A Believer's Guide To Atheism

[badger2]

This BBC radio program can serve as a model for our critique in this thread:

A Believer's Guide To Atheism
(This URL did not function after being typed in the spacebar)
bbc.co.uk/play/w3cszch3

A Believer's Guide To Atheism
(This URL did function after being typed in the spacebar)
bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00088n8

 

[badger2]

This URL also worked when typed in the spacebar:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00088n8

 

[ding]

I’m sure the title was meant to be an oxymoron and not a Freudian slip.

 

[Blackrook]

Does the show mention the 94 million people the atheists murdered under Communism?

 

[badger2]

The show does not mention those murdered by religion during the Crusades, though at timepoint 6:44, it's clear that the philosophy mentioned is out of date and does not reflect current atheist thinking.

timepoint @14:46 "non supernaturalist"

timepoint @ 17:46 "non-verbal experience"

timepoint @ 18:25 "oblivion"

timepoint @ 19:03 "bribery of the afterlife"

timepoint @ 21:10 "intellectually superior....it's really not that much an effort"
(This view is seriously out of touch with reality considering that the devotion of the brainwashed believer is a major hurdle to overcome in life.)

timepoint @ 21:20 "The Young Atheist's Handbook"

timepoint @ 22:10 "far more an emotional response to the world, than a logical or rational one"

timepoint @22:20 "Muslim god"

timepoint @ 24:22 "bring non-believers and believers closer together"
(Highly doubtful. Where's the survey results?)

timepoint @ 25:50 " I envy true believers"
(Piety envy?)

 

[ding]

Does the show mention the 94 million people the atheists murdered under Communism?

It was closer to 200 million and it was within the last 100 years. You can't expect him to hold that against the militant atheists.

 

[badger2]

Agreed. To hold the slavery of the human mind dictated by religion against a militant atheist would be like copulating to end love.

 

[ding]

"But I am not anymore. In my interactions with religious and nonreligious people alike, I now draw a sharp line, based not on what exactly they believe but on their level of dogmatism. I consider dogmatism a far greater threat than religion per se. I am particularly curious why anyone would drop religion while retaining the blinkers sometimes associated with it. Why are the “neo-atheists” of today so obsessed with God’s nonexistence that they go on media rampages, wear T-shirts proclaiming their absence of belief, or call for a militant atheism? What does atheism have to offer that’s worth fighting for?

As one philosopher put it, being a militant atheist is like “sleeping furiously.”...

...atheists’ zeal keeps surprising me. Why “sleep furiously” unless there are inner demons to be kept at bay? In the same way that firefighters are sometimes stealth arsonists and homophobes closet homosexuals, do some atheists secretly long for the certitude of religion?..."

Has militant atheism become a religion?

 

[badger2]

'We know that Peter was a violent man, for it is he who drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's slave during the betrayal of Jesus by Judas in the garden on the Mount of Olives (John 18:10-11). The other disciple in Jesus' inner circle was Simon the Canaanite, also called Simon the Zealot (Matt. 10:4; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). These two Zealots were, of course, part of the band which accompanied Jesus on his mission to Jerusalem. When Jesus decided to campaign in the Holy City, he wanted to know what people thought of him. Who did people think he was, he asked his disciples one day?

They answered: some said he was John the Baptist come back to life, others that he was Elijah, still others that he was one of the prophets. But you, who do you say I am, interrupted Jesus? It was then that Peter spoke the words that would prove fatal to the Master: "Thou art the Messiah, the son of god the living God. Thou art he who is destined to liberate the people of Israel" (Matt. 16: 13-16). Jesus was startled by Peter's bold language. He commanded his disciples, who had hear Peter's confession, to tell this to no one. But the effect on Jesus was tremendous. For he suddenly saw himself in this new light. Peter's confession seems to have transformed Jesus' perception of his own mission.'
(Katz, The Ways of an Atheist, pp. 95-6)

 

[badger2]

Post #8's dogmatism.

dogmatism: positiveness in assertion in matters of opinion; statement of a view or belief as if it were an established fact; often, marked positiveness of a statement when unwarranted or arrogant; the use of dogmatic statement as a method of exposition; a viewpoint or system of ideas based upon insufficiently examined premises; a doctrine that insists upon the existence of certain truths.'
(Webster's Third International Dictionary)

Post #8 reveals a clone-like mental geometry and is transparently and a traditionally a xian driving force.

'There is not, and there cannot be, any man having driving forces of devotion only, or of assertion only, and even a preponderance of one or the other side can occur only exceptionally: normally the one or the other takes place only within definite classes of objects of desire. Further, no driving force of the one side becomes active without at the same time causing to exist an occasion for the rejection of the other side. If I am dominated by an assertive interest, then it dominates, among other things, a possible tendency towards devotion, and accordingly every stimulus to devotion is felt as an irritant serving to intensify the assertive interest. If conversely I am dominated by a tendency towards devotion, then it also dominates my assertive interest, and my strongest reluctance will be turned against assertive desires; and the assertive functions of my will (which, of course, are indispensable) serve merely the realization of such ends as satisfies desires of devotion. If we do justice to this fact, it will lead us on both sides to a curious duplication of the driving forces, for as soon as each has arisen, we must distinguish within it attitudes due to strength of interest from attitudes (which look exactly similar) due to weakness of counter-interest.

Finally we introduce two terms which make it much easier to distinguish between spiritual and personal self-assertion. We have seen that Spirit is a power which seeks after assertion (fixation, or existence), and that the Ego is the best habitation of the Spirit within vitality; hence our meaning will be clear when we say that every impulse towards assertion (whether spiritual or personal) is, with regard to vitality, an impulse (binding [italics]) certain vital processes; and that every impulse towards devotion, in relation towards the spiritual as well as to the personal Ego, is an impulse which unbinds or loosens certain vital processes from it. Accordingly we alternatively call assertive driving forces binding, and devotional driving forces releasing. Thus all driving forces are divided into binding and releasing, with a cross-division into spiritual and personal, and accordingly we have four chief groups: spiritual bonds, spiritual releases, personal bonds, personal releases. In the first place we turn to the spiritual bonds. We adopt a threefold division of all spiritual bonds into theoretic, aesthetic, and ethical reason -- a division which was developed early in the history of European thought for the main objects of philosophy, and has predominated for over a century; but we do so only because this division does in fact conceal a difference in spiritual interests, whose clear elaboration, however, involves a considerable change in the meanings of the words.'
(Klages, Science of Character, Ch. X, System of Driving Forces)

 

[Hollie]

Does the show mention the 94 million people the atheists murdered under Communism?

Yours is a stereotypical charge leveled at atheism. I will note that Marxist-Leninist systems are also political Ideologies. The killings performed by various communist / socialist / Marxist regime were the result of psychopaths furthering collectivist ideologies.

You’re not identifying that Stalin, Mao, Lenin, etc., used a political ideology in furtherance of their mass murders. Atheism was incidental to the ideology.

If you add the numbers, religion actually "wins" in the human destruction business.

 

[ding]

Post #8's dogmatism.

dogmatism: positiveness in assertion in matters of opinion; statement of a view or belief as if it were an established fact; often, marked positiveness of a statement when unwarranted or arrogant; the use of dogmatic statement as a method of exposition; a viewpoint or system of ideas based upon insufficiently examined premises; a doctrine that insists upon the existence of certain truths.'
(Webster's Third International Dictionary)

Post #8 reveals a clone-like mental geometry and is transparently and a traditionally a xian driving force.

'There is not, and there cannot be, any man having driving forces of devotion only, or of assertion only, and even a preponderance of one or the other side can occur only exceptionally: normally the one or the other takes place only within definite classes of objects of desire. Further, no driving force of the one side becomes active without at the same time causing to exist an occasion for the rejection of the other side. If I am dominated by an assertive interest, then it dominates, among other things, a possible tendency towards devotion, and accordingly every stimulus to devotion is felt as an irritant serving to intensify the assertive interest. If conversely I am dominated by a tendency towards devotion, then it also dominates my assertive interest, and my strongest reluctance will be turned against assertive desires; and the assertive functions of my will (which, of course, are indispensable) serve merely the realization of such ends as satisfies desires of devotion. If we do justice to this fact, it will lead us on both sides to a curious duplication of the driving forces, for as soon as each has arisen, we must distinguish within it attitudes due to strength of interest from attitudes (which look exactly similar) due to weakness of counter-interest.

Finally we introduce two terms which make it much easier to distinguish between spiritual and personal self-assertion. We have seen that Spirit is a power which seeks after assertion (fixation, or existence), and that the Ego is the best habitation of the Spirit within vitality; hence our meaning will be clear when we say that every impulse towards assertion (whether spiritual or personal) is, with regard to vitality, an impulse (binding [italics]) certain vital processes; and that every impulse towards devotion, in relation towards the spiritual as well as to the personal Ego, is an impulse which unbinds or loosens certain vital processes from it. Accordingly we alternatively call assertive driving forces binding, and devotional driving forces releasing. Thus all driving forces are divided into binding and releasing, with a cross-division into spiritual and personal, and accordingly we have four chief groups: spiritual bonds, spiritual releases, personal bonds, personal releases. In the first place we turn to the spiritual bonds. We adopt a threefold division of all spiritual bonds into theoretic, aesthetic, and ethical reason -- a division which was developed early in the history of European thought for the main objects of philosophy, and has predominated for over a century; but we do so only because this division does in fact conceal a difference in spiritual interests, whose clear elaboration, however, involves a considerable change in the meanings of the words.'
(Klages, Science of Character, Ch. X, System of Driving Forces)

That was the atheist’s point in post#8. The true risk is dogma. It doesn’t matter whose dogma.

If you don’t believe that certain atheists are dogmatic you are blind to reality.

 

[diver52]

Does the show mention the 94 million people the atheists murdered under Communism?

Yours is a stereotypical charge leveled at atheism. I will note that Marxist-Leninist systems are also political Ideologies. The killings performed by various communist / socialist / Marxist regime were the result of psychopaths furthering collectivist ideologies.

You’re not identifying that Stalin, Mao, Lenin, etc., used a political ideology in furtherance of their mass murders. Atheism was incidental to the ideology.

If you add the numbers, religion actually "wins" in the human destruction business.

Communism really is a religion. It simply replaces "God" with "The People". However. I don't accept that either is the cause of all the killings. It's far more mundane than that. Human beings are capable of removing themselves from the responsibility of their own actions and thus are capable of doing the most horrific acts. They just fall back on the old justification of "I was just following orders". There are always the few true believers who do things for the cause, but the vast majority do it just because they were told to and it is far easier to follow orders than to refuse. Ultimately, the reason behind the violence has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with the achievement and maintenance of power by the social leaders.

There is a book called Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning. It's an excellent work on just how mundane evil truly is.

 

[badger2]

Yes, Hannah Arendt also remarked on that mundane aspect in her study of Eichmann.