Padding the Case for the New Atheism

[Touchstone]

I’m sorry, which part of Catholic theology? Not all of it, I hope! Please clarify. I don’t mean to be unkind but this is more fluff.

For instance, the idea that there is no “orientation”, no base disposition, is increasingly discredited by the available science. Humans have not only sexual behavior – overt acts – but also a disposition, according to multiple lines of investigation, at the genetic, epigenetic and environmental levels. This means that being a homosexual is NOT defined by one’s actions, or solely by one’s action. A perfect celibate can be a perfect homosexual in terms of sexual identity and orientation, if you follow the results of the research that’s been done and is being done. Theologically, then, RCC prohibitions on homosexual activity are not simply ethical restrictions, but denials of the sexual identity of homosexuals. To deny a gay man homosexual activity is not just a behavioral restriction, but a denial of his nature, a nature proved out (at least) in his physiology. It’s not like an “alcoholic disposition”, as alcohol consumption is not bound up in the core identity and objective of humans – sexual contact as the means of emotional intimacy, physical satisfaction and reproduction.

(You seem to have made clear at the beginning of this post that you believe (it’s one of your intuitions, I’m guessing) that things like theology are unsystematic collections of intuitions.

Hmm. How about this: theology is very often highly reasoned and rigorous development of completely spurious and frivolous assumptions and intuitions. This isn’t a casual observation, but the product of looking at what kinds of theological claims are performative as knowledge.

I’m guessing this is why you might think that this kind of ‘criticism’ is actually pertinent or salient with regards to that which it purports to criticize; it seems to me, however, that it clearly is not. Remember, who is the easiest person to fool…?)

Yes, and that’s ever-present here. I’m not qualified to judge, just by my lonesome. If you subject theology to objective tests for performance, though, getting beyond just me and any prejudices I may have, you will find that it fails spectacularly, and scores right up there with astrology. You don’t need to trsust me or my intuitons or biases for that – just put theological claims up their on the block of objective testing, and see how they perform.

It ain’t pretty!

-TS

 

[BobCatholic]

Atheism isn’t a set of teachings – it’s just a position on the question of whether gods exist or not. Atheists don’t have to agree on anything more than that: and indeed, you will find atheists with a wide variety of opinions on all sorts of subjects, morality and behavior among them. There isn’t one “code of ethics” that all atheists subscribe to – different atheists have different opinions and approaches to morality.

And that’s my point, Atheism doesn’t agree on any one particular list of forbidden things - thus all is permitted - except believing in a god or gods. Atheism’s code of ethics is simple: Thou shalt not believe in a god, all other things are permitted.

And its position of whether gods exist or not, is also atheism’s theology.

No one needs to “successfully argue” that Dr. Mengele was a monster – you simply have to evaluate his actions from the perspective of your values. And if your values lead you to any conclusion other than “he was a monster,” then my values will lead me to the conclusion that I should stay far away from you.

As I said before, in order to argue that Dr. Mengele was a monster, you must appeal to morality and ethics - the domain of philosophy and theology. Science cannot prove that he was a monster - that’s outside of its jurisdiction. THAT was my point.

 

[AntiTheist]

Atheism’s code of ethics is simple: Thou shalt not believe in a god, all other things are permitted.

Uh, no. I just explained that atheism is a position on one question – it’s not a set of teachings or a moral code. No atheist – at least no atheist that I’ve ever met or heard of, even – actually has as his moral code “all things are permitted.”

All of the atheists I know either follow some moral philosophy or base their actions on their values, as I do.

As I said before, in order to argue that Dr. Mengele was a monster, you must appeal to morality and ethics - the domain of philosophy and theology. Science cannot prove that he was a monster - that’s outside of its jurisdiction. THAT was my point.

And I agree that claiming that Dr. Mengele was a monster is outside of science’s domain. Atheists do go outside of atheism and science when making moral arguments. They appeal to various moral philosophies and/or their own values (at least in my case).

 

[James_S_Saint]

Atheists do go outside of atheism and science when making moral arguments.

That is the entire problem. By Atheism representing “no religion” yet providing no doctrine to establish moral ethic in its place, it represents an open door to having no moral value control at all other than a military government.

In short, Atheism represents the total lack of trust (doctrine) unless policemen with guns are handy. Of course all that does is make the military governance the forced religion. - National Socialism (Nazism).

 

[Betterave]

I think ‘dogmatism’ is the support for ‘dogma’, no? A look at Webster suggests that’s the case.

One sense of dogma does fit this view, but only one. A dogma is primarily “something held as an established opinion; esp: a definite authoritative tenet.” Dogmatism, however, always has negative epistemic connotations (at least according to my Webster’s and my understanding of the usage of the term).

I’m not sure if it’s in this thread or not, but the example I use regularly is finding your hand in an open flame? Ouch! What happens? Even if you want to pretend you believe that reality isn’t real, that the flame isn’t actual and neither is your hand, your brain stem will override your malfunctioning cerebral cortex and force your hand to take evasive action from the flame.

In other words, “eschewing the belief that reality is reality” means thinking you can hold your hand in a flame without it hurting? What’s the point of bringing this up? Who are you trying to argue against when you make trivial points like this?

If you drive to work, you prove everytime that you arrive that you are solidly committed to the reality of reality, as you could not avoid a fateful crash without respecting the reality of the objects around you, and the basic integrity of your perceptions. When you are going down the highway, and you see brake lights ahead of you, if you don’t proceed as if that car were a real object in a real extramental world, you are putting yourself at mortal risk.

So if the car were not a real object in a real extramental world, what would you do then? If you have reason to believe that you’re going to have a painful intramental world incident if you don’t pay attention to the objects of your intramental experience, you have just as much reason to brake when you see brakelights in front of you. Anyway, who cares about that? The point is that your talk of ‘the reality of reality’ is trivial and meaningless… unless you’d like to explain what must be your equivocal use of the term ‘reality’ (and please, if you do so, do so in a way that is not trivial and irrelevant to this discussion).

As infants, before we even learn language, our brains consolidate their wiring to integrate perceptual processing on this basis. An infant who touches a hot stove will per her hand away, instinctively; she is wired for belief in the reality of reality. It’s how her species survived to the present day.

“…wired for belief in the reality of reality.” Sure, trivial, but true. But that just means she is wired for language acquisition. So she’s also wired for any other number of trivial beliefs: the wetness of wetness, the fieriness of fieriness, the redness of redness,the ennui of ennui, the triviality of triviality, the irrelevance of irrelevance. Who cares? Why are you pointing this out?

It’s observed, over and over. Objective review and analysis catches mistakes and identifies bias at the individual level that can be filtered out or adjusted when identified. In a recent analysis of network traffic problems for an Internet service I’m working on, I got “spanked” for some math errors that I rejected even after being corrected the first time. It took a replication elsewhere and some checking against a couple other sources to see that I was in fact mistaken. It was not malicious on my part, but that is the kind of experience that objective knowledge building puts into my/our experience base all the time.

Observed, as in intuited, Anschauung? It’s also observed that the easiest person to fool is yourself and that time and time again in contexts like this one people like yourself put forward dogmatic and/or self-contradictory positions which they do not recognize as such because they make irrelevant appeals the kind of anecdotal evidence that you present here. Here’s the thing: there’s no science being done in this anecdote, just technical problem-solving. So how is it relevant to science and its alleged ‘separation’ of method and discipline from subjective personality? Anyway, I should hasten to add, obviously there is some such separation, but this is obviously no less the case in any methodologically grounded discipline, including theology and philosophy and all of the Kulturwissenschaften (the humanities, or social sciences). And also obviously, as is obvious enough even in your anecdote, such separation is never complete. You actually know this, I’m guessing, but you talk as if you don’t, presumably just because your taking that absurd position is actually what is required for the position you’re trying to defend.

 

[AntiTheist]

That is the entire problem. By Atheism representing “no religion” yet providing no doctrine to establish moral ethic in its place, it represents an open door to having no moral value control at all other than a military government.

What are you talking about? Atheism isn’t a form of government. It’s just a position that individual people hold on one single issue. That’s it.

Look at countries that have high populations of non-believers, like Sweden or Denmark. They are perfectly orderly societies – with lower crime rates than those found in the USA, I might add – that haven’t resorted to a military government or fascism.

You’re talking nonsense because you do not know what atheism is.

Here’s an analogy: you’re probably an abigfootist (someone who doesn’t accept the claim that Bigfoot exists). Abigfootism doesn’t have a moral code because it’s just a position on one single issue.

Imagine how illogical it would be if I went around saying that because abigfootism provides no doctrine to establish moral ethic, it’s an open door to fascism. It would be ridiculous.

 

[Betterave]

Knowledge is a team sport.

Of course it is, in some sense; but try to think about what that means. Teams are composed of individuals who can screw things up, let in a bad goal, that kind of thing. You offer a very simple metaphor, but I don’t think it supports your position; I think you’ve only assumed that it does, without really thinking it through.

Could be. Perhaps I subscribe to sceintism under your definition. I’m well aware of the apocalyptic predictions that typically accompany criticism of atheism, and in fact, I understand that to be a/the major impetus in resisting it, rather than fact-based, reasoning on the evidence. A major sustaining influence of Christianity I believe is the simple fear of the ramifications if this is a godless universe. However scary or dystopian that is, though, such assessments don’t make a godless world godful, or vice versa. It is what it is. In any case, I do understand that whatever the reasoned conclusions are about the actual state of reality, we aren’t bound to choose despair, or nihilism or hate.

It not ‘my’ definition actually! I’m not the randomly stipulative type, or so I like to think. I’m not so well aware of the apocalyptic predictions that you have in mind, so I won’t presume to discuss them (sounds off-topic anyway). And I’ll let you have your dogmatic beliefs about “fears of ramifications…” etc. That’s obviously just more fluff on your part (it’s not that I don’t care about your opinions, but I’m trying to have a rational discussion with you here).

You’re missing the point entirely, I believe. You make non-scientific claims about science and claim that ‘science’ does the same - it doesn’t and can’t: science can only

make scientific claims. You don’t understand the structure of scientific knowledge at all if you think that it results speak for themselves about their own ‘efficacy’, at least in a sense which is relevant to this debate - that is just your intuition speaking, not science.
Maybe it’s best to avoid being abstract here, and talk about specifics. If we look at, say, scientific models of aerodynamics, we can observe that those models are performative. We don’t need any more metaphysical commitments than ‘reality is real’ to understand that the predictions and modeling produced by modern aerodynamic are effective in supporting flight.
Right?
Let’s just start there, and you tell me where the illicit intuitions got snuck in.

Hopefully I have already sufficiently pointed out why I think that your claim that ‘reality is real’ is silly - it is not at all a ‘metaphysical commitment’ - it’s a purely linguistic tautology. Beyond that, you imply that this example lends support to your scientistic world-view; that would be sneaking in an ‘illicit’ (bad) intuition. I think I’ve already pointed this out, but opposition to scientism is not opposition to science. From what you say and don’t say, you seem to be making this false assumption too.

I don’t disagree with this last sentence.

Good! Now start applying that thought by modifying the kind of unqualified claims you make about science’s separation of ‘method and discipline’ from ‘personality’ by which you are able to convince yourself that ‘science’ is a self-correcting team sport whereas other Wissenschaften are not.

 

[Betterave]

Adding just a little color to what I said above, the physiology that is revealed, and being revealed by science is on that puts human sexuality at a much more pervasive, horizontal level than the picture of man, as is and as should be, delivered in *Humanae Vitae. *Sex as a recreative and non-reproductive act keeps get emphasized as more and more of our wiring gets mapped out, for example. I understand the prohibition that understands man’s nature to be fallen, and thus Catholic strictures seek to “deny the flesh” in deference to a redeemed wisdom; but the more we learn, the more “anti-human” such understandings become in the light of our growing understanding of human physiology.

Well let me just tell you that there are non-Catholic scholars (some would call them ‘scientists’ of sorts) who have analyzed Humanae Vitae and found that the positions that Paul VI took there have proven to be correct. This is an issue of social history. But you take a dim view of that so I wouldn’t expect you to be informed about it!

I’m sorry, which part of Catholic theology? Not all of it, I hope! Please clarify. I don’t mean to be unkind but this is more fluff.

For instance, the idea that there is no “orientation”, no base disposition, is increasingly discredited by the available science.

I don’t know where you’re getting this, but find a new source. The idea that there is no base disposition is not at all a part of Catholic theology. If you’d like to be able to discuss this issue more intelligently, perhaps you should look at a book called The Courage to Be Chaste by Benedict Groeschel.

Humans have not only sexual behavior – overt acts – but also a disposition, according to multiple lines of investigation, at the genetic, epigenetic and environmental levels. This means that being a homosexual is NOT defined by one’s actions, or solely by one’s action. A perfect celibate can be a perfect homosexual in terms of sexual identity and orientation, if you follow the results of the research that’s been done and is being done. Theologically, then, RCC prohibitions on homosexual activity are not simply ethical restrictions, but denials of the sexual identity of homosexuals. To deny a gay man homosexual activity is not just a behavioral restriction, but a denial of his nature, a nature proved out (at least) in his physiology. It’s not like an “alcoholic disposition”, as alcohol consumption is not bound up in the core identity and objective of humans – sexual contact as the means of emotional intimacy, physical satisfaction and reproduction.

I’ll make just one (on-topic) comment: physiology does not prove anything about the ‘nature’ or ‘essence’ of man. Physiology just doesn’t do that; if you think it does, you don’t understand what it is.

Quote:
(You seem to have made clear at the beginning of this post that you believe (it’s one of your intuitions, I’m guessing) that things like theology are unsystematic collections of intuitions.

Hmm. How about this: theology is very often highly reasoned and rigorous development of completely spurious and frivolous assumptions and intuitions. This isn’t a casual observation, but the product of looking at what kinds of theological claims are performative as knowledge.

Without your saying more than this, your claim isn’t even a ‘casual observation’; it’s pure dogmatic assertion (your forte, it seems). (Same goes for the remainder of what you wrote.)

 

[Betterave]

Sorry, I haven’t been following this thread, but I read your post, and I can’t let a false statement like that go unchallenged.

Atheism isn’t a set of teachings – it’s just a position on the question of whether gods exist or not. Atheists don’t have to agree on anything more than that: and indeed, you will find atheists with a wide variety of opinions on all sorts of subjects, morality and behavior among them. There isn’t one “code of ethics” that all atheists subscribe to – different atheists have different opinions and approaches to morality.

Plenty of atheists subscribe to various systems of morality – and no atheist, as far as I know, thinks that science should tell us how to act. Science is a method of finding out objective facts about the world; it doesn’t tell us how to behave. We have other ways of going about doing that.

Personally, I don’t subscribe to any particular morality, nor do I think that “morality,” as it’s commonly spoken of, exists outside of people’s heads and value judgments. Essentially, people find that they like other people behaving in certain ways and don’t like them behaving in other ways. These judgments are manifestations of people’s values, and those values have their root in a wide variety of factors, including biology, reason, tradition, society’s influence, and training.

No one needs to “successfully argue” that Dr. Mengele was a monster – you simply have to evaluate his actions from the perspective of your values. And if your values lead you to any conclusion other than “he was a monster,” then my values will lead me to the conclusion that I should stay far away from you.

AntiTheist, I don’t think that anyone would want to say that you explicitly endorse the ethical position that anything is permissible. The point is just that without God, anything is permissible, strictly speaking, even if the atheist doesn’t realize it. It’s a debatable point, perhaps, but just be clear about what it is and is not. It’s not a denial of the obvious fact that many constraints exist shaping our behavior, whether or not we believe in God. It’s about the fact that these constraints are at least in principle defeasible; and if a clever Mengele can go on the lamb and live a nice long comfortable life after what he did, never suffering consequences or being brought to feel remorse for what he did, even scorning those who did feel remorse, then so might any number of other people who have done any number of nasty things. But there is no kind of implication from what has been said that all atheists will “subscribe to” a particular set of moral beliefs.

 

[AntiTheist]

It’s about the fact that these constraints are at least in principle defeasible

You don’t need to believe in a supernatural being to defend the idea of constraining actions.

For instance, if we could somehow prove tomorrow that there are no gods, we would still have good reason to defend the idea of constraining people’s actions for the good of society.

if a clever Mengele can go on the lamb and live a nice long comfortable life after what he did, never suffering consequences or being brought to feel remorse for what he did, even scorning those who did feel remorse, then so might any number of other people who have done any number of nasty things.

All you’re saying is that it’s possible for bad people to “get away with it.” And of course it is. It’s childish to think otherwise.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try as hard as we can to punish bad people.

But there is no kind of implication from what has been said that all atheists will “subscribe to” a particular set of moral beliefs.

Well, I’m glad you agree with that. I’m just saying that we also have plenty of good reasons to contrain people’s actions.

 

[A_Dancer_Whirls]

The point is just that without God, anything is permissible, strictly speaking, even if the atheist doesn’t realize it.

I don’t agree. society has deemed certain behaviors unacceptable and if you break these rules you go to jail.

Whether or not god exists you must still accept that humans govern their self’s. As far as this life goes, societies make and enforce the rules.

So you can act how your like, but if the rest of society does not like the way you act, you will be removed from society.

 

[BobCatholic]

Uh, no. I just explained that atheism is a position on one question – it’s not a set of teachings or a moral code. No atheist – at least no atheist that I’ve ever met or heard of, even – actually has as his moral code “all things are permitted.”

Many atheists become atheists so they could reject the moral code of whatever theistic religion they were once part of.

And I agree that claiming that Dr. Mengele was a monster is outside of science’s domain. Atheists do go outside of atheism and science when making moral arguments. They appeal to various moral philosophies and/or their own values (at least in my case).

Thank you for proving my point. In order to find things that are forbidden by a moral code, one must go outside of atheism since atheism allows everything. The only thing forbidden in atheism is to believe in a god or gods.

 

[BobCatholic]

In short, Atheism represents the total lack of trust (doctrine) unless policemen with guns are handy. Of course all that does is make the military governance the forced religion. - National Socialism (Nazism).

I don’t like Nazism, but I don’t pin it on atheism. Hitler was an occultist and credited his mentor in the occult in the first version of Mein Kampf. He based a lot of the unique
Nazi doctrines based on a lot of the teachings he learned from his occultist mentor.

Under Atheism, they really cannot condemn Hitler, for their religion’s moral code does not forbid these kind of things, but I don’t count Hitler as an Atheist. Hitler used both Christians and atheists to further his ends, by pretending to be both whenever it suited him.

Now Atheism as the official state religion DOES have consequences. Stalin. Pol Pot. The USSR’s other top guys. 100 million killed under atheistic communism. Even if the ridiculously high numbers of deaths what Catholicism’s enemies attribute to Catholicism were true, we’d have to have hundreds of crusades and inquisitions over tens of thousand of years to catch up to what was done just in the 20th century by atheists.

 

[BobCatholic]

I don’t agree. society has deemed certain behaviors unacceptable and if you break these rules you go to jail.

Unfortunately, legal positivism does not make a good moral code. For example, Dr. Mengele did everything legally.

 

[Touchstone]

Of course it is, in some sense; but try to think about what that means. Teams are composed of individuals who can screw things up, let in a bad goal, that kind of thing. You offer a very simple metaphor, but I don’t think it supports your position; I think you’ve only assumed that it does, without really thinking it through.

The point of the example was to show that external critique and validation are powerful means of error detection and bias correction. It’s not that a group of people is somehow capable of making each individual less subjective. Rather, it’s that objective goals in the methodology enable local biases and errors to be identified and managed. It’s not enough to just assemble a team; you gotta have a method that produces knowledge, demonstrably.

It not ‘my’ definition actually! I’m not the randomly stipulative type, or so I like to think. I’m not so well aware of the apocalyptic predictions that you have in mind, so I won’t presume to discuss them (sounds off-topic anyway). And I’ll let you have your dogmatic beliefs about “fears of ramifications…” etc. That’s obviously just more fluff on your part (it’s not that I don’t care about your opinions, but I’m trying to have a rational discussion with you here).

Well, a common fear of Christians is that without Christianity, the moral fabric of society will unravel. It’s not hard to find just on this forum. That’s not a dogmatic statement, just an observation anyone here can confirm by looking around.

Hopefully I have already sufficiently pointed out why I think that your claim that ‘reality is real’ is silly - it is not at all a ‘metaphysical commitment’ - it’s a purely linguistic tautology.

No. You are confusing a handy way to “sloganize” the idea with the idea. The “reality of reality” is not tautological at all. It’s a statement about the real world, affirming the alethic validity of man’s perception of the world around him. That is, the objects your eyes and mind tell you are real, the ball coming toward your head gets you to duck, are actual, not just imaginary. That is what we generally call “real”, and for good reason, but the affirmation is a fundamental commitment about the state of reality around you, not a definition.

Beyond that, you imply that this example lends support to your scientistic world-view; that would be sneaking in an ‘illicit’ (bad) intuition.

An example that supports is sneaking in an intuition?

I think I’ve already pointed this out, but opposition to scientism is not opposition to science. From what you say and don’t say, you seem to be making this false assumption too.

Well, I said above I don’t recognize myself as a subscriber to scientism, allowing for some unfamiliarity with the term – I only encounter it in polemic contexts like this, it seems. Science is unavoidable committed to the metaphysical proposition that reality is real (see above), and that it is at least partially intelligible. If you doubt that reality is real, that the world around you streaming into your perceptual organs is not actual, extramental, objective, I think you are as opposed to science as one can possibly be.

That’s fine – anti-scientism (is that the opposite word) is a flourishing discipline, too. But either way, one’s philosophical commitment to the reality of reality (see above) is fundamental to pursuing the conversation. Confusion on that level pretty much negates anything else we’d like to cover.

Good! Now start applying that thought by modifying the kind of unqualified claims you make about science’s separation of ‘method and discipline’ from ‘personality’ by which you are able to convince yourself that ‘science’ is a self-correcting team sport whereas other Wissenschaften are not.

Well, the scientific method is well known, right? When you create cold fusion in the lab, others are going to demand that it be replicated, and verified, that it pass critical scrutiny, that it be falsifiable, and pass. And lo and behold, the cold fusion claims from Utah were debunked. A wonderful story, exciting as can be, trashed by the corrective procedures of science. Any one could perform their own (dis)confirmation independently.

So, how does your favorite Wisssenschaft show its objectivity, it’s separation of method from personality. How do dubious claims of cold fusion (or their analogs) prove out the separation in your knowledge enterprise?

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Well let me just tell you that there are non-Catholic scholars (some would call them ‘scientists’ of sorts) who have analyzed Humanae Vitae and found that the positions that Paul VI took there have proven to be correct. This is an issue of social history. But you take a dim view of that so I wouldn’t expect you to be informed about it!

Well, here’s my chance to be educated! Cite your scientists, please!

I don’t know where you’re getting this, but find a new source. The idea that there is no base disposition is not at all a part of Catholic theology. If you’d like to be able to discuss this issue more intelligently, perhaps you should look at a book called The Courage to Be Chaste by Benedict Groeschel.

It’s fine if some homosexual chooses a life of celibacy for themselves. To demand they eschew their core sexuality nature, to avoid all expression out of that, is cruel, inhuman, evil.

I’ll make just one (on-topic) comment: physiology does not prove anything about the ‘nature’ or ‘essence’ of man. Physiology just doesn’t do that; if you think it does, you don’t understand what it is.

Well, things are going badly, now. “just doesn’t do that”??? By ‘nature’ i mean the constitution of the being, the materials and patterns and structures that make it what it is, that ground its goals, behaviors and dispositions. Do you think sexuality does not come from genes, even in part???

Quote:
(You seem to have made clear at the beginning of this post that you believe (it’s one of your intuitions, I’m guessing) that things like theology are unsystematic collections of intuitions.

No, they are highly systematic. They just are not accountable to the tests for knowledge. They aren’t falsifiable, for example. As a programmer, one interest I’ve long had is “alternative logic”, and I’ll skip the boring details, but you can create very complex and exotic logical frameworks that are formally complete and thus perfectly systematic, but it’s completely detached from the real world. It’s systematized rule sets that just don’t overlap with reality. So it’s not the systematization that’s problematic, it’s the accountability to objective validation that I find problematic about much of theology.

Without your saying more than this, your claim isn’t even a ‘casual observation’; it’s pure dogmatic assertion (your forte, it seems). (Same goes for the remainder of what you wrote.)

Well, let’s see how that bears up. How would you falsify the claims of “original sin”, for example. If that was a bogus concept, a theological bit of fanciful thinking, how would you objectively establish that?

Really interested in the answer to that question!

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

I don’t like Nazism, but I don’t pin it on atheism. Hitler was an occultist and credited his mentor in the occult in the first version of Mein Kampf. He based a lot of the unique
Nazi doctrines based on a lot of the teachings he learned from his occultist mentor.

Under Atheism, they really cannot condemn Hitler, for their religion’s moral code does not forbid these kind of things, but I don’t count Hitler as an Atheist. Hitler used both Christians and atheists to further his ends, by pretending to be both whenever it suited him.

Hmmm. Upthread, wasn’t it you that went out of your way to affirm an important point about atheism? That one would have to go outside atheism to establish a moral code, as atheism only spoke to the disbelief in God or gods? Yeah, that was you!

On those grounds, even if Hitler was an atheist, his morality wouldn’t be a mark on atheism – it’s just about disbelieving in gods, remember? Hitler was also a vegetarian, and that would bear similar levels of culpability for the holocaust.

Now Atheism as the official state religion DOES have consequences. Stalin. Pol Pot. The USSR’s other top guys. 100 million killed under atheistic communism. Even if the ridiculously high numbers of deaths what Catholicism’s enemies attribute to Catholicism were true, we’d have to have hundreds of crusades and inquisitions over tens of thousand of years to catch up to what was done just in the 20th century by atheists.

I think someone else has been posting under your account, in one of the above posts of yours or the other. They contradict each other. Does one need to go outside atheism for a moral framework, as you pointed out above, or not? Or was that not you?

In any case, Stalin was a religion, a cult unto himself. There were no other Gods because Stalin was God. He inherited a people steeped in servility to the Church and the state – the Czars stretching back for generations were not just the totalitarian political rulers, they were the head of the Church in Russia, too. What self-respecting despot would not take advantage of that kind of setup, that kind of religious servility? Stalin was totalitarian religion just like under the Czars – it had miracles (Lysenko’s biology!), dogma, an inquisition, demands for orthodoxy, intolerance for heresy, demands that the Stalin-god be thanked, just like the Christian-god, for everything good (or bad) thing these servile, credulous people had.

I was gratified to see your ‘point’ above about needing to go outside atheism to develop one’s moral code, a point which should make your line on Stalinism a non-starter. While Stalin tore down the spiritual god to exalt himself, thus “disbelieving in God or gods” in the sense we understand it normally, this modus operandus was problematic because of its religious leitmotif, of its exploitation of the credulous servility bred into the Russian people by the Czars.

-TS

 

[BobCatholic]

Hmmm. Upthread, wasn’t it you that went out of your way to affirm an important point about atheism? That one would have to go outside atheism to establish a moral code, as atheism only spoke to the disbelief in God or gods? Yeah, that was you!

Actually, I said that in order to disallow anything (other than believing in a god), one has to go outside of Atheism. This proves my point that Atheism’s moral code allows everything (except believing in a god). If Atheism disallowed anything else in its moral code, I’d love to know what it is.

In any case, Stalin was a religion, a cult unto himself. There were no other Gods because Stalin was God. He inherited a people steeped in servility to the Church and the state – the Czars stretching back for generations were not just the totalitarian political rulers, they were the head of the Church in Russia, too. What self-respecting despot would not take advantage of that kind of setup, that kind of religious servility? Stalin was totalitarian religion just like under the Czars – it had miracles (Lysenko’s biology!), dogma, an inquisition, demands for orthodoxy, intolerance for heresy, demands that the Stalin-god be thanked, just like the Christian-god, for everything good (or bad) thing these servile, credulous people had.

One cannot at the same time say “there are no gods” and then declare Stalin a god Atheism was the state’s official religion. If Stalin thought of himself as a god, that’s just the delusions of a crazed totalitarian dictator - wouldn’t be the first time that happened It is a natural result of “If there is no God, then I am God” way of thinking.

Also, Atheism has dogmas (“There is no God” “Atheism is not a religion”), demands for orthodoxy and inquisitions (gotta love those SOCAS lawsuits!), intolerance for heresy (gotta love those hatred for theists and theistic religions) Atheism also has other things in common with other religions like evangelists (Dawkins, Hitchens), moral code (“all is allowed except believing in a god”), and even it is developing rituals (like debaptisms).

 

[Touchstone]

Actually, I said that in order to disallow anything (other than believing in a god), one has to go outside of Atheism. This proves my point that Atheism’s moral code allows everything (except believing in a god). If Atheism disallowed anything else in its moral code, I’d love to know what it is.

It doesn’t. It’s amoral in the way mathematics would be. A mathematician would have to go outside math to build a moral framework. To disallow, or allow, or make moral distinctions at all. You could be a totalitarian mathematician or a libertarian mathematician. An atheist could be Pol Pot or Thomas Jefferson.

One cannot at the same time say “there are no gods” and then declare Stalin a god

Well, it’s a little bit of indirection there by Stalin, but I’m sure you can follow. Like Yahweh, Stalin was a jealous god, and his atheism was the denial of all the other gods – none before me! – and of course the Christian god was the god to be denied and debased.

Atheism was the state’s official religion.

Well, you have to read some Orwell, perhaps. Do you expect Stalin to say “I’m your god”? That’s just bad PR.

If Stalin thought of himself as a god, that’s just the delusions of a crazed totalitarian dictator - wouldn’t be the first time that happened It is a natural result of “If there is no God, then I am God” way of thinking.

Sure, that’s definitely a route available to an (supernatural) atheist.

Also, Atheism has dogmas (“There is no God” “Atheism is not a religion”),

This is not dogma. Atheism is not religion.

demands for orthodoxy and inquisitions (gotta love those SOCAS lawsuits!),

These completely misunderstand what is meant by “inquisition” from Catholic and Stalinist history. It dilutes the memory of the victims of those inquisitions to suggest stuff like this, even if it’s just you trying to be clever. Do you suppose any of those sued got hauled off to the gulags? Burned at the stake?

Please.

intolerance for heresy (gotta love those hatred for theists and theistic religions)

I think the smiley signals that you know you’re off into the weeds here, and appreciate the conscience that shows, but hatred is not intolerance, even if it is hatred. Intolerance is interfering with someones freedoma and practice – you know, the gulag, torture of human beings by the Catholic authorities. Let’s not deny the horrors that obtain from those terms by suggesting animus compares.

Atheism also has other things in common with other religions like evangelists (Dawkins, Hitchens), moral code (“all is allowed except believing in a god”), and even it is developing rituals (like debaptisms).

Advocacy, moral codes and rituals… you have a problem with these? You see these as problematic instutionally, on the order of totalitarianism or inquisition?

-TS

 

[Dee_Dee_King]

To demand they eschew their core sexuality nature, to avoid all expression out of that, is cruel, inhuman, evil.

last time i checked, the nature of the sexes is that they are complimentary. like the article states, atheism has no basis for values. i can just as easily say it’s cruel and inhuman to condone homosexual acts. at least theism is internally consistant. atheism can only lead to nihilism and to contradiction.

i think shea brings out a good point about atheists: they look at the evidence–reality–with the assumption that God doesn’t exist and then fit their conclusion to the assumption. dismissing the miricle of fatima as a mass hallucination is an excellent example. it reminds me of a south park episode where the snobs in san fransico would enjoy the smell of their own farts by farting into wine glasses and smelling them.

ultimately, the atheist says i think therefore i am, the theist says i be therefore something created me.