Atheism

Glad you found us, George!


"Being certain" is not required for believing something. Speaking for myself, I have great trouble being certain that there are no leprechauns hiding my keys. Maybe you have experienced similar difficulties yourself. Nevertheless, I don't believe in leprechauns, and neither do you. The existence of gods is an analogous question.


I can't speak for MsOlga, but in my case such a judgment would be based on Utilitarian ethics, plus a few more factual convictions about wales feeling pain, biodiversity being valuable, and so forth. None of these convictions, normative or factual, require a god to be morally persuasive.

Boy, that one shot right over your head. It is necessary to be certain that there is no god, it is only necessary to sufficiently question the proposition so as not to be willing to believe that there is. That's not playing with words, it's being precise.



Now you're the one who is playing with words. Certainly you may make a point that heat refers to the relative mocular activity of a substance (you see, O'George, it is possible for you to be as inexact as you are suggesting i was--perhaps the mataphor confused you), but that does not alter that whether it is hot or heat, one describes a quantifiable condition, whereas cold is simply a reference to a relative lack of the condition. None of which alters that choosing to believe something, with all that it implies, and declining to believe that something are not equivalent positions.


Then you should use more precision in your descriptions of atheists. Personally, i cannot consider tolerance always to be a virtue. For example, if one were to tolerate the tribal misogyny which many Muslims have erroneously attached to the practice of Islam when it appears in a western nation, one would tacitly be condoning behavior by Muslims which one decries in Christians.



You can't have it both ways, O'George. If you say that such systems are no better, you inferentially accuse atheists of claiming that they are. So, i ask once again upon what basis you would assert that. Upon what basis do you inferentially assert that atheists have claimed that non- or anti-religious social systems are free from intolerance and oppression? Upon what basis do you inferentially assert that atheists have claimed that non- or anti-religious social systems offer a solution to problems historically associated with religious ones?

Why can't George understand it?

I'm surprised that his eminent intellectual capabilities do not allow him to do so..

Nice to encounter you too, Thomas.

The god/leprechaun analogy is cute, but it doesn't mean anything - they aren't comparable to a creator.

Besides... I do believe in leprechauns. How the hell do you think I found my keys ! You don't, but that's because you are a German. What were all those little creatures Wagner wrote about ?

I disagree. Gods and leprechauns are comparable because both are classes of entities whose existence you may or may not believe in, given the evidence you observe. I don't see how their job description matters in this regard.

But I do understand it, Francis.

I am surprised that you imagine there are internal forces within me that forbid or "don't allow" anything. Even more surprised that you didn't note what I wrote about tolerance.

How is objecting to atheistic ideas tolerance?

An "atheist" who expresses a lack of certainty that the universe had no creator, but who chooses to believe that there is none, is indeed understandable to me. That is not what I had in mind with my comments. I suppose there are even some out there like that . More commonly we associate the word atheist with folks who go a bit past that, and agnoistics with the former case. However, I won't quibble over definitions.

I'm not George, but I'm not sure I understand the conflict underlying your question. Isn't tolerance about attitudes one is objecting to? What would be the point of tolerating something one agrees with anyway?

I observed in the early pages that you expressed objections to religious beliefs, but at the same time appeared to be willing to tolerate believers.

This is no different.

I am very curious about the distinction you appear to be making here.

Then you are a materialist. To say you are a full-blown materialist is a tautology because a materialist has to be full-blown.

A materialist cannot avoid the conclusion that the thought that there is a supreme being etc is a material object in the central nervous system and is apt for causing certain types of behaviour at those times that the thought exists. The thought exists and the behavior it causes. It can't be not believed in. Like the Grand Coulee Dam exists and the electricty it produces. Or felt.

Similarly, with the thought that there is no supreme being.

So the question resolves itself quite simply into a choice between the behaviours that the different thoughts are apt for causing in all levels of society and not least in the ruling elite. And which should be encouraged and which not.

Those who today, here, believe there is no supreme being are members of a society which has for many years believed, or acted as if they believed, there is a supreme being, and they have habits and traditions derived from those long years which it is very doubtful they would have if the long years had embraced and institutionalised a materialistic world view which is, of necessity, exclusive of all belief and had been guided since the dawn of the species by nothing but sensual inputs and instincts.

How those factors operating alone could have got us to where we are seems to me an impossible conjecture but I think an atheist needs to attempt it or admit she's riding on the coat-tails of the belief in a supreme being/s as a self indulgent heiress does on her grandfather's fortune which she could never have amassed herself.

Your point is well taken. No one in the Soviet Union set out to extirpate religion, nor to force people to abandon their religious beliefs.

In about 1700, Petr Alexeevitch, the third Romanov Tsar (known to history as Peter the Great), made all of the clergy and monastics of the Russian Orthodox Church employees of the state, and undertook the support of the "physical plant" of the established church. His father, Alexei Mikhailovitch, had fought a monumental battle with the Patriarch Nikkon before overthrowing him and replacing him. Peter intended to have no enemies in his rear while he fought what proved to be a long and devastating war with the Swedes.

It has become a shibboleth of hysterical, ranting religionists that the Soviet Union was an atheistic state which killed millions of Christians. There can be no doubt that the Soviet Union killed millions--there is considerable reason to doubt that they killed them because they were Christians. At most, a few thousands were killed who were clergy or monastics of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, they fell victim to their own decision to support Admiral Kolchak and the White Russians. Clergy and monastics who kept aloof from that struggle large did not suffer directly. They all suffered indirectly because the state withdrew its support for the established church.

Many examples are advanced, the most popular being the myth of the slaughter of the Kulaks (a myth to the extent of the scale of the deaths is alleged). After the collapse of the Empire, the two remaining political parties other than the Bolsheviks were the Peasant Party and the Socialist Revolutionaries. The Peasant Party wanted to distribute land to the peasants, and the Socialist Revolutionaries support their program in their attempt to wrest power from the Bolsheviks. Stalin was well aware that once peasants got land, they had no further interest in revolution, and that would have taken away the extraordinary power which the Bolshevik state was able to wield. So, Stalin undertook agricultural collectivization, and the deportation of the "Kulaks." Kulak means fist, and was used in the sense of tight-fisted; it was a propaganda ploy against those peasants who have gotten land from the Peasant Party and the Socialist Revolutionaries. When Fanni Kaplan (a.k.a. Dora Kaplan) attempted the assassination of Lenin, Felix Dzerzhinski and the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage--ancestor to the NKVD and the KGB) had all the excuse they needed to go after the Socialist Revolutionaries (of which Kaplan was a member) and their associates the Peasant Party.

Stalin moved as soon as he could to break up the land-owning peasants, especially in the Ukraine. Despite wild, hysterical claims by religionists, this was done for policy reasons, and had no reference to their religious beliefs, if they even had any. Also contrary to the hysterical charges, somewhat less than a million of them died in the deportations, not millions and millions of them (there weren't millions and millions of them in the first place). I don't suggest that it should be brushed aside because there weren't a million of them, it was a horrendous act of indirect murder. However, the figures are conflated with the millions who did die in the resulting famines. Before 1914, Russia was a net exporter of grain. After the deportation of the Kulaks, the grain production of Russia and the Ukraine never recovered.

Those millions who died in the deportations and the subsequent famines were not murdered outright because of their religious beliefs. Nor was that the case with those sent to the gulags. Perhaps some who attracted the unhealthy attention of the state did so because of their actions which were motivated by their religious beliefs, but they were not condemned and exiled for their religious beliefs. Certainly Trotsky and his Red Army were probably very ham-handed and little discerning in their treatment of Russian Orthodox clergy and monastics who supported the White Russians. Once again, this is not evidence that they were systematically slaughtered as Christian martyrs and saints.

Thereafter, those who wished to advance in Soviet society needed to be members of the Communist Party. To do so successfully, they were obliged either to successfully hide their religious scruples or to abandon them altogether. And, of course, three generations of Soviet citizens were born and grew to maturity without benefit of clergy.

This is a long and perhaps questionable digression. Nevertheless, i consider it justifiable because dealing with such wild accusations is part of the experience of any atheist who is put upon by religious fanatics.

Now I'm confused. I believe tolerance is an important virtue, both for individuals and for societies - and independently of one's beliefs. It involves an attitude of acceptance for the choices other people make - within the limits of civil society (i.e. criminal behavior). I don't see any rationality in one who expresses certainty that there is no creator, but I wouldn't condemn him or restrict his activities for believing it. Hell, if he was an amiable, interesting guy I'd even have a drink with him.

Bullshit.

I agree. Where is the confusion?

Nobody resisting an established order can expect to be left alone. Atheists are left alone to believe as they do. Believing and resisting are different levels of action.

If their resistance is successful what will they put in place of a religiously driven society. Or even a mildly guided one. They can't have nothing.

Perhaps there is none. Maybe we agree. .... Damn!

Do you see a rationality in one who expresses certainty that there is a creator?

Please, George, don't make me laugh..

I wish it was so..

Those creeping up in the dark in their stockinged feet do usually disguise their aggressive intentions.