IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Well, you quoted me a couple of times, and each time was just a misunderstanding.
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The Schism - an American Tale (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Jayrod
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Amused to Death
Footballguy
And I agree, a theocracy is bad. I disagree with part that says we're better off when people believe in an almighty god. That suggests that a country of atheists would be bad but a country of Christians and Jews would be fine. Sorry if you miss the arrogance in that.
A country of atheists would be not better or worse than a country of Christians, Jews, and any other religious dogma. Bad people are bad people.
Captain Cranks
Footballguy
While you're busy throwing a tantrum...
Hitler was an atheist?
Putin's defense of Christian culture
You think the most logical way to galvanize citizenry around your movement is to coalesce around atheism?
rockaction
Footballguy
I think you're defining the word arrogance incorrectly. Arrogance is generally manifest by a member of that group. I am agnostic and atheist. I don't lend superiority to any claim about God.
rockaction
Footballguy
From your own link:
"Rissmann notes that, according to several witnesses who lived with Hitler in a men's home in Vienna, he never again attended Mass or received the sacraments after leaving home at 18 years old.[12] Krieger claims that Hitler abandoned the Catholic Church[13] while Hitler's last secretary asserted that he was not a member of any church.[14] Otto Strasser stated critically of the dictator, "Hitler is an atheist."
Amused to Death
Footballguy
My apologies. Not directed at you but the thought that only Christians or other religions can be good and moral. That's arrogance.
rockaction
Footballguy
One would figure that if you thought murdering 30 million of your own citizens was okay, you wouldn't really be worried about galvanizing them.
rockaction
Footballguy
Logically or not.
Mookie
Footballguy
Religious tolerance is a two way street. People should be free to observe whatever religion they want, but must also accept that there are a myriad of acceptable religions, including atheism, and they all deserve the same freedom. Imposing a certain religion in political and educational arenas is unlawful indoctrination, and we are seeing a lot of that right now.
As to the broader question, I don't see how there's any way to come together and discuss our differences when there is a direct attack on the truth, facts, and the rule of law. It's a foundational issue.
As to the broader question, I don't see how there's any way to come together and discuss our differences when there is a direct attack on the truth, facts, and the rule of law. It's a foundational issue.
Amused to Death
Footballguy
People who think about murdering anyone are plain evil people. I don't not accept that is a trait of atheists, just a trait of an evil person.
I do acknowledge that the Nazi extermination had nothing to do with religion but with race. But Hitler was an evil person, not because he was atheist. We have a modern day war over who's Christian religion is right with people being murdered because protestants and catholics can't get along.
Stealthycat
Footballguy
I'm 53 and feel the same way
I think the splitting is intentional. United we stand, divided we fall and division is occurring at every level of our world now
hate is encouraged - bullying and violence is encouraged - split this country into 100's of little minority groups, segregate people and dismantle any chances of being American's first
crackattack
Footballguy
I've never seen the seven tenets before, but those are very good standards to live by.
The obvious ones in the Ten commandments was what I'm referring too. I should've been more specific. As an agnostic, I don't care about 1-4, but the rest are equally good imo.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
So much this last part.
How in the world can we talk about things if we aren't using the same set of facts, info, and definitions?
Captain Cranks
Footballguy
Ok, so now walk me from that to the NAZI party was an atheist movement.
BTW, George Washington was also described by personal contacts to be an atheist. That alone doesn't mean anything.
Captain Cranks
Footballguy
If the Ten Commandments never existed, you think your propensity to kill or steal from another human being would be higher?
I think the Golden Rule is a far better, more encompassing moral principle in which one should live their life.
rockaction
Footballguy
It wasn't an atheist movement, per se, but it required that the state and Germanic ways of being (Aryan ways of being, if you were Hitler) superseded all else. Religion was not at home in the Nazi Party and most, if not all, of the major players in the Party were anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. There is debate about whether you can consider that atheistic, but at best, some call it pantheistic (the worship of nature), which is generally considered a subset of atheism, or at least not having fidelity to a monotheistic God.
So yeah, you have the omnipresent state, a nationalistic Germanic ideal, and no monotheistic God to speak of other than public lip service and you've satisfied the categories of what I was talking about before. It's more muddled than Russia, but I think a faithful reading would not call Germans close to Christian or monotheistic.
Captain Cranks
Footballguy
Even if one were to grant you the point that the murderous capabilities by Nazis was left unrestricted because they weren't constrained by a monotheistic god (which I still think is hogwash), you still have to explain away all the examples of murder and violence in the name of monotheistic gods; examples which do a far better job of directly tying violence and murder to a sense of divine purpose. We're talking 9/11, January 6th, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Crusades, various Catholic-Protestant wars. I mean, god commands genocide in the freaking Old Testament, for chrissake.
However, I'm willing to have an open mind on your point. Perhaps you could direct me to an article that goes into this theory in more depth.
rockaction
Footballguy
The name of the "article" you might be looking for was named Friedrich Nietzsche, and he's taught at every reputable college and university everywhere as illustrative and prognosticative regarding the death of Christianity in the West and the rise of war because of it. It's probably best explained in The Gay (or Joyful) Science in a translation generally by Walter Kaufmann.
https://bigthink.com/thinking/what-nietzsche-really-meant-by-god-is-dead/
"Nietzsche thought this could be a good thing for some people, saying: “… at hearing the news that ‘the old god is dead’, we philosophers and ‘free spirits’ feel illuminated by a new dawn.” A bright morning had arrived. With the old system of meaning gone, a new one could be created. But it came with risks — ones that could bring out the worst in human nature. Nietzsche believed that the removal of this system put most people at the risk of despair or meaninglessness. What could the point of life be without a God?
Even if there was one, the Western world now knew that he hadn’t placed us at the center of the universe, and it was learning of the lowly origin from which man had evolved. We finally saw the true world. The universe wasn’t made solely for human existence anymore. Nietzsche feared that this understanding of the world would lead to pessimism — “a will to nothingness” that was antithetical to the life-affirming philosophy Nietzsche promoted.
His fear of nihilism and our reaction to it was shown in The Will to Power, in which he wrote: “What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism… For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe.”
Nietzsche would not have been surprised by the events that plagued Europe in the 20th century. Communism, Nazism, nationalism, and the other ideologies that spread across the continent in the wake of World War I sought to provide man with meaning and value, as a worker, as an Aryan, or some other greater deed; in a similar way as to how Christianity could provide meaning as a child of God, and give life on Earth value by its relation to heaven. Although he may have rejected those ideologies, he no doubt would have acknowledged the need for the meaning they provided."
crackattack
Footballguy
No, but there is nothing wrong with 5-10 of the ten commandments. The golden rule is fine also.
. Not sure what the hang up is with 5-10?
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Most of us who are religious freely admit that people have done terrible things in the name of their/my/ god. We know that.
What we'd like to see is some similar acknowledgement about certain atheist societies, like the USSR for example. You seem to be doing the exact thing that you're accusing theists of doing -- handwaving away bad behavior on the part of their camp.
Captain Cranks
Footballguy
No hang up with 5-10 other than they either state the obvious (kill, steal, lie) or aren't relevant to morality (commit adultery, honor father and mother, covet). You'd think things like enslavement and patriarchy would have been higher on the list.No, but there is nothing wrong with 5-10 of the ten commandments. The golden rule is fine also.
crackattack
Footballguy
While it states the obvious (kill,steal,lie etc), we have large amounts of individuals who might need reminders. The golden rule is a pretty obvious concept to live by, but again, lots of people out there need a reminder. So imo whatever can get people to be kinder to one another I'm ok with.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Not committing adultery is highly relevant to morality.
Also, the Christian prohibition on covetousness is one of the things that Christianity absolutely gets right. People who aren't interested in keeping up with the Jones's are a lot less likely to engage in sketchy behavior in an effort to keep up in some imaginary arms race. And it's just psychologically healthy. Buddhism gets very high marks on this score too, and of course Buddhism is not a monotheistic faith, or even necessarily theistic at all. I mention that because it gets at your point about how people from other religious traditions can intuit or reason their way to basic moral truths even in the absence of Christianity.
The part about honoring your parents admittedly requires a little more argumentation, and I can see where that seems a bit antiquated today. Although I think (?) most of us would still argue that we have a moral obligation to take care of our parents as they age.
Captain Cranks
Footballguy
Religious affliliation in Nazi Germany
According to this 94% of Germans identified as Protestant or Catholic with only 1.5% atheists. So even if the "major players" of the movement lived with despair and meaninglessness, they'd have to motivate the 94% to look beyond their purpose.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
What I have learned to do with my frustration from that side of the argument is to think of it as a positive. What I mean is that for people to largely believe that more and more of us have to be born and grow up during a time when there is a much more of a level playing field and where people are more colorblind.
However, I don't think we would have even got to that point if there hasn't been discrimination in the reverse and policies enacted to attempt to reverse those trends we saw 60 years ago or so. Maybe some people would say that those things shouldn't have happened, but I don't believe ek is one reading his posts. That's why I don't understand this extreme push back on anything race or anything "reverse racism" - it's some of those things that got us to the point we are now. Now, we can for sure debate which things have gotten too far, or maybe where things have improved enough that we don't need to address it, but I think in general we still have work and healing to do.
I also get the sentiment of "well, I didn't do it, I shouldn't have to pay", even if I don't agree with it. I heard somebody put it another way, and she said she views in as though we inherited a house. Now, you if there are cracks in the foundation or the roof needs fixing we don't throw up our hands and say - well, I didn't do it, I shouldn't pay for it. You fix what needs fixing and move forward.
rockaction
Footballguy
I think the people that I'm arguing with in this thread would do really good to read this essay. It's by Arthur Allen Leff, who was a law professor at Yale in the late sixties/early seventies. The essay is called "Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law" and it's about the logical futility of any moral law without God. All law otherwise is simply based upon force or a logical fallacy. It's interesting.
https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/2179/Unspeakable_Ethics__Unnatural_Law.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/2179/Unspeakable_Ethics__Unnatural_Law.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
Doug B
Footballguy
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
I think @Amused to Deathis responding to philosophical PTSD shared by a lot of non-believers. Growing up atheist in the Deep South, I’m quite familiar with it, as I was frequently judged for my lack of faith. Often it’s flagrant, but sometimes subtle and unintentional, as in the OP choosing “irreligious” over “secular” to describe liberals. After experiencing it enough times, it’s hard not to become a little defensive when the topic of atheism is breached.
You and Ivan aren’t judging any particular person, of course, but implying atheism was a factor in the world’s worst atrocities isn’t exactly fodder for constructive conversation. Suggesting we all need to be saved doesn’t help matters, even if religious salvation wasn’t explicitly mentioned.
Hopefully we can agree that mass murdering is bad, and a crime that’s been committed by people of diverse ideologies. Whether religion increases or decreases the propensity for murder is up for debate I suppose, but I’ll argue it’s not a meaningful factor in the vast majority of cases.
Just so I understand, is it common knowledge the genocides committed in Germany, China and Russian were performed in the name of atheism? From my perspective, singling out religious and/or ethnic groups for extermination is very different than summarily killing everyone who believes in a higher power, especially when the people carrying out the killing were religious themselves. On the flip side, it’s not too difficult to enumerate a bunch of bad stuff done specifically because of conflicting religion.
Still, I think power and politics played a much larger role in all those killings, and belief in god doesn’t dramatically change the potential to murder.
As for the bolded, put me in the “born good” camp, or more accurately “born not-bad.” Can you elaborate why you believe otherwise?
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rockaction
Footballguy
Yes, but two things. First, philosophers since Augustine and especially Aquinas used reason to prove that God must exist. But that's neither here nor there. I'm talking about the existence of an system of logic without God. He claims, in essence, that it doesn't and can't exist. Everything becomes an argument that is fallacious or solely based on a power dynamic.
Bottomfeeder Sports
Footballguy
The logical fallacy is that the law should be "absolutely binding, wholly unquestionable" to begin with. Laws need to be questioned and need to survive the questioning. Why is murder generally prohibited? Because some invisible being said so? Or maybe because it is costly for all of us the spend all our resources keeping from being killed? Maybe we don't think of it this way but merely intuitively "figure it out".
I don't think we should be trying to use the legal system to define morality. The more the legal system is constructed around amoral principles, the more likely it will end up being morally agreeable. Yes, with virtually every issue seemingly argued on moral ground this is kind of an "off on the island" position, but until my god swallows up your gods as in Exodus 7 there is too much competing "God said so" to sort out.
rockaction
Footballguy
Well, it's a conflicting vision of society, I guess. If you want to talk about the two main strains of thought of the contract theorists and their competing vision of the "state of nature," you would be in the Rousseau category where "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." The movement from solitary man to society consists of a force whereby we are corrupted as we trade our solitariness for security and livelihood. We should strive to get back to our primitive self, Rousseau thinks.
Locke and Hobbes were different. Life among solitary men was "nasty, brutish, and short," and they posited that man's nature was to make war with each other and kill each other. Civilized society was seen as a benevolent force by those two philosophers, in that we trade our solitariness and freedom for security and safety, and it helps civilize us. So there are important ramifications for "born good" or "born evil" and we see it play out in the respective revolutions each influenced (Rousseau and the French Revolution and Locke and the American one).
I think experience really determines how you view the two schools of thought. From what I've witnessed in this world, life is "nasty, brutish, and short" at the hands of others. Now, one can say "How can you judge when we're all a part of a society or other?" and that's true. How do we really know what the corrupting force is? All we can do is guess.
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rockaction
Footballguy
I would say no, it wasn't. I would say that in the absence of religion, there is a propensity to find meaning in politics. One will find something to worship if not God. When that is embodied in the state, and that state urges atheism as the normal condition of man, you won't have to look too hard to find people at the point of a bayonet or up against a wall, pleading for their lives.
That's what I'm saying. To say it is done in the name of atheism would be wrong. It is, however, the condition of atheism among the state's powerful practitioners that allows this to be done.
And for sure, one can look through history and find horrific things done in the name of religion. Religion is always best tempered by reason and tolerance. How much religions tolerate each other or the heretic is a question for sure, but I'm not sure I'm really arguing for a strict adherence to a Biblical regime. I'm noting that in the modern West, we are best tempered by a tolerant Christianity (that I do not practice).
SeniorVBDStudent
Footballguy
Sorry to lead with this, but I take exception to the labels Irreligious / Religious when characterizing the left and right.
Perhaps New Testament / Old Testament would be more appropriate.
Intolerance, fear, persecution, etc. are the hallmarks of the right. Closed borders, isolationism, sexual phobias, insistence on infusing "God" (read Jesus) into schools and government, protection of fetuses without regard to human welfare after birth, limited government in an era of obvious bifurcation of society into haves and have-nots, pretending any attempt at gun control is an infringement on the second amendment, etc. are far better aligned with the Old Testament than the New Testament.
Jesus advocated for the whores and thieves, and blasted the pharisees for their self-righteousness and hypocrisy. One of the original Hebrew interpretations for the word "sin" is "error"...the point being that elimination of sin is not about judgement but about salvation and obtaining inner peace.
So please don't characterize the left as irreligious and the right as religious. As we learned during the 1980s, the Moral Majority is neither.
Perhaps New Testament / Old Testament would be more appropriate.
Intolerance, fear, persecution, etc. are the hallmarks of the right. Closed borders, isolationism, sexual phobias, insistence on infusing "God" (read Jesus) into schools and government, protection of fetuses without regard to human welfare after birth, limited government in an era of obvious bifurcation of society into haves and have-nots, pretending any attempt at gun control is an infringement on the second amendment, etc. are far better aligned with the Old Testament than the New Testament.
Jesus advocated for the whores and thieves, and blasted the pharisees for their self-righteousness and hypocrisy. One of the original Hebrew interpretations for the word "sin" is "error"...the point being that elimination of sin is not about judgement but about salvation and obtaining inner peace.
So please don't characterize the left as irreligious and the right as religious. As we learned during the 1980s, the Moral Majority is neither.
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
If all religion somehow was immediately expunged from the planet, do you believe we’d automatically be in a worse place? Would the rates of murder, rape, infidelity and other sinful things all go up?
I’m not sure, but I have no doubt we’d collectively develop a new (but nearly identical to religious) moral code, which may or may not include belief in a deity.
SeniorVBDStudent
Footballguy
Amused to Death
Footballguy
Here again we have someone coming from a position that my god is right and you're wrong. That's some unmitigated audacity right there. This superiority complex that if you don't agree with me, you need to change. I don't.
People are taught what to believe. Its a product of when you're born and your geographic region. We call the Norse religion a "myth". Same with ancient Greece and Rome. Why are they "myths" but today's Christianity is the only true way? IMO, its also a myth.
Religion exists in the gaps in science. I don't need to be changed or saved or healed or any other outrageous claims just because I reject your belief.
Again, anyone making a claim that I need to have a belief in a higher power to be a moral person is just arrogant.
SeniorVBDStudent
Footballguy
Personally, I think the problem with this logic is that there is no line beyond which the "weirdness" of a candidate who will do better at maintaining prosperity becomes so eggregious to intervene.
In this kind of environment, you get Donald Trump.
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
Interesting thought, but there are many, many other ways to find meaning. To force a spelling bee winner, I’ve always been Laodicean in worldview, but have had no trouble leading a non-muderous, relatively virtuous existence. Not perfect by any means, but certainly not evil.
Can the same be said for the bulk of non-believers? Not sure, but I don’t think there’s a huge difference between them and spiritual folks. Religious or not, we’re all exposed to the same basic tenets of morality, colored a bit by our individual experiences.
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
Seems like a fair question.
Realize some of us aren’t history or poly sci scholars, but have somehow eked out a menial existence.
rockaction
Footballguy
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you mean "to paraphrase a spelling bee winner" or to "quote a spelling bee winner"?
Laodicean is an A+ word, though. Learn a new word or something new every day.
I think I take your main point, though, which is that both religious and non-religious folk will by and large forge a reasonable and similar ethical system because we're in the same zeitgeist even though we experience differing things. I'd largely agree with that.
eta* Oh, do you mean to force a spelling bee winning word into the proceeding? If so, fire away and bravo.
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rockaction
Footballguy
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
It’s a winning word for at least one spelling bee, which I’ve been eager to use. Glad I could introduce it to you.
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
I couldn’t tell if the incredulity was reflective of my ignorance, or surprise that anyone would link atheism to bad stuff.
rockaction
Footballguy
SeniorVBDStudent
Footballguy
I was disputing the claim that atheism was at the root of those events. More like plain old garden variety crazy.
SeniorVBDStudent
Footballguy
Furthermore, with the exception of communist attrocities, which are in fact fascist attrocities committed buy faux communists or communists who morphed into fascists, most of the mayhem throughout history has been wrought by the various factions of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). So to see several of the "greatest hits" being attributed to atheism blew my mind.
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
Restated, I don’t think politics is the obligatory succedaneum* for god.
*another gratuitous bee winner
The facts that I see - which are rarely if ever reported - disagree with your sentiment. White people are not the biggest source of hate crime or interracial violence in the U.S. - it’s blacks. According to FBI data, from 2016 to 2020, black people were more than twice as likely to commit a hate crime as whites.
Also, the greatest share of interracial violence, not classified as a hate crime, is committed by black offenders against white victims, according to the Department of Justice.
“There were 5.3 times as many violent incidents committed by black offenders against white victims (472,570) as were committed by white offenders against black victims (89,980),” the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said in a September 2020 report.
This statistic shows that in the U.S., blacks commit the biggest share of interracial crimes between blacks and whites: 84 percent.
Are there whites out there who operate with hate in their hearts towards blacks? Of course. Has that number been increasing in the last 10 years? It appears so. But the numbers tell us that the bigger issue is black racism towards whites, and black violence in general. THAT is a far bigger problem than white supremacy. But don’t dare say that in public. Not allowed.
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You raise a good point - the Religious Right still has a disproportionate impact on the Republican platform - one that is often at odds with personal freedoms. That notion bothers me, and always has.
But overall the Republican Party is the party of smaller Government (as opposed to Democrats). That much isn’t debatable.
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