Religious Nonsense

Discussion in 'Religion' started by StrangerInAStrangeLand, Jul 21, 2018.

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  1. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    And history and philosophy provides the means to collectively look at that prepackagedness, since there is a strong correlation between ideas of individual humans and the societies they appear in. At the very least, the moment such atheists pose q's about "meaningful interaction" with God (in a necessarily dubious light of course, otherwise they wouldn't identify as atheists), they have irrevocably left the so-called non-participatory, default-ignorance atheism of gophers and golf balls far, far behind.
     
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  3. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    On the contrary, if one wants to assess a question of "meaningfulness" without bringing value that has sociological implications, it seems obvious that atheists are simply not philosophically astute. To be fair, its not a position of folly limited to atheists. Luther had the same notion when he rejected all biblical commentaries since it appeared obvious to him there was only one way to read and comprehend scripture (the way he read and comprehended it, of course ...)
     
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  5. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    Is that no for you haven't had a meaningful interaction with a deity? I assume such criteria must exist in order for such an occurrence to take place.
     
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  7. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    In order to ask this apparently guileless question, you cannot assume that such criteria does not existence .... and furthermore, if you can stay out of the shadows long enough, you would find that the atheist and the theist work out of different criteria.
     
  8. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    Why do you keep dancing around a simple question? My perception of the criteria is irrelevant at this point. So with this in mind, by whatever criteria you’ve applied, have you established a meaningful interaction with a deity? If so, in what context?
     
  9. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Analogy.

    When you eat, do you just feed your stomach, or does the food feed your whole body.

    If the influencial people, the people who are responsible for the welfare of others, from all walks of life, have good understanding. That understanding will filter throughout life, including the welfare of animals, plants, water, air, etc. Good preaching could definitely achieve this. Just as good food and water will make for a healthy body, and mind.

    Jan.
     
  10. Slartibartfast Registered Member

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    Your lack of understanding re atheism is thus displayed, my point stands, as a beacon.
     
  11. Slartibartfast Registered Member

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    That may have something to do with the fact that atheism is the answer to one question. You seem to conflate atheism with any or all religions and are therefore operating from an inadmissible base.
     
  12. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Advocating a philosophical position while being adverse to philosophy does stand out, but for all the wrong reasons.
     
  13. Slartibartfast Registered Member

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    Please explain the "philosophical position" of which you speak.
     
  14. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    You will find that all diametric opposites bring but one answer to the fore. It's how that answer gets interpreted in the field of practical application ("Now that it's clear we have opposing views, what do I propose to do about it?") where you start to see the introduction of variety.
     
  15. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Non sequitur. Atheism and communism being in the same place at the same time does not establish an cause and effect relationship.

    Nobody is doing that. We might like to limit the depredations of religion in the political sphere but the situation seems to be getting worse instead of better.

    No atheist claims that atheism is a panacea.
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I actually tend to think of the unknown bloc in this case insofar as an old social colloquialism might apply. There was an episode of Golden Girls, once, when Betty White's character pulled the line on Rue Maclanahan, as everyone is reeling because the prim character turns out to be a freaking tiger in bed, and the old cougar is left stammering that nobody knew, and there's the line, about how experience said those who talked about it the most weren't actually doing it.

    Similarly, the public faces of atheism we encounter over the years, whether it be high-profile like Dawkins of Maher, or close mundane associations like my sister in law, or, you know, quite frankly, the historically defining face of atheism at Sciforums over the course of years, which means approximately the experience of having encountered however many identifying atheists over the course of nineteen years here, has a strange, similar aspect about it.

    I think there is a bloc of atheists in society we generally don't hear from.

    The activists we hear from generally make principled stands and don't seem to know their history beyond the names and dates at the heart of their personal complaint; they argue about labels, avoiding considerations of function, often putting more effort into the dodge than it would take to deal with functional questions.

    The result is something that looks close enough to what you said, there, that I'm mostly guarding against sounding sarcastic in agreeing. There exists a reasonable possibility that a large bloc, potentially a majority, of identifying evangelical atheists are not actually atheists inasmuch as they still require God in order to fight against It. Consider an argumentative range in which poor execution looks like petulant, childish rebellion, but strong execution comes to read and sound like gaslighting; these advocates really, really need God, not for any notion of divine salvation, but as an idol to identify against—the salvation they pursue, as such, is internal self-justification of apparent hatred.

    What is harder to comprehend the scale and dynamic of is the range 'twixt the unknown bloc, to the one, and the God-needing bloc, to the other. Somewhere in there are at least a few identifying advocates who really have their shit together, and any number of people who would, if asked, identify as atheists and also, as it happens, really do harbor atheism.

    I can't actually calculate how reasonable or not it is to wonder if maybe they really are a minority among the atheists we normally count. And if they are, we might wonder how severely are they outnumbered.

    An abstraction that occurs to me in the moment suggests some sort of question about whether discussion of history is necessarily inherently political; I can't quite suggest it isn't, but the notion has proximity and relationship to an inchoate question about identifying evangelical atheism harboring more of a political argument than anything else.
     
  17. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    If you have crossed the threshold to pass an opinion on "meaningful interaction", you are already seated at the table, wagering your philosophical position.
    Its a bit difficult to discuss "meaning", without a philosophical position, isn't it?
     
  18. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Then your ideas of modern history are certifiably weird.

    The state advocated the destruction of religion, and it officially pronounced religious beliefs to be superstitious and backward.[3][4]The Communist Party destroyed churches, synagogues,[5]mosques and Buddhist temples, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and it introduced a belief system called "scientific atheism," with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers.[6][7]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union


    So when they do, does that make them false atheists, or does it make your ideas about atheists false?
     
  19. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    I agree with them on that. It doesn't make me oppress anybody.
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Only if they care about the answer very, very, much - in a particular way.
    An atheistic anthropologist new to your Abrahamic deity might ask such a question in almost complete ignorance, for example. Or a Hindu, likewise.
     
  21. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

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    Actually not even that is a fundamental assertion of most atheists, unless you are solely considering the "strong" atheist.
    Most atheists, in my experience at least, simply don't hold the belief that God exists, for one reason or another.
    They do not necessarily assert that there is no God, only that they do not hold the belief that there is.
    Personally I have no issue if one only wishes to consider the strong atheist position in their arguments, but there will likely be disagreement to the argument from any atheist who does not match that "strong" position, unless it is specifically stated that that is who the argument is addressing.
    Amen to that.
     
  22. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Then that just makes their opinions all the more clumsy, irrelevant and useless.
     
  23. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Hence your disagreement with them lies on the effect they bring to the cause, and not the cause itself.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2018
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