What [if any] social goods does atheism bring to the community table?

[CalmDownWisWins]

A person can use methodological atheism (removing supernatural explanations for a particular problem) without being philosophically atheist (stating that there are no supernatural beings at all).

And this is why religion is not the enemy of science. An effective scientist (regardless of religion/atheism) doesn’t assume “miracle” as a component of anything experimental.

“Methodological Atheism”, in your usage, simply means effective investigator-ism.

You said an atheist is a person who believes

Quote:
there is no ‘underlying organizational principle’ of the universe

Who believes this? Dawkins doesn’t believe in God, but he clearly believes that the theory of evolution definitely points to an “underlying organizational principle” to life on Earth.

And I don’t consider Dawkins a REAL atheist, because he’s made a god (small “g”) of his intellect.

A REAL atheist wouldn’t ATTACK such a “silly” thing as religion.

Dawkins “underlying org principle” is “I don’t know but what I can see and I’m capable of seeing **everything **with the right tools!” which is his god.

He has faith that the universe DOES work and that he’ll NEVER be faced with NEEDING to acknowledge any kind of actual creator.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

When your definition of theism is
Quote:
belief that the world makes sense in a comprehensive way that is actually THERE whether any one person believes it or not.

You aren’t really defending theism, you are defending objective realism, which is better than solipsism I’ll grant, but doesn’t really address atheism at all.

That would be correct. “Objective Realism” IS Catholic Christianity.

That may SEEM flipant, but that is truly the belief of Catholics.

Are you trying to say that god is an “organization principle” of the universe? That’s fine if you do. But it is certainly not equivalent with monotheism.

Catholicism is a subset of monotheism, so I agree that they aren’t equivalent.

God, by definition, is the organizational principle, sustainer, “tweaker”, and creator of the universe.

I agree with you entirely that I set “atheism” up as a strawman. I do that because atheism, as a “thing” is a veritable non-existence.

Atheism proper is simply “non-God-believing”. That really doesn’t say very much more than the utterly obvious.

What passes itself OFF as “atheism” by most people who profess “atheism” is anti-religiosity, and much more often than not anti-Catholicism (anti-Christianity).

Those who are real atheists are simply passive sponges who contribute no original “goods” (ethical/moral contributions) because their ONLY source from which to contribute is “Natural Law”, which is totally contained within the Church.

Those who are “Religious Anti-Religious-ists” (Dawkins-esque atheists) contribute ONLY evil goods, because their source of ethics/morals is utterly non-God. In that these people “unconsciously” confirm that some bits of natural law are good to them is simply God winking at believers showing them that He’s everywhere. Even with the bad evil atheists.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
The “theist” mind, on the other hand, has brought every good to “the table”.

Please back this up, if you don’t mind.

Sure. Read the Catechism. Every good that you can identify is in there.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
If you say that neither the “atheist” mind nor the “theist” mind bringing any good to “the table”, then where did the GOOD come from?

The question was about unique goods, as you so often remind me. I do not see any social good being exclusive to either mindset.

If no mind, neither those HAVING God or all of the others, brought any goods to the table, then none was brought.

Because the “atheist” mind has access to natural law, it can, and does, and has, brought that to the table, but the “theist” mind has inherently has MORE access to actual goods to bring, so, even if both types of mind have existed simultaneously always, anything brought by the atheist would be redundant, while some things brought by theists would be unique.

Since ONLY the “theist” mind is CAPABLE of uniquely bring goods to the table, ONLY they CAN and have brought them.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
But, I would contend that on a per capita basis, atheists are MUCH more likely to be whiners, because it’s “COOL” to whine when being a victim is the veritable raison d’etre for BEING an atheist.

The reason people are atheists is so they can say they’re victims? Not, you know, lack of belief in a deity? That’s a new definition.

People remain atheists because it’s easier to believe only in what is most comfortable to believe in, and believing in real religion is difficult.

Victim-hood is a little side benefit that many (not all) people find attractive, due to cultural influences.

Not all victims (people who LIKE to be victims) are atheists, and not all atheists are victims, but it’s acually NOT permitted by doctrine to be a “victim”, as opposed to being a martyr, within Catholicism, while it’s a “use it or not, I don’t care” attitude for atheists.

 

[Sideline]

Just an aside…

When I first heard the argument, “atheism is worse than theism because atheist regimes killed more than Christian regimes”, I didn’t bothered trying to dispel it because I thought that it was so obviously wrong that no one would really believe it. After hearing it hundreds of times now, I see I’m sadly very wrong on that.

First off, the notion that Nazi Germany was atheist is always presented as a fact without any proof whatsoever. Hitler was a professed Christian, tens of millions of Christians supported him, Catholic theologians were divided on the merits of Nazism, and one of the reasons that Nazis gained power was to thwart the godless communists. It was never official dogma of the Nazi party that one must be an atheist.

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.

• Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2

“We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession…”

• Article 20 of the program of the German Workers’ Party (later named the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, NSDAP)

Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.

• Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

To me, this doesn’t sound atheistic. Evil, yes. Atheistic, no.

The second point that a lot of people seem to miss. Even if you claim every dictator of the 20th century was an atheist, the last century has seen unprecedented rises in technology, information systems, and organizational structures. In other words, it’s a whole lot easier to slaughter people these days. Any genocidal dictator that lived in the past 100 years is going to kill more people than one in previous centuries.

Perhaps… now I know this sounds crazy… we could discuss issues based on representative samples, rather than on the actions of homicidal maniacs.

 

[Newbie2]

One consequence of atheism is acknowledging that there is no God to help out humanity. As expressed in my first post, I think atheism may drive technological innovation to create technology to ameliorate suffering that God is too impotent to solve such as poverty.

By definition the Christian God in omnipotent. Free will is what prevents us humans from solving poverty and much of what suffering exists.

Unfortunately, poverty is an extremely difficult problem as it is many of orders of magnitude too large to solve permentantly with our technology.

I beg to differ. If we put our minds and resources to it (as a global population, we could eliminate poverty. Unfortunately, that will never happen, by our own choice, not God’s.

I think Peter Singer’s philosophy should be followed by most people. I think utilitarianism is superior to Christian morality because Christians think suffering is a good thing (as some, but not all believe God is happy when we suffer), while in utilitarian philosophy it is abjured. In utilitarianism there is a moral imperative for the reduction of suffering.

Christians accept suffering, we don’t seek it out. There’s a HUGE difference. You don’t think there’s a moral imperative in Christianity to reduce suffering?? Think again.

Utilitarianism does not accept individual’s personhood and their rights as a person. Superior to Christian morality? I think not.

 

[Mirdath]

Sure. Read the Catechism. Every good that you can identify is in there.

The presence of some – not all – social goods in the Catechism only means that theists have come to the same or similar conclusions, not that they came up with them first or that they are uniquely able to make those conclusions.

Since ONLY the “theist” mind is CAPABLE of uniquely bring goods to the table, ONLY they CAN and have brought them.

Once again: back it up. Demonstrate that the ‘theist mind’ is something great and grand and glorious that the ‘atheist mind’ can only hope to feebly copy.

People remain atheists because it’s easier to believe only in what is most comfortable to believe in, and believing in real religion is difficult.

With all respect, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I have grown comfortable with my lack of belief because – and only because – it is the only option I see I reasonably possess. Were I capable of having faith in some deity, some being into whose hands I could put my life and my cares, why wouldn’t I do so immediately? Sure, he might ask a few things I find less than convenient, but you know what, I’ve done that kind of thing before. If I knew for certain that there is a loving God who asked that of his followers, I’d do them again.

Not all victims (people who LIKE to be victims) are atheists, and not all atheists are victims, but it’s acually NOT permitted by doctrine to be a “victim”, as opposed to being a martyr, within Catholicism, while it’s a “use it or not, I don’t care” attitude for atheists.

I have not noticed that stopping anybody.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
Sure. Read the Catechism. Every good that you can identify is in there.

The presence of some – not all – social goods in the Catechism only means that theists have come to the same or similar conclusions, not that they came up with them first or that they are uniquely able to make those conclusions.

Have I got some “seemingly” circular Christian logic for YOU!

Firstly, there was a time when there were no REAL atheists, and during that time period ALL moral/ethical “goods” were arrived at. Some by natural law, and some by revelation.

Since ALL was “found” before athiests even existed, how could they (after the fact) have contributed anything unique?

Atheists, and many others, nearly always condense history into a big “now” in regards to the “discovery” of ethics and morals. Since, to them, now-a-days, both atheists and believers contribute to “a dialogue” about how indinviduals should behave in society so as to “do good”, it’s ALWAYS been that way.

That is a basic error.

It (contributions) was all FINISHED before atheists came to the PARTY!

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Since ONLY the “theist” mind is CAPABLE of uniquely bring goods to the table, ONLY they CAN and have brought them.

Once again: back it up. Demonstrate that the ‘theist mind’ is something great and grand and glorious that the ‘atheist mind’ can only hope to feebly copy.

They (non-atheists) are only capable of generating actual moral/ethical goods, other than those (essentially accidentally) arrived at by natural law, because the ONLY SOURCE of true ethical/moral goods is God.

Now, that will offend the atheists sense of “fairness”, of course, but it’s a universal truth. The reason it’s true is that the ability to know that some moral/ethic is good is only perceivable by checking that action (in anticipation or after the fact) against a well formed conscience.

Conscience is “from God”. Conscience = “With Knowledge”. What “knowledge”? Our knowledge of God as God, which is “good”.

If one has no “knowledge of God”, then there is nothing to judge actions against.

THIS is the real reason that there actually are NO real atheists. There are only those angry at God for not making them “perfect”.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
People remain atheists because it’s easier to believe only in what is most comfortable to believe in, and believing in real religion is difficult.

With all respect, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I have grown comfortable with my lack of belief because – and only because – it is the only option I see I reasonably possess. Were I capable of having faith in some deity, some being into whose hands I could put my life and my cares, why wouldn’t I do so immediately?

The simple answer is that it’s too uncomfortable a prospect.

Once the “limits” of your reason are experienced by you, just as with everybody else, only then CAN you come to a real understanding of the follishness of doing as you’re doing.

Not that you’re a fool. It’s just that the extremely rational can appear to be fools (“nerd syndrome”) because they INSIST on the subject of their inquiry being VERY VERY clear and powerfully “useful” to them.

I come from exactly this background.

Sure, he might ask a few things I find less than convenient, but you know what, I’ve done that kind of thing before. If I knew for certain that there is a loving God who asked that of his followers, I’d do them again.

You don’t know for sure because you don’t want to be disappointed. Again.

You’ve been lead astray by “doubt”, which is not the same as uncertainty. It’s extremely plausible to you that God doesn’t exist because there’s lots of evidence, as presented by “you know who”, that He doesn’t, based on your “premises”, also slyly inculcated into you by the same fellow, which seem to confirm each other marvelously!

Of course they confirm each other! They’re from the same source, constructed for the same purpose!

You do believe in what you do believe in. It simply isn’t God that you believe in. You DO have belief. No one can claim to “not believe”. But what you believe in is entirely up to you.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Not all victims (people who LIKE to be victims) are atheists, and not all atheists are victims, but it’s acually NOT permitted by doctrine to be a “victim”, as opposed to being a martyr, within Catholicism, while it’s a “use it or not, I don’t care” attitude for atheists.

I have not noticed that stopping anybody.

AMEN to that, Brother!

If Catholics acted as their Church says they MUST act, all the other Christians would fold in with them in 3 days, and the last of the rest of humanity would fill the Church within a week!

…and Christ would say, “Hi 'yall!”, and the wheat and the chaff would get what’s coming to them.

 

[ribozyme]

Unfortunately, poverty is an extremely difficult problem as it is many of orders of magnitude too large to solve permentantly with our technology.

I beg to differ. If we put our minds and resources to it (as a global population, we could eliminate poverty. Unfortunately, that will never happen, by our own choice, not God’s

How are we going to defeat poverty without the advancement of technology. We are unable to solve the problem now with our current resources. I do not think humanity has the intelligence to solve a problem of this magnitude. Our brains do not have the processing power to deal with this extremely complex problem and eliminate it permanently.

I think the advancement of technology will produce an entity capable of solving this problem in a facile fashion. We need solar power, nanobots, nanotech-based water filtration, artificial intelligence, and cybernetics to permanently solve this.

How do you think Christianity can permanently eradicate poverty for humanity? Looking at my own resources, I feel too weak to solve this. I do think we need better technology to eliminate poverty.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

How are we going to defeat poverty without the advancement of technology. We are unable to solve the problem now with our current resources. I do not think humanity has the intelligence to solve a problem of this magnitude. Our brains do not have the processing power to deal with this extremely complex problem and eliminate it permanently.

I think the advancement of technology will produce an entity capable of solving this problem in a facile fashion. We need solar power, nanobots, nanotech-based water filtration, artificial intelligence, and cybernetics to permanently solve this.

How do you think Christianity can permanently eradicate poverty for humanity? Looking at my own resources, I feel too weak to solve this. I do think we need better technology to eliminate poverty.

I’m all for technology that “serves mankind”. I’m also utterly against technology that “serves mankind to Satan”.

Christianity (ie. “Body of Christ”, ie. “The Church”, ie. the Catholic Church) will create the technology that assists the growing People of Christ to help all people to best avoid the “habit” of poverty. This will minimize but not eradicate poverty, because men have the free will to choose not to avoid poverty.

Only people who are inspired by God will be able to create this technology (these tools) because anyone else who tries to create it will destroy the object of their “intention to help”.

God will never allow us to utterly destroy mankind. But He WILL allow us to reduce ourselves to tiny remnants of ourselves time and time again.

How do we reduce the oscillation? Stop the positive feedback dynamic. How do we do that? Follow the rules. What rules?

God’s.

Once that’s done such that a “critical threshold” of humanity is TRULY (not nominally) Catholic (YES! Catholic!) we will be able to successfully develop and deploy our God given “new technology” such that it actually works without the otherwise inevitable catastrophy.

This WILL happen before Christ comes. Just as toilettes came before Jesus’ return.

Solving poverty is NOT the “be all and end all” of “heaven on eearth”. It will only be a step. Just as were toilettes.

Do not make a deity of poverty, any more than you would make a deity of toilettes. Those who make a god of toilettes causes themselves to “worship at the porcelain alter”, in more ways than one!

 

[rlg94086]

Atheism isn’t religion’s evil twin (or vice versa) – it’s not organized, there’s no ‘belief structure’ or any of that. It’s not a social movement. The only thing two atheists necessarily have in common is that they don’t believe in a deity; beyond that, they don’t have to agree on anything.

You could compare Christianity to the Church of Satan or the Discordians (two organized, quasi-religious groups) and come out looking pretty good, or you could compare it as a whole to the Society of Friends specifically, which accepts atheists and agnostics as members, and well… very few can match the Quakers’ track record as far as social goods go

Very well said…I may not bother reading the rest of the thread. Atheism is neutral. It’s not possible IMO to measure positive effects of a neutral position. Some atheists do some great things. Some atheists do absolutley nothing of worth. Their atheism really has nothing directly to do with it.

 

[Mirdath]

Have I got some “seemingly” circular Christian logic for YOU!

Firstly, there was a time when there were no REAL atheists, and during that time period ALL moral/ethical “goods” were arrived at. Some by natural law, and some by revelation.

Either that or there were no real theists before some guy went and started it by talking to a burning bush or said ‘hey guys, that big yellow thing in the sky is bigger than we are’ or went out into the forest, ate a bunch of odd mushrooms, and came back with a sculpture or what have you. I doubt it could be proven either way.

Certainly, widespread atheism in the West is a generally modern phenomenon, but atheism itself – not so much.

 

[ribozyme]

I’m all for technology that “serves mankind”. I’m also utterly against technology that “serves mankind to Satan”.

Christianity (ie. “Body of Christ”, ie. “The Church”, ie. the Catholic Church) will create the technology that assists the growing People of Christ to help all people to best avoid the “habit” of poverty. This will minimize but not eradicate poverty, because men have the free will to choose not to avoid poverty.

Only people who are inspired by God will be able to create this technology (these tools) because anyone else who tries to create it will destroy the object of their “intention to help”.

God will never allow us to utterly destroy mankind. But He WILL allow us to reduce ourselves to tiny remnants of ourselves time and time again.

How do we reduce the oscillation? Stop the positive feedback dynamic. How do we do that? Follow the rules. What rules?

God’s.

Once that’s done such that a “critical threshold” of humanity is TRULY (not nominally) Catholic (YES! Catholic!) we will be able to successfully develop and deploy our God given “new technology” such that it actually works without the otherwise inevitable catastrophy.

This WILL happen before Christ comes. Just as toilettes came before Jesus’ return.

Solving poverty is NOT the “be all and end all” of “heaven on eearth”. It will only be a step. Just as were toilettes.

Do not make a deity of poverty, any more than you would make a deity of toilettes. Those who make a god of toilettes causes themselves to “worship at the porcelain alter”, in more ways than one!

Gee… do you have any evidence that the “body of Christ” possess intelligence that surpasses the intelligence of atheists by many orders of magnitude. I think humanity does not have the processing power or intelligence to solve a problem of this complexity. How much money has the Catholic Church invested in creating an entity with sufficient processing power to solve this problem.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett currently do not have the resources to permanently eliminate poverty. Thus I seem extremely impotent with my own resources and intelligence that my contribution would be negligible.

Does anyone has a practical solution to solve poverty with our current technology? I doubt anyone here has the intelligence to propose a cogent proposal. Your mind’s processing power will be many of orders of magnitude too short to find a permanent solution to this vexing evil.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
Have I got some “seemingly” circular Christian logic for YOU!

Firstly, there was a time when there were no REAL atheists, and during that time period ALL moral/ethical “goods” were arrived at. Some by natural law, and some by revelation.

Either that or there were no real theists before some guy went and started it by talking to a burning bush or said ‘hey guys, that big yellow thing in the sky is bigger than we are’ or went out into the forest, ate a bunch of odd mushrooms, and came back with a sculpture or what have you. I doubt it could be proven either way.

Certainly, widespread atheism in the West is a generally modern phenomenon, but atheism itself – not so much.

Since you simply pose that “we can’t know” whether there was a time when there were no atheists, you can’t come to any conclusion about my proposition whatsoever.

In other words, ALL you can say about my propostion is “You might be right and you might be wrong”, which is your saying, "I have nothing at all to contribute to this discussion.

Since you have nothing to contribute, what is the point of your empty contribution?

In fact, your saying that “atheism itself is ‘not-so-much’ only a modern western phenomenon”, is negated by your proposition that “No one can really know”.

All this really boils down (as usual) to conflicting definitions of various words, most noticably “religion”.

To me, atheists are in fact members of a religion. They believe that “theists” believe in “the universal organizing and creative ‘thing’” in the wrong way. They still, though, believe in their own version of that “thing”, because it is not possible for a human being to operate in the actual universe without believing in SOME version of that “thing”.

Therefore, to me, there are no, and never were, any true atheists, and those who call themselves “atheists” CAN’T contribute any “good to the table” because anything they DO contribute that IS good is from one of their (unconsciously held) beliefs that coincides with a theistic belief because THEY’RE NOT ACTING AS AN ATHIEST when they contribute it!

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Gee… do you have any evidence that the “body of Christ” possess intelligence that surpasses the intelligence of atheists by many orders of magnitude. I think humanity does not have the processing power or intelligence to solve a problem of this complexity. How much money has the Catholic Church invested in creating an entity with sufficient processing power to solve this problem.

ANY group of humans can and eventually will create a technology capable of doing what you say (to “eliminate” poverty), but only a God-inspired group of humanity are capable of creating and using it such that it won’t destroy the “inventor” and vast numbers of “non-combatants”.

The Church has all the “technology” that there IS to create humans that are capable of creating the “servant” technology that will “eliminate poverty”.

If this “servant” technology is created by any group OTHER THAN the People of God, it will be used to reduce humanity to yet another remnant struggling AGAIN to rebuild our friendship with God.

In other words, we’ll keep plunging ourselves into “chaos” repeatedly until true Catholics are “non-coersively in charge” of humanity.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett currently do not have the resources to permanently eliminate poverty. Thus I seem extremely impotent with my own resources and intelligence that my contribution would be negligible.

Does anyone has a practical solution to solve poverty with our current technology? I doubt anyone here has the intelligence to propose a cogent proposal. Your mind’s processing power will be many of orders of magnitude too short to find a permanent solution to this vexing evil.

Here’s one:

If you have food you don’t absolutely need, give it to someone hungry.

If you have you don’t absolutely need, give it to someone needing that resource.

 

[ribozyme]

All this really boils down (as usual) to conflicting definitions of various words, most noticably “religion”.

To me, atheists are in fact members of a religion. They believe that “theists” believe in “the universal organizing and creative ‘thing’” in the wrong way. They still, though, believe in their own version of that “thing”, because it is not possible for a human being to operate in the actual universe without believing in SOME version of that “thing”.

!

Are you referring to me… I do believe there is a Counterforce or a law that is the creative thing in the universe. No God necessary…

Did you read both essays?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2b/PPTCanonicalMilestones.jpg/550px-

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/71/PPTCountdowntoSingularityLog.jpg/550px-

I’ve sometimes ask the question whether there is a God. I have answered, if you doubt the existence of God, take a look around. Imagine the world 3.8 billion years ago (origin of life), imagine it 500 million years ago (cambrian explosion), 3 million years ago (the dawn of Homo habilis and primative Olduwan tools), 10 thousand years ago (agriculture), 50 years ago (first computer and discovery of the structure of DNA), and now. If that isn’t evidence for the existence of God, I do not know what is.