Why atheism makes you mean

[S.A.M.]

Most people in prison are religious in America.

Are they religious before they enter prison? Are they religious because it helps with parole? Are they religious after they leave?

 

[Mr. Hamtastic]

What are they religious about? Charity?

 

[CutsieMarie89]

Was your family religious?

Nope not at all. They don't do the same kind of volunteering that I do either. I'm just really active in my community. Seeing people struggling when I could do something to help just bothers me. Like not holding the door open for the person behind you. :shrug: I don't know maybe I'm weird.

 

[S.A.M.]

Not at all, many people are affected by other people's sufferings. What is the feeling that motivates you?

 

[spidergoat]

Is he an atheist?

People call me a materialist. People even go to the extent of calling me an atheist just because I say that God is irrelevant. But that does not mean that I am an atheist. So I am not interested in what kind of labels they stick on me. Believe it or not: it does not make one bit of difference to me.

U.G. Krishnamurti​

There is no power outside of man. Man has created God out of fear. So the problem is fear and not God.

U.G. Krishnamurti​

It is the ones who believe in God, who preach peace and talk of love, who have created the human jungle. Compared to man's jungle, nature's jungle is simple and sensible! In nature animals don't kill their own kind. That is part of the beauty of nature. In this regard man is worse than the other animals. The so-called "civilized" man kills for ideals and beliefs, while the animals kill only for survival.

U.G. Krishnamurti​

 

[S.A.M.]

Hmm not averse to using it, is he?

He ultimately separated from his family and went to London where he lived a bleak existence, alone and penniless, wandering the streets, often depending on the charity of others for survival.[14] While sitting one day in Hyde Park, he was confronted by a police officer who threatened to lock him up if he didn't leave the park. Down to his last five pence, he made his way to the Ramakrishna Mission of London where the residing Swami gave him money for a hotel room for the night. The following day, U.G. began working for the Ramakrishna Mission, an arrangement that lasted for a period of three months. Before leaving the mission he left a letter for the residing Swamiji telling him that he had become a new man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U._G._Krishnamurti

 

[spidergoat]

So what. He's wasn't an ideologue, and felt no need to offer a consistent set of rules to follow. We can leave that to religion.

 

[S.A.M.]

Basically he did not want to give charity but had no scruples as to accepting it.

 

[spidergoat]

Not so. He didn't care what you did. He's just describing the state of affairs. Charity is a side-effect of selfishness and greed.

The Church, for instance, emphasizes charity because the Pope lives among one of the greatest collection of treasures in the world.

 

[S.A.M.]

So did he give charity?

 

[spidergoat]

Don't know, does it matter? The idea is important, that selfish concepts of ownership are what create the need for charity. Furthermore, I think the concept of selfishness started with the nuclear family. The ability to hoard wealth in the form of grains created the need for following male lines of descent. This led to monotheism and the idea of a nation.

Primitive tribes have no concept of charity, because wealth is expected to be shared immediately.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yes, it matters, because it shows an innate selfishness. The reason why he ascribes selfish concepts to charity is because he himself is incapable of being charitable. His perspective is so narrow that he accepts charity and lives on the beneficence of others, exploiting others when he needs it and ascribing it to their selfish motives in helping him, thus removing the necessity to reciprocate or pass on the charity. He makes himself feel and look good about taking without giving back. Its the mentality of entitlement. I bet he was born rich.

 

[spidergoat]

Fuck him then, he's not the issue. Can't you address the basic idea? Charity is a form of violence because it reinforces and depends on the idea of exclusion in the first place. It's not wrong, it's just the way it is.

 

[S.A.M.]

I disagree. A lot of people depend on charity, its a way of sharing the resources. In a way, a family is a charitable institution, because one or both partners provide for the children rather than cast them out. You can see the difference in society where the partners cannot provide for their family or where one abdicates that responsibility. You can also see it in societies where redistribution of wealth is a slur. Without charity, there can be no society. To call it a form of Violence because it is exploited by some people is really odd. There is nothing on earth that is not exploited by people. That is why charity is so important.

 

[spidergoat]

You can see the difference in society where the partners cannot provide for their family or where one abdicates that responsibility.

That is only because those societies emphasize the nuclear family. What is really means is that most of the time, you should only care about your relatives. This wasn't a problem in more communal societies. It's a relatively recent invention in human history.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yes, but charity is not about the family or community. For example in Islam we have hadiya [gift], which is given to friends and family, zakat which is given to the poor [this is compulsory] and sadaqah, which is voluntary charity and is given to anyone in need [out of compassion]. Looking after your own is not considered charity. You cannot, for example, give zakat to your family.

 

[spidergoat]

That's right, looking after your own is not considered charity. It's too bad we don't consider other people to be our own.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yes, it is. But there is a principle in religion, that you care about the people in whom you invest your time, effort and money. Hence social obligations of religion are a means of ensuring that you care about people outside your immediate circle.

 

[spidergoat]

That would not be necessary unless there was already an impulse to do the opposite.

 

[Simon Anders]

If so, then reminders of God may not only reduce cheating, but may also increase generosity toward strangers as much as reminders of secular institutions promoting prosocial behavior.

It sounds like the students were not separated, so it is possible that atheists were also primed for altruism, etc., in the same way. So the title of the thread is misleading. The study might support having religion as a part of society, but would not show that atheists are meaner. But maybe I missed something.

But here's my problem with this kind of study, SAM.

Are we looking at reminders of some deeper more altruistic yearning on people's parts, or are we looking at a residue of guilt/fear?

IOW a lot of the older images of God, from the Abrahamic monotheisms, have some level of threat from the deity involved in 'encouraging' good behavior.

To me this is begging the question...

can we be good without force? must we be trained to be split against our 'natures' 'animal selves' 'baser instincts' 'lower selves' and so on? Must religion be a kind of lid on anti-social behavior or can it offer a way to, not through fear and guilt, lead to behavior that is deemed good.

So even as a theist I don't feel an urge to celebrate the results, which don't appear to be that strong anyway, not that statistics is my forte.

I should add that I think the guilt/fear motivation is not only a personal problem, but a societal one. Because people are primed to want to release and so when a permitted outlet for anger and violence and selfishness is presented and approved, it is wildly engaged in. Certain wars can be seen as examples of this.

What may have been a useful compromise at some point in history needs to be questioned and explored more deeply now, I think.