Retired Boards (Archived)
Presumption of Atheism
Posted by: UnreasonableFaith
« on: October 20, 2016, 08:34:52 AM »It's absolutely ridiculous to blame atheism for say stallinism. It's as reasonable as saying that Stalin's moustache is somehow to blame as well.
If you claim atheism is cause of stallinism you should be able to quote a passage from holybook of atheism which commands people to commit genocide.Or maybe you should be able to quote a founder of atheistic move? You can't do it. There ain't any holy book of atheism. You may quote some book written by atheist but it would no better than quoting Main Kampf as an evidence of painters being evil. Also there is no founder of atheism since it's default position.
Atheism is just one conviction that is there is no reason to believe god exists, or to be more correct it's implausible god exists. That's everything. It's not a packet of beliefs, it's not a whole system. It's just one single belief.
You may say "oh, it's quite convenient to not believe in god, you don;t have to worry about eternal punishment" and it's obviously dumb respond. Why? Because not only it can be easily reversed but what's more important it totally misses the point. First of all it may be indeed convenient to get rid of concerns about your eternity BUT I think it's much more convenient to believe that not only you're not going to be punished in the afterlife, but you'll be even rewarded since god must be on your side. This is why saying that atheism is convenient is shooting oneself in one's foot. But there is my second objection that is this statement is off the point. The issue is: Does atheism induces crimes? And again to me the answer is obviously not. There are no atheistic authorities, there are no atheistic rituals, there are no atheistic codes or holy books. Obviously there may be people who are atheists and who try to convey how people should live according to their worldview, but again when you're atheist you're not obliged to conform to anything other atheists think and yet still be atheist.
Obviously in case of religion it's all different. You can't call yourself christian and yet say "Well I don't really care what that Jesus guy wanted me to do" or "I'm catholic, but who cares about pope" or "Well I'm muslim but I really don't like prophet Muhammad"
That's what theists extremaly often don't understand. They think that since their whole worldview may be basically described using just one word like christian or muslim it necessarily means that the same applies to atheism. Bullshit. You can't tell anything more about atheist that he simply doesn;t believe in god and/or think god is improbable. Whereas when you call yourself christian I can easily tell what's your standpoint on homosexuals, abortion, freedom of speech with respect to your god etc. Or at least I should be able assuming you really believe what you believe. And I can do this using the book that is the basis for your religion. You can say that since I'm atheist I'm more likely to say support abortion. Statistically it's probably true, but again it's not about statisticall truths but rather whether you can say that my standpoint on this issue is predefined by my atheism and the answer is obviously not. You can be atheist and oppose abortion. The same goes for literally everything. And that's all because atheism is just one independent belief.
If you claim atheism is cause of stallinism you should be able to quote a passage from holybook of atheism which commands people to commit genocide.Or maybe you should be able to quote a founder of atheistic move? You can't do it. There ain't any holy book of atheism. You may quote some book written by atheist but it would no better than quoting Main Kampf as an evidence of painters being evil. Also there is no founder of atheism since it's default position.
Atheism is just one conviction that is there is no reason to believe god exists, or to be more correct it's implausible god exists. That's everything. It's not a packet of beliefs, it's not a whole system. It's just one single belief.
You may say "oh, it's quite convenient to not believe in god, you don;t have to worry about eternal punishment" and it's obviously dumb respond. Why? Because not only it can be easily reversed but what's more important it totally misses the point. First of all it may be indeed convenient to get rid of concerns about your eternity BUT I think it's much more convenient to believe that not only you're not going to be punished in the afterlife, but you'll be even rewarded since god must be on your side. This is why saying that atheism is convenient is shooting oneself in one's foot. But there is my second objection that is this statement is off the point. The issue is: Does atheism induces crimes? And again to me the answer is obviously not. There are no atheistic authorities, there are no atheistic rituals, there are no atheistic codes or holy books. Obviously there may be people who are atheists and who try to convey how people should live according to their worldview, but again when you're atheist you're not obliged to conform to anything other atheists think and yet still be atheist.
Obviously in case of religion it's all different. You can't call yourself christian and yet say "Well I don't really care what that Jesus guy wanted me to do" or "I'm catholic, but who cares about pope" or "Well I'm muslim but I really don't like prophet Muhammad"
That's what theists extremaly often don't understand. They think that since their whole worldview may be basically described using just one word like christian or muslim it necessarily means that the same applies to atheism. Bullshit. You can't tell anything more about atheist that he simply doesn;t believe in god and/or think god is improbable. Whereas when you call yourself christian I can easily tell what's your standpoint on homosexuals, abortion, freedom of speech with respect to your god etc. Or at least I should be able assuming you really believe what you believe. And I can do this using the book that is the basis for your religion. You can say that since I'm atheist I'm more likely to say support abortion. Statistically it's probably true, but again it's not about statisticall truths but rather whether you can say that my standpoint on this issue is predefined by my atheism and the answer is obviously not. You can be atheist and oppose abortion. The same goes for literally everything. And that's all because atheism is just one independent belief.
Posted by: just one
« on: March 03, 2013, 03:02:03 AM »i'm a doubter, as i see it theists have taken over 700-1200 years away from scientific study of our world.my favorite part of the bible is where god gives everyone free will, then drowns everyone for doing what he knew would happen, cause he loves us.
Posted by: just one
« on: March 03, 2013, 02:52:51 AM »i see wold trade centers falling and people getting killed in syria, the spanish iquisition with torture and murder, and cults killing them selves off. why are atheists killing people?
Posted by: Branden Holmes
« on: January 22, 2013, 07:01:21 AM »I think that the distinction which we really need to make is between atheism ("I disbelieve in the existence of god") and anti-theism ("religion should be physically and/or verbally opposed"). Anti-theism is the problem, not atheism (whether anti-theism is subsumed by atheism is irrelevant in this discussion).
Posted by: :)
« on: January 11, 2013, 09:01:26 PM »Watt,
There are individual atheists who can be nice and even have the appearance of morality, but the ideology itself is rotten and leaves only corpses in its wake. I think the friendly ones have borrowed from Christianity as Nietzsche claims in the aforementioned letter.
You seem like a bright and friendly interlocutor, what subjects in philosophy or theology would you like to discuses? I will start a separate thread to do so, if you like?
I do admit to share a same sense of concern for the conclusions that I feel people can logically come to after daring to look truly into the face of cold, atheistic ideology. Saying that though I have faith that the large majority of atheists would truly reconsider their position if/when that happens.
And thank you very much for your kind comments! I must say that I'm here to learn more than anything else. There are a few issues about epistemology that I would like to discuss sometime and I will be sure to start a thread if I cant find anything in already discussed that will answer my questions.
I'll see you around the forums and look out for what you'll have to say. Thanks.
Posted by: idunno
« on: January 11, 2013, 07:49:17 PM »Welcome to the forum Tertullian. Most of the fighting goes on in the Choose Your Own Topic section
Go head an introduce yourself, we always like new faces
Go head an introduce yourself, we always like new faces
Posted by: :)
« on: January 11, 2013, 05:56:40 PM »Watt,
When I say atheism, I mean atheists. You are technically write that ideas do not perform actions. People do. I was arguing that the logical of atheism if acted out by people have and will lead to mass murder, but technically you are correct. I should have said atheists not atheism, since an idea is not able to act. I was using atheism as a kind of short hand for atheism, people who are atheists and people who act according to the philosophical implications of atheism.
I do agree that the implications of atheism does lead to absurd conclusions. I think there is an undeniable link between the view of atheism and the view that morality is subjective, for example. But then, I know a few atheists personally who are generally nice people. Wether they believe in objective morality or not I do not happen to know; I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't actually thought about it seriously before or studied many implications to their belief (or lack of belief) that there is no God. They are simply good people who are atheists. Wether they have logical reasons for being good is another story.
There are plenty of people who describe themselves as devout followers of various philosophies or religious texts that often have horrendous teachings, and yet still they are nice people. Their view has no affect on whether they are a good person, because they do not follow their belief to some logical conclusions. These people are deceived or misguided, not immoral.
Posted by: :)
« on: January 11, 2013, 03:09:46 PM »No, Atheism is not a cause of mass murders. Religion isn't either.
Any doctrine or lack of doctrine is impotent in itself. Idea's don't have causal powers. Idea's can influence or persuade people to act differently, which can be good or bad, but it's the person who holds that view that is good or bad, not the mere idea or view.
In the same way, I get confused when people say that religion has done lots of bad throughout history.
Any doctrine or lack of doctrine is impotent in itself. Idea's don't have causal powers. Idea's can influence or persuade people to act differently, which can be good or bad, but it's the person who holds that view that is good or bad, not the mere idea or view.
In the same way, I get confused when people say that religion has done lots of bad throughout history.
Posted by: John M
« on: December 04, 2012, 06:46:24 PM »Quote
Nazi Germany was predominantly Christian and WW2 caused the deaths of 11.5 to 60 million people
I think it is a bit unfair to label the Nazi leaders, precipitators and supporters within Germany prior to and during WW2 as anything related to Christianity. Many in Nazi leadership held Nietzsche and (some of) his ideals in high regard. This Nazi philosophy also appealed to a large percentage of Germans and I think it is fair to say that Nietzsche's worldview and Nazism/National Socialism is very far from true Christianity. To say that the German atrocities can be linked to Christianity is a bit far-fetched.
Posted by: carl c
« on: November 01, 2012, 03:30:21 AM »Historical evidence is all over the map, but so far I think the Marxists have a commanding lead as far as sheer quantity of brutality, oppression, and body count (upwards of 100,000,000) are concerned. The fascist socialists are a distant 2nd, then we have imerialism 3rd, islamism a distant 4th, followed by the inquisition and witch trials and other evil "G-d told me you are bad" heretical evil-doing.
I would agree that over the short period of time the "Marxists" do seem to be in the lead (estimated to be between 60 and 120 million) but overall i would say that Christianity has the lead as many nations over the last thousand or so years were Christian and were hardly what you could call pleasant to their own populations let alone others. In fact we do not need to go back a thousand or so years at all to gain some figures.
The Christian British empire in India, Africa and pretty much every place else they were racked up a body count estimated at 30 to 50 million in fact in India during the British Empire rule had a life expectancy down to 23.2 and 22.8 years for men and women respectively.
The Christian Spanish in South America (estimates from 10 to 30 million).
The native American population was devastated by the christian settlers ( America's population was anywhere between 20 and 100 million). At least 90 percent of the native population were killed making the death toll between 18 to 90 million.
Nazi Germany was predominantly Christian and WW2 caused the deaths of 11.5 to 60 million people depending on how it is calculated (holocaust was over 11 million while the 60 million includes all deaths).
Obviously those are just 4 examples but they come to 70 to 230 million dead.
Now the regimes and their populations i list above were just as Christian as Mao's, Stalin's etc regimes were atheistic.
Posted by: SceptiKarl
« on: March 28, 2012, 02:26:45 PM »rdavid:
Of course you are free to put whatever lable you like on things. However, unless some common ground can be reached about what the lables mean, then the exercise is pointless. As I said, the Communist Manifesto defines communism as the "absence of buying and selling". Now that never happened in the USSR, China, Cuba etc. Using that definition, we can safely assume that communism never existed in Russia and elsewhere. In fact judging by the fact that people in Russia and elsewhere worked for someone else for a wage or a salary, we can safely assume that they were workers, and that there was a privileged ruling class of capitalists. Alright the system was a bit different from "free market" USA, but still a society divided by class division of rulers and ruled, based on private property. State property in Russia was just as closely guarded as state property is in the USA. We can hardly claim Fort Knox as an example of "communism" in action. Capitalism,- state capitalism, existed in Russia etc. and still does. As I said earlier, atheism had nothing to do with Stalin's dictatorship. He discriminiated against EVERYONE whom he thought was a threat to his power base. That included the Orthodox Church. Funnily enough he made some sort of rapprochment with the OC during WW2, in the interests of "Mother" Russia and patriotism!
Cheers SK
I think you are really missing the whole point here. It's not that communism=
atheism or atheism=communism, it's the whole worldview that comes from
the people who fought for and built communism. So, let us not call it
communism, shall we instead call it I'll do it my way-ism.
Or, we could even call it Republicanism, or Democracy. It's not the system,
it's the people and their worldview behind the system.
Of course you are free to put whatever lable you like on things. However, unless some common ground can be reached about what the lables mean, then the exercise is pointless. As I said, the Communist Manifesto defines communism as the "absence of buying and selling". Now that never happened in the USSR, China, Cuba etc. Using that definition, we can safely assume that communism never existed in Russia and elsewhere. In fact judging by the fact that people in Russia and elsewhere worked for someone else for a wage or a salary, we can safely assume that they were workers, and that there was a privileged ruling class of capitalists. Alright the system was a bit different from "free market" USA, but still a society divided by class division of rulers and ruled, based on private property. State property in Russia was just as closely guarded as state property is in the USA. We can hardly claim Fort Knox as an example of "communism" in action. Capitalism,- state capitalism, existed in Russia etc. and still does. As I said earlier, atheism had nothing to do with Stalin's dictatorship. He discriminiated against EVERYONE whom he thought was a threat to his power base. That included the Orthodox Church. Funnily enough he made some sort of rapprochment with the OC during WW2, in the interests of "Mother" Russia and patriotism!
Cheers SK
Posted by: David Summers
« on: March 27, 2012, 08:44:39 PM »SceptiKarl,
I think you are really missing the whole point here. It's not that communism=
atheism or atheism=communism, it's the whole worldview that comes from
the people who fought for and built communism. So, let us not call it
communism, shall we instead call it I'll do it my way-ism.
Or, we could even call it Republicanism, or Democracy. It's not the system,
it's the people and their worldview behind the system.
I think you are really missing the whole point here. It's not that communism=
atheism or atheism=communism, it's the whole worldview that comes from
the people who fought for and built communism. So, let us not call it
communism, shall we instead call it I'll do it my way-ism.
Or, we could even call it Republicanism, or Democracy. It's not the system,
it's the people and their worldview behind the system.
Posted by: SceptiKarl
« on: March 21, 2012, 03:53:32 PM »scepticalguy:
Thanks scepticalguy, this must the first time someone has agreed with me here! This "den of lambs", (WLC), who would bite your leg off given half a chance!
This pretty much sums it up as in those regimes it was just politically motivated atheism not atheism motivated politics.
Thanks scepticalguy, this must the first time someone has agreed with me here! This "den of lambs", (WLC), who would bite your leg off given half a chance!
Posted by: ian holmes
« on: March 21, 2012, 12:50:50 AM »SceptiKarl wrote:
Anyone who has spent 5 minutes reading Marx can work out that Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, etc. were NOT socialists or communists at all! There it is in the Communist Manifesto of 1848: communism equals "the absence of buying and selling". Now that never happened in Russia, China, Cuba, N. Korea or anywhere else to date. Under the Tsars, and under the dictatorship of the Communist Party there were still workers supporting a privileged class of parasites in the USSR. What happened in Russia in 1917 was the equivalent of what happened in England in the 17th century, and France in the 18th century, whereby the land owning aristocrats were forced to cede their political control over the state, to the up and coming capitalist class. Is anyone here going to deny there is, and was, a capitalist class in Russia?
As to Stalin's anti religion motives. My own feeling is that having obtained supreme power, he was determined to hold onto it, at all costs. That meant eliminating all actual, and potential political enemies. These enemies of course included the reactionary Orthodox Church and its reactionary ideas, but they also included peasant farmers, military officers, doctors, politicians, bureaucrats, and anyone else whom Stalin felt threatened by, including Polit Bureau members.
And Stalin trained as a priest for 5 years!
This pretty much sums it up as in those regimes it was just politically motivated atheism not atheism motivated politics.
Posted by: SceptiKarl
« on: March 20, 2012, 04:00:54 PM »Anyone who has spent 5 minutes reading Marx can work out that Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, etc. were NOT socialists or communists at all! There it is in the Communist Manifesto of 1848: communism equals "the absence of buying and selling". Now that never happened in Russia, China, Cuba, N. Korea or anywhere else to date. Under the Tsars, and under the dictatorship of the Communist Party there were still workers supporting a privileged class of parasites in the USSR. What happened in Russia in 1917 was the equivalent of what happened in England in the 17th century, and France in the 18th century, whereby the land owning aristocrats were forced to cede their political control over the state, to the up and coming capitalist class. Is anyone here going to deny there is, and was, a capitalist class in Russia?
As to Stalin's anti religion motives. My own feeling is that having obtained supreme power, he was determined to hold onto it, at all costs. That meant eliminating all actual, and potential political enemies. These enemies of course included the reactionary Orthodox Church and its reactionary ideas, but they also included peasant farmers, military officers, doctors, politicians, bureaucrats, and anyone else whom Stalin felt threatened by, including Polit Bureau members.
And Stalin trained as a priest for 5 years!