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Activist atheism

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
--Richard Dawkins

That's opinion, hardly activism.
Moreover, it's reasonable.
Yes, I agree with the quotation.

I don't wish to defend whether or not it qualifies as activism. My point is that this kind of idea can provoke change in society and can be used to justify change in society, even to energize it. Zealots and revolutionaries can use a quote like that to go after people with pitchforks in an armed uprising. They will chant, "how dare you influence us commit atrocities, off with your head".
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
I'll wager that many believers agree, albeit about other people's religions.
Many/some/all/a few religious people even believe that people of their own religion have false and heretical beliefs. They fight all the time about even the smallest points.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I agree with everything he says except his insistence of materialism/physicalism and ideas springing from that. I don't mind his boldness, it makes it easy to understand what he is saying.

However, as the OP indicates, I have some concerns. Sadly, I neglected to document this with quotations so I should expect people to object as they have. I will be more scholarly in future threads now that I know how people respond to undocumented generalizations.

I get what you are saying, but it won't change that much. Because then it ends in: It is just wrong!
Now of course not for all, who are here. And it properly only apply to a few(there is the problem with these kinds of debates), but some :D humans operate on versions of strong good or bad.
Read this and ask questions if you want to:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html

When you start to notice this level as the psychology in part behind a lot of these debates, it helps.
There is more than just this and it has its limits, but it is there.
How humans reason in general, is connected to how they reason in effect about morality. Of course it is not one to one, but it is connected. I.e. the development of cognition and emotions in a given human. And yes, it is not just formal cognitive reasoning. when you look closer.

With regards
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
My purpose was to illustrate specifically what the well-known leaders of atheism that I quoted say. I am proposing that these certain ideas are problematic in that they can provide the basis for a future atheistic totalitarian state.
Many well known leaders....or not leaders, since they don't lead us
(they're just famous...or notorious) of various groups are jerks.
Beware giving them too much attention. Bill Maher is particularly
insufferable, even for many of us disbelievers.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Sorry if I did not make myself clear; I don't wish to imply that every atheist believes what those quoted individuals believe. I intended to focus specifically on the particular ideas and whether those ideas are in some way dangerous to society.
What group doesn't have dangerous ideas, eh.
Christians, Muslims, Jews, Ameristanians, Hindus....you
name it, & I'll find dangerous thoughts by searching for them.
Do you fear all those groups too?
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Yes, I agree with the quotation.

I don't wish to defend whether or not it qualifies as activism. My point is that this kind of idea can provoke change in society and can be used to justify change in society, even to energize it. Zealots and revolutionaries can use a quote like that to go after people with pitchforks in an armed uprising. They will chant, "how dare you influence us commit atrocities, off with your head".
It can also provoke positive change.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Many/some/all/a few religious people even believe that people of their own religion have false and heretical beliefs. They fight all the time about even the smallest points.
Do you worry about the danger of their coming to power,
just as you do about atheism?

More advice....
- Don't concern yourself with what is possible but neither impending nor even likely.
- Don't worry about what you cannot change anyway.
Life is easier when one reserves worries for fewer importanter things.
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
Bad people doing bad things:

League of Militant Atheists - Wikipedia

"the League aimed at exterminating religion in all its manifestations and forming an anti-religious scientific mindset among the workers.[5][6] It propagated atheism and scientific achievements,[7]conducted "individual work" (a method of sending atheist tutors to meet with individual believers to convince them that gods do not exist)"

I think I've met a couple people who seem like they would jump at the opportunity of joining this league. I sometimes wonder if the Chinese have people doing this "individual work" right now on internet forums.
 
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SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
God forbid! Actually most of the people where I live visit the supermarket rather than church on a Sunday morning.
Interesting. Where I live, it’s the pub. But that is a holy place, admittedly.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Activist Atheism doesn't bother me. But Militant Atheism does.
Militance is good at times.
People face hostility for refusing to say the pledge, like
the 11 year old boy who was recently arrested for it.
I also committed a felony by refusing the draft to fight a
war against "godless communists" in Vietnam. As an
atheist, I was ineligible for CO status. So I became a
dodger. I ain't fight'n Christians' useless wars for'm.
"Patriots" fulminated at me for that
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
I find this very disturbing. It implies that those trying to make a living in the realm of ideas should not be trusted because they taint their ideas with untruth and nonsense designed to capture an audience. It's as if they have adopted the same tactics as the current president of a certain country in order to keep their name continuously in the headlines.
It looks to me like a popular way now for people to monetize their interests and make a name for themselves is in speaking and writing storytelling and performance careers that revolve around helping people excuse and camouflage their animosities and hostilities against some group or category of people. There are people doing that on all sides in every direction, and most people are eagerly eating up what some of them are saying. That’s is what I’m seeing in media stories. I don’t know how much it’s happening in the world of actual experience.

I see that as part of a larger picture where people are repressing their natural love for nature and other people, to abandon themselves to self-gratification and self-worship, twisting facts and words to build elaborate systems of smoke and mirrors, trying to hide from themselves and others what they’re doing.

I see some value in trying to introduce some clarity into all that, but mostly I think that what is needed is to practice and promote that love that people are repressing, and keep reminding people about it. Also, I think that storytelling and the arts can help with that, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of that in my development. For me, part of that love is continually trying to improve my own character, capacities and the way I live my life, in ways that might help make the world better for people around me and for all people everywhere.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
O
I hope you are not saying that people mocking each others' ideas and laughing at them is a good thing?
I think it can do some good if you mock all sides. If it’s done in the right spirit, it can provide comic relief and maybe help a few people take a step back. That might be part of how I chose my forum gods, for their humor. Each one has a special kind of humor of their own.
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
Christians that have an enlightened and educated understanding of science. They are more used to the fundamentalist lack of understand and knowledge of science, coupled with erroneous views that do not make much sense and are not based on logic or evidence.
I think the only way a Christian can have a view of science matching what science actually teaches is if they interpret the Bible allegorically or some such thing as that. But is there really any basis to do such a thing? You have to deny Christian history and doctrine to do this. Why would someone remain a Christian after this?
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
atheists that I know personally or that I have met on the internet. I find them open, knowledgeable, intelligent and willing to discuss
Thank you for sharing that this is the norm. I must have got off on the wrong foot with them when I first started posting on ReligiousForums maybe 2 years ago. I'm gonna give it another try and anticipate duplicating the same friendly experience you had.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
Very interesting analysis.

In my view, certain things reside in the spiritual realm (consciousness, soul, self, ideas, emotions, memories, etc). But I accept also that the physical world exists, containing quantum fields, human bodies,... all the physical stuff.

The body and brain does the physical stuff, then hands the info to the spiritual where the soul processes the info, then hands back commands for action back to the body.

My objection to materialism/physicalism is the need to claim that the mind is merely the brain functioning. But it is clearly so much more than merely that.

And yes, there is a way for the immaterial mind to communicate both ways with the brain.
I would say that you are a materialist/physicalist, since the physical world "comes first," per se.
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
I do not know of ways to reveal subjective claims about experience with the supernatural or any evidence that would not render the supernatural, material.
Yes, this is the difficulty. How do you prove something (or at least provide evidence) for something that is inherently unprovable? I have a scheme in mind I'm working through right now.
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
If there is a material explanation, then there are plausible alternatives that must be ruled out.
So far, I find the material explanations for the subjective experience of consciousness (for example) to be implausible. They seem like merely assigning labels; such things as:
  1. Consciousness is an illusion created by the brain.
  2. Consciousness is a process of electrons flowing in the neural network of the brain.
  3. Consciousness is an emergent property of brain function.
None of these explain how consciousness is physical considering there is no natural law called consciousness and no quantum field called consciousness.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
An interesting and important question. But based on the damage to society that certain groups are causing (for example, the religiously zealous supporters of the current president of a certain country), seems the bad ideas should be vigorously opposed.
There might be a conscious or unconscious premise that denouncing religions and debating with their followers will help induce people to abandon their beliefs, and that will help improve society. My answer to that is Freethought Blogs, Elevatorgate, Atheism Plus, the Slyme Pit, and/or The Orbit.

I just had a new thought. It might be simply that denouncing some group or category of people is a popular way for people to delude themselves that they’re doing something to help solve the problems, and of course it’s a good way to excuse and camouflage indulging their worst impulses, repressing their natural love for all people.
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
If I think that I have been talked to by God or an agent of God, how do I, myself, even know that it was real, even if it is only to me? How do I rule out any of the many possibilities of what it could be?
Yes, a good point. Probably it is best to assume you are not talked to by God, at least when trying to prove a viewpoint such as the existence of a spiritual realm or some such thing.

I do interact with a presence that I call Jesus. It is the experience I have of goodness and beauty which is what I think God is. Also, when doing something creative and it seems like the ideas are coming from somewhere outside of me. But I certainly don't expect anyone to believe in the reality of all this, nor would I attempt to prove that's what it really happening. It just gives me happiness, joy, and comfort to have these experiences.
 
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