Atheism & Religion: Equal Tools?

The conversation has been going on from another thread, so I thought I would continue my side of that in a new one as it seemed to be a topic worth it's own thread.

Atheism and religion are not equally useable as tools for control, and it's really tiresome to hear that ignorance repeated so much recently, it seems to be the new (comeback) rhetoric for the value of atheism and religion.

Atheism is a lack of belief. Nothing else can be derived from a lack of belief, and anyone who claims that "atheism is responsible" for anything other than lacking a belief in gods doesn't understand what atheism is.
You might as well say that a lack of belief in Robot Santa was responsible.

Religion, however, carries copious amounts of commandments from their respective gods.

An atheist can't say, "I don't believe in god, therefore gays are an abomination."
A bible-believing person can.

An atheist can't say, "I don't believe in god, therefore women are beneath men."
A bible-believing person can.

An atheist can't say, "I don't believe in god, therefore slavery is acceptable."
A bible-believing person can.

An atheist can't say, "I don't believe in god, therefore some cultures are better."
A bible-believing person can.

An atheist can't say, "I don't believe in god, therefore evolution is wrong."
A bible-believing person can.

An atheist can't say, "I don't believe in god, therefore talking snakes are real."
A bible-believing person can.

An atheist can't say, "I don't believe in god, therefore killing in god's name is righteous."
A bible-believing person can.

This is why it's so important to keep religion out of government. Religion, and gods, are arbitrary insomuch as there are thousands of them, and ironically not fully random because it's mostly predictable that beliefs come from location and heritage, and the words/commandments of many/most of these deities are socially grievous being polite ... hideous, sick, nasty, pathetic, and most of all immoral ... still being polite ....

 

How does lack of belief in God/gods justify itself as being important, as being superior to the belief in these gods? It would be pretty embarrassing if one realized that it doesn't, that in asserting non-belief over belief one still deifies "Truth," and requires this ideal, just as a Christian does. It would be very surprising, and a little bit sad, to find someone who considers themselves naturalistically-minded accusing religions of being "immoral" -- what grounds are there for such a mindset to assert the existence of a moral law? I will tell you: it is again the deification of "Truth".

I give an example. Why does Dawkins oppose religion so seriously? Keep in mind that he's a biologist, therefore one would assume naturalistically-minded. He is not concerned, as some philosophical atheists are, with providing logical grounds for disbelief or refuting supposed grounds for belief. His is a social critique of religion (and a particularly clumsy one), which states essentially that it's bad for people, bad for society, to believe in all these things that aren't "True." He assumes uncritically that understanding things scientifically connects us with "Truth," and that understanding them in any other way alienates us from "Truth." Does he criticize science on the basis of its harmful, "immoral" actions in the past (and there are plenty)? No, because his major disagreement with religion is not that it is harmful, but that it is false. He uncritically assumes that true beliefs are the best ones for a society, and that false ones are harmful; his means of demonstrating this is mendacious to the core.

What if illusion is necessary for human beings to survive? What if "Truth" cannot be counted on as the ultimate guidepost? Science also served the Nazis very well, and they strongly opposed the metaphysical religions of their day. As Nietzsche says in his Genealogy of Morals, "Truth" itself must be recognized at this point as being a problem, a question: the "will to truth" requires an explanation. As long as atheists refuse this challenge, they will continue to be dogmatists, and will continue to hold up the ancient ideals without realizing it. Remember that God has always equaled Truth; this is no shallow formula.

 

its true that a lack of belief is all that atheism SHOULD mean and all that the word technically does mean.

unfortunately, meaning is social and political, rather than personal and only take son significance in its interaction with other "meanings".

the term "atheist" HAS COME to mean more than that; a system of values, of morality, a social and political standpoint. you CANNOT argue from that standpoint and then defend yourself when that agenda is attacked by falling back on the technical definition of the term "atheist" just because thats (one of) the banners under which you define your own beliefs.

it would be like a garbage collector espousing marxism and then defending himself to someone opposed to marxism by saying "i think you need to be better acquainted with the meaning of the term garbage collector"

its a terrible defence. whether or not you are an atheist is irrelevant when what you are arguing is not ENTIRELY LIMITED to the technical definition of atheism.

moreover you CANNOT argue from a position of moral superiority, or even moral neutrality, simply because you are an atheist. because atheism has no moral standpoint whatsoever.

atheism, under its technical definition, doesn't justify anything. in most contexts, its almost meaningless. the problem often comes with the confusion of the terms "atheism" and "rationalism". both atheists and theists confuses these two terms with alarming regularity, which leads to all sorts of confusion.

but again, you can't argue from a rationalist standpoint and then defend yourself with the definition of the term "atheism" as sometimes happens.

(i've not had a read through of the other thread, but i see this defence used, completely incorrectly, quite a lot.)

 

Richard Dawkins is the atheist God. He is the man neck-bearded atheist pricks aspire to be, and is a tea-drinking Brit as well as a typical Englishman [1] born in Nairobi, Afrika, who reconverted to Anglicanism. and has been married three times and has a daughter, Juliet, from his second wife, Eve Barham, who died of kanser. He is now married to a somewhat famous British movie actress, Lalla Ward (that chick from Doctor Who who slept with Tom Baker), whom he doesn't talk much about, despite having written an article against sexual jealousy and in favor of promiscuity on the website of the Washington Compost. In fact, he has had lahts of secks with Ward, but he is so sexually jealous that he has never uploaded a video of his sex acts to YouPorn.
In doing this, Dawkins has made sure that you get depicted as an idiot who doesn't read biology textbooks, and who, two centuries after the birth of modern geology and evolutionary biology, doesn't have a clue about evolution.

more...
http://encyclopediadramatica.se/Richard_Dawkins

 

What else does atheism mean? I'm completely naive when it comes to social expectations.

 

well.....no word "means" anything, really. the technical definition of atheism is the rejection of belief in deities.

but, as is fairly self-evident, the meaning of words is, at best, fluid (and at worst, completely non-existent) and it is perfectly possible (in fact, common) for words to safely have multiple meanings without compromising their integrity at all. if we take usage as being the arbiter of meaning (because why the hell not) then we could say that when people argue under the banner of "atheist" (whether that banner is chosen by them or not) but from positions of, for example: rationalism, secularism evolutionism, humanism etc. (or becomes proselytizing as there are inherent in this notions of moral or intellectual superiority) then the "meaning" of the term will change to accommodate these.


the technical definition will always be the same. this is because "meaning" has nothing to do with the word itself, but with perception of its value by others. think on it like "giving something a bad name". this tends to be a result of the necessary politcisation of atheism as a means of separation of church and state. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, its a natural process.

Thus "atheism" can "come to mean" something other than its technical definition in a social sense.

meaning = social
definition = more concrete

but my point is that you cannot argue under the banner of atheism from the standpoint of humanism, rationalism, anti-theism etc. AND THEN defend THESE beliefs with the technical definition of atheism. to do so is completely hypocritical.

 

I can create socially inflammatory stereotypes regarding atheists too.

 

This thread would be a great time to do this.

 

Please do not edit my quote and then quote me as saying it, it is misleading. Please correct that.

 

An atheist wouldn't have to.

 

I see "bait and switch' here. You've defined "soft" atheism. But it's quite obvious from your posts that you don't just not believe in God. You think there is no God (hard atheism), and that belief in God is harmful, and you're quite active in promoting your view by attacking ours. So is your position one of those add-ons to atheism like Stalin's or Mao's? It seems to me that most of the "New Atheists" who sell books, like the so-called Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens), have similar axes to grind--add-ons to simple non-belief. The message is, "I don't believe in God and you shouldn't either, because belief in God is harmful." Therefore, while there may be "soft atheists" who are content simply not to believe in God, neither you nor the atheist celebrities seem to be among them. Fortunately, none of you are in power at the moment, but history shows the havoc that can result from believing that groups of people are harmful because of their beliefs. Dawkins feels that way about the Amish. Harris feels that way about Muslims. What would happen if either of them came to power? Too bad, Amish? Too bad, Muslims? On the other hand, when you deal with religion, you don't present the simple "peace, love, and understanding" message of original founders like Jesus and the Buddha. You give us the versions that have those add-ons, and then condemn all religion as a result. Logically, you can't have it both ways.

 

Again, you continue to say; "An atheist can't say, "....."
A bible-believing person can"

The truth is that a person can say anything they want regardless of what they say they believe.

I guess my question is if what you say is true, that “Atheism is a lack of belief. Nothing else can be derived from a lack of belief, and anyone who claims that "atheism is responsible" for anything other than lacking a belief in gods doesn't understand what atheism is”, then why are you engaged in this conversation?

Why are you attacking those who believe in God and trying to belittle their beliefs?

If Atheism is a simple lack of belief, then why does that lack of belief seem drive you to do these things?

 

Etc. You seem to be equating religious people with "bible-believing persons." First of all, obviously, not all believers are Christian. Second, even in the case of Christianity, that's very misleading. What is a "bible believing person"? Someone who believes that the Bible is the only way of knowing God? Someone who believes the Bible should be interpreted literally? Most Christians don't believe either of these things, and the folks you've been debating with on this forum don't agree about them either. "Bible only" was a Protestant belief introduced by Luther (but he didn't interpret it literally). Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Progressive Christians don't agree with it, and worldwide the Catholics are the largest Christian denomination. Biblical literalism tends to be a relatively recent American fundamentalist Protestant phenomenon dating from the nineteenth century.

What does that mean? Separation of Church and State under the First Amendment? I agree. Or do you mean something more drastic?

This statement is somewhat incoherent. What does it mean to say that religion and gods are "arbitrary inasmuch as there are thousands of them"? Arbitrary means "Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle"; or "subject to individual will, judgment or preference, based solely upon an individual's opinion or discretion ..." Many of us base our religious beliefs on reason and principle, and while the beliefs may involve matters of opinion and discretion, they aren't "solely" so, as you note in your next, contradictory, statement. Most believers develop their faiths in the context of local and family traditions, but some of us change religions and/or modify our beliefs as a result of outside influences or new knowledge and reasoning. Where did you develop your "evangelical atheism"? My experience with atheists here in Oklahoma leads me to believe that many of them became atheists as a result of bad experiences with parents and/or local churches.

Who is being polite? And what difference does it make that "many/most" of these deities are rotten so and so's? I think we're entitled to be judged on the basis of what we believe, not what somebody else believes or what you might erroneously believe about us.

 

I'd like to hear your response to my post OP, if you have one.

 

He may not have one, man. But your post impressed the hell out of me. Such wisdom in one so young, especially the perceptive take on Dawkins. As your jaded elder (by two years) I've given up on finding "The Truth". Too many questionable postulates and assumptions necessary to make real headway, and if we find it how would we know? The best we can do is whistle a happy tune past the graveyard. I still find it amazing though that we can even think up this shit. And there's a certain dignity to being as reasonable and open-minded about it as we can. It's well worth the effort, as long as we keep in mind that the quest is more important than the result, and that intuition, experience, and a willingness to gamble are also important faculties for the streetwise seeker.

 

i was waiting OP, but he seems to be otherwise indisposed, can i have a punt?

it doesn't, necessarily. it's merely the default position of a rationalist, without sufficient evidence to the contrary. For a rationalist, it is the only reasonable position, until such a time as this position is proved demonstrably false.

It is not correct, however, for any of us atheists to claim that we alone have access to an objective truth, what we have is merely a lack of evidence for a contrary hypothesis and until such is presented.

What we have then is not so much a deification of the truth so much as a reverence for the scientific method, tempered by the belief that there exists somewhere an objective "truth" to which we currently have only an extremely limited understanding. The concept of a "perfect truth" exists for us (if at all) as an aspirational concept but what is of real significance is the method by which we attempt to reach it which is one of constant reflection, evaluation and refinement.

What (should) save us from dogmatism is the understanding that our current "truth" is different from the "truth" we had 100 years ago and will no doubt be vastly different from the "truth" that we will have 100 years from now. our theories are constantly in stages of refinement, always drawing nearer to perfection. a "more perfect truth" rather than a "perfect truth" (much like the "more perfect union" of the constitution preamble)

what is significant for us is that these stages of refinement must be based solely on evidence rather than on unfounded beliefs, that they are deliberately constructed in order to be as objective as possible, and that they therefore constitute an attempt to distance us from our own fallible subjective natures.

In short, we do not "require" truth, we aspire towards it, and out of that aspiration have come necessary fail-safes which prevent our understanding from being clouded by our own desire for a satisfactory conclusion to our search. There are no short-cuts in the scientific method, its findings will not always be simplistic or convenient, but it is a "more perfect" tool for refining our understanding of the universe than any other.

ask a preacher how the universe began and they'll tell you.

ask a scientist the same thing and he'll say "i don't know, but we're working on it."

are either of these responses necessarily superior? well, that's debatable, but i certainly know which side my bread's buttered on.

As for your description of Dawkins, seems fairly accurate, i'm not a huge fan of the man himself, although i've been impressed by his eloquence in the past i often find that those who revere him are the sorts of atheist who seem to engage in religious debates (and watch them endlessly on youtube, i've certainly been guilty of this one) merely as a means of self-validation, which is non-constructive and dull.

I am an atheist and when i see crimes committed in the name of religion; infanticide of "witches", persecution of homosexuals, oppression of women etc, etc etc i oppose them in the strongest terms possible, as i hope do you.

But it is not a dictate of atheism which causes me to do so, nor would i defend my moral stance using the fact that i am an atheist, or claim moral superiority as a result of it, because my moral stance is not based on atheism, as atheism has no moral stance. This doesn't make me a nihilist, as my morality is based on other things (empathy, social construction etc.) Atheism is just one small part of my worldview.

As to the "will to truth" well, yes, scientific en devour probably is a manifestation of humanity's inherent will to power, but i don't think that that devalues its findings in any way.

 

Thanks for the interesting response! Not many people on here want to get into serious discussions, I notice. I'll respond to you point by point, but I'll first say that I mainly agree with you.

The belief in a "perfect," an "objective" truth is what I'm trying to get at -- because it is a belief. It is, as you say, an ideal, an "aspirational concept." I am in agreement with what you say about the scientific method, but the part of our reverence for it which isn't justified is the belief in the "true object," the "thing in itself," which we believe that science puts us in touch with. The less philosophical a person is, the more naively they believe this, to the point where many people assume that the results of science are simply reality. More thoughtful people tend to say that it puts us in touch with Truth to some degree. Both of these are religious ways of thinking: the masses believe in God as a person, that he is present in the priest, etc. Philosophical people usually end up conceding a certain distance, but maintain that the teachings/rituals/etc. put them in touch with God in some way. But just as we have no reason to believe there is a God, we have no reason to believe there is Truth. The philosophy of science shows us that science cannot attain the objectivity it often claims, that human subjectivity constitutes science as a practice, and that it has a contingent historical development. Scientific method, I would argue, is the best means we have of sorting out subjective perspectives, of finding ways to avoid mistakes and finding results that can be tested and agreed upon. I do not want you to think I doubt its value at all. But it is valuable precisely because there is no objective Truth, because we are fundamentally perspectival.

Certainly not -- quite the opposite, in fact. The will to truth was the reason for the development of science, of philosophy, etc. This instinct has been extremely important, and that is not changed because it is essentially a will to power -- again, in Nietzsche's terms, quite the opposite. N argues, in fact, (and this should make the religious origins of our deification of Truth more apparent), that the modern scientific mentality, characterized by its intellectual honesty as compared with everything else in history, is a product of the breakdown of the religious mindset (specifically the Christian mindset). I hope you don't mind if I represent this in several stages:

1. Early Christian/Gnostic Teachings. We can know God through philosophy, through worship and ritual. Transcendental knowledge is attainable to the wise, the pious, and the virtuous. This proceeds through the medieval Christian scholars (Augustine, Aquinas, etc.)

2. Beginnings of skepticism. Perhaps God cannot be known -- it would be a sin to claim knowledge of God which one does not actually possess. We must therefore be certain of our knowledge, we must ensure that we are honest with ourselves about what we know and what we don't. This also includes what N once calls "conscience-inquisition," the development of "honest" self-evaluation (for example, the realization that self-interest lurks behind all "selfless" acts). This is a major step towards moral and intellectual honesty -- for God "sees into the heart," one cannot lie to Him.

3. Modern Scientism. This obsession with honesty before God reaches its climax in the realization that we do not know anything about God, including whether or not he exists at all. The belief in God thus becomes useless, superfluous, and religion begins to decline. But the reason it declines is our dedication to Truth, which was a religious value to begin with. By means of it, religion overcomes itself. Christianity trained into us an immense intellectual honesty which eventually abolished the religion itself. Now that will to truth remains left over, still a religious concept, and we act as though it were opposed to religion. On the contrary, this is just a momentary misunderstanding of our particular historical dispensation. Either that, or the belief in Truth, the will to truth itself, requires justification by its own standard. If the truth is that there is no Truth -- where is its justification then?

 

Just absorbing.

 

fascinating post, Zorba.

i fear i'm somewhat ill equipped for this discussion, only having the vague understanding of Nietzsche necessary for my studies (i only encountered the will to truth through Foucault's interpretation, and even then its only half-remembered.) but i'll do my best.


Although i'm not entirely sure that "truth" and "god" are exactly synonymous (i'd argue that there are meanings of the term god which are not shared by Truth, an absolute morality, for example, an intelligence and a logic for another, and that these meanings are fairly significant in understanding the atheist/theist opposition structure.) I'd be hard pressed to argue with the contention that the underlying motivations for religious and rationalist people are similar- the desire to formally understand the unknowable and that, from a historical perspective, it is possible to see atheism as a continuation of the same process, reaching a point where some of the more socio-politically or personally convenient claims of religion have been removed, leaving us with that one last nugget of belief on which the religious doctrines of the past were built; the existence of a truth.

In this sense, i suppose it is misguided to propose an absolute distinction between atheism and theism (although it always feels a little odd to trivialize the differences between beliefs when one considers the amount of people who, in the past, have died for what seem to be the most insignificant of theistic discrepancies.) in those things which are apparent in the perceived meanings of the word "god" and not with "truth" lie the differences between scientists and theists.

If we take the constructivist view then our "truth" is entirely based on our historical context (as i alluded with the 100 years from now, 100 years previously thing.) and the aspirational "objective truth" is merely the driving force which causes it to change. I admit that my description of this change as "refinement" is based only on the largely unfounded view that an objective truth exists. If an objective truth does not exist of course, then
none of sciences advances are, in the greater scheme of things, "going" anywhere. We merely find means of defining the unknowable in terms which we can understand, constructing new oppositions completely erroneously.


but truthdammit, its a useful hypocrisy

the question that interests me, though, is this:
if the scientific method is based on a subjective premise- that an objective truth exists- does this mean that the method itself cannot be objective? is it objective transport down a subjective path or, in the absence of a supreme objectivity, can no objectivity exist?

i would try to argue the former, that the method is deliberately divorced from subjectivity (or as close as is possible), even if the premise towards which it works is somewhat less so.

Therefore IF an objective truth exists, then we have have, in rationality, the most more perfect means (urgh) of coming into contact with it. And of course, if it doesn't, then scientific en devour is justified in purely practical terms and will continue to be so indefinitely, as the search will be without end.

i'd like to return to this answer when i have some more time to research and consider it, as i'm a little rushed at the moment (i'm meant to be working), so don't be surprised if it gets edited quite a bit over the next week or so.

 

You're arguing that rationality and absolute morality are characteristics of God but not of Truth? But these are precisely the faiths of modern scientism, and one can trace their development from the religious mindset. Kant, for instance, having conceded that we cannot have absolute knowledge of the noumenon ("thing in itself"), that all of our knowledge of the world comes from experience, attempted to prove by rationality the existence of an objective moral law (and failed). The Church Fathers of the time strongly opposed Kant; they didn't realize that what he was doing could save religion from modern skepticism, at least for a while. But Kant was a Christian himself, and he wanted a rational justification for Christian morality -- in this case we could still believe that it was true, which is to say the Divine Truth. For Truth has always been Divine. There is no religious belief, no ridiculous dogma, that has ever been believed in but not called True. These kinds of believers, N argues, adopt their beliefs for the effect they have, which is always a powerful and beneficial one for the person in question. People have never known of a greater honor to confer upon a belief than to call it True. At this point, Truth is the value itself.

I do, however, agree that there is a difference between atheists and theists: I do not mean to say that both are equally "religious." At this point scientism (not atheism, which is not really an "-ism" at all), is the weary and declining end of the religious instinct; most "atheists" should be called scientists (as in "scientism"). It is not surprising that there are still religious people in the west. But religion itself is obviously declining; these people are hold-outs, and it will decrease. It is only Islam which seems to be increasing in influence globally. But when considering problems from one's own historical perspective, it is almost always impossible to solve them. This is not a true opposition between "faith and reason," but rather the birth pangs of something that stands outside of this imagined opposition (or the death gasps of the old values, if one is a pessimist). Atheism (or scientism) is simply the end and decline of the religious mentality; no true antithesis has yet widely emerged.

I would say that the method itself cannot be objective. At least it cannot be considered objective until we can show that objectivity exists at all -- and if it does not, then speaking of subjectivity gets us nowhere, because we constantly invoke the old dichotomy of subject and object. This argument is actually in keeping with the scientific method, specifically with the principle of parsimony (Occam's Razor): not to assume the existence of an objective Truth until the attempt at explaining things without it has been pushed to its utmost limits. The idea that there is an actual object at which science is aimed is an absolutely unfounded idea: it is an ancient faith which has a psychological explanation. It is possible to understand why we would believe in Truth -- it is not possible to demonstrate that any such thing actually exists. Does this not, again, echo the atheistic arguments against God? I am arguing that science is useful in a purely pragmatic way, that we lie to ourselves in claiming that it puts us in contact with Truth, a claim which is absolutely unfounded.

Maybe you could post your revisions as new replies so it will be easier to identify them. I wouldn't want to miss something that was worth responding to.