Why atheism makes you mean

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by S.A.M., Nov 21, 2008.

  1. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    M*W: I agree, and I'm an atheist. Being an atheist doesn't mean isolation or segregation (or being mean) to others. I'm especially driven to give to homeless women. I don't care what they spend the money on. I just want to give something to them. I've donated a lot of personal belongings to women's shelters and had a payroll deduction going to support women against violence. Being an atheist has nothing to do with it, nor being a theist has nothing to do with it. It's being human that is the call.
     
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  3. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    They should do this study in those places where people don't associate God with fear.
     
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  5. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. And guilt.
     
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  7. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Today I came across a crying woman sitting on a bench near the elevator in my building. Her wheelchair had inexplicably stopped near the apartment mailboxes & she couldn't get it back to her place. She can walk a few yards then must sit for 5 or 10 minutes. She managed to get into the office to ask for help & was told there's nothing they can do. She had to leave her wheelchair to the possibility of being stolen to slowly make her way to my building in hopes that she could find me tho she didn't know my specific apt number. She didn't know me well but had seen me helping other people in trouble. I went to her wheelchair, disengaged the brakes & pulled it to her apt, patiently waiting each time she had to stop. In her apt, she cried again, telling me she has no way to get her wheelchair repaired. I saw 2 oxygen tanks in a not-as-safe-as-could-be place & offered to move them.
    A few minutes later someone saw the look on my face & asked what's wrong. I couldn't help crying as I explained.
    This is only 1 of many examples of things I see, experience, sympathize with, lament & try my best to help with.
    I spend considerable time, effort & money I need for other things rescuing cats tho I am allergic to them. I've been scratched & bitten by them out of fear of something they couldn't understand & I had not the slightest temptation to retaliate. I'm making progress at this apt complex & hope to soon get the last 1 after at least 1 of the 2 I'm currently fostering is adopted. Then I hope to have a couple months break from it before I go to work at the apt complex across the street at that manager's request.
    I could go on & on & on. Well, maybe I couldn't go on so much about myself yet I certainly have the things to go on about which show clearly that this atheist is the most compassionate person you could ever hope to have looking out for you in time of need.
    1111
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 22, 2008
  8. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm I think people are missing the point here. The hypothesis is the role of religiosity in prosocial behaviour. Even atheists live in a society derived through religiosity.
     
  9. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Very cool data. Is there any data that shows what kind of charities each group gives to and what the funds are used for?
     
  10. scorpius a realist Valued Senior Member

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    except when it comes to all those OTHER religions,eh?
    or atheists,agnostics..
    those you hate with a passion!
     
  11. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Oh me oh my, whatever would people do without religion?
    There would be no love, no families, no morals, no civilization, no law, no order, no socializing, no marriage, no cooperation, no science, no education, no romance, no internet, no boundaries, no clothing, no sharing, no caring, no respect, no coffee, no whiskey, no inhibition, no no no no no no no nothing good at all.
    1111
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 22, 2008
  12. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    I would say that religious adherents worship in traditions derived through secular social interraction.
    Religion most certainly did not come before social interraction and community involvement.
     
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Yes. Aren't we all scientists here or at least wannabe-scientists? Don't we all know that we're not supposed to jump to conclusions based on the findings of one rather small experiment? We should be talking about the statistical probability of the accuracy of these results, about the possible biases introduced by the researchers, innocently or fraudulently, about the true randomness of the samples, about the methodology. Not just about the results, which may be just exactly what someone with a lot of control over the experiment was hoping for. And believe me, I would be saying exactly the same thing if the results were just the opposite and supported my own bias. The experiment may have indeed been good scientific work, but it is only a start and it is not good science to put too much stock in one experiment.
    I see Sam is at it again, trying to convince everyone that communism is an atheist philosophy, when in fact "To each according to his needs and from each according to his ability" is a quote from the Book of Acts. Communism is an offshoot of Christianity. Can you for one second imagine a Confucian, a Buddhist or a Jew preaching that what a man takes from the world does not have to correlate with what he gives back? Of course the university denizens with too much time and education and not enough work who were the leaders of the communist movement were atheists; most people of that demographic in any movement are atheists. But the rank and file were as religious as any other people. In fact I visited the Communist Bloc in its heyday and found that Christianity had deeper support in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria than it had in capitalist Western Europe or the USA.

    Atheists tend to be rational people and rational people know intuitively that for a society to prosper, its economy has to produce a positive surplus, not a negative one.
    Charity is an instinctive behavior in a pack-social species like Homo sapiens. In order for the pack to survive, its members must care about each other and be able to depend on each other. TV wildlife specials are rife with scenes of pack-social animals doing heroic things for their pack-mates. I watched an African Wild Dog sneak into the research compound and drag his tranquilized buddy out before the scientists could draw a blood sample and snap a tag on him.

    Our problems occur as we invent new technologies that allow and require us to congregate into larger packs than our instincts motivate us to maintain. The invention of agriculture forced us to learn to live in harmony and cooperation with people who weren't immediate family. Yet people in an agricultural village have to treat each other with the same charity shown by members of a small extended-family tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers, and for the same reason: Everybody needs everybody to survive and do their job for the village to prosper.

    But the real crisis arose with the invention of civilization, for cities require us to extend that harmony and cooperation to complete strangers in order to make the city prosper. Today we've gone far beyond that: we have to stretch our pack-social instinct and extend charity to people on the other side of the planet who are nothing more than abstractions to us.

    Obviously many of us are having trouble with that transcendence and it's understandable, because inside each of us still resides the spirit of a Mesolithic caveman who is suspicious of anyone outside his extended family. What's remarkable is that so many of us have actually made the transcendence and are lobbying our governments, donating to charities, and joining international forums, trying to find a way to not merely stop the killing of Iraqis, Georgians, Uighurs, Palestinians, Israelis, Sudanese, etc., but to help them achieve the same lifestyle that we have and become members of the same civilization. In other words we care about them, we want them to feel that they can depend on us: we feel charity toward them.

    I'll grant you that in the early days of the Neolithic Era, religion may have helped the tribes get along... that is, to get along with tribes they were related to, who spoke similar dialects, had similar traditions, and on top of it prayed to the same gods. But somewhere along the way when the tribes got too big, religion became a liability and reinforced the feeling of "otherness" toward people who look different, practice different traditions, speak different languages, and pray to different gods. For the entire history of Christianity and Islam, the track record of those two Abrahamic faiths has been dismal. They've caused more dissension than harmony, killed far more people than they've helped, and obliterated three entire civilizations (Egypt, Inca and Aztec) in frenzies of genocide that would have warmed Hitler's heart.
    Max is saying what I said, only, as usual, in fewer words.
    But here's where I disagree with him. Christian communities did not extend charity to Jewish communities, and in fact persecuted them for the different values that sprang from their faith. (Most notably the lack of a proscription on lending money for interest that saved the European economy but made the Jews rich, and the tradition of cleanliness that minimized the ravages of the Plague in the shtetls.) Catholic and Protestant communities didn't even treat each other charitably, and neither did Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities. Christian and Jewish Americans happily enslaved the Africans that were supplied in chains by devout Muslims on the other side of the Atlantic, and proudly kicked the Indians out of their own homelands when they weren't busy shooting them.
    I do it because I understand that it helps keep civilization running. You can't have people dropping dead in the street and drawing flies, you can't have starving people stealing food, you can't have homeless people clogging the stairwells in the subway station, and basically you need everybody to do their part to keep civilization running, not lying around starving or bleeding. Sure I get the same warm feeling from helping a fellow human being in need as anyone who's transcended his Stone Age instincts, but it's exacerbated by the knowledge that by helping that person I'm keeping civilization running smoothly.
    My family was not religious and they also were considerably less charitable than I am. I'm like Cutsie and have found my way into a proper role in civilization that eluded my parents. But I can't fault them because somehow they raised a kid who grew up to be better than they were.
    Big deal. Unlike more enlightened Europe, most people in America classify themselves as religious. Why should the prison population be any different?
    Since the Religious Redneck Retard Revival of the late 1970s swelled the ranks of American Christendom to its pre-Intellectual Revolution numbers, all those new converts are only in it for the forgiveness. At least this is what I hear from other Christians. I'm sure that's the draw in a population of felons, don't ya think?
     
  14. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    M*W: Thank you for being kind to people. The world needs more people like you. People are surprised when I tell them I'm an atheist. Their usual response is, "but you're so nice!" What we believe or don't believe doesn't matter. What we do does. I admire your humanity.
     
  15. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have evidence for this?
     
  16. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    I would wholeheartedly agree with you, Simon. Adding to that problem is the fact the Abrahamic religions teach us that humans are by nature "sinful" and "evil", that we would automatically resort to a lower, baser self if we didn't have commandments to observe and live by.
     
  17. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you.

    I get that too. It's freaky.
    1111
     
  18. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    If you pop into the thread on the 17 year old suicide you'll realise why its not usual to expect compassion from athiests.
     
  19. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    If I respond to this, might my post disappear?
    1111
     
  20. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Thats up to the moderator, I think.
     
  21. Roman Banned Banned

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    What an interesting study. I believe the results. It's what makes me think religious behavior is more than "mere accident", as many psychologist posit that it's simply us making elaborate Type I errors. Religion, especially the sun-cult types from the near east, have historically been very popular, as they serve as social lubricant.

    This part was very interesting:
    I feel that the religious people would be more likely than the atheist to not share with outgroup members.

    Have you seen the study that shows that liberals are more sociopathic than conservatives?

    Vampire bats.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2008
  22. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I had no idea vampire bats had evinced a lack of belief in God? Pray tell.
     
  23. Roman Banned Banned

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    No one's seen them pray.
    In fact, most people believe (with fairly good evidence) that they are incapable of religious thought.

    Yet they behave altruistically.
     

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