ATHEISM & SOCIETAL HEALTH

im glad to be of assistance

 

m6m/libertine

Agree

Occam

 

with this
but think 'athiesm' was an 'overshoot'
agnosticism is the way of reason.

Occam

 

So the more free a nation...the more prosperous. In any country where freedom of ideas is encouraged you're going to have a healthier country. Freedom to argue creates new ideas and strengthens truths.

It's impossible to say if there is a larger atheist-to-theist ratio of the population today than there ever has been before, as people were not allowed to practice as they wished. Therefore you can't say atheism is on the rise, and actually studies show that it's on a decline almost everywhere. Some of the most famous post-Renaissance scientists believed in God. Most doctors in the US, as well as most people in the US, believe in God.

 

I agree...to a point. I completely agree with the top paragraph but not so much the second. Sure, many atheists couldn't admit their "non belief" but that's the whole point -- RELIGION IS SLAVERY. It enslaves the minds of the people and places them under subjection. Coercive religion and "my way or the highway" religious philosophy such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism (monotheistic barbarianism) have been the religions in control of most the world.

I think atheism is subtly on the rise but in many different forms. Many people are non-believers but don't refer to themselves as "atheists" and many Buddhists don't even believe in a "god", such I think the old "Sky Daddy" god concept IS, indeed, crumbling.

And that is a beautiful decay.

 

Natural science's material reality has forced us to investigate how and why the many and varied god-archetypes have evolved.

Inevitably, the vast majority of those who have most truly accepted natural science's material reality are atheists even if they desperately try to hedge their bets.

I don't call myself an atheist, because gods do exist as powerful archetypes subconsciously influencing our behavioral motivations.

Atheist chose not to make those connections, and don't see that archetypes within our psyche possess a material reality beyond the mere literal.

So I'm in a very small insignificant minority.

By the way, I do consider myself an agnostic, but here I am literal, and my definition of agnosticism is almost the opposite of the dictionary.

 

M6m

The position that a mental structure is a 'thing'.
[subconscious archetype]
Is something occam is still absorbing as a truism in human affairs.
Because they 'can' so repeatedly influence our motivations.

Occam wishes to hear your definition.

occam

 

A-gnostics, other than myself, believe gods are unknowable.

Yet we know the gods as well as we know Fords and Chevys, because like Fords and Chevys we manufactured the gods to fulfill very real needs.

Gnosis, is seeking to know, and gnosticism is the practice or state of knowledge.

I am A-gnostic, not because god is unknowable, but because seeking knowledge and living in a state of knowledge traps us in an objective reality.

A reality of object-subject separation where we objectify every relationship and every experience we ever have in our life.

A civilized reality of alienation where we are no longer alive to the subjective experience of our own skins.

I am A-gnostic because knowledge is a simple natural by-product of our subjective experiences in this life.

I am A-gnostic because the gnosis of our civilized state of knowledge is a state of alienation that I oppose.

I guess I should say that I wish that I were agnostic.

Because raised in civilization, by the time we are five years of age, its too late to ever escape for more than a few brief moments our objectifying state of knowledge.

 

How is your thought system different?

 

No dogma.

Believe whatever the fuck you want. Go to your garage and worship your car or go to your dog's house and worship dog shit. You're probably a weak fool, if you do, but that's just my opinion. Just don't try to legislate or publically coerce dog shit worship.

 

They adopted a philosophical materialist stance such as that of a Lockeian or Hobbesian or maybe even a more extreme philosophical materialist stance such as the type Marxists use and with this understanding naturally gave them an understanding of the processes of the universe and allowed them to become rich. Of course, there are many more factors than this, but it is a big one.

I believe that in these better off countries, the people are more at luxury to contemplate the existance or non-existance of God, and upon finding no reason to believe in God created high levels of atheism. This goes along with the notion that "religion is the sigh of an oppressed society".

It is easy enough to combine both of what I said. I believe that a few individuals, namely the bourgeoisie, adopted the materialist position or a Lockeian position. This eventully led the bourgeosie into power and with that changed society and brought about the luxuries, which led many more people to have the luxury to think about these things.

The United States is an oddball, but we are pretty unhealthy socially.

 

Green, you have an excellent dialectical understanding of social evolution.

But I wouldn't worry too much about the US currently being an oddball.

The free hippie-spirit of the '60s was more intense here in the States than it was in Europe, so the current counter-reaction in the States would naturally be more intense than it currently is in Europe as well.

Yet it is this very same counter-reaction that brings into even sharper focus the unsustainable pathos of both patriarcal property and patriarchal religion.

So our social dialectic continues to progress, but admittedly, in this new techno-century, time is running out.

 

I was thinking of how fat we all are here in the U.S.

 

Green
We are fat here in australia too.
And much of it comes from our geopolitical alliance with the US.
We aussies continue as just 20 millions in 3million square kms of country
cause we ARE a US ally.

We love u but cannot in all honnesty even 'like' your government.
Your constitution however is the greatest document to human freedoom ever written. We pin our hopes as free peoples to YOUR following your own constitution.. If u wont.. many will.

Occam