Fundamentalist Atheists? (tradition, beliefs, missionaries, mission, preacher)

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by robtex

I would suggest you read some of Harris and Dawkins before jumping to that conclusion. I personally don't find either of them to be extremist. Dawkins is considered incidently, to be one of the leading researchers in the field of genetics in the world. They both are really interesting people to read about.

Hi Robtex, namaste.

You're probably aware that I have read Dawkins (not Harris) and I do find him to be too extreme. Yes, he is a respected geneticist and an even more gifted writer. But that's not really relevant to whether or not his views against religion are too extreme.

Originally Posted by robtex

As far as "fundamental atheism, and this might be a good debate topic, I don't think it exists. Fundamental is the subscription to dogma which is absent outside of religion. Maybe the sermon speaker was thinking of extremist.

That seems to me like a semantic argument. The issue is whether or not the person is intolerant of opposing views. And if so, whether or not this intolerance is antithetical to the nature of liberalism. If there's an objection to the word "fundamentalist" I am happy to use the word "extremist."

Originally Posted by robtex

I have met a number of atheist uu's in person and on the net. I think if you are humanistically bent, and find validity in the 7 princples of UU you can be a UU irrgardless of belief system.

I agree!

Originally Posted by robtex

Interestingly though, I have met a much much larger number of atheist jews (secular jews) than I have atheist UU's.

Well, Judaism is unique in that many people consider themselves culturally Jewish and will observe the practices, but do not believe. I think that's cool.

UUs are about 45% atheist/agnostic/non-theist, last I heard.

[Stairs In My House]

I think a bit of the intolerance lilithu is talking about can be found in the way some atheists, in talking about religion, take the "irrationality" of religious views as a foregone conclusion. There is nothing about disbelieving in God(s) that requires such a conclusion about the beliefs of other people but it's one that I hear (or read, actually--most people don't seem to want to say this to anyone's face) quite often, even in UU circles.

While I absolutely agree with robtex that atheism is perfectly acceptable (and very commonplace) in UUism, I feel that the characterization of theists or "supernaturalists" (which I think is intended to mean people who do not believe in a wholly deterministic universe, but I'm not sure) as "irrational" is not, and when it happens in broader society it should be criticized for the same reason religious fundamentalists should be criticized. It is harmful discourse that only serves to put some people down and distort the issues.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Stairs In My House

For me, it's almost entirely from having been one of "them" myself, back when I was younger and thought I had all the answers. One day I will write a book about this, titled I Was A Teenage Randroid.

Randoid as in Ayn Rand?!

Originally Posted by Stairs In My House

I don't think this is so much a conflict between theists and atheists, though it typically plays out that way. In many ways I could still be said to be an atheist (I don't believe in a creator deity or divine authority), though I would not self-identify as an atheist. What I see is a conflict over the authority of knowledge, with three sides: scientific authority (Dawkins and friends), scriptural authority (Robertson and friends), and personal/experiential authority (liberal religion and tolerant humanism). The first two are similar in that they insist on external authorities for knowledge (science is external in the sense that it is a discourse of inquiry rather than inquiry itself), which may explain why they sound so alike sometimes.

You make a good point. The only thing I would quibble about is that science as it is practiced *is* the inquiry itself. It's empiricism. To that extent it is experiential. When empiricism is practiced, it generates a body of knowledge that then gets codified into what we generally think of as "science." And then some people take that body of knowledge to be the Truth with a capital T. Similarly in religion, there is the experiential aspect of religion, which is akin to the gathering of "data." Then those experiences get called "revelations" and codified into scriptures and dogmas, and people take them to be the Truth with a capital T.

The crucial distinction is, as you said, external authority versus internal/experiential authority. I just wanted to highlight that there are two aspects to science, and it isn't science itself that's the problem. Nor scripture. It's how we choose to look at them. To trust external authority is to see truth as static, an object to be possessed. To trust experiential authority is to see truth as dynamic/living, something that can only be lived.

I think the tension that we experience within UU is that some of us trust the more empirical experience. That which we can see and touch and measure. And some of us trust the more "mystical" experience, which cannot be quantified. BUT the thing that keeps us UUs altogether is that we all ultimately side with personal experience, including the personal experiences of others which we may not share.

I may not believe the same things as you do because I haven't had the same personal experiences as you, but I trust that you have, and therefore must respect your beliefs.

[des]

>I am glad you enjoyed your UU time. I am happy for you. I would suggest you read some of Harris and Dawkins before jumping to that conclusion. I personally don't find either of them to be extremist. Dawkins is considered incidently, to be one of the leading researchers in the field of genetics in the world. They both are really interesting people to read about.

Of course I *did* read *both* books by Harris and have heard him speak on BookTv (CSpan2) and while I haven't read Dawkins book, I also heard him on BookTV as well. While I enjoyed their POVs. I do feel they are quite intolerant.

Dawkins is quite well known and I know of this. But this does not mean he is not intolerant.

I actually thought both were interesting to listen to. Dawkins is more sarcastic. Of course, the meaning of this word is interesting. It means "biting flesh".

Intolerance would mean that he does not seem to tolerate or regard other pov as valid or even worthy of being attended to. Both of them are even intolerant towards agnostism, feeling it is somehow not a serious position.

>As far as "fundamental atheism, and this might be a good debate topic, I don't think it exists. Fundamental is the subscription to dogma which is absent outside of religion. Maybe the sermon speaker was thinking of extremist.

The pastor didn't use the term "Fundamentalist", and I can see from another thread how literally some people are taking that term. :-)
No it does not really make sense. However, they demonstrate to me some of the *behaviors" of fundamentalism. And I listed these above. I am using fundamentalism as an analogy. (As anyone knows about Islam, for instance, fundamentalism doesn't really apply to Islam either. The original term was meant to apply to "keeping the fundamentals of Christian belief" (at least in their eyes). One of them was clearly literalism. Since almost all Moslem's read the text literally, you can't really apply the term). So it has come to mean extremist views.

>Many, if not most UU churches post their sermons online. Do you have a link?

I looked for it last night and didn't see it. If I find it I would post a link. I'm thinking there is another site that was down.



--des

[Stairs In My House]

Originally Posted by lilithu

Randoid as in Ayn Rand?!

Haha, yep. Seven years! The next time you run into one of those people, remember that there is hope. People do recover. There are dozens of us! Dozens!

I just wanted to highlight that there are two aspects to science, and it isn't science itself that's the problem. Nor scripture. It's how we choose to look at them. To trust external authority is to see truth as static, an object to be possessed. To trust experiential authority is to see truth as dynamic/living, something that can only be lived.

You are exactly right, of course. I was thinking of science the way Kuhn talks about it, where once a consensus is achieved, scientists work within that paradigm to "do" science, and the consensus is only challenged when it no longer provides "do-able" science. As one paradigm is replaced with another, we may come closer to the truth, but the paradigm (the consensus) is never the truth itself.

I may not believe the same things as you do because I haven't had the same personal experiences as you, but I trust that you have, and therefore must respect your beliefs.

This sums it up perfectly. Furthermore, I would say that even if your experiences lead to beliefs that seem to contradict mine, it is probably because we are approaching the problem from two different directions and the apparent contradiction will be resolved by some as yet unrevealed truth.

[des]

Ok, a string of posts and then I'm off. :-)
I did see the other current post on "fundamentalist atheism". I guess the comment was resented. I'm perfectly happy to revert to extremist, militant or some other term. :-) But it was quite clearly an analogy and not a literalist comment.

You make an interesting comment. I have never liked religious people quoting scripture at me. And I also never thought it proved anything (except to say that Leviticus would want to kill you for all sorts of things!)

Funny thing then when I saw the scientists, Dawkins and Harris, quoting science at me. Science certainly explains much of external experience and observation. Even Harris acknowledges that there are internal experiences, that are maybe beyond what is easily knowable. Harris seems to believe that it all will be eventually knowable (I'm not sure, this is the impression I get). But I would argue that perhaps they aren't and can't be. That there are some things about experience that are not knowable. You wouldn't need to call that God, in fact, I sort of dislike the man in the white beard idea I get from that term.

However, all said, you could look at what I just wrote and decide that that had nothing whatsoever to do with a deity. And I would have no problem with that viewpoint in the slightest. As long as you accepted that I had a different one. In fact, if they didn't have such a big hand in political life, I wouldn't even be bothered by fundie Christians, if they just left me alone.

I guess I am now worried we have yet another group of people emboldened to proselitize to others, as we are all the screwed up ones.

BTW, Sam Harris and Reza Aslan are debating Sunday on BookTv. Reza Aslan is a "progressive" Moslem, very witty and a great debater. I saw him on a video with Bill Mauer (my favorite atheist :-)). Aslan wrote the book "No God but God". (If you want to know where the progressive voices here, he might be a good one to start with.) Anyway, this would no doubt be very interesting.

--des

Originally Posted by lilithu

The crucial distinction is, as you said, external authority versus internal/experiential authority. I just wanted to highlight that there are two aspects to science, and it isn't science itself that's the problem. Nor scripture. It's how we choose to look at them. To trust external authority is to see truth as static, an object to be possessed. To trust experiential authority is to see truth as dynamic/living, something that can only be lived.

I think the tension that we experience within UU is that some of us trust the more empirical experience. That which we can see and touch and measure. And some of us trust the more "mystical" experience, which cannot be quantified. BUT the thing that keeps us UUs altogether is that we all ultimately side with personal experience, including the personal experiences of others which we may not share.

I may not believe the same things as you do because I haven't had the same personal experiences as you, but I trust that you have, and therefore must respect your beliefs.

[Stairs In My House]

Originally Posted by lilithu

You make a good point. The only thing I would quibble about is that science as it is practiced *is* the inquiry itself. It's empiricism.

Today I accidentally ran across a very interesting paper on storytelling as a form of theory construction while I was looking for something else, and I thought I'd pass on this little quote, which I think you will find interesting and relevant, and very much in the spirit of UU views on religion, science, and reason.

Some have challenged the realist position (cf. Popper, 1959) that individual scientists discover facts inherent in the universe. (For a discussion of this dialectic in science, see Angelus, 1981; Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984; Laudan, 1984; Walker, 1963.) These scholars take the point of view that scientists construct 'facts' rather than discover them and that they do so through co-construction (i.e., construction involving more than one participant). Debunking the image of the lone researcher tucked away in a personal laboratory, these scholars have suggested that important explanations--in the form of theories--emerge out of everyday conversational interaction about collective observations among members of a research group and thus depend on a social interactional process ...

This perspective recognizes that scientific and other scholarly thinking thrives in an atmosphere of open-mindedness where every 'fact' is vulnerable to challenge. Scientific laboratories and schools are predicated on the assumption that human awareness gains from cultivating the ability to step out of our world of 'fact' and sometimes rigid convictions in order to consider alternative explanations and multiple perspectives on our reality.

Ochs, Elinor, Carolyn Taylor, Dina Rudolph & Ruth Smith. 1992. "Storytelling as a Theory-Building Activity." Discourse Processes 15:37-72.

(Italics added by me. I'll be happy to provide full references for the citations if you're interested.)

[Storm Moon]

Quick question: Why do so many people get so into Rand? I just don't see her logic at all...