Unicef criticises Britain for jailing children over riots

[Tyrannical]

Bring back work houses for the little blighters! A work'us lad is a lad with character

That's not a bad idea. I bet most of those rioters never put in an honest day's work in their lives.

[Rum]

Quite right - kill the fuckers instead.

Well, give me a non-theistic reason why we shouldn't Put on your rational atheist hat if you have to

Sure enough..

[Ronja]

WANT! THAT!^^

[Rum]

WANT! THAT!^^

I added the 'rational', but I bet there's a market!

[Tyrannical]

Quite right - kill the fuckers instead.

Well, give me a non-theistic reason why we shouldn't Put on your rational atheist hat if you have to

Sure enough..

That does imply you have to start acting rationally. Or is it a magic hat

[Exi5tentialist]

What's wrong is that you are making a false and rather naive leap.

Theistic societies behaved like this. Therefore, this behaviour is because of theism.

You haven't established why this is so at all. And as has been pointed out, virtually every society has been theistic in some way. So it's ridiculous just to CLAIM a causal link without some pretty definite evidence.

You might just as well say that theistic societies developed money. So we are being a bit theistic, if we use money. That's the sort of logic you are offering.
You can surely do better than that?

If you want to be taken seriously, make your argument for the causal connection between punishment and religion. Don't just rely on them co-existing.

First of all, there is an internal logic to what I am saying and the opportunity to set this out in a bit more detail is useful.

My view is that capitalism, religion and authoritarianism are inseparably inter-twined in our society. It's a kind of three-way love triangle that absolutely dominates everything we do at the moment. In general if you find a capitalist principle being imposed on society, it will be closely associated with a corresponding religious and authoritarian principle. Sometimes the application of a principle of one of the three components will be evident without an immediate corresponding principle from another being evident. So your boss may jump down your throat and demand that you do as he says just because he is your boss, but it is unlikely he will openly invoke a wrath-of-God parable to make it clear what his real emotional and philosophical backup is.

The fact that capitalism, religion and authoritarianism are in this intimate relationship with each other in our era does not necessarily mean I automatically think each of them is a bad thing always and everywhere. For example I tend to concur with Karl Marx's view that religion is the 'opium of the people, the sigh of the oppressed and the heart of a heartless world'. I also agree with Karl Marx's view that capitalism has liberated many people, for example from the 'idiocy of rural life'. Authoritarianism is sometimes necessary, for example during a civil emergency (up to a point! Somebody needs to co-ordinate the ambulances and keep people out of their way).

Nevertheless I'm not attached enough to any of these three things not to want to see the back of them. However given that my view is closely associated with marxism (as well as existentialism), it is quite an interesting challenge that you assert I might as well say that because theistic societies developed money, we are being theistic if we use money. Obviously the marxist position on money is slightly more complex than saying we should simply stop using it, but in reality, in the context of my argument about capitalism and religion being inseparably related to each other, the idea that we are being theistic by using money is not such a bad idea to postulate.

This does illustrate the extent to which I think religion absolutely dominates everything we do. But as an Existentialist Atheist I do not, like the New Atheists, think that just targeting religion and promoting rationalism is the best tactic for getting rid of religion. I don't think religion will die until capitalism does. It's a harder and more challenging route for us all, but ultimately and in the short term for each of us, more likely to be successful in its goal to liberate us.

Of course I accept you will not share this argument if you think capitalism is a good thing, as a lot of New Atheists do, but at least it means we'll get lots of lovely controversy to argue about, which should keep us going for a while.

[Rum]

Quite right - kill the fuckers instead.

Well, give me a non-theistic reason why we shouldn't Put on your rational atheist hat if you have to

Sure enough..

-del-
That does imply you have to start acting rationally. Or is it a magic hat

I am not actually of the atheist 'rational' school as it happens. I admire rationality and its products (science etc.!) hugely, but I am not very good at that stuff. I think I came to atheism as much through an emotional process as a rational one..not a subject one often sees discussed. Perhaps it should be.

[Exi5tentialist]

I am not actually of the atheist 'rational' school as it happens. I admire rationality and its products (science etc.!) hugely, but I am not very good at that stuff. I think I came to atheism as much through an emotional process as a rational one..not a subject one often sees discussed. Perhaps it should be.

Emotions are much under-rated in my view. Usually they are streets ahead of step-by-step logic. To me, an emotion is a rational thought process waiting to be formulated. Often there is just not the time to wait for our logic circuits to catch up with them.

[mistermack]

First of all, there is an internal logic to what I am saying and the opportunity to set this out in a bit more detail is useful.

My view is that capitalism, religion and authoritarianism are inseparably inter-twined in our society. It's a kind of three-way love triangle that absolutely dominates everything we do at the moment. In general if you find a capitalist principle being imposed on society, it will be closely associated with a corresponding religious and authoritarian principle. Sometimes the application of a principle of one of the three components will be evident without an immediate corresponding principle from another being evident. So your boss may jump down your throat and demand that you do as he says just because he is your boss, but it is unlikely he will openly invoke a wrath-of-God parable to make it clear what his real emotional and philosophical backup is.

The fact that capitalism, religion and authoritarianism are in this intimate relationship with each other in our era does not necessarily mean I automatically think each of them is a bad thing always and everywhere. For example I tend to concur with Karl Marx's view that religion is the 'opium of the people, the sigh of the oppressed and the heart of a heartless world'. I also agree with Karl Marx's view that capitalism has liberated many people, for example from the 'idiocy of rural life'. Authoritarianism is sometimes necessary, for example during a civil emergency (up to a point! Somebody needs to co-ordinate the ambulances and keep people out of their way).

Nevertheless I'm not attached enough to any of these three things not to want to see the back of them. However given that my view is closely associated with marxism (as well as existentialism), it is quite an interesting challenge that you assert I might as well say that because theistic societies developed money, we are being theistic if we use money. Obviously the marxist position on money is slightly more complex than saying we should simply stop using it, but in reality, in the context of my argument about capitalism and religion being inseparably related to each other, the idea that we are being theistic by using money is not such a bad idea to postulate.

This does illustrate the extent to which I think religion absolutely dominates everything we do. But as an Existentialist Atheist I do not, like the New Atheists, think that just targeting religion and promoting rationalism is the best tactic for getting rid of religion. I don't think religion will die until capitalism does. It's a harder and more challenging route for us all, but ultimately and in the short term for each of us, more likely to be successful in its goal to liberate us.

Of course I accept you will not share this argument if you think capitalism is a good thing, as a lot of New Atheists do, but at least it means we'll get lots of lovely controversy to argue about, which should keep us going for a while.

Well, I'm not here to defend religion, and of course I think it should be totally divorced from the state.
But if people want religion, who am I to deny it to them? We should just have laws preventing it from intruding on the lives of people who haven't asked for it.
I would cut out ALL ties to any religion by the state, and remove all charitable status.
Nationalise the assets of the STATE sponsored religion, and lease them back at a workable rate.

But I don't accept that things would be a lot different, if there was no such thing as religion.
People would still want punishment and retribution for those who hurt others.

As far as money goes, find something better and we can talk.

As far as capitalism or Marxism goes, Marxism just doesn't work with human nature. It's been tried, and it failed. It's had a bloody good try-out.
Capitalism hasn't failed, it DOES work as an incentive, there is absolutely no doubt about that.
But it is now beginning to fail, because now that money can be moved around so easily from country to country, it's no longer under control, and harder and harder to tax. So the rich are getting ever richer, and the poor are getting poorer.
In the old days, a government could control the rich, as well as the poor. Not any more. Tax the rich, and you lose them to another country.

That's what's wrong with the world now. Governments, as well as being incompetent, are no longer in control of their own economies. They have to beg nowadays.
The cure is there, but only if countries act together to control the movement of capital and tax it properly. I can't see that happening until we have a monumental crash.

[Ronja]

Authoritarianism is sometimes necessary, for example during a civil emergency (up to a point! Somebody needs to co-ordinate the ambulances and keep people out of their way).

Err, no. Since the 1960ies research has time and time again showed that the official disaster preparedness organization has very little to do with the immediate survival and search and rescue within a disaster-stricken area. It is always the survivors who pick themselves up, self-organize and help each other calmly, rationally and altruistically, with whatever tools and materials are available. Survivors don't wait for bulldozers and diggers to arrive before attempting to dig out their family or neighbors from under rubble, nor do they wait for ambulances or helicopters before attempting transportation of the injured to hospitals. And a good thing that they don't: it often takes hours and sometimes days for help from authorities to arrive.

Disaster planning and resources on the regional and national level are of course important - it's just that the image of the heroic outsiders in uniforms coming to the rescue of the poor panicking victims is a Hollywood-purported myth. The reality of disasters is very different from such popular myths.

For useful summaries of relevant research on what really happens in disasters (compared to myths), see e.g.
http://www.iki.fi/~ronja/Publications/i ... round.html (may load slowly)
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/emergency_resp ... anning.pdf
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/emergency_resp ... ptions.pdf

For a thorough and still valid analysis of the Hollywood view of disasters, see
http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/bits ... sequence=3 (a summary of their findings starts on page 16)

There are clear indications that those myths are still being upheld by mainstream media, see e.g.
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/exc ... 000745.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14711012/Meta ... ne-Katrina

/derail


BTW: Your posts are the most authority-fixated of all in this discussion right now. You might want to reflect on that.

[Rum]

I am not actually of the atheist 'rational' school as it happens. I admire rationality and its products (science etc.!) hugely, but I am not very good at that stuff. I think I came to atheism as much through an emotional process as a rational one..not a subject one often sees discussed. Perhaps it should be.

Emotions are much under-rated in my view. Usually they are streets ahead of step-by-step logic. To me, an emotion is a rational thought process waiting to be formulated. Often there is just not the time to wait for our logic circuits to catch up with them.

I agree. I have often come to what appears to be a rational conclusion after a great deal of irrational and downright emotional mental activity. Often the conclusion has the appearance of having happened automatically.

[Exi5tentialist]

Authoritarianism is sometimes necessary, for example during a civil emergency (up to a point! Somebody needs to co-ordinate the ambulances and keep people out of their way).

Err, no. Since the 1960ies research has time and time again showed that the official disaster preparedness organization has very little to do with the immediate survival and search and rescue within a disaster-stricken area. It is always the survivors who pick themselves up, self-organize and help each other calmly, rationally and altruistically, with whatever tools and materials are available. Survivors don't wait for bulldozers and diggers to arrive before attempting to dig out their family or neighbors from under rubble, nor do they wait for ambulances or helicopters before attempting transportation of the injured to hospitals. And a good thing that they don't: it often takes hours and sometimes days for help from authorities to arrive.

Disaster planning and resources on the regional and national level are of course important - it's just that the image of the heroic outsiders in uniforms coming to the rescue of the poor panicking victims is a Hollywood-purported myth. The reality of disasters is very different from such popular myths.

For useful summaries of relevant research on what really happens in disasters (compared to myths), see e.g.
http://www.iki.fi/~ronja/Publications/i ... round.html (may load slowly)
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/emergency_resp ... anning.pdf
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/emergency_resp ... ptions.pdf

For a thorough and still valid analysis of the Hollywood view of disasters, see
http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/bits ... sequence=3 (a summary of their findings starts on page 16)

There are clear indications that those myths are still being upheld by mainstream media, see e.g.
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/exc ... 000745.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14711012/Meta ... ne-Katrina

/derail


BTW: Your posts are the most authority-fixated of all in this discussion right now. You might want to reflect on that.

Ronja - this is not a derail, we are discussing relevant ideologies around the subject. Don't go splitting the thread now, will you?

I qualified my limited support for authoritarianism in some circumstances by saying 'up to a point'. Are you now saying no ambulances need to be directed at all in a civil disaster, or that hospitals need no command structure? I think you are being a little unrealistic. Civil disasters need some authority (and thence some authoritarianism up to a point (please don't forget to quote that in your next reply) in a civil emergency. Even the second paper you quoted, by Erik Auf der Heide, MD, MP, recommends things like 'develop real-time instructions' and 'educate the public'. I am sure the findings of the papers quoted are valid in many ways, and survivors do not tend to await authoritarian solutions in a disaster, this does tend to confirm my view that people are not as deferential to the authorities as is sometimes made out. This does not mean we should dismantle all authority in disaster situations.

Please do not accuse me of being 'authority-fixated' just for a cheap snipe. I have openly talked about authoritarianism because I am not a particular fan of it, others have talked about imposing disproportionate penalties on people who took any part in riots, and banning religious teaching from schools completely. Those examples are pretty authoritarian, in my view. Just reading some of the thread should enable you to gain a more accurate picture of who is arguing what, please do so in future.

[Ronja]

Exi5, I do not understand how anyone could see anything positive in authoritarianism, as opposed to authority. Compare e.g. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authoritarian and http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authority

Definition of AUTHORITARIAN
1
: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2
: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>

Definition of AUTHORITY
...
2
a : power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior
b : freedom granted by one in authority : right
3
a : persons in command; specifically : government
b : a governmental agency or corporation to administer a revenue-producing public enterprise <the transit authority>
...

Authorities are definitely needed in e.g. emergency preparedness and disaster response, as I said above: "Disaster planning and resources on the regional and national level are of course important." But IMO authoritarianism isn't a good idea anywhere, ever, not even "up to a point".

[Exi5tentialist]

Exi5, I do not understand how anyone could see anything positive in authoritarianism, as opposed to authority. Compare e.g. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authoritarian and http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authority

Definition of AUTHORITARIAN
1
: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2
: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>

Definition of AUTHORITY
...
2
a : power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior
b : freedom granted by one in authority : right
3
a : persons in command; specifically : government
b : a governmental agency or corporation to administer a revenue-producing public enterprise <the transit authority>
...

Authorities are definitely needed in e.g. emergency preparedness and disaster response, as I said above: "Disaster planning and resources on the regional and national level are of course important." But IMO authoritarianism isn't a good idea anywhere, ever, not even "up to a point".

You are arguing semantics but my usage is more in line with 1. of Collins World English Dictionary and probably a bit of 3. which you'll find reproduced at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/authoritarian (though obviously not so much 2. or 3(i) "despotic" - it's just as well they give us 3 options!)

authoritarian (ɔːˌθɒrɪˈtɛərɪən)

— adj
1. favouring, denoting, or characterized by strict obedience to authority
2. favouring, denoting, or relating to government by a small elite with wide powers
3. despotic; dictatorial; domineering

...with more than a passing nod to the 1879 origin of the word shown on the same page

Word Origin & History

authoritarian
1879 (adj.), "favoring imposed order over freedom,"

If I were stuck in crashed and burning underground train I would rather know there was an authoritarian cop with a clear plan worked out in his head, shouting orders to make sure the ambulances and fire engines were guided to the optimum position, than a kindly democrat handing out ballot papers to everyone involved in order to conduct a referendum on what to do next. Fortunately this scenario doesn't happen to me very often. Most of the time, I despise authoritarianism.

[Exi5tentialist]

... I think punishment is a theistic concept. This is not to do with my "mood" it is to do with my opinion. I did not say it was an exclusively christian concept...

Exi5, do get real. All social mammals, including us humans, have various forms of reward and punishment firmly built into their/our cultures. The exact forms that reward and punishment take vary from one group of the same species to another and more widely between species, but we all, from shrews to blue whales, routinely engage in reward and punishment as parts of our social interaction. You cannot believably tie the "concept" of punishment to anything as recent as human religions.

Ronja, comments like 'get real' are not helpful to a thoughtful debate. Human beings are not pre-programmed to have a system of reward and punishment. If you believe that nature instilled punishment as a social construction in human civilization

I don't. You are leaping quite far to reach that conclusion from what I wrote. I do believe that we (all social mammals) have the genetic tendencies to behave in a group that have given an evolutionary advantage to the ancestors of each species. Those genetic tendencies make certain types of individual and group behavior statistically more likely than others, even for mammals with so large and well functioning a cerebral cortex (mainly frontal lobes) that they/we are self-aware and can analyze their/our own behavior and choices.

For example, in a group, tensions over resources will rise between individuals, that is inevitable. That in such situations relatively few individuals in a group are "authorized" (have gained a role/position that enables them) to use physical force against other members of the group would seem to offer a survival bonus compared to a free-for-all approach (the reasons for that should be a no-brainer). Of course the bonobos have figured out the likely most beneficial way of easing social tensions...

then you obviously believe that we have no choice and no freedom to as humans to reject the concept of punishment as a component of civilization.

Even if your above "if" clause had been true, this would still be an asininely illogical statement. You assume as "obvious" (=apparently in some magical, undocumented manner revealed to you personally) waaayyyy too much about what other people think or feel. Which is not helpful to a thoughtful debate, and may easily buy you some exasperated and/or sarcastic comments from others. If you don't like frustrated discussion partners or sarcasm, don't throw around claims that you don't have and cannot get any evidence for. Seriously.

If I could momentarily reflect your baboon sarcasm, which again is unnecessary, I think your position shows that you have not evolved very much beyond your theistic indoctrination.

. This claim is ridiculous to the point of being somewhat entertaining, so thanks for that. FYI: my dad was an atheist - the abusive indoctrination that I was subjected to was definitely not based on any theistic concepts - unless you want to move the goalposts again and claim that any parental abuse must in some magical, revealed-to-you-only manner become a "theistic influence" due to parents being "gods" for their young children or something.

This shows a very important difference between new atheism and existential atheism. Existentialists believe that beyond a few very basic characteristics that are 'given' (eg our hearts beat, we live), human beings are absolutely free to define themselves and make whatever choices they want. New atheism makes no such leap of imagination into the possibility of a different way of being for society. It prefers to concentrate its time on sniping at religious organisations, while at the same time happily taking on board lock, stock and barrel the theistic legacies that are cornerstones of our society.

One of these cornerstones is the whole guilt-culture of God's wrath and divine retribution for sin. You don't have to have been a Roman Catholic to have been on the receiving end of this particular form of oppression. It reaches out into every aspect of our theistically-based society, protestant and catholic. Basically, pain is inflicted because God says so when you have done wrong in the eyes of the theocracy. The way the judicial system is organised is founded on this Christian concept of punishment. Throughout the west we only need to think of 19th century christian values and the way they seeped into judicial systems, which to us now appear as an inhuman caracature of punishment, to realise that this is true, and how little our assumptions about punishment have evolved since then.

Evidence for any of that? As in links to systematic analyses that are based on actual data? Or at least links to other people's opinions in addition to you own? If not, that^^ is baseless drivel and therefore uninteresting.

All you have done in making reference to other mammals is replace God with Nature. Instead of saying God requires punishment for sin, you now say that nature requires punishment for sin. This is a good example of atheists not thinking through the consequences of the non-existence of God through.

I think a more accurate description here would be: this^^ is another example of you leaping to conclusions and therefore misunderstanding another person's position rather monumentally.

Do remember when I say punishment I am talking about the inflicting of pain, which nowadays in done in terms of incarceration. As a punishment I think this is a brutal and antiquated form of sadism born of religious retribution. I am not, however, talking about protecting society from risk. Punishment and risk management are different things. Clearly it does appear to be necessary to separate some dangerous individuals from society because of the risks they posed. So rather than "guilty or not guilty?" my question to the jury would be "risky or not risky?".

As a society I think we need to move away from the confusion between guilt as an emotion and guilt as an official declaration of criminality. Exploring alternatives to this confusion would be a productive exercise for atheists. It is sad that so many attempts to dismiss the very act of discussion have been made in this thread in favour of traditional punitive thinking, whose provenance I would have thought serious atheists would recognise as being extremely suspect.

These last two paragraphs almost make sense (a bit too much religion still, but you definitely have something there). So why on earth do you lead your reader to these last paragraphs through a quagmire of shoddy guesswork, overinterpretation and lack of evidence? It looks almost as if you *wanted* people to dismiss your views - but how would that be rational?

Ok so you deny my every analysis but you haven't actually said what you do believe instead.