The WP Strident Atheists

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"imagine a world where scientific theories where debated with absolutely no data one way or the other. That is my perception of humanism. One of the biggest problems I have with atheism is that it has no moral compass. Everything is equally valid."

Gotta break in. "Theories debated with absolutely no data" At this point we need to refer - deference to the atheism of the thread - to THIS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_a ... f_a_pin%3F Wherein we see that the traditional ridiculous theological question - well, angelological - is PROBABLY mythical - a skeptic's field day.

That said, in my all too academic career I have heard scholarly debates resting on almighty little concrete evidence. I do not HAVE to imagine that world, I worked in it.

But - and I speak as one who was there - it is very wrong to say that atheism has no moral compass. My brother and I , when we were both atheists, were very different atheists - as different as a Southern Baptist preacher is from an Orthodox monk on Mount Athos. But we both had - and both still have - very clear - if different - morality.

A Christian embedded in a particular church has a corporate external reference in the scriptures, church doctrine, and his church's understanding of the scriptures. My brother, by no means embedded in a church, yet has an external reference in the standards of the commnity to which he attaches himself. His is different from that of my other [I suspect agnostic, certainly not strident if atheist] brother - but the difference parallels perfectly the moral compass of Presbyterian versus Methodist.

There is, of course, a difference, in that [we are reliably informed and theory is compatible with experience] we have the benchmark of the Holy Ghost [I was raised as of Episcopalian, I do languages, and the purely Anglic Holy Ghost trumps the hybrid and PC Holy Spirit; I am fine with Spiritus Sanctus] to keep our compass calibrated. Theory says this is NOT vouchsafed the nonChristian.

BUT - ALL God's chillun got them a CONSCIENCE, which is a chip programmed by God - and in the area of MORALITY I am not convinced the conscience does not play a bigger part than the Spirit [see, I am okay with Spirit if I don't actually say "holy"].

It is - frankly, and not without some chagrin - not uncommon to find a firm and thoughtful atheist whose moral compass wobbles less than that of certain Christians - in which I include some who are not merely pew warmers. There are very good reasons for this - for one trivial factor consider P G Wodehouse on the non-golfer - but this is not the place.

The debate here isn't just nature vs. nurture; it enters the question of whether or not free will exists. There are a lot of philosophers that I find very hard to argue with who say that it doesn't - that the combination of our nature and our nurture leaves our future - including all of our future decisions - entirely determined. I frankly don't like this idea because I want to believe that I have some freedom of choice.
That said, 'obey me or be tortured forever' isn't exactly a free choice.



Fwiw, humanism and atheism often but do not always occurr together. With atheism, you are correct: there is no moral compass inherrent in simply saying, 'I do not believe in fairies,' or 'I do not believe in gods.' Humanism, however, is generally the word used to describe the belief that humans have an intrinsic, instinctive morality that is universal across most cultures: for example, that one should not mate with close relatives, and that murdering one's neighbors is not good. It is the idea, in other words, that our moral compass is as inescapable as the geographic compass is for homing pigeons unless we're born defective.



I'm frankly shocked that you would put something like that in writing. Have you never studied history?



Stalin was almost certainly a sociopath; he probably felt not guilt because of that. To normal humans, including humanists like me and probably including the same proportion of atheists as people of any other world view, he was a horrible monster.



There are plenty of murderers and child molesters who call themselves Christian and worship in Christian churches and follow Christian dogma. You are defining 'Christian' as meaning, 'good person,' which is a pretty arrogant thing to say. Just out of curiosity, would YOU murder people or molest children if you lost your faith? I know that I have no inclination whatsoever to do either, despite the fact that religion never 'took' in me.
Which leads me to another point: a Christian can committ horrific, tortuous murders and still feel just fine about it as long as they 'repent' afterwards. Look at all of the death row conversions out there - 'hey, I may have raped and murdered five little girls, but my deity says I'm ok!'



No. You merely pretend to be forgiven, without ever having to even look at the people you harmed, much less atone for your crimes. The fact that some theoretical person 2000 years ago was tortured to death has nothing to do with you and what you have done any more than the goat cast out of the village has to do wit you and what you have done.



An absolute moral code is delusional because all of the absolute moral codes that have ever been claimed by any religion that has ever existed have proven to be transitory and ephemeral.

That is typical no true Scotsman nonsense. Is Hitler a true Christian when he was a child?

Ad Hoc, pork hoc, etc topic

Atheism does not preclude humanism. The assertion that atheism has no moral code is preposterous, biased, fallacious and just plain ridiculous.

The narrowness of Christianity is such that taken literally, these sorts of behaviours (murder, paedophelia, incest) can be justified. Thankfully, such Christians are few.

You need to bone up on your history. Stalin went to seminary shortly before becoming a communist. His membership and knowledge of religion is pretty much locked up: he was on track to become a priest.

no sin, no foul, right?

There is a definition gap here which we would do well to be aware of.

To many - including, it grieves me to say, many professed Christians - Christian means someone who goes to church, or someone who reads and talks the Bible, or - in certain cases - a North American or European who is not Muslim, Buddhist or Jew - Christian by ethnicity.

In the interests of perfect disclosure, I need to admit that that is pretty mujch my definition at the time I first heard the OTHER definition.

To many Christians - and, I fear, not too many outside Christianity - it has the very different sense of one who knows, hears, and so far as in him lies with God's help follows Christ.

Stalin in the seminary - yes - certainly Christian by definition A. But from what we can see of his subsequent career and deduce of his character, it seems highly improbable he had a genuine vocation and relationship with a divinde entity, soDefinition B does not apply.

When someone complains of the shenanigans of Type A "Christians", and someone else responds defending Type B Christians, nothing but heated confusion can result.

So let us specify which definituion we mean in a given post, okay?

In my meanderings, I will in almost all cases operate by definition B.

We're going off on tangents here. This is why I hate multi-quote responces: They are entropic. I'd love to discuss all the topics all of you have brought up, but I'd rather not discuss them all at once with posts that take hours to write.

Back to the subject at hand:

If the goal of the strident atheists is evangelism, I don't want to hear any mention of evangelism being wrong from any of you. I've heard lots of "Religions try to force everyone to be the same! That's why everyone should be atheist!" over the years and if that's what this faction is going to be, it should die right now. However, if you accept that you are being evangelical, then I have little issue with our faction, save my disagreement with your beliefs, but I've been good friends with lot's of people I disagree with.

If your goal is just to make a nuisance of yourselves or pat yourselves on the back for being atheists, you'll only lend weight to the idea that atheists are generally amoral people and atheism is bad. You will be discrediting your own beliefs.

If you're not trying to get people to agree with you or annoy people who disagree with you, what are you trying to accomplish? IT's not like you think some divine entity will reward you for your actions. This whole faction would be a waste of time and a betrayal of the "rationalist" ideologies you claim to champion.

I'll respond to the few people who kept things brief:

Phiologos: that's not what I meant: I agree with you. I was not saying atheists are amoral. I was saying atheism is amoral. It doesn't give any advice on morality.

guy who's name I can't type due to my issues with the number between 10 and 12:

it is not a no true scotsman fallacy! Christianity has a moral code! people who unrepentently and unremorsefully refuse to follow the moral code of christianity are not true christians. Jesus said this himself. I'm really tired of people bringing up the no true scotsman fallacy. I'm not saying all true scotsmen have like haggis, I'm saying all true scotsmen have to live in or be descended from people who lived in scotland.

sartresue:

Bull. Christianity does say not to do all the things you mentioned. And atheism doesn't have a moral code. If it dose, please, prove me wrong and tell me the doctrine of the atheists as quoted from your holy book

Fuzzy: But he was atheist when he was a commie. and that is when he was killing people. knowing about a religion=/=being a member of a religion.

I agree. At some point you have to simplify.



I think we are getting somewhere interesting.

Do you think he would have been a terrible human being had he continued on his path to the priesthood? Was that priesthood path a means to
power and control over people?

Stalin was an atheist during his time as a communist. He did everything in his power to shut down the Orthodox church in Russia.

But there is much more to that than a mere conflict with faith. The church had a strong influence on the population and in the same motivation that now drives the Chinese government to suppress religion, the Stalinist fight was against the former Russian royalty and ownership class that bitterly opposed the communist government and the ownership class was closely allied with the clergy. The conflict was not about religion itself but with power and that should be made clear.

Last edited by Sand on 02 Jan 2011, 9:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

Tensu -

on the evangelism point:

I get the impression that for some of them it is viewed more like deprogramming.

Granted, the difference between deprogramming and full press love bombing evangelism can be hard to make precise. And granted, to the sincere strident atheist the good news IS no god. But I think I would want to distinguish.

In any case, for some the motivation seems to be revenge "I had to listen to your stinking music, so you are going to listen to mine".

Nonsense, you dont have to come into the topic.

Relevance? If I was not adequately clear?

Intention : "Some atheist posters appear to feel that it is appropriate to diss theists, feeling that they have themselves been imposed on in the past by theists."

No individual references intended.

Tensu, this is the conversation we keep on seeing:

Tensu: Christians are more moral people than everyone else.
Us: What about this Christian pastor who cheated on his wife with a male prostitute? And this Christian priest who sexually abused hundreds of deaf kids? And all of these Christian soldiers who kill innocent people indiscriminately on the excuse that 'God will know his own'?
Tensu: Those weren't real Christians.

Yes, it is a no true Scotsman fallacy.

How do you mean "feeling" there is no bloody "feeling" about it. We have ALL been imposed upon by theists in the past and continue to be in the present, be you black, gay, straight, Arabic, European, Pacific Islander, Australian Aborigine etc some influential prick with a devout belief in the supernatural has imposed on your life. Whether it be your particular life or as a result of action upon your ancestors, those stupid bloody beliefs have an effect upon YOUR life. That is why contemporary atheists are becoming increasingly Anti-Theist, because the idiotic belief in a supernatural creator and manipulator of our world and life is still interfering with the day to day lives of people who are not afflicted by this delusion.

So yes I fully admit to being an Anti-Theist, and with bloody good reason.

" Whether it be your particular life or as a result of action upon your ancestors, those stupid bloody beliefs have an effect upon YOUR life."

Why, then, antitheism is totally pointless. Five thousand years of enlightened godlessness [which is going to be hard to attain anyhow, because if my hypothesis is correct then like dandelions or if we ever got rid of THEM the smug rule-lovers they will keep cropping up] will NOT suffice to erase the effects of who knows how many millennia of religion.

I seriously doubt that even if you got yourself a time machine and went back to shoot the first ten hominids to feel a religious impulse you could change much. The religious landscape might be different, but thee would be a religious landscape.

Your only hope would be to destroy the human race and pray that any replacement intelligence will be atheistic.