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American Voters Prefer Muslims to Atheists
A new poll of American voters reports that atheists are less popular than Muslims. To wit:
Sixty-one percent of those questioned said they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who did not believe in God. Forty-five percent said the same for a Muslim contender.
Only 5 percent or fewer said they would be likelier to support candidates who were atheists.
It appears that for most American voters, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens can just go to Hell.
Whole article here.
|9.10.07 @ 4:05PM|#
Who is surprised by this? At least Muslims have irrational superstition to support their positions. Them God damned atheists only have reason on their side. To your average theist that's no friggin' contest.
|9.10.07 @ 4:08PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance.
But I'm not hopeful.
Oh well, back to reading my parchments.
tomWright|9.10.07 @ 4:09PM|#
One more reason I keep my shotgun loaded and support the 2nd
Amendment.
Damned Robertsonistas knock on my door...
|9.10.07 @ 4:09PM|#
Ron you say that like the public not letting a drunken nasty sot like Hitchens anywhere near the levers of power is a bad thing.
|9.10.07 @ 4:11PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads
Sounds like most vocal libertarians as well.
|9.10.07 @ 4:13PM|#
I may be self-absorbed and a fuckhead but I'm not , uh, what was the middle one again?
|9.10.07 @ 4:13PM|#
Muslims, and most religions in general, tend to be more "leave
me alone to worship in peace please" more than the hardcore
atheists, who are more apt to insist you're a stupid, ignorant fuck
who believes in some mythical being akin to a unicorn or
narwhal.
And I'm an atheist.
|9.10.07 @ 4:14PM|#
"Hmmm.... maybe we've found the root of our political
problems..."
Yes because putting athiests in charge in Russia and China resulted
in so much liberty and rational government. I hear there are a lot
of scientific Bolshvics and Maoists who are out of work these days,
perhaps we could put them in charge and all of our problems will be
solved.
|9.10.07 @ 4:16PM|#
Most atheists in public office suck it up, go to church, and pretend like they believe all that shit. The Sam Harris's of the world are repugnant because they make it their life's goal to make 94% of Americans feel like shit. That's no way to get elected.
LibertyPlease|9.10.07 @ 4:17PM|#
Yes because putting athiests in charge in Russia and China resulted in so much liberty and rational government.
While those regimes didn't have a SpecialManInTheSky as such, they
were constructed and led in with all the trappings and religious
zeal. And John, don't take it personally, I wasn't insulting your
SpecialManInTheSky in particular...
|9.10.07 @ 4:18PM|#
In case you don't think that atheists are picking a fight, just look at the front page stores on "atheist" on Digg.com
ed|9.10.07 @ 4:20PM|#
putting athiests in charge in Russia and China resulted in
so much liberty and rational government
I usually don't resort to name-calling but damn, John, you're so
full of shit.
dhex|9.10.07 @ 4:20PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance.
the hole in your hypothesis is by this standard, that a handful of
muslims blew up the world trade center should have biased
non-muslim americans against them for pretty much a super long
time.
and yet...
Asharak|9.10.07 @ 4:24PM|#
Yes because putting athiests in charge in Russia and China
resulted in so much liberty and rational government. I hear there
are a lot of scientific Bolshvics and Maoists who are out of work
these days, perhaps we could put them in charge and all of our
problems will be solved.
Hi, troll.
Just to let you know, the atheist=communist epithet is not only
bullshit, but it's also the Matlock of red herrings.
B|9.10.07 @ 4:25PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance.
Yeah, gosh...what would atheists in this country have to be angry
about, after all?
LibertyPlease|9.10.07 @ 4:27PM|#
Once again, agnostics are ignored.
I thought I was agnostic for a while, but religion is just too vile
to be passive about.
|9.10.07 @ 4:29PM|#
"While those regimes didn't have a SpecialManInTheSky as such,
they were constructed and led in with all the trappings and
religious zeal. And John, don't take it personally, I wasn't
insulting your SpecialManInTheSky in particular..."
They were most assuredly atheists. Yes, they had a real religious
zeal to them. Stalin used to ask his advisors in times of most
stress "tell me what you think as a Bolshevik". It was basically a
religious oath. The Bolsheviks and the Maoists for that matter
believed that they were ushering in paradise on earth. With that as
the end state, what does it matter if you kill a few million
people? I guess it goes to show that if people don't believe in
God, they will believe in anything. For whatever reason, perhaps we
are evolved this way, people always want to believe that are doing
something for a higher purpose. Thinking that atheism is somehow
going to get rid of that need or man's mania to control other
people and kill those in the way of paradise is just laughable.
|9.10.07 @ 4:29PM|#
I'd venture a guess that the most vocal members of any group are
self-absorbed, angry fuckheads.
People want to vote for the person they see in the mirror every
morning. This is why retards run everything.
By the way: the Matlock of red herrings
So it's the simple country lawyer of red herrings?
|9.10.07 @ 4:29PM|#
Muslims, and most religions in general, tend to be more
"leave me alone to worship in peace please" more than the hardcore
atheists
hmmmm....that is not connected to any reality I am aware of.
fyodor|9.10.07 @ 4:30PM|#
What dhex said, sheesh. Most atheists are not "picking a fight"
any more than most Muslims are. Double sheesh!!
Anyway, why focus on the relative numbers when the absolute numbers
are much more important? 61% less likely to support a non-believer
(which includes agnostics, like me, Russ 2000!) and 45% less likely
to support a Muslim?
TRIPLE-SHEESH!!!
|9.10.07 @ 4:31PM|#
Atheists are only angry because we can't figure out why nobody
else "gets it," and that's frustrating. And we're cocky because
we're right.
Being right all the time isn't easy =\
dhex|9.10.07 @ 4:31PM|#
I thought I was agnostic for a while, but religion is just
too vile to be passive about.
"i was going to follow my conscience, but tribalism provides more
of a socio-emotional jolt, frankly."
Asharak|9.10.07 @ 4:32PM|#
So it's the simple country lawyer of red
herrings?
Heh.
Matlock=old, actually.
|9.10.07 @ 4:34PM|#
Yeah, gosh...what would atheists in this country have to be
angry about, after all?
Some to be angry about, lots to be happy about.
That they live in a largely secular society and despite repeated
attempts by the Christian right to gain control of America's
political life, they can still buy porn, get an abortion, and sit
around stroking their genitals on Sunday morning while playing
violent video games.
That's a start.
|9.10.07 @ 4:34PM|#
"Atheists are only angry because we can't figure out why nobody
else "gets it," and that's frustrating. And we're cocky because
we're right.
Being right all the time isn't easy ="
Funny, all of the real nutso fundementalist Christians I know feel
exactly the same way. Could it be that they are just two sides of
the same coin? That is the desire to be in on the "know" over
everyone else? Talk to people in fundementalist sects sometimes,
they are often reformed athiests. At the same time, a lot of
athiests are reformed fundementalists. For some people it is one
ditch or the other.
LibertyPlease|9.10.07 @ 4:36PM|#
I guess it goes to show that if people don't believe in God, they will believe in anything. For whatever reason, perhaps we are evolved this way, people always want to believe that are doing something for a higher purpose. Thinking that atheism is somehow going to get rid of that need or man's mania to control other people and kill those in the way of paradise is just laughable.
Yes John, without a SpecialFloatyThing to worship, I admit I'm
inclined to mass murder. Also, without your FloatyThing's Ten
Commandments, I have no idea how to be a good human being. You've
nailed it. In the absence of rediculous religious bullshit,
humanity will colapse.
Episiarch|9.10.07 @ 4:37PM|#
Once again, agnostics are ignored.
This is exactly why, when asked about religious beliefs, I say
"agnostic". It doesn't have the "athiests are smug fucking
assholes" connotation, but it also does not acknowledge any belief
in voices in the sky (go Lemmy) either. Keeps people off your
back.
|9.10.07 @ 4:38PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance...
This is unfortunately true. It's also true that (religious) people
are going to be most offended by attacks on their beliefs, for the
simple fact that any religious belief is inherently irrational and
unsupportable by facts. This is why I have totally given up arguing
with the religious about religion - logic is completely
irrelevant.
Jamie - that would be a full morning.
|9.10.07 @ 4:39PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance.
All things being equal, and assuming that neither candidate has a
violent past or is a radical, I think that pretty much sums it
up.
|9.10.07 @ 4:40PM|#
"In the absence of rediculous religious bullshit, humanity will
colapse."
Thanks for not understanding a work of what I was saying. The point
is that people are what they are. To think that some ism, be it
Christianity or atheism or scientology is going to change that fact
and somehow make them better and less prone to violence, is just
crazy. Even Christianity will admit that. Man is fallen and lousy
and only God in the afterlife can make him better.
|9.10.07 @ 4:41PM|#
The Atheist religion is a particularly lame one - all the "answers" with none of the optimism.
SIV|9.10.07 @ 4:42PM|#
mythical being akin to a unicorn or narwhal
You don't believe in narwhals?
Hey everybody! Finklestein doesn't believe in narwhals! Lets kick
his ass.
|9.10.07 @ 4:43PM|#
"The Atheist religion is a particularly lame one - all the
"answers" with none of the optimism."
That is actually pretty damn funny. My compliments. Athiests just
live in denial. Most athiests I know skip that whole abyss and
existential anxiety thing. They have plenty of optimism. What could
be more optimistic and fun than to smugly look down your nose at
everyone?
|9.10.07 @ 4:43PM|#
Yet more evidence of an absurd world.
Religion is winning the "fight" because the majority is rarely
reasonable, because there is far more propaganda pushed for
religion than for, say, science education, and because weak minds
do what they're told without truly questioning it. And, overall,
it's a nicely lucrative business.
It's conceivable that people might want to live in a violent
tradition of metaphor and magic, and other people certainly want to
profit from it, but it's totally inconceivable that nonsense not
only enters politics, it drives it.
Flyover Country|9.10.07 @ 4:49PM|#
"If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance."
That sums things up pretty well. That and the annoying Freedom From
Religion people misreading the establishment clause of the first
amendment.
|9.10.07 @ 4:50PM|#
"It's conceivable that people might want to live in a violent
tradition of metaphor and magic, and other people certainly want to
profit from it, but it's totally inconceivable that nonsense not
only enters politics, it drives it."
Yes because man was never violent before religion and those who
don't have religion are never violent. Further, man's intellect is
so astounding that he can put aside all of his prejudice and live
an entirely rationally based, peaceful existance if only he could
set aside religion. Jeese, and some athiest selling "reason and
science" as a cure for all the world's ills is any different than
some dirtbag telling me that all my dreams will come true, if I
only pray to Jesus and send him $20 how?
|9.10.07 @ 4:51PM|#
If there was ever a thread to make Reasonoids blow a gasket on all sides, its religion and who prefers what.
Asharak|9.10.07 @ 4:53PM|#
Muslims, and most religions in general, tend to be more
"leave me alone to worship in peace please" more than the hardcore
atheists, who are more apt to insist you're a stupid, ignorant fuck
who believes in some mythical being akin to a unicorn or
narwhal.
And I'm an atheist.
Just because hardcore atheists tend to be obnoxious, arrogants
jerks doesn't mean the hardcore religious who also tend to be
obnoxious, arrogant jerks aren't any less worse. It's a two-way
street.
And I'm not an atheist.
LibertyPlease|9.10.07 @ 4:53PM|#
Man is fallen and lousy and only God in the afterlife can make him better.
My Invisible Dancing Table Gorilla says that is untrue. The way to
the Invisible Dancing Table Gorilla is through self-cutting.
Your turn.
|9.10.07 @ 4:53PM|#
What could be more optimistic and fun than to smugly look
down your nose at everyone?
I don't know, John, why don't you tell us.
Asharak|9.10.07 @ 4:56PM|#
The Atheist religion is a particularly lame one - all the
"answers" with none of the optimism.
The same people who agree with you the most will think you're also
going to Hell for being a liberal.
dhex|9.10.07 @ 4:58PM|#
i love these threads because they confirm my religious beliefs
(discordianism).
HAIL SHE WHUT DONE IT ALL!
|9.10.07 @ 4:58PM|#
Liberty,
I have about 5000+ years of human history that says man is in a
pretty fucked up state and can't seem to get along without killing
each other. If you can't see that, you are just stupid and I don't
what to do for you. You don't have to be a theist to recognize the
horrible state of mankind. Pretending that not believing in God
would somehow change or cure that state is just as moronic as the
people who think that being a Christian is going to somehow
gaurentee them worldly success.
dhex|9.10.07 @ 5:00PM|#
Jeese, and some athiest selling "reason and science" as a
cure for all the world's ills is any different than some dirtbag
telling me that all my dreams will come true, if I only pray to
Jesus and send him $20 how?
both are right, in their own ways and in some cases.
of course bridges tend to hold up whether or not i believe in the
bridge so there's that as well.
i mean really guys what we're talking about here is meaning, and
meaning is important.
Interested|9.10.07 @ 5:01PM|#
Asharak,
Alot of liberals think I am going to hell for being libertarian.
Not sufficiently interested in wealth redistribution, er "social
justice".
LibertyPlease|9.10.07 @ 5:03PM|#
I have about 5000+ years of human history that says man is in a pretty fucked up state and can't seem to get along without killing each other. If you can't see that, you are just stupid and I don't what to do for you. You don't have to be a theist to recognize the horrible state of mankind. Pretending that not believing in God would somehow change or cure that state is just as moronic as the people who think that being a Christian is going to somehow gaurentee them worldly success.
John, I have never asserted that Atheism is a cure for the
destructive human inclinations.
I have only asserted that believing in some nonsense not only
will not cure it, all that worship of nonsense
will provide a distraction from the cure at best, and compound the
problem at worst.
Mysticism is one more problem for humans. Curing it will not cure
all the other ailments, but it will be one less ailment.
|9.10.07 @ 5:06PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance
Hey, I represent that statement!
Although many would have good reason to doubt it, I don't start all
my social interactions with religious people by calling them
superstitious stone age, tribalist fools. I, and I suspect other
ateists who post here, feel as though I'm among friends and can let
my hair down, so to speak. When I'm offended or angry, I indicate
that. OTOH I've NEVER backed awaw from my support
of the most
important and revered law of the land.
I don't don't really hate, scorn or feel suprior to you theists and
deists out there. I just disagree, sometimes vociferously, but
never with malice.
LibertyPlease|9.10.07 @ 5:12PM|#
BTW: I'm sure you can all take a joke. Right?
Let me consult my boogeyman, or his representative (he's sometimes
a pedophile, he's always asking for money), and get back to
you....
|9.10.07 @ 5:21PM|#
who believes in some mythical being akin to a unicorn or narwhal.
Wait, narwhales are mythical?
|9.10.07 @ 5:25PM|#
I'm an athiest myself, but let's all compromise.
More Unitarian presidents please.
Adams, Quincy Adams, Fillmore, Taft.
Been almost a century now since Taft, and if Taft could hold the
line against a populist, Scopes-prosecuting Creationist fundie like
William Jennings Bryan, well, that's a check plus in my book.
K|9.10.07 @ 5:28PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads, maybe atheism would have a better chance
Yeah, because that's something that distinguishes atheists from
religious people.. *sigh*
But more seriously, in any group the most visible members are not
necessarily representative.
K|9.10.07 @ 5:30PM|#
I like Dawkins' line about how we're all atheists about most gods (thor, vishnu, tooth fairy, etc), and that some of us just go one god further.
K|9.10.07 @ 5:31PM|#
Funny, all of the real nutso fundementalist Christians I
know feel exactly the same way. Could it be that they are just two
sides of the same coin?
No, because one side has rational arguments and the other has blind
faith.
|9.10.07 @ 5:42PM|#
Full disclosure: I'm a non-believer who harbors no prejudice e
against believers whatsoever. I have found that although believers
seem quite wrong about the existence of the super-natural, they are
often quite right about all manner of other matters. And though I
disagree with their conclusions, I even respect the way in which
some of them attempt to justify their beliefs.
I am glad to see that the order of he result of the poll
came out this way cuz it seems that Muslims are more likely to be
the victims of folks who would act on their prejudice. And we now
have politicians and a major news outlet (FOX) fomenting bigotry
against Muslims.
Biff|9.10.07 @ 5:43PM|#
Most religious people don't go around picking fights with
atheists or each other. They just live their lives, but also go to
church/temple/whatever, which is visible to the outside
world.
Most atheists don't go around picking fights with religious people.
They just live their lives, but since they don't assemble anywhere,
they are not noticed.
The only time that a person's atheism gets noticed is if he picks
fights with religious people. So there is a serious perception bias
problem here.
|9.10.07 @ 5:43PM|#
Muslims, and most religions in general, tend to be more
"leave me alone to worship in peace please" more than the hardcore
atheists, who are more apt to insist you're a stupid, ignorant fuck
who believes in some mythical being akin to a unicorn or
narwhal.
It's not particularly meaningful to compare average religious
people with hardcore atheists It's likely that a hardcore
anythingis more apt to think you are a stupid
ignorant fuck than the average person--that's what makes them
hardcore. If the guy isn't going on about how nuts it is to believe
in a mythical being, how can you even tell he's a hardcore atheist?
How can he even claim to be one with a straight face. Any atheist
who won't tell you what a stupid ignorant fuck you are is just a
pussy. I'll turn the other cheek, you miserable motherhumper, I'll
turn the other goddam cheek!
TJ Rebel|9.10.07 @ 5:46PM|#
Both atheists and religious people are right.
'God' is indistinguishable from reality, for it is all of
reality.
So while atheists understand there is nothing apart from us (aka
God)Religious folk look for understanding from outside of
themselves (God).
I think athiests should take a look at eastern religions. For
instance, the art of meditation is a scientifically proven way to
increase IQ, happiness, creativity, etc.
Not all of religion is useless, but most of it is.
David (no, not that one)|9.10.07 @ 5:46PM|#
"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical
atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god
or not."
-- Eric Hoffer
|9.10.07 @ 5:47PM|#
I have mixed feelings about China and Russia.
After 10,000 years of people slaughtering one another for this God
and that God, I think it's rather refreshing when people slaughter
one another for no reason at all.
Biff|9.10.07 @ 5:53PM|#
John, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that if even
religion did not exist, people would still find reasons to fight
and kill each other, so religion is not at fault for this.
There's a kernel of truth in what you're saying, but it doesn't get
religion off the hook. Every divisive ideology plays to humans'
innate tendencies towards tribalism and violence, and makes the
situation worse. Without religion, would there still be silly wars?
Yes. As many? I doubt it. Do you really take such a deterministic
view of the world, that the level of violence is fixed, and that
ideologies have no effect on it? If radical Islam did not exist,
someone would have knocked down the towers anyway (or committed
some other massive act of violence) for some other reason?
K.|9.10.07 @ 5:57PM|#
'God' is indistinguishable from reality, for it is all of
reality.
Defining god in a way that makes the concept useless. I see.
|9.10.07 @ 6:00PM|#
Only 5 percent or fewer said they would be likelier to support
candidates who were atheists unwilling to be
hypocritical about their lack of religious belief.
Fixed!
Newsflash! Populace prefers hypocrital politicians than ones who
tell the truth! News at 11.
|9.10.07 @ 6:00PM|#
After 10,000 years of people slaughtering one another for
this God and that God, I think it's rather refreshing when people
slaughter one another for no reason at all.
Aresen, there has always been a reason for senseless slaughter of
innocents. It's about power. That defending the faith, saving your
soul or protecting the proletariat is all just bullshit used to
sway the weak, the unthinking apathetic. Slaughter has always been
about getting or maintainig power, "GOD" doesn't
have a thing to do with it. If he existed, he'd be righteously
pissed.
|9.10.07 @ 6:00PM|#
"...self-absorbed, angry fuckheads..."
Pathetic argument. Rather than address the substance of the
athiests' claims, call them a bunch of names.
|9.10.07 @ 6:05PM|#
Maybe religious voters would prefer a religious president
because they believe he has an extra incentive to behave himself --
a president who believes in an all-knowing and just God, and
operates under the assumption that even if he manages to fool all
of the people all of the time, he will still go to Hell at the end
of the day.
(Acknowledged: Most atheists do not require belief in a final
reckoning after death to keep them honest and moral. And such
belief often fails to deter the faithful. I'm just talking about
what most religious people probably believe.)
On the other hand, I suspect that a majority of American voters
would prefer an atheist to a Muslim as the pilot of their
airplane.
I know, and I think most other Americans know, that most ordinary
Muslims are harmless. But who can imagine even a combative, angry
atheist such as Christoper Hitchens flying a plane into a building
while yelling, "Nobody is most great!"
|9.10.07 @ 6:10PM|#
"...self-absorbed, angry fuckheads..."
Pathetic argument. Rather than address the substance of the
athiests' claims, call them a bunch of names.
Except the issue at hand isn't whether atheists' claims and
arguments are rational and defensible, but how atheists are
perceived by most American voters. How the most highly visible
atheists present themselves -- as conciliatory leaders to truth? Or
as combative crusaders? -- could make a difference.
Fluffy|9.10.07 @ 6:16PM|#
A couple of odd points to me about this thread:
Atheists are apparently to be seen as self-absorbed and angry
fuckheads because...well, why exactly? Can someone come up with
something for me that doesn't boil down to "They think they're
right and religious people are wrong and they talk about it a
lot"?
Because I don't know if you've noticed this, but there are four
channels on my cable right now where ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, religious
people talk about how they're right and everyone else is wrong, and
about how atheists deserve eternal suffering to punish them for
their wrongness. Somehow I don't think snickering about the flying
spaghetti monster really matches up.
Also - "Most athiests I know skip that whole abyss and existential
anxiety thing. They have plenty of optimism."
That's because there's no abyss unless you are spoiled by the
standard set by the Christian teleology.
"Oh noes! My smallest action is no longer part of a Manichaean
struggle for control of the universe! How will I ever manage to
continue living on without that struggle to give me meaning?" Um -
whatever. I don't shiver over the abyss because Satan's not there
watching me when I take a shit. I can take a shit all by myself,
and have been able to do so since I was quite small, thank you very
much.
Edward|9.10.07 @ 6:27PM|#
Most of us confirmed atheists are too smart to run for political office anyway.
|9.10.07 @ 6:31PM|#
A new poll of American voters reports that atheists are less
popular than Muslims.
Uh, no it doesn't. Are the words "less popular" anywhere in the
article? I'm not surprised; making sure his conclusions actually
follow from the data never has been Mr Bailey's strong suit.
I'm sure that if there was a poll asking people whether they'd
rather vote for Peyton Manning or Hilary Clinton for president,
Hillary would win. That doesn't mean she's more popular.
|9.10.07 @ 6:32PM|#
If most vocal atheists weren't such self-absorbed, angry
fuckheads
Wow, that sounds almost like every vocal person I know. Substitute
"angry" for "self-assured", "full of religious zeal", or
whatever... None of us have any final answers, but we all know the
other guys are wrong. We just can't conceive that we're wrong
too.
Oh the humanity.
JBinMO|9.10.07 @ 6:37PM|#
"We're probably more popular than pedophiles and Andy Dick.
Probably."
Nope.
K.|9.10.07 @ 6:39PM|#
Religious people *want* to see atheists as angry, condescending
assholes because that's a very convenient excuse for not listening
to what they say and not bothering to really think about what the
implications of not having answers to some of their questions
mean.
I think athiests should take a look at eastern religions. For
instance, the art of meditation is a scientifically proven way to
increase IQ, happiness, creativity, etc.
Because something makes you happy/is good for your brain/etc
doesn't mean that there's anything supernatural about it, and it
doesn't mean that other practices which are associated with it are
true or work.
|9.10.07 @ 6:44PM|#
J sub D
I agree completely. I was simply mocking the notion, propounded by
several of the more religious posters, that atheism was the root
cause of the mass murders committed in the 20th century.
If Savonorola or Torquemada or Luther or John Knox had had access
to 20th Century technology, they would have committed atrocities in
all respects equivalent to those committed by the communists.
Catherine de' Medici arranged the murder of 5,000 Hugenots on St.
Barholomew's Day 1572 with just 16th century technology. The
slaughter was applauded by the Pope and most of the Roman Catholic
Kings. [I wonder what the Muslim rulers of the time thought of
this? Did they consider it evidence that Christians could not be
considered civilized?]
|9.10.07 @ 6:49PM|#
Atheists are apparently to be seen as self-absorbed and
angry fuckheads because...well, why exactly? Can someone come up
with something for me that doesn't boil down to "They think they're
right and religious people are wrong and they talk about it a
lot"?
Heh. No doubt - in every one of these threads we get to hear about
how annoying atheists are because they have the nerve to believe
they're right and religionists are wrong... geez, imagine that! Not
like they're telling you if you don't believe them you're going to
suffer for all eternity. No, that isn't being an angry fuckhead,
that's just expressing your religious beliefs which we (of course!)
must all respect. No such respect needs to be shown to us angry
fuckhead atheists however - we should just shut the hell up.
As I have mentioned before, I have been approached many many times
by those who want to tell me I better accept Jesus - knocking on my
door, leaving fliers on my car, trying to hand me unsolicited
fliers, approaching me as I'm eating lunch to ask about my beliefs
(and to suggest which ones I should hold), the list goes on and on.
NEVER ONCE have I had any such approaches from an atheist. Nobody
ever knocks on my door while I'm trying to enjoy a quiet weekend to
tell me I shouldn't believe in god.
As is obvious from this poll and others we atheists are a tiny
minority so I'm sorry if I just can't take sniveling complaints
about obnoxious atheists all that seriously. The cumulative
obnoxiousness of all the atheists combined would not equal even one
episode of the 700 Club.
Religious people *want* to see atheists as angry, condescending
assholes
Indeed.
JBinMO|9.10.07 @ 6:53PM|#
"who believes in some mythical being akin to a unicorn or
narwhal."
What about an Urkbold?
|9.10.07 @ 6:58PM|#
Considering being an atheist makes you more likeley to be a marxist than any religious group, who exactly are the stupid people believing in myths?
mantooth|9.10.07 @ 7:01PM|#
John,
If your goal is to get people to shout "Oh, shut the fuck up" at
their monitors, well done.
|9.10.07 @ 7:02PM|#
Considering being an atheist makes you more likeley to be a
marxist than any religious group, who exactly are the stupid people
believing in myths?
OK I can not stay mad at you....brilliantly said.
jimboy|9.10.07 @ 7:06PM|#
OK I can not stay mad at you....brilliantly said.
Maybe if you've recently suffered severe head trama.
|9.10.07 @ 7:08PM|#
I have about 5000+ years of human history that says man is
in a pretty fucked up state and can't seem to get along without
killing each other. If you can't see that, you are just stupid and
I don't what to do for you. You don't have to be a theist to
recognize the horrible state of mankind. Pretending that not
believing in God would somehow change or cure that state is just as
moronic as the people who think that being a Christian is going to
somehow gaurentee them worldly success.
mantooth,
Why again would anyone want stuff like this to be shut up?
|9.10.07 @ 7:11PM|#
Maybe if you've recently suffered severe head
trama.
I ass fucked your mom last night.
What is your point?
Asharak|9.10.07 @ 7:15PM|#
I ass fucked your mom last night.
What is your point?
Nice language and attitude there, "Christian."
|9.10.07 @ 7:18PM|#
I'm an atheist, and I think man is in a fallen state too. But not because of original sin or the garden--its basically because we have one too many chimp genes in us, and our animal side will always show.
mantooth|9.10.07 @ 7:19PM|#
Joshua,
Because it is asinine. No one here has claimed that if everyone was
an atheist the world's ills would disappear. John has the heads of
a thousand strawmen mounted in his trophy room.
|9.10.07 @ 7:20PM|#
I was going to give Yet Another Atheism Thread a pass, until I
saw this:
"Yes because man was never violent before religion..."
Now, I don't really care about the argument of religious vs.
secular violence, but I'm curious:
When, exactly, was the time before religion?
Asharak|9.10.07 @ 7:21PM|#
Considering being an atheist makes you more likeley to be a
marxist than any religious group, who exactly are the stupid people
believing in myths?
Leave it up to you to engage in such pathetic red-baiting. Yeah,
Ayn Rand was a real commie, wasn't she?
And aren't you the same guy who's scoffed at the religious for
showing compassion for the poor and less fortunate? Now you want to
side with them in order to attack atheists. Then again, you've
never been very consistent, have you?
The sad part is that you were actually starting to make sense in
some of your recent posts here.
Asharak|9.10.07 @ 7:26PM|#
Hasn't anybody thought that maybe the reason a number of atheists are militant about it is partly because of shrill believers? If Bible-thumpers accuse of being atheists evil, hellbound Satanic communists who want to exterminate religious people, are atheists supposed to just take it and be nice in return? Like I said, it's a two-way street.
|9.10.07 @ 7:27PM|#
Considering being an atheist christian makes
you more likeley to be a marxist klansman than any
religious group, who exactly are the stupid people believing in
myths?
Cuts both ways, doesn't it?
|9.10.07 @ 7:30PM|#
In my experience, most religious believers, I'd say 80%--be they
Christian, Jewish, or even Muslim or Mormon (the two religions that
seem to catch the most shit these days) have been friendly, nice
and tolerant people. The same goes for 80% of atheists.
Its the Jerry Falwells, Osama bin Ladens, Bauruch Goldsteins, and
assorted plygamous Mormons, and fanatical atheists of the world
that ruin it for everyone else.
Fluffy|9.10.07 @ 7:30PM|#
Chalupa -
Let's see:
Christianity:
False idealistic [in the continental sense] metaphysics
Radically altruistic ethics
Millenarian eschatology
Marxism:
False idealistic metaphysics
Radically altruistic ethics
Millenarian eschatology
Maybe the reason there aren't a lot of Christian Marxists is
because there's no reason for Christians to cross the street to buy
what they already have at home.
|9.10.07 @ 7:36PM|#
I'm not "attacking atheists". I'm attacking the belief that not
believing in god makes you any less susceptible to magical
thinking.
In fact, as horrible as the atrocities commited in the name of
religion have been, they pale in comparison to the body count of
people who thought they had freed themselves from
superstition.
People who believe in a heavanly afterlife don't scare me nearly as
much as those who want to create it here on earth.
And for the record, I'm not a religious believer. But I still
believe by and large that as bad as man is with God on his side,
he's much worse without him.
|9.10.07 @ 7:38PM|#
Chalupa-
If the combatants in the Wars of Religion had had modern industry,
modern science, and modern state organization on their side they
would have killed just as many people trust me.
|9.10.07 @ 7:39PM|#
Maybe the reason there aren't a lot of Christian Marxists is
because there's no reason for Christians to cross the street to buy
what they already have at home.
Makes sense. For my response, I quote from my previous post with
new and improved spelling.
People who believe in a heavenly afterlife don't scare me
nearly as much as those who want to create it here on
earth.
|9.10.07 @ 7:46PM|#
All the complaints of "arrogant" or "asshole" atheists being responsible are a crock. Poll/survey numbers indicating mass disdain/ unwillingness to vote for atheists have been around long before the recent spate of books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc. Perhaps atheists are more vocal because they are tired of this mass bigotry and tired of seeing religion injected into laws and science, where it does not belong. Being sheepish and passive about things has not helped atheism, so you can't really get huffy and whine about how atheists are actually standing up for themselves. As Ashrak says, are atheists supposed to just take it and be nice in return?
|9.10.07 @ 7:55PM|#
Chalupa-
Osama bin Laden thinks God is on his side. Kim Jung Il is an
atheist. Who would you be more scared of with a nuclear weapon, bin
Laden or Kim?
|9.10.07 @ 7:58PM|#
For the person who thinks that man would be worse without belief in God than with, I would point out that people with belief in God often do believe in a utopia: heaven. And they often have the bad habit of trying to make heaven on earth, it isn't just marxists. And for the last time, atheists are NOT all marxists. I'd guess that a good many posters on this discussion are atheists. And they are reading REASON magazine, not "Proletariat Quarterly."
|9.10.07 @ 8:13PM|#
...I have been approached many many times by those who want
to tell me I better accept Jesus - knocking on my door, leaving
fliers on my car, trying to hand me unsolicited fliers, approaching
me as I'm eating lunch to ask about my beliefs (and to suggest
which ones I should hold), the list goes on and on. NEVER ONCE have
I had any such approaches from an atheist.
Hell, I was once physically assaulted by a self proclaimed
Christian because of my disbelief in Hell. I was being nice by not
stating that his God was fiction.
But all you deists out there don't worry, we dunoshits>
do not condone violence in hope of increasing our membership. One
day you too will be Not Visited and join
voluntarily.
Michael Hargett|9.10.07 @ 8:17PM|#
Interestingly enough, apparently only atheists have the corner
on logic and reason.
I mean, Muslims invented several higher mathematics, a Christian
developed the laws of motion, Babylonian astrologers tracked and
plotted planetary movement, an ardent Creationist created the first
rabies vaccine.
This isn't to diminish the discoveries by atheists. However, it
should be remembered that just because one believes that beyond
what is seen there is something unseen, that which can be neither
proven or unproven, it does not mean that he does not trust his
senses for that which is.
|9.10.07 @ 8:37PM|#
I mean, Muslims invented several higher mathematics, a
Christian developed the laws of motion
True, as long as what the religious scientist proposes doesn't
conflict with the established church doctrine at the time, ie
Galileo and Darwin (both of whom believed in God).. otherwise, you
stand accused of heresy. Not to diminish the work of such
God-fearing individuals as Darwin, of course..
Mike Laursen|9.10.07 @ 8:45PM|#
This is exactly why, when asked about religious beliefs, I
say "agnostic". It doesn't have the "athiests are smug fucking
assholes" connotation, but it also does not acknowledge any belief
in voices in the sky (go Lemmy) either. Keeps people off your
back.
Seems like enough Americans buy into tolerating another's religion,
as long as he or she has some kind of religion, that an atheist
that doesn't want to be hassled can simply dress up that atheism as
a religion. Calling yourself a Unitarian or Buddhist could provide
cover.
Anonymo the Anonymous|9.10.07 @ 8:45PM|#
In fact, as horrible as the atrocities commited in the name
of religion have been, they pale in comparison to the body count of
people who thought they had freed themselves from
superstition.
Only because you're counting anyone killed by a regime led by a
nominal atheist as blood on the hands of atheism, but you don't do
the same for theists. Does Hiroshima count as X deaths against
Christianity, Truman being a Christian? Were Stalin's crimes
motivated by hatred of theists or was that just an excuse for a
power trip?
Mike Laursen|9.10.07 @ 8:48PM|#
I think athiests should take a look at eastern religions.
For instance, the art of meditation is a scientifically proven way
to increase IQ, happiness, creativity, etc.
Some Eastern religions are essentially atheistic by Western
standards, although probably a lot of Americans don't know enough
about those religions to know it.
whistling jesus|9.10.07 @ 8:58PM|#
"rather refreshing when people slaughter one another for no
reason at all."
hmmm...."my non-god is bigger than your non-god."
|9.10.07 @ 9:12PM|#
No one here has claimed that if everyone was an atheist the
world's ills would disappear.
None the less a common perception. And surly I have heard on hit
and run from commenters that the world's ills would be
lessened.
Has Akira posted yet?
|9.10.07 @ 9:17PM|#
Only because you're counting anyone killed by a regime led
by a nominal atheist as blood on the hands of atheism, but you
don't do the same for theists. Does Hiroshima count as X deaths
against Christianity, Truman being a Christian? Were Stalin's
crimes motivated by hatred of theists or was that just an excuse
for a power trip?
Even though I think Hiroshima was justified, you can count that and
Hitler as a Christian and still fall WAY below the Marxists.
Anyways, I don't want to get into a game where we just go around
counting the dead for each side. My original comment was in
response to the Harrises and Hitchenses (an ex'fucking Marxist!) of
the world who think atheism will save the world.
And when you bring up Marxism, they say that's a religion too.
Despite the fact that in recent history it has been the belief
system of educated people all over the world who saw it as
"scientific". Changing the definition of "religion" to mean any
ideology that proves to be murderous is cheating.
|9.10.07 @ 9:20PM|#
its basically because we have one too many chimp genes in
us, and our animal side will always show.
Almost there Cesar...now just cross that line and say "Man is a
wild animal living in the wild and will never stop being wild" and
you will get it.
|9.10.07 @ 9:30PM|#
Chalupa--
At least Joseph Stalin and Mao--atheists--weren't insane enough to
launch a nuclear war, since they feared death. You can't say the
same about a religious fanatic like bin Laden or Ahmedinijad, can
you?
iih|9.10.07 @ 9:31PM|#
iih|9.10.07 @ 9:32PM|#
Damn it, this website!!! I had great comments there (really, the greatest thing ever said)... I give up!
|9.10.07 @ 9:34PM|#
But all you deists out there don't worry, we dunoshits>
do not condone violence in hope of increasing our membership. One
day you too will be Not Visited and join voluntarily.
As if the religious have not been persecuted and killed on mass by
Marxist atheists.
Look its cool you are a libertarianish (or at least lefty who likes
to considers himself a liberal) atheist, hell i am one of those,
but please be somewhat honest with yourself and how atheism does
not have all that great of history.
Chalupa makes a very good point in that libertarian atheists are
not the norm. Marxist atheists are.
|9.10.07 @ 9:36PM|#
Joshua Corning is right. The corollary truth to atheism is that all human behavior is explicable by reference to animal behavior.
iih|9.10.07 @ 9:36PM|#
Let me give it anothe try:
I am glad to see that the order of he result of the poll came
out this way cuz it seems that Muslims are more likely to be the
victims of folks who would act on their prejudice. And we now have
politicians and a major news outlet (FOX) fomenting bigotry against
Muslims.
Thanks (again) Rick! :-)
Stivo:
On the other hand, I suspect that a majority of American voters
would prefer an atheist to a Muslim as the pilot of their
airplane.
Frankly, I too get nervous when I see what would looks to me like a
young, possibly of the puritan types, Muslim on a plane I am on
board. I usually get "vigilant" and a bit uneasy. I guess I too
commit racial profiling. And this comes from an observant
Muslim.
Osama bin Laden thinks God is on his side. Kim Jung Il is an
atheist. Who would you be more scared of with a nuclear weapon, bin
Laden or Kim?
OBL.
|9.10.07 @ 9:40PM|#
At least Joseph Stalin and Mao--atheists--weren't insane
enough to launch a nuclear war, since they feared death.
Need it be pointed out that Stalin's and Mao's fear of death
existed because a primarily secular Christian (with quit a few
jews) state also had The Bomb?
|9.10.07 @ 9:46PM|#
At least Joseph Stalin and Mao--atheists--weren't insane
enough to launch a nuclear war, since they feared death. You can't
say the same about a religious fanatic like bin Laden or
Ahmedinijad, can you?
And yet we all trust blood thirsty Christian Bush having his hand
on the most capable nuclear arsenal on the planet.
Anyone ever notice that this was never really a fear? Even here at
reason! During a time of war!
SIV|9.10.07 @ 9:48PM|#
If the combatants in the Wars of Religion had had modern
industry, modern science, and modern state organization on their
side they would have killed just as many people trust
me.
The Hutus did alright with axes and radios.
Atheists are much like theist true believers in that they are
absolutists with no skepticism of their own beliefs.
|9.10.07 @ 9:49PM|#
opps
This:
And yet we all trust blood thirsty Christian Bush having his
hand on the most capable nuclear arsenal on the planet.
Anyone ever notice that this was never really a fear? Even here at
reason! During a time of war!
Was for this:
Osama bin Laden thinks God is on his side. Kim Jung Il is an
atheist. Who would you be more scared of with a nuclear weapon, bin
Laden or Kim?
|9.10.07 @ 9:52PM|#
The Hutus did alright with axes and radios.
The Thirty Years War (a religiously inspired war) managed to reduce
the population of what is now Germany between 15 to 30%, I shudder
to think what they would do have done with modern weapons.
|9.10.07 @ 9:54PM|#
Joshua-
Bush isn't a big of a fanatic as bin Laden, even in his worst
days.
The Christian equivalent to OBL would be Eric Rudolph. How do you
feel about him having nukes versus a secular fanatic like Kim Jung
Il?
dhex|9.10.07 @ 10:14PM|#
Considering being an atheist makes you more likeley to be a
marxist than any religious group, who exactly are the stupid people
believing in myths?
probably the stupid people believing in myths.
besides, your example is not so hot in either direction - the group
of atheists who are communists is going to be smaller (gross and by
%) than the group of religious people as a whole no matter what.
(both being groups given the label "stupid people believing in
myths")
dorothy day was pretty cool all things considered.
dhex|9.10.07 @ 10:35PM|#
The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GER/is_2000_Summer/ai_63500751
SIV|9.10.07 @ 10:36PM|#
Cesar,
Rudolph is a Christian?
from wiki (apologies but this is how I remember it when it was
news)
However, Rudolph's actions are not now considered to be
religiously motivated, as he wrote "Many good people continue to
send me money and books. Most of them have, of course, an agenda;
mostly born-again Christians looking to save my soul. I suppose the
assumption is made that because I'm in here I must be a 'sinner' in
need of salvation, and they would be glad to sell me a ticket to
heaven, hawking this salvation like peanuts at a ballgame. I do
appreciate their charity, but I could really do without the
condescension. They have been so nice I would hate to break it to
them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible.
SIV|9.10.07 @ 10:40PM|#
Hey the bio indicates Eric Robert Rudolph was a POT SMOKER. Perhaps mary jane was his motivation....
|9.10.07 @ 10:42PM|#
Hey the bio indicates Eric Robert Rudolph was a POT SMOKER.
Perhaps mary jane was his motivation....
Wow, I'm shocked the Partnership for a Drug Free America hasn't
made an ad about that yet.
Anonymo the Anonymous|9.10.07 @ 10:42PM|#
Even though I think Hiroshima was justified, you can count
that and Hitler as a Christian and still fall WAY below the
Marxists.
Anyways, I don't want to get into a game where we just go around
counting the dead for each side. My original comment was in
response to the Harrises and Hitchenses (an ex'fucking Marxist!) of
the world who think atheism will save the world.
20th century, yeah, the nominal* atheists probably have more dead
by their hands, though there are some flaws in this: here we're
only counting mass murders committed by governments, and I think
the numbers change drastically if we go further back and count
hundreds of years of wars between Europeans who were virtually all
Christian in some form or another, accounting for murder-enabling
technology and population inflation.
(I say "nominal atheists" because I'm not knowledgeable enough
about Stalin, et al., beyond "communism is an atheistic doctrine"
to decide if it makes sense to call them atheists the same way we
call Richard Dawkins an atheist.)
But agreed, counting deaths is not a useful way to compare religion
vs. non-religion. It's too hard to get accurate numbers to begin
with unless we arbitrarily limit the data set, there are plenty of
confounding variables and, most importantly, "My guys only killed
12 million people while your guys killed 26 million! My metaphysics
are thus clearly better than yours!" is like the worst argument
ever.
And agreed, atheism isn't going to save the world. Nothing will.
But I, and I think most other sensible atheists (as well as
sensible adherents to religion), don't adhere to atheism because we
believe it has a better shot at saving the world than theism does.
We adhere to atheism because we believe it is more likely to be
true than theism is, and that's the only logical way to pick your
beliefs on these kinds of questions.
SIV|9.10.07 @ 10:47PM|#
OBL
not cause Kim is an atheist and OBL is a Mohammedan Fanatic
Kim is a pussy who inherited the job and would hate to lose the
perks
OBL could be relaxin' on a yacht at Cannes or Monte Carlo with a
crew of 20000$ hookers and enough Cristal to float the boat and
more cocaine than he could lift like any good saudi rich boy but NO
he is chillin' in shithole Pakistan in a cave. I fear his audacity
and ambition.
Fluffy|9.10.07 @ 10:54PM|#
Would this be a good point in the thread to point out that the
question of whether atheists are nicer people than Christians is
absolutely immaterial to the question of whether the Christian
myths are true or not?
Stalin and Mao may have killed a lot of people, but that doesn't
really help us determine whether or not it's silly to think that
Jesus rose from the dead.
I tend to be a bit agnostic on the deity question, but pretty
atheistic on the question of the Christian god. After all, I can
concede that it's at least possible that there's a deity of some
kind out there doing his best to stay hidden from us at all times.
But that's a lot different from granting credence to the story of
Abraham, of Joseph, of Moses, and of Jesus. There may be a deity
somewhere, but it ain't this one. And the likelihood of the version
of events described in the two testaments being accurate doesn't
rise or fall when Michaelangelo paints a pretty picture or when
Hitler has someone strangled with piano wire.
iih|9.10.07 @ 10:55PM|#
SIV:
It is not a matter of PC, but more a matter of precise
descriptions. OBL is not a "Mohammedan Fanatic". This is more of an
orientalist thing. Orientalists used to misinform Europeans back in
the day that Muslims worshiped Muhammad, which is patently false.
OBL is simply a Muslim terrorist. Or, as I would rather describe
him, a terrorist who happened to be Muslim and who happened to be
using Islam as his reasons for the atrocities he committed. Sort of
like Bush using the goodness that is inherent in democratic ideals,
and liberty to justify the war on Iraq (while his true motives were
_______ [fill in the blanks -- if you find any]).
|9.10.07 @ 11:02PM|#
How about we put it this way, not all atheists are marxists
(actually, I doubt very few of them are), but all marxists are
atheists, well most of them are anyway. I think Cornel West said
that religion was where he disagreed with Marx. Remember, Ayn
fucking Rand was an atheist. You shouldn't automatically suspect an
atheist of being a marxist. Marxism has only been killing people
for about a 100 years. We seem to have wised up about that. How
long has religion been doing it? And the last point on that is that
the atheism of marxists is incidental. It was their marxism that
caused them to kill people, not their atheism.
Also, all atheists aren't skeptical? My atheism came out of my
skepticism. So has my libertarianism.
iih|9.10.07 @ 11:10PM|#
TheCurseOfLono:
There reason I believe in a deity is that the lack of His existence
makes no sense to me.
Simply put: No single law of physics explains why things
happen. They merely describe how they happen. Why I
believe in the Big Bang Theory. It is a descriptive theory and does
not explain it for us. Newton's laws of gravity describe (in a
mathematically exact way) how bodies interact, but does not tell us
why they interact the way they do. Not even Einstein's general
relativity provide an explanation. It provides an a description.
That is probably why Einstein was not an atheist.
To say the leat, if there is no logical reason to believe in a
deity, there is no logical reason not to believe in
one.
whistling jesus|9.10.07 @ 11:37PM|#
An estimated 16,692 persons were murdered nationwide (US) in
2005, an increase of 3.4 percent from the 2004 figure.
Murder comprised 1.2 percent of the overall estimated number of
violent crimes in 2005. (Based on Table 1.)
There were an estimated 5.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/violent_crime/murder_homicide.html
my guess is the above numbers have been pretty steady for, i
dunno..about a decade or so.
were they commited mostly by christians? pagans? atheists?
Thelemites?
i couldnt tell from the website.
|9.10.07 @ 11:53PM|#
I think Cornel West said that religion was where he
disagreed with Marx.
Funny story about West. When I decided I wanted to be more open
minded and read a far leftists's view I bought one of his books off
Amazon for four bucks or so. It was the most intellectually dense
collection of crap I have ever spent money on.
It was surely worth it, just to see how silly you could be and
still be considered a contemporay leftist intellectual. There is no
complexity to his arguments at all. Conservatives are either evil
or stupid and easily fooled. From reading his material you'd think
that there was never an intellectually viable conservative view on
anything.
If you ever want to convert a smart liberal to the conservative
point of view you'd be better off recommending West than Burke or
Hayek.
|9.11.07 @ 1:39AM|#
Are the words "less popular" anywhere in the article? I'm
not surprised; making sure his conclusions actually follow from the
data never has been Mr Bailey's strong suit.
Oh so true. But he probably sells a lot more articles that way.
People like to hear somebody spouting their secret prejudices
across the headlines as PROVEN FACT.
|9.11.07 @ 1:39AM|#
At least I got a couple of laughs out of this thread.
After 10,000 years of people slaughtering one another for this
God and that God, I think it's rather refreshing when people
slaughter one another for no reason at all.
......
But who can imagine even a combative, angry atheist such as
Christoper Hitchens flying a plane into a building while yelling,
"Nobody is most great!"
|9.11.07 @ 1:44AM|#
To say the leat, if there is no logical reason to believe in
a deity, there is no logical reason not to believe in
one.
Well....perhaps but --
If you suppose that what your senses tell you exists, needs to have
an explanation, and then you suppose that explanation is
FloatingGodThingy, or GorillaDancingOnTable, or TheLoneWacko -- or
just whatever gets your rocks off man, it's a free country -- then,
assuming you take the last option in my list, I have to ask where
did TheLoneWacko come from?
Now you don't have to answer my question. But if existence is not
enough and you demand a creator for it, then I demand to know who
the creator of your creator is. [I mean hey man, who created
TheLoneWacko anyway?] Because that creator must be even more
complex (thus harder to explain, especially considering the
existence of TheLoneWacko) than what we see in front of us. Which
indisputably is, TheLoneWacko.
This leads to an infinite regress of "who/what did it?" questions.
I find Occum's Razor much more convincing than an infinite
regress.
I also fear that whatever would have created TheLoneWacko would
have to be something InfinitelyWorse (and perhaps even more
amusing), hence my adament atheism. But that's a story for another
time.
|9.11.07 @ 2:01AM|#
Oh for the love of Christ.
Firstly iih, if you honestly think that if there is no logical
reason to believe in something than there is no logical reason not
to believe in something, you might as well believe in invisible
pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters and so forth. There is no
logical reason to disbelieve in them either according to what you
are saying.
Secondly, people who argue that Einstein believed in "God," miss
the point that Einstein did not use the word in the conventional
sense. He tended to conflate "God" with the universe and the
physical laws that govern it. When he said that "God does not play
dice" for example, he was rejecting what he say as the randomness
of quantum mechanics.
Also, I can't say I've read West. I just remember something I read
some time ago. I only used him to try to illustrate that you don't
have to be an atheist to be a marxist.
|9.11.07 @ 2:25AM|#
I don't shiver over the abyss because Satan's not there
watching me when I take a shit. I can take a shit all by
myself,...
Of course, he's not there - do you think he wants a face full of
shit?!
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 2:34AM|#
I haven't RTFA (the comments are *much* more interesting), but
it seems that American voters are statistically more likely to
*consider* voting for a Muslim than to consider voting for an
atheist.
Do I agree with these attitudes? No, because there are qualified
atheists just like there are qualified Muslims, though I don't
share their beliefs.
I can certainly understand the attitude, though. If you look at the
death tolls, atheists have killed more people than Muslims. Of
course, these killers don't represent *all* atheists or
Muslims.
I love the way some posters hem and haw at describing Stalin and
Mao as atheists. I seem to detect something very like the "True
Scotsman" fallacy, which is described on this atheist Web
site:
http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/notruescotsman.htm
Of coure, the Web site thinks that the True Scotsman fallacy is the
province of those wicked believers.
No true atheist would ever fall prey to the True Scotsman
fallacy!
Francois Tremblay|9.11.07 @ 2:46AM|#
Ironically, of all the people I have talked to and debated, generally the agnostics are by far the most arrogant, snobby pieces of shit there are. I'd rather be trapped in a room with a Christian fundamentalist than an agnostic.
|9.11.07 @ 3:28AM|#
Why don't we simply accept that concentrating power into anyone's hands is a really bad idea? Those who are most strongly attracted to power are those least suited to possessing it. Frank Herbert (the author of "Dune") had an interesting reinterpretation of Lord Acton's famous axiom: The desire for power corrupts, the desire for absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those in power should be those most reluctant to have it and under such circumstances that they are reluctant to use it.
Gene Callahan|9.11.07 @ 4:31AM|#
Cesar: "At least Joseph Stalin and Mao--atheists--weren't insane
enough to launch a nuclear war, since they feared death. You can't
say the same about a religious fanatic like bin Laden or
Ahmedinijad, can you?"
Right, look at how many nuclear wars bin Laden and Ahmedinijad have
started!
Wait, it's zero?! Doh!
|9.11.07 @ 5:53AM|#
bin Laden doesn't have nuclear armed cruise missile arsenals
either. At least not that I've heard anything about. If you trust
that lunatic you're -- well, I am unable to must anything
sufficiently fitting to describe what you would be if you actually
trusted him.
I do recall hearing bin Laden saying something to America like
"Convert to Islam or die!".
Doh!
Whether anyone believes in God, gods, or nothing, is not even what
matters in the end. It's how they choose to deal with the here and
now.
Nobody has a monopoly on stupidity, it is freely and abundantly
available to all. A regular Tragedy of the Commons kind of problem.
Stupidity is like air.
B|9.11.07 @ 6:24AM|#
JBinMO replied to a previous post which stated, "We're probably
more popular than pedophiles and Andy Dick. Probably." He replied
with one word, "Nope."
I beg to differ. As both an atheist and a pedophile (girl lover) I
can assure you that atheists are far more popular. For example, if
you are open about the fact that you are a law-abiding atheist, you
will not get thrown out of California, but if a man is open about
the fact that he is a law-abiding pedophile, he will be. (cf. Jack
McClellan, who was issued a restraining order prohibiting him from
coming within 30 feet of any child in all of California, simply
because he was open about his attraction to young girls. This
effectively prohibits him from California.)
Of course, there are always some exceptions. There are a few
Christians, for example, who are actually aware of the fact that
there is nothing in the Bible that can be construed as condemnation
of an attraction to children. Quite the contrary, God the Father
apparently got Mary pregnant when she was about 12. So a great deal
depends on the individual - yet all the same, I have told a few
people in real life that I am an atheist, I have not been so
forthcoming about who I am attracted to.
As an added note: a friend of mine who is both a girllover and
African-American affirms that anti-pedophile bigotry is much
greater and affects his life more negatively than racism.
|9.11.07 @ 6:30AM|#
For Mad Max here, I'm going to repeat an earlier point. The atheism of people like Mao and Stalin is incidental to their mass-murder. They didn't kill all those people because of their atheism. If you take some one like bin Laden on the other hand, their religion is quite evidently part of the reason why they do what they do.
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 6:59AM|#
TheCurseOfLono,
When Trotsky (not even the worst of the commies) said "We must put
an end once and for all to the papist-Quaker babble about the
sanctity of human life"
(http://www.salon.com/march97/sneaks/sneak970325.html), why did he
single out two *theistic* groups for special scorn, if atheism was
just an incidental add-on to Marxism?
Why did the Soviet Union propagandize incessantly against religious
"superstition," create Museums of Atheism and promote "scientific
atheism," if atheism was just an incidental part of their ruling
ideology?
Here's something I found on Google - a 1913 article by Lenin
describing the "three sources of Marxism."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/x01.htm
Guess which source of Marxism Lenin cites *first*?
"The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern
history of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth
century in France, where a resolute struggle was conducted against
every kind of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and
ideas, materialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is
consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and
hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of
democracy have, therefore, always exerted all their efforts to
"refute", under mine and defame materialism, and have advocated
various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way
or another, amounts to the defence or support of religion."
Not all atheists are Marxists, but these Marxist murderers we have
been discussing were certainly atheists as a key component of their
ideology, and not people who *just happen* to be atheists.
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 7:12AM|#
Some more wisdom from Comrade Lenin. Gosh, he sure seemed to
focus a lot of attention to the minor, "incidental" doctrine of
atheism, didn't he?
http://www.marxist.com/classics/lenin/militant_materialism.html
"On The significance of Militant Materialism
"by V. I. Lenin
". . . It will be seen from the above that a journal that sets out
to be a militant materialist organ must be primarily a militant
organ, in the sense of unflinchingly exposing and indicting all
modern 'graduated flunkeys of clericalism', irrespective of whether
they act as representatives of official science or as free lances
calling themselves 'democratic Left or ideologically socialist'
publicist.
"In the second place, such a journal must be a militant atheist
organ. We have departments, or at least state institutions, which
are in charge of this work.But the work is being carried on with
extreme apathy and very unsatisfactorily, and is apparently
suffering from the general conditions of our truly Russian (even
though Soviet) bureaucratic ways. It is therefore highly essential
that in addition to the work of these state institutions, and in
order to improve and infuse life into that work, a journal, which
sets out to propagandise militant materialism, must carry on
untiring atheist propaganda and an untiring atheist fight.The
literature on the subject in all languages should be carefully
followed and everything at all valuable in this sphere should be
translated, or at least reviewed.
"Engels long ago advised the contemporary leaders of the
proletariat to translate the militant atheist literature of the
late eighteenth century for mass distribution among the people. We
have not done this up to the present, to our shame be it said (this
is one of the numerous proofs that it is much easier to seize power
in a revolutionary epoch than to know how to use this power
properly).Our apathy, inactivity and incompetence are sometimes
excused on all sorts of 'lofty' grounds, as, for example, that the
old atheist literature of the eighteenth century is antiquated,
unscientific, naïve, etc. There is nothing worse than such
pseudo-scientific sophistry, which serves as a screen either for
pedantry or for a complete misunderstanding of Marxism. There is,
of course, much that is unscientific and naïve in the atheist
writings of the eighteenth-century revolutionaries. But nobody
prevents the publishers of these writings from abridging them and
providing them with brief postscripts pointing out the progress
made by mankind in the scientific criticism of religions since the
end of the eighteenth century, mentioning the latest writings on
the subject, and so forth.It would be the biggest and most grievous
mistake a Marxist could make to think that the millions of the
people (especially the peasants and artisans), who have been
condemned by all modern society to darkness, ignorance and
superstition, can extricate themselves from this darkness only
along the straight line of Marxist education. These masses should
be supplied with the most varied atheist propaganda material, they
should be made familiar with facts from the most diverse spheres of
life, they should be approached in every possible way, so to
interest them, rouse them from their religious torpor, stir them
from the most varied angles and by the most varied methods, and so
forth.
"The keen, vivacious and talented writings of the old
eighteenth-century atheists wittily and openly attacked the
prevailing clericalism and will very often prove a thousand times
more suitable for arousing people from their religious torpor than
the dull and dry paraphrases of Marxism, almost completely
unillustrated by skilfully selected facts, which predominate in our
literature and which (it is no use hiding the fact) frequently
distort Marxism. We have translations of all the major works of
Marx and Engels. There are absolutely no grounds for fearing that
the old atheism and old materialism will remain unsupplemented by
the corrections introduced by Marx and Engels. The most important
thing - and it is this that is most frequently overlooked by those
of our Communists who are supposedly Marxists, but who in fact
mutilate Marxism - is to know how to awaken in the still
undeveloped masses an intelligent attitude towards religious
questions and an intelligent criticism of religions."
M|9.11.07 @ 7:19AM|#
Once again, agnostics are ignored.
I don't think you have enough evidence to make that
determination.
;-)
|9.11.07 @ 9:00AM|#
From The Gulag Archipeligo by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
In the spring of 1922 the Extraordinary Commission for Struggle
Against Counterrevolution, Sabotage, and Speculation, the Cheka,
recently renamed the GPU, decided to intervene in church affairs.
It was called on to carry out a "church revolution"-to remove the
existing leadership and replace it with one which would have only
one ear turned to heaven and the other to the Lubyanka....For this
reason, the Patriarch Tikhon was arrested and two resounding trials
were held, followed by the execution in Moscow of those who had
publicized the Patriach's appeal and, in Petrograd, of the
Metropolitan Veniamin, who had attempted to hinder the
transfer of ecclesiastical power...Here and there in the provincial
centers and even further down the administrative districts,
metropolitans, and bishops were arrested and, as always, in the
wake of the big fish, followed shoals of smaller fry: archpriests,
monks, and deacons. These arrests were not even reported in the
press. Men of religion were an inevitable part of every annual
"catch", and their silver locks gleamed in every cell and in every
prisoner transport en route to the Solovetsky Islands.
From the early twenties on, arrests were also made among groups of
theosophists, mystics, spiritualist. Also, religious societies and
philosophers of the Berdyaayev circle. The so-called "Eastern
Catholics"-followers of Vladimir Solovyev-were arrested and
destroyed in passing, as was the group of A.I. Abriksova, And, of
course, ordinary Roman Catholics-Polish Catholic priests, etc.-were
arrested, too, as part of the normal course of events.
However, the root destruction of religion in the country, which
throughout the twenties and thirties was one of the most important
goals of GPU_NKVD, could be realized only by mass arrests of
Orthodox believers. Monks and nuns, whose black habits had been a
distinctive feature of Old Russian life, were intensively rounded
up on every hand, placed under arrest, and sent into exile. They
arrested and sentenced active laymen. The circles kept getting
bigger, as they raked in ordinary believers as well, old people,
and particularly women, who were the most stubborn believers of all
and who, for many long years to come, would be called "nuns" in
transit prisons and in camps.
True, they were supposedly being arrested and tried not for their
actual faith but for openly declaring their convictions and for
bringing up their children in the same spirit. As Tanya Khodokevich
wrote:
You can pray freely
But just so God alone can hear.
(She received a ten-year sentence for these verses.)
iih|9.11.07 @ 9:20AM|#
CurseOfLono:
Firstly iih, if you honestly think that if there is no logical
reason to believe in something than there is no logical reason not
to believe in something, you might as well believe in invisible
pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters and so forth. There is no
logical reason to disbelieve in them either according to what you
are saying.
Sure. No disagreement there. Then the question is, which system of
belief (that already exists or one that you create yourself) makes
most sense to you. That could potentially believing in no supreme
deity. All I am saying is that, to me, "science" is mostly
descriptive in nature and does not explain to us why. Classic
example, gravitational laws tell us how bodies behave in the
vicinity of one another. You can have complete descriptive
equations for the strong and weak forces. But the "why" of these
forces is what science does not explain. In particular, why these
forces so beautifully put themselves together to give us this
perfect structure is what science also fails to explain -- describe
yes, explain no.
Secondly, people who argue that Einstein believed in "God,"
miss the point that Einstein did not use the word in the
conventional sense. He tended to conflate "God" with the universe
and the physical laws that govern it. When he said that "God does
not play dice" for example, he was rejecting what he say as the
randomness of quantum mechanics.
I am not referring to the "God does not play dice" quote. I read
one of his books ("The world as I see it") a long time ago and in
it, the message I left with is that he did believe in a deity that
best matches the God of the Jews (which almost identically matches
the notion of God to Muslims by the way).
|9.11.07 @ 10:01AM|#
Firstly, atheism is still incidental to the millions of deaths,
though I will not argue there was prosecution of believers. For
some strange reason, I think marxism's/communism's death toll may
have more to do with faulty economic theory and that totalitarian
"dictatorship of the proletariat." Do you actually believe that the
atheism of the marxists caused all those deaths?
Secondly, iih, that you conceded one might as believe in IPC's and
the FSM does not speak well for your critical thinking skills. If
an argument leads you into absurdities, it may be time to
re-examine it. Does the universe seem "fine-tuned" for life? Sure.
But that does not a God make. Saying that God fine tuned the
universe is to me like saying that winning the lottery is a miracle
from God. As for Einstein, I can't claim that I have read the book
you mentioned (though I now intend to), but based on what I have
myself read, I can conclude that Einstein did not believe in a
personal Judeo-Muslim-Christian God, but did have views that could
be described as pantheistic or spinozistic.
dhex|9.11.07 @ 10:46AM|#
i prefer the term "spinozatastic."
i believe einstein did as well.
chalupa, if you're genuinely interested in engagement, try peter
singer, specifically a darwinian left and the expanding circle.
intriguing with a dash of crazy, as good stuff tends to be.
SPD|9.11.07 @ 11:01AM|#
Marx did say that religion was the opiate of the masses,
implying it was a tool of the rich to keep the poor focused on
attaining spiritual riches in the next life rather than acquiring
wealth in the present one. Although I don't know if he actually
came out in denial of God's existence.
The Founding Fathers were Deists, not necessarily Christians, which
may be why they made freedom of religion (to practice or not to
practice) one of the first constitutional rights.
Abraham Lincoln (who last I checked was not a Marxist) said, "The
Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never
give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian
dogma." Pretty controversial for a 19th-century leader to say, and
he was elected twice!
In addition to Ayn Rand and Lincoln, other non-Marxist
atheists/deists/agnostics include Andrew Carnegie, Benjamin
Franklin ("Lighthouses are more helpful then churches."), John
Stuart Mill, Walt Disney, Robert Heinlein, and Charles
Schultz.
And do we dare forget Thomas Paine?
You don't need organized religion to lead a good and productive
life. And atheism is as ridiculous to me a being a true believer.
If God does exists, he does whether you believe in him or not.
|9.11.07 @ 11:13AM|#
Mad Max: people were killed by communists in the name of
communism. People killed by religious people are killed in the name
of God. In the former, atheism is incidental regardless of how much
of a component atheism is to communism. Similarly, in the latter
people are killed in the name of God regardless of how much of a
component love is to religion.
What you're trying to do is redefine people's motivations, decades
after the fact. Unfortunately for your argument, killing in the
name of god needs no historical redefinition.
iih|9.11.07 @ 11:26AM|#
TheCurseOfLono:
Do you actually believe that the atheism of the marxists caused
all those deaths?
No. No where have I said that. But, I can tell you this: (1)
Human stupidy is the only culprit, (2) any
ideology, religion or philosophy (Islam, atheism, libertarianism)
can be twisted and abused to justify human stupidity and the
possible blood baths that result from it.
I am not sure what the acronyms IPC and FSM refer to, by the
way.
Saying that God fine tuned the universe is to me like saying
that winning the lottery is a miracle from God.
I said (or may be was trying to imply) that that is what made more
sense to me. It does not have to be for
you That is what people call belief -- it
is personal, emotional, mental, and spiritual. We differ on these
things, hence we have different ways to interpret nature. For me,
the existence of such a perfect physical order is (1) not explained
by science (just described as I said above), and (2) is explained
(at least rests my mind when I think of it this way) by Higher
Cause that made it all happen.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|9.11.07 @ 11:36AM|#
"...atheism is incidental regardless of how much of a component
atheism is to communism."
The essence of communism is an atheist, materialist conspiracy
against the old western order. The economics of it were incidental.
The violent, murderous suppression of the religion is everywhere
and every time a feature of a communist regime. They are all
formally and militantly atheistic.
|9.11.07 @ 12:49PM|#
I agree with John: the arrogance of believing that one's own set of beliefs are the One True Way, the willingness to kill and oppress to bring about that One True Way, and the blind certainty that one's own beliefs cannot lead to evil, are personal shortcomings that any believer can fall for, regardless of the details of the belief system.
|9.11.07 @ 12:52PM|#
Well, I will not even bother replying to Mr. Solzhenitsyn, as he
he appears incapable of reasonable argument. The word "conspiracy"
should set of alarm bells.
Mr. iih, I apologize if you think my question about whether atheism
is responsible for all the deaths caused by marxism. It was
directed at Mad Max. Also, to talk of how any ideology can be
"twisted," is to possibly fall prey to the "no true scotsman"
fallacy that was already mentioned by others in the is
discussion.
The IPC also goes by the name Invisible Pink Unicorn and the FSM is
also known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Secondly, if you think that universe is a perfect physical order,
you need to look up the second law of thermodynamics, as well as
quantum mechanics. And to talk about a "first cause" is
nonsensical, especially in the context of the big bang. Time is
necessary for causation, but since time is a property of the
universe, to talk of causation (and a first cause) before the
universe existed does not make sense.
Thirdly, atheism is not a philosophy or ideology. It is simply a
position on whether a god exists or not. Many atheists have many
different philosophies/ideologies, be they Marx, Rand, John Stuart
Mill, Bertrand Russell, etc.
iih|9.11.07 @ 1:02PM|#
TheCurseOfLono:
second law of thermodynamics, as well as quantum
mechanics
These theories are our best attempts to study and understand very
truly complex, but still prone to cause and effect, dynamical
systems. In fact QM in the uncertainty principle is a an excellent
example of a scientific theory that says that our theories can only
go that far.
So even systems that exhibit disorder, their disorderly behavior is
in response to elementary physical phenomena that, in this case,
are too complex for us to study in a deterministic way. So, we come
up with statistical ways to try and study them. I think that was
why Einstein had trouble with QM (at least initially and less so
later in his life I believe).
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 5:02PM|#
Solzhen,
Thank you for the excerpts about the persecution of believers. Ask
the persecuted believers whether the atheism of the communists was
irrelevant and unimportant!
CurseOf and Lamar,
I maintain that Marxism is an ideology which is inseparable from
atheism. Lenin (in the quotation I gave) backs me up on this when
he gives materialism as the *first* of three sources of Marxism.
Materialism is an atheist doctrine involving the rejection not only
of traditional theistic religions, but any form of "philosophical
idealism" which posits man as some kind of spiritual being.
So Marxism is a murderous ideology, and a key source of Marxism is
the atheist philosophy of materialism. To enforce their ideology,
the commies not only propagandized in favor of atheism but
persecuted and murdered believers.
Yet we are told that this makes no difference. Some say that the
commies aren't *real* atheists because true atheists are rational
and never commit mass murder. Others say that atheism was not an
intrinsic part of the murderous ideology the commies were enforcing
in their jurisdictions.
For the "real atheist" argument, let's go to an example (by Anthony
Flew) cited in the atheist Web site I linked to above
(http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/notruescotsman.htm):
"Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Press
and Journal and seeing an article about how the 'Brighton Sex
Maniac Strikes Again'. Hamish is shocked and declares that "No
Scotsman would do such a thing". The next day he sits down to read
his Press and Journal again and this time finds an article about an
Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem
almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his
opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he
says, 'No true Scotsman would do such a thing'."
Replace Hamish with certain H&R posters, replace 'Brighton Sex
Maniac' with Osama or David Koresh, replace "Scotsman" with
"atheist," replace "an Aberdeen man" with "atheist communists" . .
. well, you get the idea.
For the "atheism was irrelevant to the murderousness of the commie
ideology" argument, I simply don't see it. It's not just a hobby,
like stamp-collecting, which commie leaders amused themselves with
in the intervals between murders. Atheism is one of the things at
the core of the Marxist ideology, and the Marxist ideology was the
basis of millions of murders.
|9.11.07 @ 5:43PM|#
Sorry Mad Max, but you really can't win this one. Believe it or
not, you can be a materialist and a believer at the same time, as
long as you are a deist anyway. Also materialist theory and I
believe socialist theory as well, can be traced back in some form
to the greeks. Also, I have never said that communists weren't
"true" atheists. If you lack a belief in or affirm that there is no
god, you can be said to be an atheist. Period.
I also never said marxists didn't prosecute believers. They
certainly did. But the millions who died to marxism did not die
because of the atheism of the marxists. Lastly atheism is simply
whether one believes in God or not, it is not a philosophic or
ideological system. It's certainly not a "hobby." You should go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism and tell me exactly how many
times you find the word "atheism" there.
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 9:18PM|#
"Believe it or not, you can be a materialist and a believer at
the same time, as long as you are a deist anyway."
That may be so, but you would have to reject Marxism to hold such a
view, because Marxism is not compatible with any form of theism,
not even with watchmaker-style deism.
"Also, I have never said that communists weren't "true"
atheists."
I never said you said it. I said that *some* people said it. I'm
sorry if you took that as a swipe at you.
"But the millions who died to marxism did not die because of the
atheism of the marxists."
Would Marxists be Marxists in the first place without their
atheism? No, they would be muddle-headed Anglicans or "Liberation
Theologians," who were certainly naive about Marxism, but generally
weren't murderers themselves. Marxism is inseperable from atheistic
materialism. If you disagree, take it up with Lenin. I think his
body is up for auction on Ebay.
"You should go to [Wikipedia] . . . and tell me exactly how many
times you find the word "atheism" there."
When determining the meaning of Marxism, as practiced by
twentieth-century totalitarians, I think Lenin is a more reliable
source than Wikipedia.
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 9:47PM|#
For further evidence that materialism (as interpreted by
Marxists, not deists)
necessarily includes atheism, see
"Giving Priority to Ideological Work is Essential for Accomplishing
Socialism," by Kim Jong IL, June 19, 1995
page 5, second full paragraph
http://www.korea-dpr.com/library/101.pdf
|9.11.07 @ 11:22PM|#
Wow, you're really scraping the the bottle of the barrel with
"lil" Kim.
hmmm.... just browsing through the communist manifesto, cannot find
the words atheism there. Or materialism for that matter
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt
I also just took a good look at
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/x01.htm
The vast majority is considered with class struggle, economics, how
bad capitalism is, etc. This kind of terminology dominates. I did
not come across "atheism" once. It makes me look back at
Solzhenitsyn's comment about economics being incidental and it
makes me laugh.
Here's another by Lenin called "What is to be done." One of his
major works apparently.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/index.htm
I did a word check on it. "Atheism" nor "atheistic" appear in over
130 pages. Once.
As for your assertion that without atheism marxists would be
muddle-headed Anglicans and liberation theologians, I think the
example of Voltaire should suffice. And while materialism is
certainly a pillar of marxism, atheism is not a pillar of marxism
because it is used as an adjective to describe materialism. I
somehow doubt their atheism was central to their collectivization
plans
Well anyway, I've decided this long debate has taken up too much of
my time, so that's that. I'll leave you with a quote attributed to
Voltaire.
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 11:29PM|#
"As for your assertion that without atheism marxists would be
muddle-headed Anglicans and liberation theologians, I think the
example of Voltaire should suffice."
Wait - Voltaire was a Marxist?
Mad Max|9.11.07 @ 11:34PM|#
"Wow, you're really scraping the the bottle of the barrel with
'lil' Kim."
Any Communist author I find will by definition have been scraped
from the bottom of the barrel. This applies to Lenin, Stalin and
Mao as well as to Kim Jong Il.
Mad Max|9.12.07 @ 12:24AM|#
From Nicolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky, *The ABC of
Communism,"
http://marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/11.htm
"Chapter 11: Communism and Religion
"§ 89. Why religion and communism are incompatible
"'Religion is the opium of the people,' said Karl Marx. It is the
task of the Communist Party to make this truth comprehensible to
the widest possible circles of the labouring masses. It is the task
of the party to impress firmly upon the minds of the workers, even
upon the most backward, that religion has been in the past and
still is today one of the most powerful means at the disposal of
the oppressors for the maintenance of inequality, exploitation, and
slavish obedience on the part of the toilers. . . .
"Every communist must regard social phenomena (the relationships
between human beings, revolutions, wars, etc.) as processes which
occur in accordance with definite laws. The laws of social
development have been fully established by scientific communism on
the basis of the theory of historical materialism which we owe to
our great teachers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This theory
explains that social development is not brought about by any kind
of supernatural forces. Nay more. The same theory has demonstrated
that the very idea of God and of supernatural powers arises at a
definite stage in human history, and at another definite stage
begins to disappear as a childish notion which finds no
confirmation in practical life and in the struggle between man and
nature. But it is profitable to the predatory class to maintain the
ignorance of the people and to maintain the people's childish
belief in miracles (the key to the riddle really lies in the
exploiters' pockets), and this is why religious prejudices are so
tenacious, and why they confuse the minds even of persons who are
in other respects able. . . .
"In practice, no less than in theory, communism is incompatible
with religious faith. The tactic of the Communist Party prescribes
for the members of the party definite lines of conduct. The moral
code of every religion in like manner prescribes for the faithful
some definite line of conduct. For example, the Christian code
runs: 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him
the other also.' In most cases there is an irreconcilable conflict
between the principles of communist tactics and the commandments of
religion. A communist who rejects the commandments of religion and
acts in accordance with the directions of the party, ceases to be
one of the faithful. On the other hand, one who, while calling
himself a communist, continues to cling to his religious faith, one
who in the name of religious commandments infringes the
prescriptions of the party, ceases thereby to be a communist. . .
.
"§ 90. Separation of the church from the state
The Christian catechism teaches that the church is a society of the
faithful who are united by a common creed, by the sacraments, etc.
For the communist, the church is a society of persons who are
united by definite sources of income at the cost of the faithful,
at the cost of their ignorance and lack of true culture. It is a
society united with the society of other exploiters such as the
landlords and the capitalists, united with their State, assisting
that State in the oppression of the workers, and reciprocally
receiving from the State help in the business of oppression. . .
.
"The work which the bourgeoisie in its struggle with the church had
left unfinished was carried to an end by the proletarian State. One
of the first decrees of the Soviet Power in Russia was the decree
concerning the separation of the church from the State. All its
landed estates were taken away from the church and handed over to
the working population. All the capital of the church became the
property of the workers. The endowments which had been assigned to
the church under the tsarist régime were confiscated, although
these endowments had been cheerfully continued under the
administration of the 'socialist' Kerensky. Religion has become the
private affair of every citizen. The Soviet Power rejects all
thoughts of using the church in any way whatever as a means for
strengthening the proletarian State.
"§ 91. Separation of the school from the church
The association of religious propaganda with scholastic instruction
is the second powerful weapon employed by the clergy for the
strengthening of the ecclesiastical régime and for increasing the
influence of the church over the masses. . . .
"A generation ago, the bourgeois, though they were them- selves
still atheistically inclined, though they did not believe in
religious fairy tales, and though they laughed covertly at
religion, nevertheless considered that the fables must be treated
with respect in public, since religion was a useful restraint for
the common people. Today, the scions of the bourgeoisie are not
content with looking upon religion as providing useful fetters for
the people, but they have themselves begun to wear the chains. . .
.
"The separation of the school from the church aroused and continues
to arouse protest from the backward elements among the workers and
peasants. . . . The teaching of ecclesias- tical obscurantism in
the schools, even though the instruction should be merely optional,
would imply the giving of State aid to the maintenance of religious
prejudices. In that case the church would be provided with a
ready-made audience of children - of children who are assembled in
school for purposes which are the very opposite of those
contemplated by religion. The church would have at its disposal
schoolrooms belonging to the State, and would thereby be enabled to
diffuse religious poison among our young people almost as freely as
it could before the separation of the school from the church.
"The decree whereby the school is separated from the church must be
rigidly enforced, and the proletarian State must not make the
slightest concession to medievalism. . . . One of the most
important tasks of the proletarian State is to liberate children
from the reactionary influence exercised by their parents. The
really radical way of doing this is the social education of the
children, carried to its logical conclusion. As far as the
immediate future is concerned, we must not rest content with the
expulsion of religious propaganda from the school. We must see to
it that the school assumes the offensive against religious
propaganda in the home, so that from the very outset the children's
minds shall be rendered immune to all those religious fairy tales
which many grown-ups continue to regard as truth.
"§ 92. Struggle with the religious prejudice of the masses
"It has been comparatively easy for the proletarian authority to
effect the separation of the church from the State and of the
school from the church, and these changes have been almost
painlessly achieved. It is enormously more difficult to fight the
religious prejudices which are already deeply rooted in the
consciousness of the masses, and which cling so stubbornly to life.
The struggle will be a long one, demanding much steadfastness and
great patience. Upon this matter we read in our programme: 'The
Russian Communist Party is guided by the conviction that nothing
but the realization of purposiveness and full awareness in all the
social and economic activities of the masses can lead to the
complete disappearance of religious prejudices.' What do these
words signify?
". . . Throughout the entire mechanism of social production there
will no longer be anything mysterious, incomprehensible, or
unexpected, and there will therefore be no further place for
mystical explanations or for superstition. . . .
"For this reason, the mere fact of the organization and
strengthening of the socialist system, will deal religion an
irrecoverable blow. . . .
"It is essential at the present time to wage with the utmost vigour
the war against religious prejudices, for the church has now
definitely become a counter-revolutionary organization, and
endeavours to use its religious influence over the masses in order
to marshal them for the political struggle against the dictatorship
of the proletariat. The Orthodox faith which is defended by the
priests aims at an alliance with the monarchy. This is why the
Soviet Power finds it necessary to engage at this juncture in
widespread anti-religious propaganda. . . .
"The credulous crowd is extremely sensitive to anything which hurts
its feelings. To thrust atheism upon the masses, and in conjunction
therewith to interfere forcibly with religious practices and to
make mock of the objects of popular reverence, would not assist but
would hinder the campaign against religion. . . ."
|9.12.07 @ 8:04AM|#
Just to clear things up, Voltaire was obviously not a marxist.
However, he's a good example of how you can believe in a God and
still be anti-clerical.
Also, I just checked the work you cited. Only that one chapter out
of 19 is about religion. The very work you cited treats religion
and anti-clericalism as a minor concern. I stand by my claim.
Also you do realize that a great many of the people died because
people like Stalin (who interestinly enough was intially trained to
become a priest, though there is no doubt he was an atheist) were
paranoid dictators? They killed anybody they viewed as a possible
threat not because they were atheists.
|9.12.07 @ 10:00AM|#
"I maintain that Marxism is an ideology which is inseparable
from atheism."
I am an atheist and I believe in free markets. There is your
separation. I, and many people like me (see also Ayn Rand), are
irrefutable proof that atheism and marxism are not at all
inseparable...not even close, despite your offensive bullshit
whining.
I think you are really trying to claim is that Marxism is founded
on atheism the same way the catholic church is founded on
Christianity and I'm calling bullshit on that.
One of the downfalls of your argument is the fact that you have to
cite to pages upon pages of treatises to make a tenuous link that
atheism was the true foundation of communism (rather than centuries
of serfdom crashing against the industrial revolution). When people
kill in the name of God, they proclaim it. But, according to your
silliness, Marxists kill in the name of atheism, and if you just
read this 3,000 page treatise, review speeches of Lenin and
correlate them with the glosses on Marx's original manuscripts, why
it's plain as day.....
|9.12.07 @ 10:04AM|#
At the time when Marxism first emerged on the political scene, the concept of secular or atheistic communism did not yet exist. All communism was rooted in religious principles.
Mad Max|9.13.07 @ 1:10AM|#
Lamar,
I repeat that, if you take the atheism out of Marxism, you no
longer have Marxism.
You speak as if I were saying that *all* atheists are Marxists.
That's an easy straw man to demolish, but it requires you to ignore
plain logic, as well at my 6:59 comment on 9/11 that "not all
atheists are Marxists."
"Also, I just checked the work you cited. Only that one chapter out
of 19 is about religion. The very work you cited treats religion
and anti-clericalism as a minor concern. I stand by my
claim."
That reminds me of the man who was accused of murder. The
prosecutor said that he had five witnesses who observed the
defendant killing the victim. The defendant replied, "so what? I
have *twenty* witnesses who *didn't* see me killing the
victim!"
So you have twenty excerpts from Communist works which discuss
subjects other than religion. How on earth does that counterbalance
the excerpts I cited in which the commies proclaim their hostility
to religion and their determination to extirpate it?
|9.13.07 @ 9:59AM|#
As I pointed out through the example of Voltaire, you do not
have to be a non-believer to be hostile to religion. A point you
seem to have missed utterly. Atheism and anti-clericalism are not
one and the same.
You seem to have all but conceded my point that atheism and
anti-clericalism is a minor concern when compared to the rest of
their ideology.
The analogy you make to a murder is also false, the question is not
if someone committed a murder, but why they did it. They killed
people because they interered with their economic plans
(collectivization being one example) or because they were paranoid
dictators, like Stalin. If you'll read a history book, you'll find
this out. If they were really to go around whacking all the
religious people, there wouldn't have been a population left. The
communists weren't a bunch of people who said "I hate religion,
let's go kill all the people who are religious and believe in
God."
You act as if atheism had never existed, marxism wouldn't have been
possible. You don't think something incredibly similar would have
existed? As if belief in a God neccessarily made man humane.
|9.13.07 @ 12:14PM|#
Oh, here's a good example: Socialism. Socialism does NOT require atheism AT ALL. And in point of fact, that's what the "communist" states were: socialist. Communism is defined as a sort of utopia where the state has withered away. USSR after all stood for : union of soviet SOCIALIST republics.
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