education course for ignorant atheists

[arauca]

What aspects of religion should atheists (respectfully) adopt? Alain de Botton suggests a "religion for atheists" -- call it Atheism 2.0.
Peter Faust on
Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0
“ I love this video. While some of you are markedly more critical of him and his "intentions", I happen to wish for the same thing he does. Being a former fundamentalist christian, I have a much more personal and unique perspective on religion. Basically when you wake up from your slumber and begin to question all the ridiculous dogma you once held dear, you can't really live the same lifestyle anymore.
The problem is, religious lifestyle isn't all that bad. Sure people give lectures all day long but no place in the secular world would dare to give a sermon. Why should pastors have the monopoly on teaching values? We may pride ourselves on our independent thought but, why shouldn't there be people to "teach" values? The church is a fantastic community structure, there simply is no equivalent in secular society. I doubt a TED conference has anywhere near the level of comradery you'd find at my old church. In my opinion, they are basically small individualized community centers that somehow manage to forgo the sterility of any other comparable system.
While this idea of atheism 2.0 could basically be called humanism, I think his point is still very relevant. Temples and churches have been around as long as we have. I think it's endurance is proof that it's catering to some kind of need. I have yet to see a humanist church and why haven't I?"
See on program TED Posted on January 2012

 

[mathman]

Temples and churches have been around as long as we have.

Doubtful. If you are talking about homo sapiens, we've been around for around 200,000 years, while I don't believe there were anything resembling temples or churches for more than 10,000 years, probably a lot less.

 

[arauca]

Doubtful. If you are talking about homo sapiens, we've been around for around 200,000 years, while I don't believe there were anything resembling temples or churches for more than 10,000 years, probably a lot less.

I don't say anything , I just listened for 19 min a presentation of a proffered atheist and I was impressed, in comparing Allan Bottom with local jokers in the forum

 

[Bells]

What aspects of religion should atheists (respectfully) adopt?

Why do atheists have to adopt any aspect of religion?

Why should atheists have to adopt religion at all?

I find the title of your thread insulting. Are you suggesting that atheists are ignorant because they do not believe in God?

I happen to wish for the same thing he does. Being a former fundamentalist christian, I have a much more personal and unique perspective on religion. Basically when you wake up from your slumber and begin to question all the ridiculous dogma you once held dear, you can't really live the same lifestyle anymore.

I woke up from my slumber during a Catholic childhood and was an atheist because there was absolutely no proof of a God or higher being.

The problem is, religious lifestyle isn't all that bad. Sure people give lectures all day long but no place in the secular world would dare to give a sermon. Why should pastors have the monopoly on teaching values? We may pride ourselves on our independent thought but, why shouldn't there be people to "teach" values? The church is a fantastic community structure, there simply is no equivalent in secular society. I doubt a TED conference has anywhere near the level of comradery you'd find at my old church. In my opinion, they are basically small individualized community centers that somehow manage to forgo the sterility of any other comparable system.

Why do atheists need a church?

While this idea of atheism 2.0 could basically be called humanism, I think his point is still very relevant. Temples and churches have been around as long as we have. I think it's endurance is proof that it's catering to some kind of need. I have yet to see a humanist church and why haven't I?"

Actually no, organised religion with the use of temples or shrines may have begun in the Neolithic period, but even that is disputed because of the archaeology that has been found from that period.

So I wouldn't claim that churches and temples have been around for as long as we have, especially if you are unable to provide any proof to back up your claims.

 

[arauca]

Why do atheists have to adopt any aspect of religion?

Why should atheists have to adopt religion at all?

I find the title of your thread insulting. Are you suggesting that atheists are ignorant because they do not believe in God?


As far I am concerned you don't have to believe in any thing , nor I meant insulting atheists I thought was an interesting presentation by an intelligent atheist, by the way check out TED january 2012, even you might like it
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I woke up from my slumber during a Catholic childhood and was an atheist because there was absolutely no proof of a God or higher being.


You do believe in dark natter and dark energy and you have a so called proof because lensing effect

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Why do atheists need a church?


I an not saying you need , listen to his presentation .

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So I wouldn't claim that churches and temples have been around for as long as we have, especially if you are unable to provide any proof to back up your claims.

Sorry, I don't claim anything , Check with you preachers

 

[James R]

arauca:

You don't seem to have posted anything relevant to the topic of your thread.

Are you suggesting an education course for ignorant atheists? If so, what would the syllabus be?

 

[cosmictraveler]

The problem is, religious lifestyle isn't all that bad.

To whom? The Islamic way of religion which treats women like shit? The Catholic religion which USE to treat anyone that didn't "believe" with torture, or death. Or the Mayans and Aztecs who sacrificed others to their "gods"? So when saying such nonsense please don't try to make religion seem so nice when through history it has caused many wars, torturing and deaths because of it. I guess that you really haven't stidied religion very much have you, at least with statements like that you sure don't seem to as have.

 

[Bells]

Sorry, I don't claim anything , Check with you preachers

Are you denying you wrote your OP?

What exactly is your aim with this thread arauca?

 

[arauca]

arauca:

You don't seem to have posted anything relevant to the topic of your thread.

Are you suggesting an education course for ignorant atheists? If so, what would the syllabus be?

Do yourself a favor listen to the presentation that I sited , before you start to make your judgement .

I sustain that atheism does not have much to offer to the society , beside no ,no ,no . I believe the believer is advancing in time with education and in science and will continue advance.
Atheism offers to the society only selfishness, The speaker A. Bottom offers some mechanism for your loose society to be organized and become useful in charitable work, which without organization , the atheism is just mouth and no action.
Here is some more for you enlightenment : an exerpt
Religion and Transhumanism

Alex McGilvery
Alex McGilvery
Ethical Technology

Posted: Jan 22, 2012

At first glance religion and transhumanism are at opposite poles of human endeavour. Religion with its superstitions and reliance on supernatural intervention is the very kind of thing that transhumanism is trying to free the human species from. Yet there are a lot of things that transhumanism can learn from religion. There are even things that could make transhumanism and religion partners in improving the human species.

 

[arauca]

To whom? The Islamic way of religion which treats women like shit? The Catholic religion which USE to treat anyone that didn't "believe" with torture, or death. Or the Mayans and Aztecs who sacrificed others to their "gods"? So when saying such nonsense please don't try to make religion seem so nice when through history it has caused many wars, torturing and deaths because of it. I guess that you really haven't stidied religion very much have you, at least with statements like that you sure don't seem to as have.

Why are you pounding the past . we are in the present times are different .
Why don't you guys like Dawkins don' go into a jungle of Venezuela , Brazil ir to Africa teach them there is no deity and civilize them and teach them your order.

 

[arauca]

Are you denying you wrote your OP?

What exactly is your aim with this thread arauca?

What is that you want , I am the one who posted and is posted for discussion are you afraid to discuss your pear in your belief ?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Basically when you wake up from your slumber and begin to question all the ridiculous dogma you once held dear, you can't really live the same lifestyle anymore.

Many "born-again atheists" continue to attend religious services for a variety of reasons. It keeps their family happy, they get to hang out with their friends and neighbors, and despite the heavy supernatural overtones of the sermons, a lot of good is preached.

Additionally, many people who count themselves as religious don't spend much time in their church/temple/synagogue, whatever. The transition to atheism would not have much impact on their social life; they can still go to church on Easter or to temple on Yom Kippur.

Jews don't put as much emphasis on the supernatural aspects of their religion as Christians and Muslims do. Theirs is a religion of laws rather than doctrines. Especially in a Reform congregation, as long as they don't flagrantly disobey the laws (which in Reform Judaism do not prohibit eating pork, etc.) and don't proselytize atheism while the rabbi is speaking, they're welcome in the temple.

Religious people have not had lobotomies. They are capable of rational thought. Many of them ponder the same issues we do, and often come to the same conclusions about them.

Why should pastors have the monopoly on teaching values? We may pride ourselves on our independent thought but, why shouldn't there be people to "teach" values?

They don't. What strange place do you live in where you observe that??? Parents and schoolteachers teach values every day. The Muppets on "Sesame Street" have been teaching values for 42 years. Every time you see an in-depth interview of a famous person on TV or in the newspaper, they are always guided into discussing their own values. Sure, some of them are ne'er-do-wells whose value to society (aside from their artistic contributions or whatever they do that made them famous) is to serve as a bad example. Yet just as many or more of them are good examples.

I teach values right here on SciForums. So does DarksidZZ, by serving as an obviously bad example.

The church is a fantastic community structure, there simply is no equivalent in secular society.

I beg to differ. The group of friends I joined in college were also a "fantastic community," and 4.5 decades later I still keep in touch with them. Sure, a church is a building with a physical dimension where people meet in the flesh, whereas my friends are only available on the internet. But Americans relocate so often in today's economy that they say goodbye to their fellow parishioners as often as we do to our office-mates.

I doubt a TED conference has anywhere near the level of comradery you'd find at my old church.

How can you possibly jump to that conclusion if you've never been to one? I've been active in a number of professional societies in the course of my life, as well as belonging to a go (the Japanese game) club and playing in a band. I get the same camaraderie and probably a good deal more intellectual companionship than I could hope to get by hanging out with the Religious Redneck Retards who fill at least half of America's churches.

In my opinion, they are basically small individualized community centers that somehow manage to forgo the sterility of any other comparable system.

I'm curious to know what other systems you've tried, to be so stridently positive about that opinion. The average American spends more time at his/her job than in any other activity (including, for many of them, sleeping), and American men tend to identify ourselves by our jobs. So it stands to reason that this particular type of "community center" brings together people who have the most important thing in their lives (as measured by the clock) in common. Mrs. Fraggle and I used to run the world's largest teddy bear collectors' club and those were absolutely wonderful people to hang out with.

While this idea of atheism 2.0 could basically be called humanism, I think his point is still very relevant.

Atheism is a lack of belief in the supernatural, whereas humanism is a belief system centered on the importance of human dignity. Apples and oranges.

Since you've been cured of religion you no doubt are able to now see a religion as nothing more than a collection of metaphors. Metaphors are streamlined observations of the world, and the streamlining helps us make better use of them than the raw data from which they are crafted. But when you see through the supernaturalism that is religion's engine of metaphor-building, you realize that what all religions purport to do is exactly the same thing: stressing the importance of human dignity.

For all practical purposes we could call religion a form of humanism that presents its topics in metaphors for the intellectually challenged.

Temples and churches have been around as long as we have.

The first buildings were the houses that were erected at the dawn of the Agricultural Revolution 12KYA, when people stopped being nomads and started gathering in permanent settlements. There are a few older constructions that could not have been dwellings, but may well have served some ceremonial purpose. The cave paintings go back many millennia before them, and they too may have been expressions of supernaturalism. But none of this goes all the way back to the emergence of our species 200KYA.

I think it's endurance is proof that it's catering to some kind of need.

I guess there are still some SciForums members who haven't run into my posts about Jung's work on archetypes, which are images, stories, ceremonies and beliefs that occur in nearly all eras and cultures. In modern language we would say that archetypes are instincts pre-programmed into our brains by our DNA. Many instincts are obviously survival traits: an animal that doesn't automatically start running from a large animal with both eyes in front of its face won't live long enough to reproduce. Other instincts are not so easily explainable, and may simply be random mutations passed down by chance through a genetic bottleneck.

I any case, Jung would say that you are right. The "need" that religion serves is the need to add life and context to the supernatural universe which our brain insists is real, even though there is no proof of it.

I have yet to see a humanist church and why haven't I?"

There's probably a humanist society in every large American city. They don't build churches because they have no need to worship anything, although some of them do rent space in church basements for their meetings. You're making too much out of the traditional image of the church. Back when the Religious Redneck Retard Revival began in the late 1970s in the USA there were lots of churches that were nothing more than old storefronts in strip malls that were for rent cheap, with a few religious artifacts placed around for consecration. Since the RRRR was a rousing success (the hippies were ready to beg forgiveness for all the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll) most of those churches now have dedicated buildings that look like traditional churches.

 

[Bells]

What is that you want , I am the one who posted and is posted for discussion are you afraid to discuss your pear in your belief ?

I have a pear in my belief? I thought it was a grapefruit!

You posted something which discusses some sort of video, without giving us much else to go on. In other words, you quoted material without actually citing anything.

You posted comments about atheists being ignorant and that we apparently have something ridiculous in our dogma...

You posted several things, none of which has any citation whatsoever.

I need to ask you, what it is you want?

Why don't you guys like Dawkins don' go into a jungle of Venezuela , Brazil ir to Africa teach them there is no deity and civilize them and teach them your order.

You mean like the Christians did, murdering thousands in the process?

Do yourself a favor listen to the presentation that I sited , before you start to make your judgement .

What presentation?

All you have done is babbled on about ignorant atheists, then babbled some more about a video presentation you watched and quoted directly from it, or appear to have quoted from it.

Why don't you do us a favour and provide at least links to what you are citing in this thread?

 

[arauca]

I have a pear in my belief? I thought it was a grapefruit!

You posted something which discusses some sort of video, without giving us much else to go on. In other words, you quoted material without actually citing anything.

You posted comments about atheists being ignorant and that we apparently have something ridiculous in our dogma...

You posted several things, none of which has any citation whatsoever.

I need to ask you, what it is you want?


You mean like the Christians did, murdering thousands in the process?



What presentation?

All you have done is babbled on about ignorant atheists, then babbled some more about a video presentation you watched and quoted directly from it, or appear to have quoted from it.

Why don't you do us a favour and provide at least links to what you are citing in this thread?

I think there is not much to discuss because we are going in circle .

http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_b...2012-01-20&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utn

 

[James R]

arauca:

I sustain that atheism does not have much to offer to the society , beside no ,no ,no.

You're right!

Atheism isn't a system of morals or a philosophy of life. It is just a statement that gods don't exist.

If you want a secular philosophy or guide to how to live, you ought to look at something like Humanism.

I believe the believer is advancing in time with education and in science and will continue advance.

I hope so.

Atheism offers to the society only selfishness...

How do you figure that? Atheism isn't a philosophy of selfishness; it's just a non-belief in gods.

At first glance religion and transhumanism are at opposite poles of human endeavour. Religion with its superstitions and reliance on supernatural intervention is the very kind of thing that transhumanism is trying to free the human species from. Yet there are a lot of things that transhumanism can learn from religion. There are even things that could make transhumanism and religion partners in improving the human species.

I'm not a big fan of transhumanism myself.

Are you a transhumanist religious person?

 

[arauca]

How do you figure that? Atheism isn't a philosophy of selfishness; it's just a non-belief in gods.


Indirectly. Most of theist philosophy is to help your fellow man in your community and that thought comes from god . So if you don't have that command from god , you don't have such obligation , so what does that lives you with ? Self centered

 

[GeoffP]

Much of theist philosophy has also been on how and why to slaughter your fellow man.

Between that and indifference, I'll take indifference.

 

[spidergoat]

If people need a sense of community, there are all sorts of institutions that can accommodate them, including many atheist ones. You may not realize it, but there are prominent atheist conventions too, where people like Dawkins, P Z Meyers and recently Hitchens have been star attractions. There are also smaller clubs all over the place.

 

[arauca]

Much of theist philosophy has also been on how and why to slaughter your fellow man.

Between that and indifference, I'll take indifference.

In my over 50 years that is not true . the Christian community have been slaughtered, communists regime which is considered atheistic

So lets stop bringing to light the dirty underwear.
Talk about since WW11

 

[Bells]

I think there is not much to discuss because we are going in circle .

http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_b...2012-01-20&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utn

I would say that you do not wish to discuss this topic at all because each time I try to clarify anything with you, you say there is nothing to discuss.

So what exactly, is it that you want from this thread?

Indirectly. Most of theist philosophy is to help your fellow man in your community and that thought comes from god . So if you don't have that command from god , you don't have such obligation , so what does that lives you with ? Self centered

Nonsense. If one reads the religious text, one sees that God is inherently selfish and demands attention. When he did not get what he wanted, he slaughtered by the thousands, men, women, children and animals.

Your motivation to help your fellow man does not come from the Bible or from God. Even the tribes, that you mentioned, who do not believe in "God" as you do work within the community structure to help and ensure the survival of the whole. It comes from living with others, because when we stopped being nomadic, we had to work together to ensure the group's survival. It has nothing to do with God but with self-preservation.