Activist atheism

[Jim]

I’ve seen what looks to me like people saying or insinuating that the world would be better if everyone lost their belief in God. It might be only a few atheists saying that, and there are other people saying that besides atheists.

If there were no religion, there would be one less thing to divide humanity.

I’m still wondering if you’re thinking of denouncing religions and debating with some of their followers in Internet forums as a way of helping to improve the world, or to improve some people’s lives. Do you see some possible benefit for some people or for society, in denouncing religions, and debating with some their followers? I think it could possibly lead to some healthy questioning in some people’s minds. Also, it could be comforting to some people who have suffered from cruelty and oppression associated with religion, or who feel threatened by it. Do you have any other ideas about how it could be beneficial to some people or to society, to denounce religions and debate with some of their followers?

 

[tayla]

I'm an atheist, and I am pretty sure I don't fit any of your description above.

Glad to hear it. Thanks for sharing.

 

[tayla]

The fact that I am convinced that materialism is essentially true does not mean that I don't accept the need for a non-material, entirely philosophical (or if you'd prefer, spiritual) approach to many questions. I am the first to say that science without a philosophical (in which I include religious or other belief systems) approach to moral and ethical questions is far too dangerous.

Your comments highlight an important point. If materialism/physicalism is all that there is, how can there be anything non-material, philosophical, spiritual to engage the mind? Seems to me the mind is outside, yet always intimately connected to the brain somehow; this without violating the laws of physics.

 

[tayla]

So I'm guessing you were addressing atheists other than me...

No, not you.... Them, those guys and gals.

 

[tayla]

Or, appsrently any other

Here's some:

Do quotes such as these qualify as activism, meaning, wishing for change in society? (Argumentation is a tool of activism, an action.)

All these quotes assume it's better if there were no religion, with the assumption that certain intuitions promote religion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.
--Richard Dawkins

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old.
--Richard Dawkins

How dare you force your dopey unsubstantiated superstitions on innocent children too young to resist? How DARE you?
--Richard Dawkins

Pat Robertson would be harmless comedy, were he less typical of those who today hold power and influence in the United States.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Look carefully at any region of the world where you find intractable enmity and violence between rival groups today. I cannot guarantee that you’ll find religions as the dominant labels for in-groups and out-groups. But it’s a good bet.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If you feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing, it would be worth asking yourself how this came about. The answer is usually some form of childhood indoctrination. If you are religious at all it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.
--Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Even if religion did no other harm in itself, its wanton and carefully nurtured divisiveness – its deliberate and cultivated pandering to humanity’s natural tendency to favour in-groups and shun out-groups – would be enough to make it a significant force for evil in the world.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
--Christopher Hitchens, Mortality

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead.
--Christopher Hitchens

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy....
--Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

Those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.
--Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

 

[tayla]

'various atheists' is about as meaningful as 'various theists'.

Whomever these atheist folk are, they don't speak for me.

I'm glad you are not one of "them".

The ones I am referring to are those fitting the description in the OP. If you don't fit this description, I'm not referring to you.

 

[tayla]

Good.. Its a lot of malarkey anyway.. No one wants to abolish religion.

I searched on duckduckgo search engine for:

atheist abolish religion​

...and sites came up with people wanting to do that very thing.

 

[tayla]

These so called atheists you refer to, how well do they blend into society, could we spot one, are they shape shifters, because if they are how will we ever defend ourselves?

Here's some:

Do quotes such as these qualify as activism, meaning, wishing for change in society? (Argumentation is a tool of activism, an action.)

All these quotes assume it's better if there were no religion, with the assumption that certain intuitions promote religion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.
--Richard Dawkins

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old.
--Richard Dawkins

How dare you force your dopey unsubstantiated superstitions on innocent children too young to resist? How DARE you?
--Richard Dawkins

Pat Robertson would be harmless comedy, were he less typical of those who today hold power and influence in the United States.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Look carefully at any region of the world where you find intractable enmity and violence between rival groups today. I cannot guarantee that you’ll find religions as the dominant labels for in-groups and out-groups. But it’s a good bet.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If you feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing, it would be worth asking yourself how this came about. The answer is usually some form of childhood indoctrination. If you are religious at all it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.
--Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Even if religion did no other harm in itself, its wanton and carefully nurtured divisiveness – its deliberate and cultivated pandering to humanity’s natural tendency to favour in-groups and shun out-groups – would be enough to make it a significant force for evil in the world.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
--Christopher Hitchens, Mortality

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead.
--Christopher Hitchens

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy....
--Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

Those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.
--Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

 

[tayla]

Them.
The proverbial "they".
They are the ones always saying things.
Whatever evil intent ya want to prove about some group, just quote they....I mean them.
There's no way to dispute it.

Here they are:

Do quotes such as these qualify as activism, meaning, wishing for change in society? (Argumentation is a tool of activism, an action.)

All these quotes assume it's better if there were no religion, with the assumption that certain intuitions promote religion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.
--Richard Dawkins

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old.
--Richard Dawkins

How dare you force your dopey unsubstantiated superstitions on innocent children too young to resist? How DARE you?
--Richard Dawkins

Pat Robertson would be harmless comedy, were he less typical of those who today hold power and influence in the United States.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Look carefully at any region of the world where you find intractable enmity and violence between rival groups today. I cannot guarantee that you’ll find religions as the dominant labels for in-groups and out-groups. But it’s a good bet.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If you feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing, it would be worth asking yourself how this came about. The answer is usually some form of childhood indoctrination. If you are religious at all it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.
--Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Even if religion did no other harm in itself, its wanton and carefully nurtured divisiveness – its deliberate and cultivated pandering to humanity’s natural tendency to favour in-groups and shun out-groups – would be enough to make it a significant force for evil in the world.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
--Christopher Hitchens, Mortality

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead.
--Christopher Hitchens

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy....
--Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

Those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.
--Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

 

[tayla]

I would like for religion to mostly go away-- but. I would never agree that force should be used--ever.

Very good, thank you. I'm not fond of religion either. It makes people crazy.

 

[tayla]

If we learn anything from History? We need to learn that lesson: Corrupt State and/or Religion? Is pure Evil. And it is many times worse when these are combined.

Yes, thanks for stating it so succinctly.

 

[Audie]

Here's some:

Do quotes such as these qualify as activism, meaning, wishing for change in society? (Argumentation is a tool of activism, an action.)

All these quotes assume it's better if there were no religion, with the assumption that certain intuitions promote religion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.
--Richard Dawkins

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old.
--Richard Dawkins

How dare you force your dopey unsubstantiated superstitions on innocent children too young to resist? How DARE you?
--Richard Dawkins

Pat Robertson would be harmless comedy, were he less typical of those who today hold power and influence in the United States.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Look carefully at any region of the world where you find intractable enmity and violence between rival groups today. I cannot guarantee that you’ll find religions as the dominant labels for in-groups and out-groups. But it’s a good bet.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If you feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing, it would be worth asking yourself how this came about. The answer is usually some form of childhood indoctrination. If you are religious at all it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.
--Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Even if religion did no other harm in itself, its wanton and carefully nurtured divisiveness – its deliberate and cultivated pandering to humanity’s natural tendency to favour in-groups and shun out-groups – would be enough to make it a significant force for evil in the world.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
--Christopher Hitchens, Mortality

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead.
--Christopher Hitchens

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy....
--Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

Those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.
--Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

Activism was not the topic, and that is spam.
Quit it.

 

[tayla]

The only thing I seem to have in common with the views of 'various atheists' you assert is the religious schools bit - where I see an issue of freedom from indoctrination as being more important than any parents' right to indoctrinate their children via schooling. But I know even many atheists do not go this far.

"Various atheists" each have their particular various views; some having such and such, and others something different. All combined, there are enough of "them" matching my description if the OP. I find these kinds of viewpoints worrisome.

 

[tayla]

As for the rest, well I think I am like many other atheists, in that we might want to see a lessening of the influence of religions in society but would never want to see any banned or abolished - goes against our tendency for advocating freedom of expression etc.

Thanks for sharing your viewpoint.

 

[tayla]

And one could reverse this - I don't see any evidence that improvements are all down to religion(s) - just one of those things we might like to think about but we will never know.

I doubt there were very many improvements (if any) from religions.

 

[tayla]

I’ve seen what looks to me like people saying or insinuating that the world would be better if everyone lost their belief in God. It might be only a few atheists saying that, and there are other people saying that besides atheists. My answer to that, if anyone really thinks that, is Freethought Blogs, Elevatorgate, Atheism Plus, the Slyme Pit and/or The Orbit.

Atheism Plus has a link at the bottom to Militant atheism, and that article has a discussion about all the kinds of things I mentioned in the OP. I guess I'm not the only one who noticed this phenomena after all.

I think the world would be a better place if the revealed religions and revealed spiritual paths were gone. The source of these "revelations" are pure imagination.

 

[tayla]

Part of what I think is holding us back is what people do with what they think they know, that they call “science,” and with what they think they know from religious scriptures, blinding people to a light that I see in science and religion, and repelling them away from it.

I think you are saying that both science and religion are sources of truth, but that those people representing both are doing so in a manner that repels people from these truths. Is that correct?

 

[tayla]

I’ve seen what looks to me like people saying or insinuating that the world would be better if everyone lost their belief in God. It might be only a few atheists saying that, and there are other people saying that besides atheists.

Yes, I'm not an atheist but I think the world would be a better place if everyone lost their belief in God. I'm assuming these are all Christians or some other established religion.

 

[tayla]

May you point me towards any?

I for one have never met anyone that fits your description, nor even heard of them.

And I am fairly aware of activist atheists, such as they exist.

Do quotes such as these qualify as activism, meaning, wishing for change in society? (Argumentation is a tool of activism, an action.)

All these quotes assume it's better if there were no religion, with the assumption that certain intuitions promote religion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.
--Richard Dawkins

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old.
--Richard Dawkins

How dare you force your dopey unsubstantiated superstitions on innocent children too young to resist? How DARE you?
--Richard Dawkins

Pat Robertson would be harmless comedy, were he less typical of those who today hold power and influence in the United States.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Look carefully at any region of the world where you find intractable enmity and violence between rival groups today. I cannot guarantee that you’ll find religions as the dominant labels for in-groups and out-groups. But it’s a good bet.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If you feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing, it would be worth asking yourself how this came about. The answer is usually some form of childhood indoctrination. If you are religious at all it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.
--Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Even if religion did no other harm in itself, its wanton and carefully nurtured divisiveness – its deliberate and cultivated pandering to humanity’s natural tendency to favour in-groups and shun out-groups – would be enough to make it a significant force for evil in the world.
--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
--Christopher Hitchens, Mortality

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead.
--Christopher Hitchens

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy....
--Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

Those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.
--Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

 

[tayla]

I do however think that what holds us back is probably too much attachment to god-beliefs, for what it is worth, and to several unhealthy behaviors related to the "protection" and spread of such beliefs.

Yes, I agree.

I think there is also a danger in the assumption of materialism/physicalism. I think it diminishes the role of mind and the conscious self by declaring it is a mere illusion or some such thing. But all the interesting and inspiring parts of life are from this so-called illusory aspect of brain functioning. Seems Descartes had the right perspective on this: I think, therefore, I am. Conscious mind comes first, then science and the physical.