Yea but a lot of religions frown on drinking.Originally Posted by baaaaadgoatjoke
Yea but a lot of religions frown on drinking.
This is what Wikipedia says about militant atheism:
"The terms militant atheism and militant atheist are designations applied to atheists who are, or are perceived to be, hostile towards religion."
"Atheism which is actively hostile to religion"
"...and is characterised by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious belief."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant_atheism
It's interesting because I haven't met any atheist that didn't want to wipe out all the religions in the world. Of course, this is just whishful thinking. Atheist don't actually go out and kill all the religious people, which according to me militant atheism should refer to. It's simply rhetorics, to make atheism look worse than what it actually is.
Correct me if I write something wrong, please. I try to learn proper English. Thank you!
I have. My brother isn't the type of atheist that would love to see all of the world religions disappear. I think if anything he's ambivalent about it all.
"You understand well enough what slavery is, but freedom you have never experienced, so you do not know if it tastes sweet or bitter. If you ever did come to experience it, you would advise us to fight for it not with spears only, but with axes too." - Herodotus
https://consolationofreading.wordpress.com/ - my book blog!
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Huh? My dictionary defines "spiritual" as "pertaining to or affecting the immaterial nature of the soul of man." Another definition is: ".. consisting of spirit as distinguished from matter, incorporeal." Obviously, Dawkins and Harris are free to define the word as they choose -- but why bother? Why not just use another word?
In addition (and this is one of the worst things about Dawkins and Harris) the assumption that things only exist if they "can be scientifically investigated" is narrow minded. That's my real quarrel with Dawkins -- he thinks science somehow not only leads to understanding reality, but that it is the ONLY way to understand reality. This is as narrow-minded as religious thinking. There are more strange things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than you have dreamt of in your philosophy (as Hamlet once said, philosophy being and old-fashioned word for "science").
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
It's funny that you say this because as I read this for the first time I also thought of Dawkins.
I would also like to raise my hand as an atheist (or maybe agnostic) who has mixed feelings about religion. I would certainly never describe my position as wanting to see all religion eradicated.
Also I think Dawkins is using the term spiritual to fend off the belief that scientists do not find beauty or inspiration in their profession cold hard facts. I think they simply means to convey that they are not robots and are actually inspired in a sort of romantic sense by their scientific endeavors.
Anyone who's on the fence about religion and whether you'd like to see it gone or not, can you explain why?
In short yes, it almost is not even debatable. Back in the day it was a near guarantee that when I would actually engage religious folk (or just people who believed in god) in debate, when I said I didn't believe in God, the first thing they would ask is
"Well then what do you think happens after you die?"
"Nothing."
"Doesn't that bother you? I just can't accept that"
If the conversation didn't follow this formula it was extremely surprising, and I was quite an ******* so I argued with a lot of people.
Here you've lost me to some extent. I've been having existential anxieties since I can remember, which would be sometime around 3rd grade. It was never any sort of acute event but rather a pervasive theme of my entire life. And my guess is that it is so for the majority of people, at least relating to death and what happens when you die. During that time I knew plenty of religious folk in my church who were unafraid of death (or at least as much as they could cognitively override their baser physiology). And I myself was unafraid for a good 2-3 years around the ages of 9-12. My only fear was that my mom and dad would go to hell, and so I wanted to stay alive long enough to reform them.
While today I still do make snooty comments about most religions and their ridiculous logic, its not as if I don't still harbor some envy for them. They have to live by stricter standards in most cases and in some way impoverish or fetter their life experience but the payback is pretty massive, they get a free pass on basically the single most troubling aspect of being a living sentient being.
I'd wager that most religious folks have about the same experience with existential crises that I do. We all know we're going to die, but we go about our daily lives until we have an acute episode. During that time, the religious folks pray and I don't. We both get through that episode, but the religious person is going to attribute it to the strength that god gave him.
They aren't protected from having those crises, though. I wouldn't think so anyway, especially the kind that are religious because they need an answer to "what happens when you die."
edit - Rereading the last paragraph I get the feeling you're talking about fundies, which is probably another ballfield.
Last edited by baaaaadgoatjoke; 11-12-2010 at 03:27 PM.
This probably has nothing to do with the main idea of this thread, but I'll state it anyway just for the hell of it. "Dostoevsky gves me more than any scientist" - Albert Einstein
Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein
We have to agree to disagree. This has not at all been my personal nor empirical experience of others. The former coming from my days of being very religious, and the latter coming from my early high school years of being an atheist, with a very religious cousin, aunt, girlfriend, and all the concomitant religious acquaintances that go along with that. The concern of whether or not experience went on after you died was never even a question, only if the way you were living was sufficient to get you into heaven. I will say this is coming from a Christian background and so I cannot speak directly for the other two religions. Also I am assuming we are only talking about the big 3, some of these claims become much more silly if talking about Hinduism/Buddhism.
Certainly religious people have crises but from what I've seen they are nearly always crises of faith or misunderstanding, basically, why would God let this happen, and never "I hope there is really a heaven." And even in this case they have the answer... the Lord works in mysterious ways... not to mention what relevance is the pain on earth compared to the joy experienced in heaven. Their palliatives are just much better. Prospect of Heaven > Pint of Rocky Road Ice Cream
But let's say their palliatives aren't better. Better to whom. In the same way that I can't use their palliative, even though I want to be able to, they would probably have no luck using mine.
Reading is fun.
Watching Basketball is fun.
So given that both are fun rores28 you wouldn't mind giving up reading and instead spending that time watching basketball. Except that I find watching basketball boring so I can't swap one for the other.
In the same way liquor may help some people with existential problems but it doesn't help me, god or religion helps some people but it doesn't help me.
Anyway I don't think the question is whether or not their are benefits to religion, just whether its benefits outweigh its costs
As to the militant issue. This is one of my biggest problems with Dawkins. His approach is just condescending and dickish, (from what I've seen of him) and I just see no reason to be rude and insulting in a discussion, if it can be helped, though I am guilty of finding the same stuff funny.
Still the bigger issue is that it's counterproductive. You know what usually sells me on an argument, when some obstinate douche does nothing but espouse his inflexible views to me and does so with obvious contempt. Atheists can be steadfast or ambitious without being "militant." People are always more likely to accept, at least partially, and make concessions to the views of someone more reasonable and polite.
Crises of faith that arises from what? If we're staying on topic, an existential crisis. Just because you have faith in eternal life doesn't mean you get to skip those crises. And of course they have doubts about life after death. Anyone who doesn't admit a moment of doubt in weakness is a liar.
I took a sexual education course in college. The professor asked the class how many of us had masturbated in our lives and asked those who had to raise their hands. Half the class answered in the affirmative. Grown men, in a class about sex, held their hands in their laps.
Sure, you just think they a more frequent and severe than I do.
Of course it's true that the people I knew could be lying or hiding the fact, but there's not much reason to if they'd already admitted that they had some questions about God's motives or his existence. It's not like one would cause more judgment from peers than the other.
Nonetheless we've seen that religion does have good attributes and can be good on the individual level.
Rather than continue with the very tired, very old debate between the theists and the atheists, we might consider the apparent split within the atheist camp, as evidenced here.
On the one hand we have what we might call the “Calm Atheists,” and on the other hand the “Hysterical Atheists,” those in whom an inner voice keeps saying: The theists are coming! The theists are coming! as if they’re scared that the Theists might actually know something they don’t or refuse to know.
I think Dawkins and Hitchens fit very nicely into the "hysterical" category. I, on the other hand, am a "calm atheist", perhaps because of all the prescription drugs my doctor gives me so I can avoid worrying about what will happen when I die.
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