Religion Becomes Extinct in Several Countires

[wynn]

other atheists don't decide to disbelieve it?

Actually, I think this may often enough be the case, even with the "average Western atheist".

Namely, to many atheists, it probably seems like they have been pushed into atheism, or that atheism is so obvious that no choosing is necessary.

As for being pushed into atheism and not considering it an actual choice: It is the kind of psychological phenomenon where a child from a dysfunctional family believes that all families are dysfunctional and that there is no worth in pursuing family life.
Or when a raped woman believes that all men are rapists.
IOW, there was a traumatic experience with theism (anything from being sexually abused by a priest to hearing the biblical verse "He that is not with me is against me" from a stranger at a time when one was abandoned by a lover; such traumatic experiences abound), and atheism emerged as a reaction to it (with subsequent justifications/rationalizations).


As for atheism being so obvious that no choosing is necessary: That can presume naturalism as the default position; and since it is considered the default position, no justification seems necessary. Many atheists say that "being born atheist is the default". It's the kind of thing that is directly or indirectly taught at most schools.

 

[birch]

Actually, I think this may often enough be the case, even with the "average Western atheist".

Namely, to many atheists, it probably seems like they have been pushed into atheism, or that atheism is so obvious that no choosing is necessary.

As for being pushed into atheism and not considering it an actual choice: It is the kind of psychological phenomenon where a child from a dysfunctional family believes that all families are dysfunctional and that there is no worth in pursuing family life.
Or when a raped woman believes that all men are rapists.
IOW, there was a traumatic experience with theism (anything from being sexually abused by a priest to hearing the biblical verse "He that is not with me is against me" from a stranger at a time when one was abandoned by a lover; such traumatic experiences abound), and atheism emerged as a reaction to it (with subsequent justifications/rationalizations).


As for atheism being so obvious that no choosing is necessary: That can presume naturalism as the default position; and since it is considered the default position, no justification seems necessary. Many atheists say that "being born atheist is the default". It's the kind of thing that is directly or indirectly taught at most schools.

you make a lot of ridiculous assumptions. in the scenarios you point out, then they are not really atheists if they don't understand what it is or rejecting religion just because of a negative experience. the point is do they believe in their religion. you are assuming that a default position of neutrality is what makes an atheist or negativity toward or rejection of a religion is indicative of a bad experience which is the only reason they don't believe in it. a person can have negative opinions about a religion from experience even though they would reject it anyways. i am not a buddhist even though i've never had one push it on me. the fact they haven't pushed it on me has had no bearing on my attraction or belief in their philosophy based on how nice or non-pushy they are. i agree with 'some' of it but i think it's very incomplete like most philosophies or religion no matter what they may believe. i even agree with a lot of biblical allegory. that's why it should be open-ended in my opinion. there are some religions i find fanciful and interesting like polytheism but that doesn't mean i will take it seriously or join it just because of a lack of negative experience. are you fuking clueless?

i may enjoy some aspects of it or find it intrigueing but i also find some bible stories interesting as well as other works of fiction/fantasy as well as non-fiction. hell, i think revelations is interesting just like i found nostradamus interesting. i don't reject any of it all outright. that's not how you learn, though there are some parts i will reject outright because i disagree with them.

even in my own experience, it was because i did question it from the time i was small that i was oppressed. i wanted to know how things really worked. i wanted to know other things or views besides just that religion and that is unacceptable among a fundamentalist circle. it's because they did notice i was different and not fitting in. i questioned everything and expected non-bullshit answers and that is a no-no among fundamentalists. it was just more confusion which created more questions. it just did not make sense to me or appeal to me similarly to other atheists and agnostics. fundamentalist religion believes that an entity called god exists which is the creator. that is the foremost foundation of the religion. ethics is second. i wanted to find things out for myself, not just take someone's word for it as if that is proof. i like some of the ethics but i cannot bring myself to believe in their idea of a creator. end of story.

as for atheism, it can be anything from a total lack of belief in any type of spirituality to those who leave it open-ended or still question. btw, don't fucking use other people's experiences to pigeonhole them into your bullshit narrow theories. that's unethical and disrespectful.

where you might have a point is where some athiests may be in denial if they are not open to any possibilities or any sense of the unknown. but even among them, some may actually be sincere. it just really depends. it's not all due to negative experiences though that can also compound the criticism.

 

[lightgigantic]

err?

you did relegate it to the "supernatural", yes?

 

[iceaura]

If they make any kind of reply, vocal or only in their mind (and usually, they do), then they are operating out of an ideology

But you have no idea, just from that description, what it is.

It's the answers to these questions and the justifications for them that make up one's atheism.

Suppose they are ideologically identical to the answers obtained from a theist, in a couple of specific cases - would that mean the theism and the atheism involved were ideologically identical?

What I find curious about so many atheists here is that they refuse to take a personal stance on their atheism

In my experience, such a stance destroys any possibility of discussion with a theist: theists tend to argue ad hominem by preference, and sieze any opportunity to do so.

Some ideologies may be more variegated than others but it doesn't detract any that they are derivative from a singular cause

They aren't. They vary at fundamental levels.

Ideologies do not have "causes", btw.

For instance the range of approaches to feminism doesn't suggest that feminsim is without ideology, values, etc

You will find Ayn Rand's feminism, Mao Tse Tung's feminism, Adrienne Rich's feminism, Hugh Hefner's feminism, and Margaret Mead's feminism, dissimilar in their ideologies at quite basic levels. My prediction.

The point is that if they contextualize the claim as true, false , inconsequential or anything in between they are dealing with their own ideological stance on the matter

That doesn't mean you have any idea what the claim is in the first place, or what ideology was invoked in dealing with it.

I still don't follow how all this leads one to the conclusion that atheism is a non-ideological stance amongst persons who are actually contextualizing the claims of theists

If you are going to claim that all such responses and even thinking itself inevitably involves ideology, sure. But you still don't know what that ideology is, in any specific instance.

I call it a problem because the very nature of being labeled an atheist means that one is capable of contextualizing the claims of theism,

So does the very nature of being labeled a speaker of human language. So?

 

[YoYoPapaya]

Actually, I think this may often enough be the case, even with the "average Western atheist".

Namely, to many atheists, it probably seems like they have been pushed into atheism, or that atheism is so obvious that no choosing is necessary.

As for being pushed into atheism and not considering it an actual choice: It is the kind of psychological phenomenon where a child from a dysfunctional family believes that all families are dysfunctional and that there is no worth in pursuing family life.
Or when a raped woman believes that all men are rapists.
IOW, there was a traumatic experience with theism (anything from being sexually abused by a priest to hearing the biblical verse "He that is not with me is against me" from a stranger at a time when one was abandoned by a lover; such traumatic experiences abound), and atheism emerged as a reaction to it (with subsequent justifications/rationalizations).


As for atheism being so obvious that no choosing is necessary: That can presume naturalism as the default position; and since it is considered the default position, no justification seems necessary. Many atheists say that "being born atheist is the default". It's the kind of thing that is directly or indirectly taught at most schools.

What would you say babies are born as?
I have never heard of anybody being pushed into atheism. I did however hear about kids being brainwashed in religious sects. In fact one of my friends ran away from his family at age 14 because they were in such a sect. You can say he was pushed into atheism i guess. But he was pushed by religion.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

you did relegate it to the "supernatural", yes?

Yes but i don't see your point.

 

[lightgigantic]

They aren't. They vary at fundamental levels.

On the contrary, they are defined at fundamental levels .... thats how we distinguish between atheism, feminism, cubism or atheist feminist cubism or any other ism you care to mention

Ideologies do not have "causes", btw.

Feminism is not about women?
Atheism is not about contextualizing theism?
Cubism is not about playing between 2d and 3d surfaces with multifaceted fragments?

You will find Ayn Rand's feminism, Mao Tse Tung's feminism, Adrienne Rich's feminism, Hugh Hefner's feminism, and Margaret Mead's feminism, dissimilar in their ideologies at quite basic levels. My prediction.

You will find they are all about women. My prediction.

That doesn't mean you have any idea what the claim is in the first place, or what ideology was invoked in dealing with it.

If one is dealing with it (ie assigning it a status of real, false, inconsequential or anything in between) how does one not have an idea about it?

If you are going to claim that all such responses and even thinking itself inevitably involves ideology, sure. But you still don't know what that ideology is, in any specific instance.

ditto above

So does the very nature of being labeled a speaker of human language. So?

So its ridiculous to talk about atheism being bereft of ideology, value, etc

 

[lightgigantic]

What would you say babies are born as?

apolitical in regard to British involvement in Irish politics?
You tell me.

BTW, classic example of your lumping in

I have never heard of anybody being pushed into atheism.

Then you have never heard about china or communist Russia for a start

I did however hear about kids being brainwashed in religious sects. In fact one of my friends ran away from his family at age 14 because they were in such a sect. You can say he was pushed into atheism i guess. But he was pushed by religion.

Ironically the same situation (with reversed values) existed in post communist russia.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

I just asked a question... How is that lumping in?

Frankly your nonsense is starting to annoy me a bit.
Soviet Russia is no more. That there is forced atheism in China I didn't know of. But it would make sense. Totalitarian regimes are like that sometimes. They replace religion with worship of the government.

 

[lightgigantic]

Yes but i don't see your point.

And you don't think metaphysical naturalism is the essential ideology for "disbelieving the supernatural"?

 

[YoYoPapaya]

Yes? But i thought we were talking about atheism, not Naturalism.

 

[lightgigantic]

I just asked a question... How is that lumping in?

You asked what are babies born as, in an obvious attempt to lump them in with atheism, yes?

Frankly your nonsense is starting to annoy me a bit.

its nonsense to assign an ideological stance to personalities who stand outside the knowledge base. New born babies are just as much atheists as they are apolitical in regard to British involvement in Irish politics

Soviet Russia is no more. That there is forced atheism in China I didn't know of. But it would make sense. Totalitarian regimes are like that sometimes. They replace religion with worship of the government.

hence citing incidents of a/theistic brain washing is merely anecdotal

 

[lightgigantic]

Yes? But i thought we were talking about atheism, not Naturalism.

seems like in your discussion of atheism you just slipped in with an essential break down of metaphysical naturalism ... nothing wrong with that ... unless of course one is simultaneously trying to advocate that atheism has no essential need for ideology, value, etc

 

[iceaura]

Ideologies do not have "causes", btw.
”
Feminism is not about women?
Atheism is not about contextualizing theism?
Cubism is not about playing between 2d and 3d surfaces with multifaceted surfaces?

1) No.

2) Those aren't ideologies.

3) Being about something is not being caused by something (surfaces do not cause cubism).

You play with words without the slightest grounding in actual thought or meaning.

They aren't. They vary at fundamental levels.
”
On the contrary, they are defined at fundamental levels

They vary in their definition, then. So?

That doesn't mean you have any idea what the claim is in the first place, or what ideology was invoked in dealing with it.
”
If one is dealing with it (ie assigning it a status of real, false, inconsequential or anything in between) how does one not have an idea about it?

We have stipulated, for the sake of argument, that ideology is inevitable in human thought (I think that's bs, but since it doesn't matter I grant it to get you past the irrelevancy). The point made is that you don't know what the ideology involved is, just from the scene described. There are many possibilities, including some you probably have never encountered.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

You asked what are babies born as, in an obvious attempt to lump them in with atheism, yes?


its nonsense to assign an ideological stance to personalities who stand outside the knowledge base. New born babies are just as much atheists as they are apolitical in regard to British involvement in Irish politics


hence citing incidents of a/theistic brain washing is merely anecdotal

I was genuinely interested in his opinion on what babies are born as. That's not lumping in is it?

And yes exactly atheist and non political. Atheist = non religious - non political = well.. non political.

I never said anecdotal, I said I never heard of any examples of forced atheism.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

seems like in your discussion of atheism you just slipped in with an essential break down of metaphysical naturalism ... nothing wrong with that ... unless of course one is simultaneously trying to advocate that atheism has no essential need for ideology, value, etc

1. Yes I am an atheist

2. Yes i am a naturalist

3. No the two words don't mean the same. If you doubt me, look it up in a dictionary. It's not very hard.

 

[spidergoat]

I think many atheists are very reactive (as opposed to responsive) and they are poor with introspection; they seem to be quite out of touch with their thoughts, feelings and actions.

In this regard, there is a characteristic difference between the average Western atheist, and, say, a Zen practitioner (who is also an atheist).
The Zen practitioner seeks to be aware of his thoughts, feelings and actions, and not in terms of a "story", but viscerally, as they happen, moment to moment, in the here and now.
The average Western atheist is, however, quite predictable as if he were operating from a script; there are several of such atheistic scripts, but not too many, so one can learn them quickly.

I'd have all our atheists to take a two-week meditation retreat!

I'm both, so I can say that there isn't much to say about Zen, which is why I would prefer to start with breaking down obstacles to enlightenment like superstitious thinking and religion. It's the first step. The method of Zen is basically negative, it's easier to say what it is not.

 

[Yazata]

Atheism is not ideology.

Sometimes it seems to be. Militant atheists seem to be pretty ideological, to say nothing of evangelical.

It's defined as the lack of religiousity. If you deny that the term anti-theist is a real or non politicised word then feel free to create another one.

I have a tendency to equate 'atheist' and 'anti-theist' and tend to think of the two as synonyms.

My reason for doing that is because on internet discussion boards at any rate (places that oftentimes don't have very much resemblance to real life), self-avowed 'atheists' typically are anti-theists.

They aren't people uninterested in, neutral about, or with no views on religion. Internet-'atheists' seem to be obsessed by 'religion' (typically treating that word as if it was synonymous with biblicist protestant Christianity) and passionately and viscerally hostile towards the whole subject. Atheists will announce God's non-existence at the drop of a hat, just as freely and just as aggressively as evangelical missionaries announce that Christ is lord.

I don't really understand why you want to deny something factual. Every dictionary will tell you that atheism means non religious, nothing else.

Dictionaries aren't the best arbitors of philosophical discussions, and most discussions about the meaning and extension of words and concepts turn into philosophical discussions if you push very hard on them.

My own tendency is to divide up your non-religious category into several sub-groups.

There are people with no knowledge of or opinions about religion. For adults of normal intelligence that's probably rare, but babies belong in this category. I don't really consider infants default atheists.

There are people who do know about religion and simply don't care about it one way or the other. It's a fairly diverse group. Some of them explicitly don't believe in "God", others are nominal religious believers, others believe in some vaguely defined "higher power" and leave it at that. That, by the way, is why it's misleading to interpret religious adherence figures as if they were statistics about underlying religiosity. Plenty of Irish and Italian Americans will tell pollsters that they are "Catholic", despite their not having been inside a church for decades. The label is part of their ancestral identity. I'd be inclined to call this whole class 'secular individuals'. Their interests are directed towards the matters of this world. But not all of them would agree that they are 'atheists'.

There are also people who are very interested in religion and for whom religion plays a big part in their lives. But they aren't believers in any particular religious tradition. They don't believe in the Bible or its Yahweh, and they don't believe in Vishnu or Shiva. But nevertheless, they feel what they interpret as the presence of a "higher power", sometimes very strongly. You encounter people like this in the more avant-garde spiritual bookstores. I guess that I'd call these people 'seekers'. Most of these people would probably deny that they are atheists, despite their not being conventional theists.

And there's another group that knows something about religion, quite a bit in some cases. What's more, they know that they don't believe in it, don't like it one bit, and would be very happy to see religion dissappear entirely. Some of these people can become just as passionate and aroused about those opinions as pentecostals about the holy spirit. This is the grouping that I tend to think of as the prototypical 'atheists'. They are the kind of people you find joining groups like American Atheists, reading Hitchens and Harris, and posting aggresively on internet discussion boards. My suspicion is that some of this group are former religious believers who may still harbor some bitterness towards the faith that failed, and in some cases shunned and rejected them.

There are other groupings of non-believers as well. One of them might be the 'academics', people who are fascinated by the phenomenon of religion for reasons of its historical, philosophical, psychological or anthropological interest, but oftentimes don't really believe in its literal truth themselves. A great deal of the academic literature on religion is generated by this kind of person. You can even find examples of this type among Christian theologians. It's probably the variety of non-religiosity that I personally gravitate towards.

 

[spidergoat]

Yes, I do have some bitterness that the things adults told me was a lie. Who wouldn't be? I'm bitter about being told to say "under God" every morning at a secular public school (which I had to refuse and thus stand out in a situation that was already uncomfortable).

 

[birch]

i don't think one's experiences is the major issue when it comes to religion. it's how the religion operates, it's values, it's transparency, level of hypocrisy as well as the level of tolerance. if it's less tolerant, then they don't deserve tolerance which is why most atheists tend to reserve the most hostility for fundamental religions and i don't blame them. the only thing keeping fundamental religion in check is other's who resist it or the existence of other practices and philosophies. fundamental religions are inherently intolerant. it made me very angry growing up how i was not allowed to consider other philosophies and how controlling it was.

as for atheists who are intolerant to every and any type of religion or philosophy that is not concretely proven by science yet, it think they are the ones who would produce a very dry and cold world just the same as the oppression of a monotheistic religion that believes all other paths, philosophies, practices and ways to be wrong.