Siddhartha
Correct me if I'm wrong though, my head's not in a good shape at the moment.
Nah. People tend to take sides too quickly. What it is, simply, is that I'm simply fed up with our damned atheists. For all the bitching they do, they've got nothing to offer, and I'm also pissy about another topic in which someone said it wasn't their responsibility to understand or learn about what they criticized.
You might also notice that the digs at atheism are ... progressive. I'm losing my patience at the number of people who would dare criticize "religion" who are, in their own right, quite religious. Now, we're all aware that Christians and Muslims and Jews and so forth fight between their labels, and also within them. But here we have "atheists", who claim to be outside all of that somehow by proxy of the atheistic assertion (a simple, tiny idea with
huge implications) yet behave just like the people they rake through the muck.
So I admit I've been getting progressively more harsh, but I'm just stunned by the number of atheists who are, essentially, trying to sell me the wide-eyed hope-in-faith that religions pitch. I might make my usual complaints about reading skills in this topic, but I've learned that this is my fault. When I put things in boldface or italics, that's all that gets read. I must change my posting habits to accommodate the lazy.
I suppose it's a question of why one identifies one's atheism. Perhaps that should be the question. Woo-hoo, so you're an atheist. Why bother telling anyone?
And the thing is that with
honest answers, there will be further issues to discuss that involve no hostility. It's just that people seem
really really scared of being honest.
So all of that clarity of vision and perception and (expletive) is just another snow job. I mean, I can believe on faith that it's not, but isn't that a little religious?
In the end, the challenge is fairly simple, though apparently the reasons for the issue confuse many.
Can we agree, for instance, that certain religions tend to complicate life? That certain religions are detrimental to the human endeavor when viewed on a species- or planetary-scale? I am also willing to extend that to
all religions, though this is a tenuous position if only for the fact that religion only requires "gods" because the people viewing them think so. There are myths that have nothing to do with magic or gods. There are behaviors that, excepting the lack of a god, meet the criteria for being a religion.
When pursuing a vein of "logic" or "reason", one eventually encounters a point at which a certain line must be drawn. And whether that line equals, "Because God says so," or, "Because that's just the way life is," it's all horsepucky and presumption.
How about a non-theistic example? When I was younger, and going through the beginnings of my revolutionary phase, one of my father's attempts to divert my philosophical growth involved an argument in which it boiled down to, "The people won't revolt until they're starving." I looked him in the eye and said,
Why is anybody starving?
Now, there are a number of answers that he could have offered. One of the most effective would have been the simple statement that humans have not figured out how to distribute their resources so that nobody starves. While that answer would have been fair enough, by my father's moral paradigm recognition of that aspect
required action, and he was not ready to take action. His actual response was shallow: "Why should I lower my standard of living just to raise someone else's?" (
Well, Dad, if you want the honest truth, we own two houses, five boats, four cars, and your eldest son is at one of the most expensive schools he could get into. Maybe we can do without the cob-smoked turkeys that we throw away every Christmas? Maybe do without one of the three VCR's? Four people, four computers. Do we really need more? You don't wear eighty-dollar shirts from Nepal that you overpay for at Nordstrom's, so I'm pressed to understand what standard of living you're talking about.)
In other words, we both, despite our best intentions, were standing on utterly
nothing. My father believed as a basic "fact of life" that he had the right to enjoy excess while others starved because he had worked for it, and owed no consideration to the fact that the only reason he
could work for it was an accident of birth and geography. Can I prove that humans are entitled to
anything resembling dignity? Frankly, no. Both my father and I were standing on presumptions.
And that is what I see going on here. At some point it becomes futile to perch atop a mountain of presumption because there's no place to put the windmills one might otherwise tilt against. As quaint as that phrase is, though, it's not effective: While one can attempt to stand on presumptions as ignorantly and long as they can, life has a way of getting around to knocking people down. With my father, for instance, his faith in commerce and Capitalism--nearly a religion in itself--finally betrayed him. His mountain of presumptions did exactly what they were supposed to, but this time he suffered the effects. Whatever else happened, by the time we get to the corporate scandals of the second Bush administration, the guy's apologizing to me for aspects of my childhood ... and that's just a little creepy.
And I'm overwhelmed in this topic at the failure of many people to recognize that they do, in fact, stand on presumptions. And some of those presumptions run deeply.
Look how some people are striving to whittle down the issues; that's frightening in and of itself.
Practically speaking, there are a couple of results I would be "happy" with: Either our Sciforums atheists get some substantial complaints about the people and ideas they bitch about or just deal with other, more important ideas, or else we can examine the substance of the present condition and perhaps find progress.
Why do I worry about religions and atheism? Well, religions touch the fundamental criteria that form the basis for human action. Sure one might choose "Democrat" or "Republican" based on whatever factors, but "Christian faith", for instance, goes deeper, and can compel one to choose Democrat or Republican, freedom or repression, peace or chaos, respect or fear.
And I freely admit that I'm one who thinks the world will be better off when the Abramic monotheisms are
gone. But who here is going to be savage enough to propose "cleansing" or "purging"? That's not the point, though. Which of our atheists are really willing to kill and possibly die in a massive war if it meant they could put an end to Christianity (especially, as it seems the most popular target of ire)? In the end, it's a matter of educating people, of transmitting information and ideas.
So what those ideas are becomes vastly important.
Cris mentioned, before I hijacked the topic, that atheism was a singular assertion and
anything else was separate.
And now it is time to examine that
anything else as it relates to the singular assertion.
And
Crunchy Cat got really close, but it seems to be a matter of conditioning that caused a hairsbreadth miss. It's not directly a question of "What's in it for me?" That's the inherent question to any change in circumstances when one is self-aware.
Why is murder wrong?
This question seems to puzzle people, and even make them spiteful. In the end, as I generally declare that life in general is performance art if you're human, this is enough because it indicates that people are thinking.
But perhaps a simpler (yet more complex) examination is required.
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Given: That there are more theists than atheists
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Accepted That the process of concluding atheism for oneself is more complex than simply accepting religious dogma
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Given: That religion (aspect of theism) perpetuates itself more easily than atheism by proxy of numbers and simplicity of perpetuation
I would ask that we consider, please, the notion of Bob. Now, Bob can be refashioned for and by anyone who wants to give the idea some honest consideration, but let's start with a basic template. Bob is somewhat or somehow religious. It could be said that he spent much time wondering about the actual nature of God (e.g. which deity really
is God) before it truly sinks in that there does not need to be any God in the structure. And here we might be giving Bob too much credit, because, while it took Masters' degrees and PhD's at a Jesuit school to put down atheistic questions, the best they could come up with was, "Well, humans are so incredible that they couldn't have come about without God's help." But something in particular strikes Bob one day, and he finally begins that conscious process that leads him to realize, "Hey, there is no God!"
Several things happen at once. Life abounds with opportunity (formerly called temptation) and joyous moments (formerly called sin). Perception of ideas sharpens. Gullibility wanes slightly, but slashes at the throat of innocence in retaliation; cynicism hardens over the scar. And most importantly, a critical element of judgment is suddenly missing. Regardless of the deity abandoned, the "fact" that there was a right and a wrong in this world and that's all there was to it evaporates in a puff of logic.
The story can go several different directions from there. For me, the critical point was that religions relied too much on themselves to establish their legitimacy (e.g. Jesus-Bible-God-Bible loop). The idea of people who thought logically and rationally seemed very attractive, as did what seemed a generally hopeful attitude for the newfound intellectual freedom. Naturally, I got hung up on the logic and reason and rational considerations.
When one first acknowledges that the deepest basis for judgment and action they can find is false, everything it touches suffers damage. While the moral structure can hold its place easily, it becomes a little like a pantomime rather quickly, and in the end it just doesn't suffice for those to whom their atheistic conclusion represented an opportunity for a logical pursuit of wisdom.
Eventually, Bob needs to reinforce his moral/ethical structure. We must remember that none of us exist in a vacuum, though I can't imagine what Helen Keller must have thought the first time she realized there were other people out there. Of course, there's the fly-on-the-brain idea ... if only we could know the true essence of what someone like Helen Keller made of the concept of "I". I mean, that's just trippy to think about, but I digress so I'll smoke more.
Okay ... so ... yeah. Um ... oh, right. Bob. Bob-bob-bob, Bob-bobbob-bob ...
So as Bob learns and grows in his newfound intellectual freedom, circumstances of social creatures cause him to reflect not only upon why right is right, but also why he thinks right is what he thinks is right. It's a whole new ballgame. This is where it gets ugly.
Because there is no objective anchor. There is no ultimate reality to be discovered. There is no peg upon which an atheist can hang the whole Universe and say, "This is, logically, the way things are."
However, before we get into that part, let's back up a few sentences:
So as Bob learns and grows in his newfound intellectual freedom .... So if the garden grows, what blooms there? What is its seed? Whence comes this strange idea? And why does it seem morally/ethically "right"?
So ... while I concede that "Why is murder wrong?" is a mite abstract, let's take a look at a slightly easier (ha!) idea.
What is Bob going to do about his woman? Does he really love her just because she cooks and cleans and sleeps with him? Is that really his standard? How the hell did that come about? Is she really that annoying? And
hel-looooo, baby. How are ye? That's right you don't see a ring on my finger ....
Where it was an easier call--it would be a sin to even countenance the idea of getting together with another woman--it is now a lot tougher, but since becoming an atheist, Bob has become utterly logical and reasonable, so he does ... what? Does the woman and gives her a fake phone number? Decline the opportunity because despite all else, he really does have a good thing going and a sudden inkling of how to make it better? Ditches the ball-and-chain? Carries out a series of affairs behind her back? Go bi? Spend a fortune on internet porn? Tell his woman to trust him, she'll like it this way?
And the actual course of action Bob chooses will be determined by the justifications Bob has developed for his ethical standard.
Does it occur to anybody around this point in the rant that it might be quite important to think about just
what Bob has been using to develop his standard? I know atheists who are racist, or who believe in dime-a-dozen conspiracy theories, who believe in Alien Seed theory and even develop some notions of the moral implications thereof but will not be said to be religious ....
I knew an atheist once who believed in sorcery ....
Think of the amount of influence that a religion has over a person's development. Atheists, free of that shaping, haven't any necessary "one" major influence. Perhaps that's the expression I'm looking for. It doesn't seem like to much to ask to find out what influences our atheists' moral or ethical structures.
I look back to my initial post in this topic, perhaps I could have benefited from the word
influences, but I'm still puzzled at the responses.
Technically,
Siddhartha, there's not any real charge to answer. Mostly, what I would like to know, is how our atheists (as individuals, if they're capable of expressing that) form and maintain their ethical structures.
But I just can't bring myself to beg for it, you know?
:m:,
Tiassa
