Claiming to be atheist, but..

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

And yes, clearly ONLY atheists are standing as the bulwark against gays losing all their rights and Creationism being taught in schools.

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No, they aren't the only ones, but on many occasions atheist groups have funded and been at the forefront. Without active or militant atheism, religious groups would gain far more traction than they already have - especially in education.

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

Also, I'm dying to know how "atheism was a movement long before computers were invented" when you previously just told us "Atheism isn't a doctrine, a philosophy or a movement."

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My bad writing.

Atheists have formed groups for centuries, but it isn't inherent in atheism to be part of any group, doctrine or movement.

I should have said "atheist activism was a movement long before computers".

ha

Knew that word alone was worth at least 2 pages.

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Originally Posted by jajdude

ha

Knew that word alone was worth at least 2 pages.

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Predictable, eh?

Don't you find it funny that not believing in god/s is always so controversial?

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Predictable, eh?

Don't you find it funny that not believing in god/s is always so controversial?

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yeah like not eating meat!

I love not believing in God and not eating meat. It gives me the warm fuzzies. Call me militant. :D

Joseph R Atheist for prez!

haha

In he we trust.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

yeah like not eating meat!

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And not collecting stamps. Those aphilatelists are scum I tell ya!

Worse than the theists!

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

No, they aren't the only ones, but on many occasions atheist groups have funded and been at the forefront. Without active or militant atheism, religious groups would gain far more traction than they already have - especially in education.



My bad writing.

Atheists have formed groups for centuries, but it isn't inherent in atheism to be part of any group, doctrine or movement.

I should have said "atheist activism was a movement long before computers".

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Reasonable enough response. I agree atheists have certainly been a major part of fighting against religious excess, particularly Creationism, in the classroom, and as a teacher I really appreciate that.

I think I get and others get annoyed when atheists present this solely as their issue, which it isn't. It's an issue for anyone who wants a decent education, religious or otherwise.

My children's school totally ban any so called religious study and yet, one must ask how this impacts on teaching and understanding history in its context. While children colour in pictures of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, they are missing out on historical facts, which despite what atheists think, include societies mandated by religious law. Nobody is asking people to like it but why deny our historical significance? Would we have burned witches otherwise? How explain such actions to a child without contextualizing the R word so they understand how embedded peoples were and to an extent, still are? In this respect, I feel education has diminished since religion is academically obsolete in the 21st century. It seems to me history must therefore be given an extreme makeover. I don't care what atheism is, which religion is righteous blah blah, but I think it is a shame to deprive ourselves of the truth about societal functions, which while partly predicated by progressive science, is still firmly entrenched in belief systems.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

More that I'm attacking them for having a general disrespect for the dignity of human life, and a danger to myself personally. It's not picking or choosing, the wrong is independent of the good. You don't get to kick the homeless for personal enjoyment just because you volunteer at a soup kitchen on Tuesdays.



Certainly, but I'm defending anti-theism and anti-religiosity, which is not the same as atheism but connected. If religion were entirely benign, then there would be no reason to comment on it at all. It would be as pointless to discuss as whether or not one believes in aliens.



However, if one takes a stance of anti-religiosity as an atheist, one gets accused of dogmatic atheism. Moreover, the morality of religious institutions is indeed a relevant critique if one takes the position that religion is a source of moral truth. Showing contradictions between conventional morality, or rather the moral opinions of a targeted audience, and the morality of religious institutions is a valid means of attacking that single religious institution. The best approach is not always to attack the concept of theism as a blanket concept. I care less if someone believes in a Spinozan God, the illiberal nature of organized religion is more socially relevant and thus will always draw more debate.

I have numerous reasons to associate myself with atheism. A scientific education and philosophical inclination towards materialism makes the concept of theism nonsensical to me. On the other hand, I've had friends personally hurt by religious dogma, I have been personally attacked for reasons of religious dogma, and I don't exactly have to look far to find religious groups harming people just like me.

What do you consider the alternative to criticizing religion? Allowing it to go on being oppressive? It's a no win situation, either you're being a dogmatic closeminded militant atheist by daring to criticize the institution of religion, or you have to keep your mouth shut and let them do their thing.

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The attack or critique of religion has nothing to do with atheism, a fact easily ignored. Atheism as a "historic movement" (which means nothing as Drkshadow mentioned) has at times taken this position, while at other times not. The text of Laozi (Dao De Jing) for instance, is essentially an argument of nihilist philosophy against any ism itself - but it clearly goes the next step, and says, if you are going to deny religion as a construct, and religious morality as a construct, why not take that further and think of your counter morality as a construct, and your anti-religious, or even atheism as a construct, a labeled something which exists and is understood by its will to subjectively define itself. Moral values and whatnot have nothing to do with atheism, and they shouldn't.

That being said, on issues of morality, it is just as valid, from a logical perspective, to have a sense of right and wrong stemming from religious doctrine as to have one stemming from somewhere else. Both of them are highly subjective, and the values held by both parties are no more moral than the other, from an unbiased perspective.

That being said, atheism in truth has at times been militant, or in the extreme examples of philosophical Daoism, been the exact opposite of militant (do nothing is not go out and rally). To be atheist then does not connect logically to any other movement, and the label atheist itself is problematic, as it assumes too much (it assumes you need to be defined against the existence of a God, rather than not defined).

But no, you yourself are advocating politics and morality where there is no real necessity for politics or morality.

Though, now people use lines like "put atheism first," and "say no to religion" as if there is a conflict. Atheism has changed its meaning because of a bunch of loud mouthed brats on the internet, and other political-advocates whose moral promotion is somehow backed by the nonsense of it being unreligious, and therefore more "moral."

Dawkins himself stumbled on this predicament when asked about the amorality of some non-religious historical persons, to which he replied "it wasn't in the name of their atheism that they committed those crimes." I would take that question a step further and ask, "why then should atheism be mentioned at all within the context of morality, if not only to say that the rules of religious morality do not apply?" how can he, in short, advocate atheism, while accusing religions of advocating evil moral judgments and policies - is he not being a complete hypocrite?

That isn't to say an atheist cannot take moral stands - but religion or lack of religion no longer play a part, and therefore, from the atheists perspective, the use of atheism as an advocation for anything is really the use of subjective values as the advocation for a personalized, or, communal dogma - a social construct like religion, being used for promotion, and it isn't atheism, it is merely a movement that sees itself as somehow righteous, like all movements that advocate anything, it sees itself as right.

I do not mind that, per say, except when it becomes labeled as "atheist perspective" as if that is a source of opinion. People on the internet take it further, as they have started to do in the streets, and preach it, and make people who are religious feel bad, meanwhile clinging to the fact that they do not believe in god as somehow making them smarter, more educated, and superior to the rest. That's dangerous.

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Originally Posted by billl

Worse than the theists!

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haha

agreed

except for them darn thumpers

JBI, I'm not going to quote your last post, I'll just respond as simply as I can. I haven't witnessed the type of atheists who claim atheism cornered the market on morals, or that atheist people have any specific set of morals. If you can provide some literary evidence supporting that position, I would be interested in reading it. Individuals make their own morals. Reliquishing responsibility for behaviors or giving the credit for good behaviors to an invisible sky man is offensive and very often dangerous.

When a group takes a stance and says that their way is right and the one true good idea, and a person sees that group hindering society, education, science, and minority groups at varying times, what is the problem with saying there's something wrong with that? I'm puzzled as to what your actual position is. Is it peace, pacifism, or a sense of duty to defend traditional religious regimes? Genuinely curious so I can present clear debate. :)

More to the point...

The nature of science is to question. Science attempts to disprove theories. If a person believes religious theory is above criticism, that person is anti-science.

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Originally Posted by JBI

The attack or critique of religion has nothing to do with atheism, a fact easily ignored. Atheism as a "historic movement" (which means nothing as Drkshadow mentioned) has at times taken this position, while at other times not. The text of Laozi (Dao De Jing) for instance, is essentially an argument of nihilist philosophy against any ism itself - but it clearly goes the next step, and says, if you are going to deny religion as a construct, and religious morality as a construct, why not take that further and think of your counter morality as a construct, and your anti-religious, or even atheism as a construct, a labeled something which exists and is understood by its will to subjectively define itself. Moral values and whatnot have nothing to do with atheism, and they shouldn't.

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I don't care about atheism as a historic movement. Neither does it follow that if you deny religious morality that the only other option is complete relativism. That's the same as Alyosha's complaint from BK, without God then everything is permitted. However, it doesn't follow that if I think religion is not a reliable source of moral argument within and of itself that nothing can have moral value. Especially, if I'm saying that religion is not reasonable because it makes no sense under the assumptions of philosophical materialism.

Saying morality has nothing to do with atheism is a cop-out, a cop-out often taken by people defending things done by atheist. It's nonsense to say that if religion has something to do with morals that the absence of religion has nothing to do with morals. Atheism would by necessity have to reject divine natural law as a moral system.

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Originally Posted by JBI

That being said, on issues of morality, it is just as valid, from a logical perspective, to have a sense of right and wrong stemming from religious doctrine as to have one stemming from somewhere else. Both of them are highly subjective, and the values held by both parties are no more moral than the other, from an unbiased perspective.

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Perhaps in one's mind. We, however, live in a real world where we must make decisions and we must take a position. Diverting this to meta-ethics is pointless. We can begin from a starting point that is removed practically from the question of where morality derives from. If we instead begin on common principles then we can debate from there what is ethical. This is the only way to have effective ethical debates. Let's start with a basic principle that most of us can agree on, that it is wrong to cause harm to other human beings. With that principle we can go on to argue why certain religious impositions and attitudes are wrong. Religious morality is prescriptive rather than reasoned, which itself raises questions of relative value. Is it better to just assume something as truth than it is to reason? Cartesian skepticism would tell us that it is best to start with the minimum and most basic a priori assumptions. However, religious morality begins and ends with the a priori prescript. Except that itself is problematized by the issue of determining authorial intent, the morality derives from authority, but the authority can not be reliably accessed.

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Originally Posted by JBI

That being said, atheism in truth has at times been militant, or in the extreme examples of philosophical Daoism, been the exact opposite of militant (do nothing is not go out and rally). To be atheist then does not connect logically to any other movement, and the label atheist itself is problematic, as it assumes too much (it assumes you need to be defined against the existence of a God, rather than not defined).

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Not all atheist are the same certainly, but it does not follow that because sometimes atheism does not connect to other movements that it never connects. Philosophical materialism follows inevitably into atheism. Materialism is also at the base of utilitarianism, and thus at the base of ethical liberalism. So, in general modern popular Western atheism did in large part follow out of Enlightenment era thought. The label is only a problem if you buy into wishy washy postmodernist discourse that insists on labels being perfect. Labels are only meant to be useful, in so far that it doesn't matter if atheism as commonly understood is always accurate as long as it is accurate enough that nuance can be added when necessary.

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Originally Posted by JBI

But no, you yourself are advocating politics and morality where there is no real necessity for politics or morality.

Though, now people use lines like "put atheism first," and "say no to religion" as if there is a conflict. Atheism has changed its meaning because of a bunch of loud mouthed brats on the internet, and other political-advocates whose moral promotion is somehow backed by the nonsense of it being unreligious, and therefore more "moral."

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No, it is not because it is religious that it is immoral. I agree that moral prescriptions against murder are moral, but I don't agree with the reasoning behind why. I do not agree that stoning adulterers is moral. I also disagree that there is no need for politics or morality, there is only no need for those things when we divorce ourselves from the actual practical implications of these ideas.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Dawkins himself stumbled on this predicament when asked about the amorality of some non-religious historical persons, to which he replied "it wasn't in the name of their atheism that they committed those crimes." I would take that question a step further and ask, "why then should atheism be mentioned at all within the context of morality, if not only to say that the rules of religious morality do not apply?" how can he, in short, advocate atheism, while accusing religions of advocating evil moral judgments and policies - is he not being a complete hypocrite?

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Here you're arguing against something I don't even agree with, so I don't care. I've never read Dawkins beyond his actual science books. It need not be necessary to show all atheist as moral to show that there are problems with religious morality anyway. Also, I do think it is a bit disingenuous to say that someone who is atheist who murders someone because of personal jealousy or Marxist authoritarian ideology is the same thing as countries which justify that the execution of homosexuals on the basis of religious doctrine. Here you have a comparison of doctrine against doctrine, both of which may be wrong. Like I said, just because some religious doctrine is wrong does not mean that every atheist or secular doctrine has to be right.