Is Atheism Fundamentally Evil?

[Feck]

Philately will get you nowhere .

[Hermit]

The false presumptions of Atheism as stated by religious Atheists, that religion is inherently harmful, especially to children, and therefore should be eliminated from society, is a demonstration of the inability of religious Atheists to see beyond their own prejudices and dogmas.

Again, speaking just for myself, I prefer to avoid the issue of inherency, but I do argue that religious people who go by the book, so to speak, tend to do a lot of social damage. Have a look what the Bible and the Qur'an say about women, for instance. Yes, they admonish men to be nice and respectful to them, but both unequivocally make just over half the human population subservient to men. Surely, I need not quote chapter and verse, but if you ask me, I will oblige. Other religions are as bad or worse.

This is typical overgeneralization.

Pointing to both the Bible and the Qur'an's dicta regarding women is not an overgeneralisation.

It also suggests by implication that somehow atheism is the panacea to this alleged problem...

You are once again reading stuff into my posts that just is not there. Did you forget that we both agree with the statement that "Atheism is, by your own arguments, absolutely nothing other than a "lack of belief in god or gods."? It means, as you never tire of pointing out, and I keep agreeing with, that the concept of atheism has absolutely nothing to say about morality. So, how could I suggest, even by mere implication, that "atheism is the panacea to this alleged problem"?

Then there's the underlying fatalism of the Hindu religion, and in so far as Buddhism is a religion, of that too. It gives rise to callousness that is both massive and pervasive.

Does it? I would like to see evidence of this callousness. Do you have any?

Any Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, other, who do not subscribe to those thoroughly objectionable doctrines are actually disobedient to their respective religions.

And who are you to judge obedience to anybody else's religion?

I am not judging the lack of obedience. I am observing that whoever ignores the Biblical and Qur'anic verses that women must be subservient to men, such as Ephesians 5:24, are not obedient to their respective holy scriptures.

They are not real Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, or whatever.

Again, when were you put in charge of determining whether another person's religious beliefs or practices are "real."

I never claimed to be in charge of that, but that does not mean I am out of order in comparing what the holy texts say and how its adherents behave in relation to it. So, to use another example any Christian branch that permits female deacons, chaplains, priests or bishops, does so in clear contravention to 1 Corinthians 14:34. Obedience to biblical commands defines a real Christian. Disobedience, on the other hand...

Now we could reasonably argue that religions are detrimental to the freedom and happiness of a vast number of human beings.

And we could reasonably argue that atheism is detrimental to the freedom and happiness of a vast number of human beings.

No, we could not. Not as long as we agree that "Atheism is, by your own arguments, absolutely nothing other than a "lack of belief in god or gods."

Adherents of the religions I listed above make up three quarters of the world's population.

Actually it's more like 80 percent. Which in and of itself says something about the quality of your argument.

The numbers I found here show that adherents of the religions I listed above make up three quarters of the world's population. If you have more accurate ones indicating they add up to 80% rather than 75, I'm ok with that. Five percentage points are not much of a difference, and that difference does not reflect on the quality of my argument at all, the argument being that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism affect the freedom and happiness of a vast number of human beings. If anything, it is you who has shot himself in the foot with your petty "correction".

You focus only on the negative and not at all on the positive, which is a typical atheist conceit.

"Have a look what the Bible and the Qur'an say about women, for instance. Yes, they admonish men to be nice and respectful to them..."
"A socialist, for instance, could easily be a Christian simply by ignoring the nasty biblical bits and concentrating on the socialist leaning verses instead."
"Then there's the golden rule, the exhortation to love thy neighbour as yourself (but don't get caught), throwing the first stone..."
You were saying...?

But you studiously ignore the negatives of atheism

Maybe that's because, as we both agree, "atheism is absolutely nothing other than a "lack of belief in god or gods"". If you want to change your tune and add stuff like, say, a moral compass, you'll have to redefine atheism, then convince us atheists that your definition is better.

My aversion to religions is somewhat tempered because they manage to be so contradictory.

I think you'll find that humans, as a species, manage to be contradictory with or without religion.

Yes. The trite platitude "Nobody is perfect" comes to mind now.

Indeed, it is very obvious that religion in many cases helps people NOT to be contradictory because it provides rules and moral instruction to guide them in proper behavior.

Is it? If so, one would expect to find a greater percentage of all atheists in prison than of all theists. Can you find any statistics that confirm your assertion?

A socialist, for instance, could easily be a Christian simply by ignoring the nasty biblical bits and concentrating on the socialist leaning verses instead. The one about camels, wealthy men and eyes of needles is just one of many. Then there's the golden rule, the exhortation to love thy neighbour as yourself (but don't get caught), throwing the first stone...

Well, that depends on what you mean by "nasty biblical bits." I suspect that your next utterance will make reference to Old Testament passages, so I'll take this opportunity to point out that the Old Testament is not a Christian document. Only the New Testament is a Christian document, being written after the coming of Christ and all. And if you've ever actually read the New Testament you would know that it repeals all of the "nasty bits" of the Old Testament and replaces them with Christ's gospels and commandments, which are completely different.

Firstly, if Christ's gospels and commandments truly replaced the nasty bits of the Old Testament, the OT would no longer be part of the Bible, or at least the nasty bits would have been edited out. It's not as though people have not edited the Bible before. Entire Gospels have been excised 1600 years ago. At other times faked Pauline letters have been added. Then look at the OT of the main Christian branches: That of the Eastern Orthodox Church contains 51 books. The Roman Catholic Church deleted five of them. The Protestant Church deleted the same five books and then another seven.

Secondly, there are nasty bits in the New Testament aplenty. We have discussed this before. I don't think we'll get any further than last time if we discuss it again, so I won't.

Now let me say something about this comment: "if you've ever actually read the New Testament". You know nothing about me in that regard. It so happened that I was raised as a practising Catholic. Both my parents were practising Catholics. We went to mass every Sunday, which included listening to sermons based on Bible verses - OT and moreso NT - and what they mean. I went to Sunday school, learnt the Catechism and I was a member of a youth group in my teens where, among other activities, we sat in a circle for many hours and had formal discussions about Biblical texts, mostly NT. We studied commentaries theologians from Origen of Alexandria through Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Søren Kierkegaard, Teilhard de Chardin to Karl Barth (among others). After I left home I read the Bible cover to cover. Admittedly, I skated over the begats and stuff like that rather quickly, but I did read attentively, and my comprehension was very much aided by the previous thousands of hours of immersion in biblical studies I just mentioned. That is when I ceased being a theist and became a deist of the Baruch Spinoza kind. Atheism followed a couple of years later.

So, I think you ought to apologise for your arrogance and ignorance regarding my alleged deficiency in Bible reading, then shut the fuck up about it.

I say "somewhat" precisely because of the contradictoriness. Adherents can find verses for just about any view they fancy, even for slavery or genocide. Of course they'll be promptly accused of misinterpreting the text, but that in turn leads immediately to internecine fights about who is the bearer of The Truth.

Are people not allowed to disagree?

I have no problem at all with people disagreeing. The problem comes when it leads to internecine fights about who is the bearer of The Truth. Have I not been sufficiently clear?

In the end I am inclined to throw all religion into the rubbish bin.

And replace it with what, exactly.

Secular humanism. Most of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Much of the American Constitution.

The writings do contain too much stuff that I find thoroughly objectionable,

Then join another club.

I have. Around 40 years ago. Did I mention that I am an atheist?

and the good stuff can be found and taught without resorting to religion.

Yes, it can...but too often it isn't and therein lies the problem. Religion persists because of how effective it is at teaching moral lessons that help humanity to survive and prosper.

Furnish some statistics to support your view. Finding a greater percentage of all atheists in prison than of all theists would be a good start. Mentioning Stalin, Mao et al would not. A small number of evil dictators controlling their respective populations with terror and fear only proves that a small number of evil dictators can coerce others to kill a lot of people.

I go for secular humanism. It's a superior human construct to the gods we have made in our image in the past.

It may well be, but I hope you are aware that it's moral principles and foundations are founded in Christian theology.

Moral principles, as I have pointed out to you before, have been around for a lot longer than Christianity. The "do unto others..." in particular has been found in an Egyptian text (circa 2000-1600 BC), China (500 BC), India (900-800 BC), Greece (610 BC) and Persia (c. 300 BC) among others. There is a good chance that those texts do not indicate the date the Golden Rule first came about. It just means they are the earliest surviving texts where it appeared.

Secular humanism is not a new and unique philosophy, it's just a mishmash of other philosophies that takes what it thinks are the good bits and discards what it thinks are the bad bits of many different philosophies and religions. Nothing at all wrong with that, but that doesn't make it particularly original or axiomatically any better or worse than any other philosophy.

That is very much true. The only bits I want to add to this are firstly, that secular humanism does have one new and unique feature: It does not try to justify itself by reference to a divine being. Hence "secular". Secondly, I see nothing in religiously inspired morality that is any more axiomatic than in secular ones. How, for example, does the Golden Rule become less axiomatic when stripped off its religious trappings? Conversely, what is it that bestows the axiomatic property to it when it is claimed to be so ordered by Jesus, Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Ganga, Ptah, or even just general ancient, more or less godless yet religious philosophies like Buddhism?

You see, the reason that there are so many religions in the world is that there are so many people with so many different philosophical and moral needs and there are so many ways of meeting those needs and so many different forms of society that have adopted different cultural practices to create order and harmony.

In the last analysis all human needs boil down to one thing: survival. No matter if you look at human as an individual or as a species, that is all. It so happens, that in the long run survival is impossible without coexisting with other humans, and that is where moral codes enter the picture. We need to get along with others, no matter where we live, or when, and we need to do so with a minimum of strife. That is both a need and a desire. And that is why similar Golden Rules sprang up everywhere. Societies without on did not last long.

It is true, until secular humanism came along, all Golden Rules sprang up in a religious context, but I have a problem imagining a cabal of several thousand gods handing them down to us mortals. No, again: Jesus Christ, assuming he existed (and I do not claim that he did not), was not the only one, nor was he the first.

And quite literally every one of those cultures practices one or more religions...including secular humanists and atheists. ...when you say "chuck religion" you are not making much sense because you are chucking your own religious philosophy in the process.

Well, when you accept "the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices" and/or "something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience" as definitions of religion you are quite right. However, I regard the inclusion of those two ways of defining religion as too wide to allow meaningful discussion of it. I mean, is it useful to include all "particular set of beliefs and practices"? I believe that if I don't clean my teeth regularly, they will rot faster than they already do. So my practice is to brush them at least twice a day. I do this religiously.

To get around this nonsense I require "religion" to include a belief or faith in the existence of some supernatural entity. To "chuck religion" means to jettison belief or faith in supernatural entities as law givers. The useful laws contained in holy texts themselves are welcome to stay.

And it is also demonstrably true that some 80 percent of the population of the planet had decided that belief in some sort of theistic system is what provides them with the greatest degree of happiness and social cohesion. It's hard to argue with numbers like that.

It's not that difficult at all. It only takes one counter-example to demolish the idea that we need some sort of theistic system to attain the greatest degree of happiness and social cohesion. I dare say that the Japanese are happier and more cohesive than the inhabitants of the USA.

[Brian Peacock]

Indeed. Atheism isn't an alternative to or replacement for religion - it's a conclusion about it. For far too long now, my borthers and sitters, the MSR (Mainstream Religions) have got away with painting atheism as just another religion, a weirdo fringe or cult belief systems, and then criticising it for not being as fine and dandy as any other proper, authorised religion. Well I say, "No more," borthers and sitters, "No more." It's time to tell those wibble-chinned self-abusers in the MSR that if they want to know what atheism is, and I mean if they really, truly want to know, then they should just ask a fucking atheist.

[Scot Dutchy]

This is of course how theists want to see atheists; going to their assemblies on Sunday morning:



http://nationbuilder.sundayassembly.com/london

Which is absolutely how I dont see atheism.

[Sean Hayden]

[Tyrannical]

Evil by definition, because moral by definition is what God loves and immoral by what God hates. Depending upon your god of course, but morality is defined by the Devine and not the mortal.

[Scot Dutchy]

Who is god?

[Brian Peacock]

Evil by definition, because moral by definition is what God loves and immoral by what God hates. Depending upon your god of course, but morality is defined by the Devine and not the mortal.

Except the mortal define the divine (whatever that is).

[JimC]

Personally, I vote for the Divine Miss M...

[Hermit]

Evil by definition, because moral by definition is what God loves and immoral by what God hates. Depending upon your god of course, but morality is defined by the Devine and not the mortal.

Except the mortal define the divine (whatever that is).

I think Tranny was joking. At least his spelling of "divine" hints that he was not serious.

[pErvinalia]

Evil by definition, because moral by definition is what God loves and immoral by what God hates. Depending upon your god of course, but morality is defined by the Devine and not the mortal.

You need a new dictionary. A probably a few extra brain cells while you are at it.

[Scot Dutchy]

Leave him alone he is missing Seth.

[DaveDodo007]

Some people think that not believing the unsupported claims and assertions of any and all religions means one is fundamentally evil.

Imbeciles think that atheism is evil.

No, not atheism, just zealously religious atheists.

I wish you would cut out this religious atheist nonsense Seth. Atheists are just 'I see no evidence for god/gods.' People who are both left wing and atheists on the other hand are pure unadulterated evil, genocidal maniacs with no tolerance for individualism and free thought other than their collectivized mindset. It is total ideology and has no superstitious elements to it. Marxist can't get over the fact that every time they try to implement their system it has dire consequences for humanity. Not amount of re-education camps, gulags and mountains of dead bodies are going to make Marxism work. Yet they wont give up trying even though it is the height of insanity to continue to do so.

[Brian Peacock]

This isn't the 'Is Marxism Fundamentally Evil?' thread btw.

[Hermit]

This isn't the 'Is Marxism Fundamentally Evil?' thread btw.

Surely, Brian, you ought to know better by now than trying to talk sense into a typical representative of evil capitalism.