition 13: A substance which is absolutely infinite is indivisible.

Proposition 14: Except God, no substance can be or be conceived."

Baruch Spinoza (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

"Nevertheless, once branded as a heretic, Spinoza's clashes with authorities became more pronounced. For example, questioned by two members of his synagogue, Spinoza apparently responded that God has a body and nothing in scripture says otherwise.[35] He was later attacked on the steps of the synagogue by a knife-wielding assailant shouting "Heretic!" He was apparently quite shaken by this attack and for years kept (and wore) his torn cloak, unmended, as a souvenir.[41]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza

More about his life here
Benedict de Spinoza | Dutch-Jewish philosopher

EDIT: What does this mean? Well, if you follow the Marxist Communist line, it says that that which the brain perceives is correct of the outer world and that the mind is secondary or that of not in outer world or reality. Thus, these atheists are easily swayed to think that what they have been told is correct and will fight to their deaths over it. This isn't a discussion so much of the mind vs brain, but which cognition one should subscribe to. OTOH Spinoza is a clever fellow in that he relates formal methods of proof to his arguments. Some think he was a pantheist, but he doesn't have the religious feelings that of the pantheist or spiritual appreciation of the pantheist. I can see why someone tried to kill him. He knows how to press religious people's buttons.

 

[james bond]

Dostoevsky's argument is for angst ridden teenagers with very little education or life experience.

I was thinking LEOs.

 

[LuisDantas]

Explain it, because clearly that professor doesn't understand it either.

So it would seem. It is a shame, too. It is quite basic awareness of real life.

Educate us, enlighten us. Brevity is not wisdom.

A few words on a forum thread are no substitute for actually looking at real world people and their behavior, sorry. I can't help you at the level that you claim to be deficient at. Unless you happen to live in Brazil, I guess.

 

[LuisDantas]

I was more getting at WHY we find these things good. Like something intrinsic? I suppose both theists and atheists can answer that one.

We certainly don't need holy text for that I agree.

A good starting point is the Prisoner's Dilemma.

An even better one is Interdependent Origination. I would expect Advaita to be about as good at teaching why Karamazov's fallacy is worthless, but apparently not always.

"How Are We to Live?" and other books by Peter Singer and Sam Harris are excellent primers on the basis of ethics, but in a nutshell: ethical behavior is the logical and necessary course of action for people, because it maximizes the odds of joy and constructive circunstances for people.

Ethics are an unavoidable and necessary consequence of rational thought coupled with awareness of the environment.

 

[Augustus]

In general though, Christians like to think their ethics came from God or Jesus or the Bible or 'anything but a naturally emergent, evolutionary social development,' but they do have an unmistakable natural evolutionary heritage.

Cool. Christians and Humanists can both be wrong. They won't feel discriminated against.

Many different and incompatible moral systems can be considered products of "a naturally emergent, evolutionary social development.

And the "naturally emergent, evolutionary social development" that led to Humanism happened to occur in a Christian society and incorporated aspects of Christian ethics uncommon in non Christian societies.

A "naturally emergent, evolutionary social development" would likely evolve rather than magically appearing from a vacuum after all.

 

[siti]

Does anybody else think the good Prof might have got it arse about face? I mean could it not be that the our mythologies are (in part at least) an expression or encapsulation of a common cultural ethic rather than an underpinning foundation of it? And might that not also explain why many of the mythologies promote similar moral ideas whilst differing widely in their mythological conceptions of deity?

 

[Searching1981]

These are all - to use a perhaps overused but apt term - strawman arguments. You have explored several out of an infinity of possible thought processes that any given atheist might have.

? What does that mean, I don't speak hyper-correction. Why can't we all be confident...the body does not allow.

Hypercorrection - Wikipedia

 

[Searching1981]

Your sanctimoniousness is nauseating.

I'm an atheist. I have virtue. I believe in the concept. Now, I do smoke; terrible habit, I should stop; but I do not drink and I have no "soul mate" (I don't believe in the concept; I have no "significant other" either). Neither am I promiscuous, nor do I smoke weed, nor do I sacrifice babies in the darkened woods during the Summer Solstice. Your concept of who we are as atheists is a twisted version presented to you by preachers from pulpits who want you to keep coming back to their church pews ... so you can keep dropping their paychecks into the collection plates that "goes to the work of the Lord".

Listening to the preacher, believing he is telling you the truth about atheists, is like listening to the Republicans and believing that they are giving you accurate information on the Democrats.

Hypercorrection, hypercorrection all hypercorrection. This makes my ideal body nauseous. This is why you cannot read the Bible or any spiritual book, it is over your head because it is between the lines...I'm sorry, friend, you are blameless we all go to Heaven...I did not create your body.

 

[icehorse]

? What does that mean, I don't speak hyper-correction. Why can't we all be confident...the body does not allow.

Hypercorrection - Wikipedia

My post was not a hypercorrection. I'm saying that you were making arguments that contained logical fallacies. In this case, you were arguing against positions that few atheists actually take.

Remember that this is a debate forum. Your claims and arguments are open for criticism, that's just the nature of debates.

 

[Searching1981]

It's not that difficult to understand, and I don't even disagree.

I don't get into these morality debates much. The paranormal and Advaita are more my bags. So it really was a question and not so much a challenge.

@A Vestigial Mote too.

Friend, I don't know if you are theist or atheist, but keep being you because what they call morality is just a symptom of their cancer.

I'm a Ghost Adventurer and I've gone Ghost Hunting, and Ghosts have made homes out of my house which I love. Don't smudge a ghost out, you pray for them out, no need for a religious leader, just pray with utter sincerity and love telling them, "someday someone might do the same for me." You tell them, "hey, you are welcome in my house like all ghosts are knowing my house is spacious with extra rooms and I have things for you to entertain you, let's pray together for you to go to Heaven because there is just more to do."

For what these bum bodies call morality is their cancer on their soul which their soul rejects but they only know since they have been that body, that is why it does not make sense. All cancers urge you to be superior by being inferior, making your inferiority know saying, "if only there was no God I would be the greatest but those religious people and their beautiful bodies remind me all the time it's not God that is inferior it is I." And they say let us make our inferiority our morality and when they live we tell them they are damned.

 

[Searching1981]

My post was not a hypercorrection. I'm saying that you were making arguments that contained logical fallacies. In this case, you were arguing against positions that few atheists actually take.

Remember that this is a debate forum. Your claims and arguments are open for criticism, that's just the nature of debates.

Now, what you just wrote is gold, clearly plain spoken gold. I get you, now, I do. We very much can be brothers and sisters. You say, rightly, atheists don't take this position. I say that is true, but you don't find that with the atheist on message boards who get into Dawkins, Hitchens, Penn, Harris and others. Those are their pastors and their free will is being limited by a person not a God, or someone pretending to speaking on behalf of a God.

So, my response is, I know, I get it...but you still run into these people reading this stuff on message boards so what is their problem?

I tell you friend next time you go to a bar talk to people and when you meet someone social ask the question, "what miracles have you seen." And you will get all kinds of great responses, even if they are not religious. There is a world of vibrancy out there, don't drink drive ever, but just be responsible and when you talk to people they will say, "well I did experience this." Then the follow up, "what did you do in response, did you become religious?" Not debating them but getting to know them and many will so, "Gosh know, I just know there is something out there."

Always know morality is a cancer and Atheists and Fundamentalists, who are one the same, speak a lot about that cancer. What I say is you do not have to be Levayan to live, no worship of Satan to live, just live. We all go to Heaven.

 

[Augustus]

BTW why do you list your religion as none?

Presumably for the same reason that you do: not being religious.

Prove it.

Unless you believe that ideologies magically appear out of a vacuum, then it would be far more remarkable if Christianity had no effect on it given its influence over European society. New ideologies tend to be adaptations, evolutions and combinations of existing ideas rather than something completely new. Humanism was a fusion of Greek rationalism and Christian ethics, just as Christianity emerged out of a fusion between Judaism and Hellenic philosophy.

One of the points made in the video is that people who claim their morality grew out of rationality have internalised so many aspects of common mythology that they are unable to see things from outside that box. However, their morality is only rational within a particular culturally conditioned paradigm. What is 'rational' to one culture is completely irrational according to another.

As a massive simplification:

Most traditional belief systems: based on the collective, cyclical history, accepted inequality, honour based, chaotic universe, belief system is not universal, no concept of Humanity.

Christianity: individuals held to account before God, directional history, equality before God, humility based, rational universe, belief system is universal, concept of Humanity.

Humanism: individual, directional (progressive) history, equality, humility based, rational universe, belief system is universal, concept of Humanity.

Humanism shares far more in common with Christianity than it does with the vast majority of historical belief systems. It also has only really caught on to a significant extent in (formerly) Christian regions, especially the Protestant ones.

It would be truly miraculous if these things were unconnected, and Humanism simply had a 'virgin birth' from people who were unaffected by the worldview that had dominated their cultures for 1800 years. Some say it was from the Greeks, but their various worldviews tended to have more in common with the traditional belief systems described above (although how much depends on the worldview in question).

Of course it grew from numerous influences, Christianity, Greek philosophy, industrialisation, etc. etc., but it is hardly surprising to believe that culture and society influence our beliefs. Why is it so unimaginable that the legacy of Christianity could possibly have influenced modern European thought, even among those who are no longer religious?

What is your opinion on the intellectual evolution of the Humanist ideology? Where did it come from?

 

[Augustus]

Are you being serious? The thought that man should treat other man well has it's roots in Christian doctrine? You have got to be joking. That notion is older than any religion on the face of the Earth. That notion is the very reason religions are formed in the first place. What came first? There's no "chicken or the egg" conundrum here. Not in the slightest.

I said that Humanism has its roots in Christianity. Humanism is a complete worldview, not simply 'man should treat other man well'.

What it means to 'treat a man well' is also culturally dependent. It often only applied to men, of your tribe, not slaves, of the same status as you, etc.

In Sparta you treated a man well by killing him if he was a weak child as he would be a burden to society and it was more 'humane' to be dead than grow up as some pathetic weakling. You also treated him well by removing him from his family to undergo brutal military training from a young age. You treated him well by making him a catemite. You'd kill him if refused to murder a serf as part of his training. You'd expect him to kill himself if he besmirched his honour.

I'd be pretty surprised if Humanism had emerged from that society, wouldn't you?

 

[Augustus]

Does anybody else think the good Prof might have got it arse about face? I mean could it not be that the our mythologies are (in part at least) an expression or encapsulation of a common cultural ethic rather than an underpinning foundation of it? And might that not also explain why many of the mythologies promote similar moral ideas whilst differing widely in their mythological conceptions of deity?

We are all of a similar genetic makeup, and like other animals we have some kind of nature however ill defined and flexible. We must share some things in common as a result of this.

However, there are many different moral systems that could be considered 'natural' and no real way to consider on as being superior to the other from a purely objective standpoint.

He is right in that societies differ because their myths differ, and erosion of common myths risks undermining certain aspects of society.

What he doesn't seem to discuss though is that atheists don't replace religious myths with nothing, they replace them with new myths of their own making. For example, a transcendent God is replaced by transcendent (and equally mythological) ideas of Reason and Humanity for the Humanists, or the irresistible forces of History for the Marxists.

How enduring and robust post-religious myths will be in the long term remains to be seen.

 

[LuisDantas]

And the "naturally emergent, evolutionary social development" that led to Humanism happened to occur in a Christian society and incorporated aspects of Christian ethics uncommon in non Christian societies.

That probably happened, but at first glance it does not seem to have been very consequential. Are you thinking about anything in specific?

 

[LuisDantas]

Does anybody else think the good Prof might have got it arse about face? I mean could it not be that the our mythologies are (in part at least) an expression or encapsulation of a common cultural ethic rather than an underpinning foundation of it?

It seems fairly obvious to me that such is indeed the case.

And might that not also explain why many of the mythologies promote similar moral ideas whilst differing widely in their mythological conceptions of deity?

Of course. Morality is shaped by fairly constant parameters that do not owe anything to theism or supernaturalism.

 

[LuisDantas]

A couple more problems I've found with atheism. Strange connections.

"Connections"? Are you still having trouble with the concept of atheism?

 

[Robert Vincelette]

It comes to the difference between Kant's categorical imperative, which puts everyone as an end unto him/her-self by what he posited was the intrinsic dignity of every individual and the requirement to make every moral code universal; applying to everyone equally - and the hypothetical imperative, the utilitarian principle that you rationally do whatever is in your self-interests only, with the untrustworthy belief that "enlightened" self-interest under capitalism, will supply the incentives to force all psychopaths to see it in their interests to behave themselves because it promises to be more profitable in the long run to do so.
The former transcends pure selfish interests and the latter does not. The latter offers excuses for such things as producing and selling tobacco products, junk food that by design to make it sell better inflicts obesity upon children and rationalizes such excuses as blaming the parents for buying something the seller knows is harmful, the fraud of usurping scientific authority with bogus 6000 year old the late great planet earth and getting millions of unearned dollars by doing so, and making pop/rock stars out of untrained performers who get compared to concert musicians who trained for years. This latter makes people purely a means to purely selfish ends and can never offer anything of redeeming value.
As he said, you do not have to make a structured god out of something we know nothing about.

 

[Robert Landbeck]

He begins by discussing works by Dostoevsky, particularly Crime and Punishment. He then calls out Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins 'Radical atheists' on their assumption that humanity can proceed on a purely rational and irreligious basis. Dostoevesky seems to make the point (according to this prof) that if there's no transcendent value (God) then you can do whatever you want (morality is destroyed and chaos ensues). The prof asks his students "What the hell is irrational about me getting whatever I want from every one of you whenever I want it...and how is that more irrational than us cooperating so that we can have a good time of it?" He complains that radical atheists believe the human psychopathic tendency is irrational and therefore are misguided in thinking that pure rationality is a viable path forward.

Well I would say he makes an argument, and I wonder if folks here think he is accurately describing radical atheism and whether his argument is sound. The video rounds up to 6 minutes in length. Please at least skim it before replying, because I have not quoted the full text.

I did view the video. But for a start I would deny that 'pure rationality' is even possible for a human nature that comes with 'reason' conflicted and corrupted with vast collections of bias and prejudice of both cultural and religious origin, in the attempt to secure and sustain a sense of identity. But there is such a thing as 'pure ignorance'. For while Western culture is embalmed with ideas of God provided by the presence of religion within culture, that presence is not grounded in any true transcendent reality, God, but in the all too human, contrived theological illusion of an unrealized potential, unable to demonstrate efficacy. Nor has that 'religious' presence contributed to the moral progress of civilization more than the secular as the body counts from both sides will attest. Both religious and atheist are just the two sides of a profound ignorance that is innate to human nature itself; prisoner to the limitations of that nature yet too dishonest with itself to confront the implications!