Atheism

As I suspected, there are lots of conservaive atheist sites. Here is just one:
http://www.theatheistconservative.com/2009/11/18/conservative-atheists/

You make a valid point.

I have many times told of an acquaintance of mine, a good friend, who is a conservative, and long a supporter of Bush, and who is the most vehemently anti-religious person i know. You really don''t want to get him started on the subject.

(Yes Wayne--but Setanta doesn't say anything about the tolerance being a strategy and one fragile enough to break down under very little pressure. There is quite sufficient intolerance in the world to suggest that intolerance is an evolved trait in human nature and, as such, ineradicable. )

I wonder if intolerance is really the evolved trait, or possibly that tolerance is the evolved trait.
It seems that intolerance was just fine for nomadic hunter gatherers, with low population densities. However, as society became more complex and population rose, tolerance has become a necessary social tool.
A recent case study might be the history of the Mormon peoples.

I hate it when people quote Spurious. I haven't touted tolerance, but it is self-evident that the social contact functions because of tolerance. As for your comment about the Mormons, i don't know where that comes from. Are you aware of the Mormon wars of the 19th century? Perhaps i'm just not getting your reference.

The Mormons suffered greatly from intolerance, I think mostly from fundamental christians, they were run out of every town all the way to salt lake city. It's an interesting history, well documented in the mid- western towns where they tried to settle along the way. Of course, now a days there is not much room left for people to escape from intolerance.

The people who "persecuted" the Mormons weren't fundamentalists--no such distinction is really applicable in the mid-19th century. It is noteworthy that the Mormons, once they had any power to exercise, were no more tolerant than their neighbors had been. I urge you to do a little basic reseach on the three recognized Mormon wars--in Missouri in 1838, in Illinois in 184o-1846, and eventually in Utah in the late 1850s. In both Missouri and Illinois, the Mormons came into a region in a rush, and proclaimed that they would or had founded a heavenly city--a Zion. There was some immigration from Europe to join Joseph Smith and the Mormons, in the era of the Know Nothing Party, which was anti-immigrant. Local settlers, on the land for many years prior to the arrival of the Mormons, feared their political power, rather than being intolerant of them for their religion. Wacky religions were much in vogue in the United States in the 19th century, from the Shakers to Mary Baker Eddy. The Mormons may have been despised for a wackier than usual creed, but they were feared as a bloc-vote political force. In Missouri, this was exacerbated by the belief that they were abolitionists (as some undoubtedly were).

The Utah "war" is an example of what might really happen if the Mormons were left to their own devices. They appointed members of the clergy to the local courts, and although they enjoyed good relations with some Federal appointees (Utah was a territory, and many of the highest public officials were appointed by the President and Senate, without reference to Mormon wishes), many others were a source of friction between Mormons and both the Federal governmet and non-Mormons. Very few people were killed in this Mormon war (often called the second Mormon war, because the Illinois incidents are less well known), and most of them were non-Mormon. Many Federal officials fled the state, alleging threats to their lives--predictably, the Mormons accused these officials of malfeasance, graft and corruption. Eventually, Albert Sidney Johnston (the highest ranking Confederate General at the beginning of the Civil War, Johnston died of a wound at Shiloh in April, 1862) arrived with major elements of the Second United States Cavalry, and with the threat of competent military opposition, the Mormons negotiated. Basically, they caved in to the power of the Federal government over a territory--there was nothing innovative or particular about how the Utha Territory was administered as compared to other territories.

While Mormons can said to have been persecuted, their high-handed political attempts to establish a Zion, and the sudden influx of Mormons into first Missouri and then Illinois shed light on why that reaction took place. It was about politics, not religion. If you look at most religious persecutions and wars among European people (as Americans in essence are) after about 1000, politics sooner or later trumps religion. In my never humble opinion, the Mormons were as much sinning as sinned against.

It would help you to understand the place of religion in society in the United States in the 19th century. Earlier, i mentioned the Shakers and Mary Baker Eddy. The Shakers were a religious sect founded in England (Manchester, i believe) by a woman from a splinter group of Quakers in the 18th century. Mother Ann Lee founded the sect from among Protestant Quakers, as they were known, an outgrowth of George Fox's Society of Friends (Quakers) which was formed after militant French Protestants arrived in England in the early 18th century. Mother Lee moved her sect to North America just before the American Revolution.

Mary Baker Eddy was a typical American religious crackpot--benign and totally goofy--who founded Christian Science in the 1870s. Two women strongly influenced by Eddy were the wife and daughter of Samuel Clemens--Mark Twain. Both his wife and daughter died in great pain. He wrote a book condemning Christian Science (entitled, unsurprisingly, Christian Science) early in the 20th century. The respect for organized religion in the United States was still so strong then, that the publisher withdrew the book after a few thousand copies were sold, and it was out of print for more that 70 years, until the 1990s.

So, how to understand all of this. The constitution was held to apply to the Federal government, and not the states, unless otherwise specifically mentioned in the constitution. Hence, the adoption of the ninth and tenth amendments. A few states still had established religions at the beginning of the history of the United States. So, when Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut complained to President Jefferson about how they were treated (Connecticut had an official Congregationalist establshment--the descendants of the Puritans), he wrote back to them a letter which contained the famous phrase about a wall of separation between church and state. And, of course, as matters stood, he was powerless to help them. In the late 1840s or early 1850s (i disremember which), there was a great deal of comment about the election of a Baptist as governor of Massachusetts, a state with a Congregationalist establishment. (All that phony baloney about that old faker Thoreau was not about him refusing to pay taxes to support the Mexican War--although he did oppose it, he had no proptery and there was no income tax. He spent a few hours in jail for refusing to pay the church tax, and he was let out after sympathizers paid the tax for him.)

But, though Americans were overwhelmingly religious, like the Danbury Baptists, they understood the evils of religious establishment, and approved of the separation of church and state in order to protect their own beliefs. In the 1830s, there had been a terrible cholera epidemic, and church leaders called on President Andrew Jackson to announce a national day of thanksgiving for "deliverance" from the plague. He refused, citing the separation of church and state. Although roundly condemned from the pulpit, the basic reaction of Americans was a big so what. They didn't want government in the religion business.

It is not realistic to speak of fundamentalist in regard to 19th century Americans because nearly everybody believed in the absolute truth of scripture, differing only over what the implications of scripture were. The Mormons weren't the victims of fundamentalists--fundamentalists didn't exist. It was only very gradually that fundamentalism arose. It was a reaction to many things which have alarmed the religiously conservative. There was a stong anti-Catholic streak in the American main stream. Thomas Nast, the New York political cartoonist (we get the image of Republicans as an Elephant and Democrats as a donkey from him) is a "hero" in American history for his attacks on Tammany Hall and "Boss" Tweed. But Nast attacked Tammany Hall not because it was a political machine, but because it was a political machine which was founded on the political power of the Irish and other Catholics. Every American city and state had a political machine, Nast just hated the one which was in power in New York City because he saw it as Irish and Catholic. He was a racist and a religious bigot--a prime candidate for American hero.

After the American civil war, there was a religio-social movement in the United States known as the Lily Whites. This was a movement starting in the Old South, but quickly spreading throughout the nation. It was Protestant (Lily) and white (so, Lily Whites), anti-Catholic, anti-Jew and very racist. It was also very popular. It's message was not that radical to the people of the day. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (the one who was President, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church) condemned Margaret Sanger for her birth control crusade, saying she was a race traitor--we needed lots of little white babies to take up the White Man's burden (from a poem by Kipling on the occasion of the seizure of the Philippines in 1898, exhorting the Americans to take up their "burden" of governing the thoughtless, improvident brown race of those islands). Obviously, Charles Darwin was a threat to the staunchly Protestant society of the United States. Starting with the 1860 election campaign, when Lincoln's enemies portrayed him as "the original gorilla" and showed him with a "nigger" hiding in his wood pile, and continuing right up to John Scopes' "monkey trial" in Tennessee in 1925.

The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1867 by Nathan Beford Forrest, a former Confederate general. But he also disbanded it in 1870. The modern Klan was "refounded" by a defrocked Protestant minister in the wake of a murder trial and lynching of a Jewish man in Atlanta in 1915. (The weight of modern forensic opinion is that he was innocent, and that the prosecution's "star witness" was the likely murderer.)

But Protestant christianity of the variety which we call fundamentalism has taken some body blows in the 20th century. In Brown versus Board of Education, separate but equal was held to be a sham by the Supremes, and the long road to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act was begun. John Kennedy, a Catholic (horrors ! ! !) was elected President. The Supremes struck down school prayer (contrary to popular belief and prejudice, Madelyn Murray O'Hair's case was not the cause of that--but she's the atheist the Protestant nutbags love to hate--or was until her disappearance and probable murder). The Supremes struck down law after law which attempted to exclude evolution from the classroom, or to force the inclusion of creationism. Lemon versus Kurtzman (1968) struck down a Pennsylvania law which allowed the state to pay non-public school teachers and reimburse their schools for the purchase of secular teaching materials (most of the schools concerned were Catholic schools). This lead to what is known as "the Lemon test," which guides Federal courts today, and holds that legislation must have a secular purpose, it must not either promote nor inhibit religion, and it must not lead to "excessive government entanglemet" with religion.

From the Lily Whites of the 1870s, in an era when almost everyone was an adherent of a religion which believed in the literal interpretation of scripture (including the racist inferences therefrom), Protestants have now arrived in a world in which those dominant views have no influence in society. Most Protestants accept the underpinning of justic, of equity, in the civil rights movement and the explicit exclusion of religion from public life. A significantly large minority, however, cannot accept that, and this is the origin of what we call today fundamentalists. In 1840, that would have been a meaningless term, and no one would have known what you meant. In 1940, most people wouldn't have known what the hell you were talking about. But things have changed very, very much since then. The first case the Supremes ruled on on religion in schools struck down a West Virginia law requiring religious instruction in the 1940s. It's been down hill for the Lily Whites ever since.

"I hate" is a pretty way to start as sentence on the subject of tolerance.



Bob Dylan. It's Alright Ma. (I'm Only Bleedin').

I suppose that what Setanta means is that the "social contract" on A2K doesn't operate on his keyboard. And once again he grasps the opportunity to remind posters that they should co-operate with his hate and cease quoting anything I post which is readily construed as a threat that he will put them on Ignore if they continue to do so.

So my advice folks is to stop quoting me forthwith and avoid upsetting him to the extent that some of you are obviously doing. Tolerate his intolerance. After all he is a fellow American and I'm nothing but a Limey and you all sticking together in the interest of unity against outsiders is very important.

I'm inclined to think that tolerance is created by fear of the law or social ostracism as well as the Christian religion. In the former cases it is not properly tolerance and anybody who claims to be a Christian who expresses intolerance is hardly a Christian at all. Real tolerance is a internalised spiritual characteristic which nature (evolution) has not endowed us with as can be seen by the behaviour of infants. It is inculcated by education. How can an atheist teacher inculcate love and tolerance when his or her only real argument is from utility.

What's The Selfish Gene all about? He who lives by Dawkins shall be judged by Dawkins. Turning the other cheek, a difficult, if not impossible, thing to do is the polar opposite. If it wasn't difficult what would be the point of Christianity? It was a revolutionary idea. It is what toleration actually means when all the other fine words are stripped away which is easy to do as they mean nothing. They are fine sounding assertions.

The Utah "War" was actually precipitated by a massacre done by the Mormon Army on about 100 or so people passing through "Deserette" on their way to California, The "Nauvoo Legion" came down on them and methodically wiped them out in a fashion that could be blamed on Indian raiding parties.
So, Mormons being persecuted?

ANYBODY been watching the PBS series "God in AMerica"? Its pretty good and informative.

I haven't seen that, Boss. I'll have to check it out online.

Well--of course there are. The old Communists in Russia are called conservatives. Such labels, usually self generated, have little meaning.

Supporters of aristocracy and aparthheid were conservative. I imagine head-hunters and suttee practitioners were conservative.

Conservative means to favour preserving the old established ways and the maintenance of existing institutions. Someone benefitting from such preservations will likely be a conservative. If that person is an atheist then he or she will be an atheist conservative. But atheist, secular societies in history have swept away the old ways and having done so seek to establish themselves as conservative. As, of course, have religious societies. Pagan societies had their conservatives as also did those practicing human sacrifice and slavery.

I think that the conservative atheist in our culture is practicing word magic and possibly on himself. It looks to me to be an affectation.

Sure, it's never all one sided and the story changes with the teller. During an extended trip along the mormon trail a number of years ago, I heard much of the history from the locals. Yes, the mormons had some rather glaring faults, one of which is the conviction that they were right, of course christians thought they were right too, with the added benefit of the government on thier side.

Christian beliefs of that period would be termed fundamentalist today, just as we call the big one wwI now a days.
They did not like the mormon beliefs, they were an affront to all christians of the day. And still are, just ask.

You seem to miss the point that people became alarmed at the arrival of the Mormons because they threatened to take over politically, not because they had a murderous intolerance. Having travelled the Mormon trail doesn't inform you reliably about the history of the era.

Especially if one were only to listen to Mormons. They opften fail to tell us that they wanted their Zion to be the Huge STate of Deseret that surrounded the Utah Territory . They were rather warlike in establishing their independent isolation that "Deseret" was to provide. However Several clashes and the Mountain Meadows MAssacre led to a mostly bloodless war that was settled by negotiations, the biggest of which was to replace Brigham Young as Governeor with someone who was NOT a Mormon.

I think Sherman was instrumental in "Negotiating" the terms of the peace.

Actually i believe it was a man from Pennsylvania named Kane, who was already known to the Mormons. That, and the arrival of more Federal troops.

I should hope they do. But nearly 3,000 miners died in China in a recent year. They simply removed reporting of the accidents. As they have done in earthquakes in the past.

But that wasn't really the point. The point was in the word "our". The leader of the western world spoke for the western world. His use of the word "prayer" was no accident.

The question is whether a society which scoffs and insults prayer would even mount this rescue operation in Chile, which I stayed up all night to watch. One such, who scoffs at prayer vociferously and so determindly that his words have not changed in 7 years to my knowledge, has opined that your president was spouting platitudes which mean nothing to anybody but himself and, one assumes from that , were a cynical attempt to gain political popularity. What utter shite. I hope not many of you are on board with that.

And congratulations are in order to American science and technology which has played a large part in this fantastic operation and I have little doubt that many Christians have been instrumental in its success.

But what about the four rescue workers who have gone down to the bottom of the shaft? They should be given bravery awards by every civilized country in the world.

There were a lot of descendents in those towns telling a slightly different story than the history books. I find it hard to believe that local history is unreliable.
Which version of the Viet Nam war/police action would you deem reliable?

If you want to get snotty about history, don't try to sucker me into some idiotic stalking horse of yours--it won't work.

Might i remind you that the topic of this thread is the experience of atheism? Discussing religion in the United States is somewhat off-topic, but there is still an obvious connection. The Vietnam War doesn't even remotely qualify.

Had the mormons won, what might the history books say?