The WP Strident Atheists

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I don't have a problem with forming groups, just overly exclusive groups. I think thats the reason for a lot of the problems we have in the world. People wanna stick to their own social cliques and never expose their selves to other people outside of it. Thats the main problem with organized religion. You have a bunch of people who hold really rigid beliefs who don't socialize much with anyone else. In that setting, you can develop all sorts of assumptions about other people that'll never be challenged.

I don't belong to any groups but my opinions about the asininity of religious belief and its maze of self contradictory dogma is extraordinarily well founded.

And "theism" is not often called an ideology. When it is, it tends to just refer to a group that defends the conventional Judeo-Christian notion of God.

Well, I still think the issue is one of a type of reasoning.


Pascalian skepticism and Christianity are not. However, that really isn't the kind of skepticism I refer to though. You see, a Christian skeptic is going to only be skeptical to certain things in a certain way, and will be drawn to theological structures such as fideism, presuppositional apologetics, skeptical theist responses to the problem of evil, existentialism, or even a Cartesian or Pascalian framework. You tend to not be driven towards any of these, but rather driven towards an approach more similar to the atheists. You are generally skeptical towards the claims that are spectacular from a scientific/materialistic perspective.


How would you be talking past them? You could argue many things from scripture. The talking past them would be no worse than any other instance of this happening.

I can see the argument for religious flamewars though, as it is somewhat possible, but it is still odd to instead decide to have an absence, or even to be noted as taking an atheist side to arguments too often. I've even seen you make arguments against religious apologetics that I've had to recognize as invalid.


You are more likely to take their side in disputes. I think most of them note this, and if there is a religious matter, when you do not excuse yourself, you are more likely to either criticize the Christian side than to do the same for the atheist side of the matter.


Perhaps so, and even I've wondered whether contradiction is such a bad thing. It is an odd thing for an intelligent aspie all things considered though. I know that I tend towards a high level of systematization of what I know and understand.

I have not time for a long considered reply, but my initial reaction being that my issue is not so much with theism (although yes, I am very sceptical on the subject). I more have issue with someone who in every other sense is a rational empiricist believing the supposed eyewitness handme downs regarding the life of Jesus.

Of course I am. I have a scientific background, that sort of skepticism is normal and required for a scientist. The intersection of Christians and scientists is far from empty, though, so I don't see how that means anything.


At a certain point, the theologies are different enough that we have less in common with each other than we might with people of completely different religious backgrounds. We have fundamentally different ways of looking at Scripture, and they would generally reject my readings of Scripture as completely invalid.


I am usually hesitant to bring my religion up publicly, for a variety of reasons, some practical and some theological.


Bad arguments annoy me. I've called out liberals making stupid arguments; I've called out free-market proponents for making stupid arguments. You have taken the theistic side to a few arguments before when you seemed to think an atheist was judging unfairly; I don't see how it's different.

I don't regard religion as something that can be proved or demonstrated, which is a large part of why I seldom defend the standard arguments made for religion.


I think I know the thread to which you're referring, and in that case I was just writing quickly/sloppily and stated a few things imprecisely.


Perhaps my academic background in history and biology makes me a bit more comfortable with leaving some things fuzzy. I've had to accept that in a lot of cases there is no hard-and-fast answer. No matter what we think we know, there is some evidence to the opposite, and at some point we may have to reject what we previously held as truth.

So... you see less problem in someone with a generally magical way of thinking being a Christian, than you do in a rational individual being a Christian?

I guess my issue with the responses from you and Ska is that you both assume the atheist viewpoint, and then reason that it is a contradiction for a rational person to be "delusional" enough to believe in God. That's not really any better than the presuppotional apologetics we've seen on this site before. AG seems a bit better at temporarily putting aside his biases to give a different perspective.

Please note, I said "scientific/materialist". One can be a scientist and a Christian, but there are issues with going so far as to seem like a materialist.


But they are more likely to accept your reading of reality as entirely correct? I mean, I can understand that a liberal Christian might be more akin to a liberal Jew or liberal atheist, however, that does not mean that the liberal Christian has nothing in common with the conservative Christian.


Eh, it just bothers me because I have noted you calling out an argument by 91 on grounds of it being bad that were false. These falsehoods make sense for opponents, but little sense for proponents.


Alright, but it seems an outright inconsistency to suggest that religion is outside of rational inquiry. After all, what other things do you hold are outside rational inquiry? What other things would you say are reasonable to believe if one does not have a solid amount of evidence? Such an attitude seems to contradict your earlier statement of "rational empiricism" because you have created what appears to be an ad hoc exemption.


I think I know the thread to which you're referring, and in that case I was just writing quickly/sloppily and stated a few things imprecisely.


No, I really doubt that. Remember your challenge to iamnotaparakeet about the theory of evolution? You were the one who said that if there were evidence that appeared to disconfirm evolution, that you would have to reject the idea. That isn't so fuzzy, and the position you espouse now really seems more like my opinion on that matter. Even further, "fuzzy" still does not seem to exempt this issue from your rational empiricism. Both fields are fields that do attempt to engage in systematic study. Neither would tend to uphold an ad hoc maintenance of a particular opinion.

EDIT: Please note, I do apologize if I am going in a less justifiable direction. I may have misinterpreted you somewhere. I just seem to detect a low degree of coherence in this particular part of the picture, and I may be wrong.

To the extent that we do science, we operate within a materialistic framework simply because non-material things aren't really testable by science.


They might be, actually. Once a conservative Christian realizes how far different my theology is from theirs, it changes from being an issue of us disagreeing on some other matter (usually political), to suspicions of blasphemy, and then there ensues a very unproductive theological debate. If I state my case in mostly secular terms, then they have to consider just those points.


You might be surprised. Aside from the generics, that we both believe in God, Jesus, the Bible, etc, there is very little in common. And even where we agree that we both believe the Bible or that we both believe in Jesus, we don't agree on what exactly that means.


Why? It's the same position Asimov took, as mentioned in the other thread.


Religion, many philosophical viewpoints, moral/ethical theories to an extent. Even some amount of politics can be completely outside of rational empiricism and just based on what one believes.

Rational empiricism is applied to specific factual claims about the material world.

Quote:
that does not mean that the liberal Christian has nothing in common with the conservative Christian.

You might be surprised. Aside from the generics, that we both believe in God, Jesus, the Bible, etc, there is very little in common. And even where we agree that we both believe the Bible or that we both believe in Jesus, we don't agree on what exactly that means.

SO true. the joys of being the Universal Heretic.

Christians who will talk with me without counting heresies are pretty much as common as linguists who will not diss me for not wearingh a theoretical uniform and people I meet who do not mind my aberrant mental makeup.

In fact, they are the same set of people.

I know, however, usually religions come into conflict with some interpretations of reality, including some scientific ones.


Eh, I'd bet that you could state a lot of points without blasphemy accusations. I can accept that point.


I doubt I would. I know conservatives and liberals vary on meaning to some extent. Outside of the extremely liberal though, there is some overlap. I suppose it really depends on where one stands in that divide. Some areas are areas where influence can occur, but some ideas, for instance, let's just say Process theism, only divide.


The problem being that it seems ad hoc. Religions claim X, Y, or Z exist, they claim A, B, or C is moral, and they claim that supernatural events J, K, and L occurred. All of these are factual claims that otherwise would be the domain of some other study. (Ontology, ethics, and history, to be more precise) To say that these religious facts are special just does not make sense in terms of one's relationship to truth. It is ad hoc, calling a special favor for some set of beliefs because they bring a certain form of comfort, peace, and other things.


I can see that to some extent, however, some philosophical viewpoints and ethical views could actually be justified, or at least partially justified, in a relativist framework of understanding such things. Religion, however, is still a set of fact claims about existing beings, no matter how it is interpreted. Lenience towards religion thus does not make as much sense for that reason. Just the same, lenience towards certain ethical theories and political ideas only exists if those ideas are within a common core of culturally basic beliefs. (which once again, is perhaps compatible with some degree of relativism, relativism still an idea that does not work for religion)


Ah, ok, here's a set of specific fact claims:
1) Jesus rose from the dead.
2) Jesus performed miracles
3) Other Jews before Jesus saw or performed miracles.
4) Moses and the Jews lived in Egypt
5) Jesus fulfilled conditions found in prophecies of the Jewish people. (remember, prophecies are usually expressed in language, so this is a fact claim just like "AG said that he ate a dog on monday)
6) God created the world.
(often) 7) There is a unified person whom we can attribute moral behavior to.
That the workings of the world be such that "bad" things are all entirely morally justified by the good things. (Note: The moral claim is outside the material world, but whether the material world has this fact about it, is a factual claim about the material world. We can quibble about this.)

And I am sure the list goes on. That is to say that I don't see your move as just a justifiable separation between the two ideas. The entire framework one has to understand the world tends to have to be a system, as we revise ideas we have in light of other ideas. I still think I perceive something that does not make much sense. Surely you'd think me odd if I held to the octopus God, wouldn't you? Perhaps even a bit crazy if I talked about the miracles attributable to such a being. Probably also crazy if I believed without thinking there was even a shred of evidence. I mean, such an entity could have been entirely made up as a fiction. Would it be sensible to believe in a self-created fiction? No, so shouldn't there have to be some justification before believing something that could be another person's fiction?

The cartoon [said he, weeping with one eye and laughing with the other] is both very funny [I thank you for it] and saddeningly, maddeningly too true for comfort.

I love the crybaby mentality here. The fact of the matter, Banned_Magnus, if you don't want to make verbal (written) arguments, don't post on a forum known for verbal debating.

Honestly, its funny that you accuse atheists like me of "hyperliteralism" and yet your first post here was decrying this semi-sattrical thread as "proof" of the "ideological" character of atheism (in case you didn't catch the implication - I'm implying you failed miserably at deciphering the satrical undertones).

Literalism when applied to metaphors is silly. Literalism when applied to definition of words when used literally is basic logic.

Unfortunately, something like 90% of the vocabulary of any language gets to its "literal" meaning through metaphor.A trivial illustration [not documenting the claim here] the language where "young person" - teens to 20 something assumed unmarried - started out as "beautiful person".

Society keeps shifting the meanings of stuff like that, science keeps shifting the meaings of terms like "atom".

For crying out loud, ideology is a term that has a specific meaning. There are no metaphors attached to it. I'm sure. Besides, even metaphors can be analzyed. Abstract terms are BS. Only bad poets claim to use that. There is no such thing as abstract for abstract sakes. It all can be analyzed. Symbols, words, gestures...They all have deeper psychological meanings, but basically an apple is an apple. There may be many types of apples and differnet opinions about them, but they are all just pieces of fruit from the same family.

i·de·ol·o·gy (d-l-j, d-)
n. pl. i·de·ol·o·gies
1. The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.
2. A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system.

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The term "ideology" was born in the highly controversial, philosophical and political debates and fights of the French Revolution and acquired several other meanings from the early days of the First French Empire to the present. The word ideology was coined by Destutt de Tracy in 1796[1][2] assembling the parts idea (near to the Lockean sense) and -logy. He used it to refer to one aspect of his "science of ideas". (To the study itself, not the subject of the study.) He separated three aspects, namely: ideology, general grammar and logic, considering respectively the subject, the means and the reason of this science.[3] He argues that among these aspects ideology is the most generic term, because the science of ideas also contains the study of their expression and deduction.

According to Karl Mannheim's historical reconstruction of the meaning-shifts of ideology, the modern meaning of the word ideology was born when Napoleon Bonaparte (as a politician) used it in an abusive way against "the ideologues" (a group which included[citation needed] Cabanis, Condorcet, Constant, Daunou, Say, Madame de Staël and Tracy), to express the pettiness of his (liberal republican) political opponents.

Perhaps the most accessible source for the near-original meaning of ideology is Hippolyte Taine's work on the Ancien Regime (first volume of "Origins of Contemporary France"). He describes ideology as rather like teaching philosophy by the Socratic method, but without extending the vocabulary beyond what the general reader already possessed, and without the examples from observation that practical science would require. Taine identifies it not just with Destutt De Tracy, but also with his milieu, and includes Condillac as one of its precursors. (Tracy read the works of Locke and Condillac while he was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror.)

The word "ideology" was coined long before the Russians coined "intelligentsia", or before the adjective "intellectual" referred to a sort of person (see substantive), i.e. an intellectual. Thus these words were not around when the hard-headed, driven Napoleon Bonaparte took the word "ideologues" to ridicule his intellectual opponents. Gradually, however, the term "ideology" has dropped some of its pejorative sting, and has become a neutral term in the analysis of differing political opinions and views of social groups.[4] While Karl Marx situated the term within class struggle and domination,[5][6] others believed it was a necessary part of institutional functioning and social integration.[7]

[edit] Analysis
Meta-ideology is the study of the structure, form, and manifestation of ideologies. Meta-ideology posits that ideology is a coherent system of ideas, relying upon a few basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis, but are subjective choices that serve as the seed around which further thought grows. According to this perspective, ideologies are neither right nor wrong, but only a relativistic intellectual strategy for categorizing the world. The pluses and minuses of ideology range from the vigor and fervor of true believers to ideological infallibility. Excessive need for certitude lurks at fundamentalist levels in politics and religions.

The works of George Walford and Harold Walsby, done under the heading of systematic ideology, are attempts to explore the relationships between ideology and social systems.