Atheism and political apathy

[S.A.M.]

Why did you bring up the Indian atheists then? Either you don't quite know what you are doing or you are intentionally slippery? If they are not like Western atheists it was a useless tangent, a distraction. I suppose you feel justified in a context like this where your views are challenging the norms of many of the atheists here, but it is exasperating. You just shift. You don't acknowledge. You rephrase in significant ways AS IF it were the same which implies that I've said something I've not. You ask abstract questions a la plato that don't quite fit what has gone before. I give up you win.

atheists have done unbelievable political damage and many bad things actively and with intent.
atheism leads to political apathy.

I hold these both to be true. You have convinced me.

The cake you will always also have must taste good.
bye.

Nope, I'm comparing secularism in a theist society vs atheist society and the impact on society of atheists. I come from a strongly (99%) theist society. If the atheism in your society is undercover in theist society or the theist in atheist society, you need to reconsider your approaches to dealing with both religion and disbelief. Calling a ban on religious expression or atheist expression as secularism is a joke.

FYI, you could not distinguish between atheist or theist contributions to politics in Indian society because such distinctions are irrelevant to us.

 

[scorpius]

Its all intermingled. Religious groups are more likely to be politically involved, since there is greater social involvement. What do atheists do?

see for yourself
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkjK91...XP=1213933629/**http://www.celebatheists.com/
and
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkjK91...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheists
and
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkjK91...p://www.wonderfulatheistsofcfl.org/Quotes.htm

What has Dawkins contributed? Apart from disparaging religious people, nothing.

who gives a f about Dawkins, hes not my spoke person,just for himself!

just b/c you need some rude not very likeable atheist to point out as an example doesnt prove that all are like that,
on the contrary, majority of atheists respect theists WHEN- IF respect is given!

I would sooner send my kids for mass than to one of Dawkins anti-religion tirades. Hatred for people's beliefs is not a quality to be encouraged. Religious groups have a different focus. They are intent on providing a service or a contribution.

sure they are... ESPECIALY the contribution to the shyster/shaman/preacher/lier whos only aim is to get rich not giving rats ass about poor and starving..

and WHAT exactly did religions contributed to societys so far besides DIVIDING peoples and nations and teaching you to hate everyone else who doesnt share YOUR particular beliefs!?
as compared to all those scientific freethinkers/atheists who gave us better life's thru improved technology and medicine etc etc...
so kindly F OFF with your anti atheist krap already...it gets boring really quick

 

[S.A.M.]

SAM:
What makes you think conviction is such a great thing? Suicide bombers all have lots of conviction.

So did Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu. One Mahatma Gandhi makes up for several hundred suicide bombers, IMO.

You cannot have a society without conviction, only chaos.

Are you sure there has been an upsurge in theism in those places? Or could it be that theism has always been there, but in some cases it has been driven underground and is only now gradually gaining the confidence to come out again?

Would that apply to the "upsurge" in atheism in other places too, do you think?

Dawkins has written many books on science, both for professionals and non-professionals. He has made television programmes explaining science. He continually gives lectures about science. He is a famous science populariser, and has done a lot of promote science in the public consciousness.

How could you not know this?

Yeah, he's made plenty of money on the lecture circuit, like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, or Oprah. Again, can you tell me what policy change has been effected by him?

No discussion of sinners, then? No discussion of what the church considers right and wrong? Your priest must have been exceptional.

Probably, I haven't been to church much in the west, but no mass I went to was about fire or brimstone. Christianity in India is not about fear.

I think that these groups come together for reasons other than their atheism. Many atheists find that they share views on other matters, for some reason. Maybe it's the fact that many atheists reach their conclusion through training or education in scientific and logical thinking. Or, maybe it's because once you lose your religious blinkers you start to see the world in a particular way. Or maybe it's something else... *shrug*

Yeah, plenty of people not collecting stamps, eh?

 

[CptBork]

Anyway, my definition of an atheist isn't in the literal sense of declaring there is no god and can't be one. That's just an absurd position to take; 99% of declared atheists I know just say it's a big mystery, noone knows anything about what created the universe etc. and noone's come forth with any solid evidence proving otherwise. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, and we just haven't seen it.

In that sense, I don't see anything in Einstein's writings which would contradict that. Whether he'd call himself an atheist or an agnostic or a freethinker, it's all the same to me. And everyone knows Einstein was politically active, and most people consider him a champion of human rights.

 

[James R]

SAM:

Are you sure there has been an upsurge in theism in those places? Or could it be that theism has always been there, but in some cases it has been driven underground and is only now gradually gaining the confidence to come out again?

Would that apply to the "upsurge" in atheism in other places too, do you think?

Probably. As I said before, atheists tend to make themselves more visible when they see an increase in religious intolerance.

Yeah, [Dawkins has] made plenty of money on the lecture circuit, like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, or Oprah. Again, can you tell me what policy change has been effected by him?

You'd have to ask the politicians about that. They don't always make all of the things that influence their policy decisions public. Tony Blair is a good case in point, on the religious side. Wouldn't you say?

Probably, I haven't been to church much in the west, but no mass I went to was about fire or brimstone. Christianity in India is not about fear.

Religious messages aren't always overt. It's the subtext you often have to watch out for. It sneaks up on you, and before you know it you're saying the Jews killed Christ or that all Muslims are suicide bombers.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yeah, I recall the many pogroms the Jews went through in India. And our invasion and occupation of Sri Lanka [or a random atheist country] after an LTTE suicide bomber blew up our Prime Minister.

I sincerely hope we never adopt the western brand of "tolerance" or "secularism"; it would be the death of a glorious culture.

 

[spidergoat]

I thought India was a secular country, not a theocracy.

 

[S.A.M.]

Anyway, my definition of an atheist isn't in the literal sense of declaring there is no god and can't be one. That's just an absurd position to take; 99% of declared atheists I know just say it's a big mystery, noone knows anything about what created the universe etc. and noone's come forth with any solid evidence proving otherwise. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, and we just haven't seen it.

In that sense, I don't see anything in Einstein's writings which would contradict that. Whether he'd call himself an atheist or an agnostic or a freethinker, it's all the same to me. And everyone knows Einstein was politically active, and most people consider him a champion of human rights.

Lets just take him at his word then:

However, in 1929 - during a rare interview with a journalist - Einstein was directly asked if he believed in the God of Spinoza. "I can't answer with a simple yes or no," he replied. "I am not an atheist [and] I do not know if I can define myself as a pantheist."

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/23008

 

[S.A.M.]

I thought India was a secular country, not a theocracy.

Yeah, we're a religious secular country. Its a notion that is foreign to most people in the west, who perceive of religion as an obstruction to society and attempt to go about repressing it, while we consider it as an important aspect of our culture and social cohesion.

 

[CptBork]

I recall your country launching a series of airstrikes on Pakistan after one of the attempts to blow up your parliament.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yeah, we've had a lot of problems in the north ever since the late 1980s. But we never confuse politics with hate.

Indian troops have crossed the Line of Control dividing Kashmir to help Pakistani soldiers rebuild their quarters, the Indian army says.

The move follows the massive earthquake on Saturday which killed at least 23,000 people in South Asia.

Both countries have also eased travel curbs, allowing some Kashmiri families to return home via Punjab.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4334590.stm

 

[CptBork]

Lets just take him at his word then:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/23008

The only thing he's been connected to is Spinoza. It means he doesn't know what made the universe, he has a hunch it's a logical force of greater power than anything in the physical universe, and to say anymore than that is dogmatic. He definitely wouldn't be a pantheist in the sense of believing in multiple gods with their own independent personalities- he called ideas like that childish.

 

[S.A.M.]

He probably never had the opportunity to explore Indian religion. It would have eased his mind.

 

[CptBork]

Yeah, we've had a lot of problems in the north ever since the late 1980s. But we never confuse politics with hate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4334590.stm

America helped thousands of people in Iran after they had their recent earthquake. Does that mean America's free to go bomb Iran and annex one of their separatist territories if the unelected leader of that territory gets paid enough to go along with it?

 

[CptBork]

He probably never had the opportunity to explore Indian religion. It would have eased his mind.

The only thing that would have eased his mind is a grand unified theory of physics, with every last detail filled in.

 

[S.A.M.]

America helped thousands of people in Iran after they had their recent earthquake. Does that mean America's free to go bomb Iran and annex one of their separatist territories if the unelected leader of that territory gets paid enough to go along with it?

You'll find the Iranian attitude is very similar to the Indian attitude. Americans live in a world of paranoia that I have not seen anywhere in the ME [I have yet to visit Israel though]. I have seen liberal Americans joke with Iranians about bombing their country, in a manner that can only be considered as highly distasteful and insensitive.

 

[CptBork]

Well the point is, for all the peaceful initiatives India has taken, there's been lots of brutal conflicts in the past 50 years involving neighbours like China and Pakistan. One can only wonder what whims Indian militarists would have entertained without an even bigger military power sitting next door keeping watch.

 

[CptBork]

So to hold India up as a shining example of why atheists aren't worthy of holding political office and governing a secular society seems hypocritical to me.

 

[S.A.M.]

Duh, the only misstep Indians took was when Gandhi agreed to the partition to appease two Oxford educated megalomaniacs, both of whom wanted to be top dog. All our current problems have evolved from that point in time. Except for that there's not much in the last 5000 years we could have done differently.

We've never attacked first or preemptively, all our actions have been defensive and at the first sign of a peaceful overture, we have fallen over ourselves to accomodate neighbors. We've given up territory rather than continue needless wars. Kashmir is perhaps the biggest issue we need to resolve and even there, it is the justice to Kashmiri Pundits that keeps us from reaching a quick resolution. I would support a referundum in Kashmir if extremists from Afghanistan (from the time that the Americans funded and trained the mujahideen in the 1980s) did not have a strong hold on the population.

 

[CptBork]

Well to you that might sound reasoned and fair, but there are those who would strongly oppose you. The Pakistanis I've spoken to about this issue tell a very different tale, and they claim India won't let Kashmir separate because then a lot of other regions will be next in line. And your rejection of Kashmir's right to a referendum sounds a lot like western justifications for their own interventions in areas they feel are overrun by extremists.