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An article about common ground between atheists and Christians.
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He was tortured in the name of communism - as communism is the system that deems he must be atheist. Were the individuals who tortured him not communists, this would never have happened.Now, Joseph was not tortured in the name of Communism. His torturers agreed that he was a loyal party member and had never expressed any disloyalty to the Party or State. He was tortured for one reason alone - his refusal to verbally commit to atheism. You can post as many rolling eyes as you wish - but it is clear that Joseph was tortured in the name of atheism.
All communists are (deemed) atheists, but not all atheists are communists.0 -
He was tortured in the name of communism - as communism is the system that deems he must be atheist. Were the individuals who tortured him not communists, this would never have happened.
All communists are (deemed) atheists, but not all atheists are communists.
So, by the same logic, heretics and Jews were tortured by the Inquisition in the name of Roman Catholicism - as Roman Catholicism is the system that deemed they must subscribe to certain beliefs. Were the individuals that tortured them not Roman Catholics, this would never have happened.
All Roman Catholics are (deemed) Christians, but not all Christians are Roman Catholics.
So, Dades, your logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that none of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or other historical atrocities were actually carried out in the name of Christianity. Will you admit that? Or do you want to have your cake and eat it?0 -
So, by the same logic, heretics and Jews were tortured by the Inquisition in the name of Roman Catholicism - as Roman Catholicism is the system that deemed they must subscribe to certain beliefs. Were the individuals that tortured them not Roman Catholics, this would never have happened.
All Roman Catholics are (deemed) Christians, but not all Christians are Roman Catholics.
So, Dades, your logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that none of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or other historical atrocities were actually carried out in the name of Christianity. Will you admit that? Or do you want to have your cake and eat it?
You're talking like Atheism is an organisation. It's communism that is the organisation, its separate to Atheism. Suppression of religions is an important part of keeping power in a communist society. From what you have described I would come to the conclusion that they tortured him because he is part of an underground organisation, whether it be religious or political its a threat to their dictatorship and will be quashed. You have to start thinking outside the box, not everything fits into a pigeon hole.0 -
The similarities between RC and Christianity so far outweigh those between communism and 'atheism' as to make that analogy worthless IMO.So, Dades, your logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that none of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or other historical atrocities were actually carried out in the name of Christianity. Will you admit that? Or do you want to have your cake and eat it?
Yum - cake!0 -
These can all be used by bad people to produce horrific results - or they can be used to produce beneficial results. This is because they are not "good" or "bad" in themselves. The same applies to religious faith.
That is not true, and I imagine you release it if you thought about it.
Human systems can be bad in of themselves if they are flawed systems. An example I've already used is a dictatorship. A dictatorship, or say a pure monarchy, if a flawed system for various reasons. The idea that you can have a good monarchy is the monarchy produces good things is ignoring the issue, that being the system itself is not designed to produce good things. Good things can be a result of the system, but equally bad things are just as likely, because the system itself is flawed.
Another example (which you theists love) is Communism. Communism is a flawed and dangerous system. Like any system it can produce good things, but that doesn't change the nature of the system.
Religion is flawed and dangerous not based on what it produces, but based on what it is.
It is the promise/reward/punishment system of religion that is the problem, not the issue of if this promise/reward/punishment system causes a person to produce good results.I have a friend, his Christian name is Joseph, who lives in China. Joseph was a member of the Communist Party and actually served as a judge. When the authorities discovered that Joseph had been attending an illegal underground church they interrogated him. They pulled his fingernails and toenails out one by one. After each extraction they asked him to make one simple declaration - namely that God did not exist. That was all they wanted from him. A simple denial of God's existence would have stopped the torture immediately.
Now, Joseph was not tortured in the name of Communism. His torturers agreed that he was a loyal party member and had never expressed any disloyalty to the Party or State. He was tortured for one reason alone - his refusal to verbally commit to atheism.
Ok, you clearly need to have a read up on Communism
Communism (as practiced in Russia and China) dictates that not only is religion a false system used to keep the masses happy while they are oppressed, but that because of this religion should be routed out of society as much as possible, lest it get in the way of continuous improvement of the State.
Your friend was tortured in the name of Communism. Pure and simple.
The Chinese find the doctrine that religion is false and bad and should be routed out of society with force from the Russian Communists and Mao.
The idea that he was a member of the party is rather irrelevant, he was religious and as such, under Communist doctrine, he was a threat to the State.
I think if you thought about this you would realize that. Think of it this way, where is this "name of Atheism" printed or distributed. Where does atheism say that someone say someone should be atheist? In the Communist manifesto? Then it isn't atheism, its Communism. In the humanist manifesto? Then it isn't actually atheism, its humanism. etc etc
There is no "name of atheism" because there is no doctrine of atheism. Atheism is simply the rejection of theist beliefs.
You could certainly use this argument as an example of why Communism is a flawed and dangerous system, and I would agree 100% with you.Do I therefore use this as an argument that atheism is therefore evil?
These soldiers did what they did to your friend because (assuming they agreed with their orders, which I have no reason to doubt) they accepted the doctrine that the State as a body is more important than the individual and that obedience (there is that word again) to the wishes of the State will not only lead to a better life for them but also for their family, friends and country.
They are taught that anything the State says is correct, and that if they want a better life for their country then need to accept this. And the State is telling them that religion is bad and needs to be dealt with harshly.
The fact that they accept that what ever the State says is correct is the root of the problem, not simply that the State is telling them that religion is bad and needs to be dealt with harshly. That of course is bad, but even if the State was telling them that they should all go out and help build their neighbours house, the blind acceptance that everything the State says is correct is the issue
That doctrine of obedience is not flawed and dangerous only if it leads to people like these soldiers doing bad things. It is flawed to begin with, and it leads to people like these soldiers doing bad things.0 -
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So, by the same logic, heretics and Jews were tortured by the Inquisition in the name of Roman Catholicism - as Roman Catholicism is the system that deemed they must subscribe to certain beliefs. Were the individuals that tortured them not Roman Catholics, this would never have happened.
All Roman Catholics are (deemed) Christians, but not all Christians are Roman Catholics.
So, Dades, your logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that none of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or other historical atrocities were actually carried out in the name of Christianity. Will you admit that? Or do you want to have your cake and eat it?
If PDN's brand of Christianity had been in the position of the Roman Catholic Church, would it have done what the RC Church did?
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
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So, by the same logic, heretics and Jews were tortured by the Inquisition in the name of Roman Catholicism - as Roman Catholicism is the system that deemed they must subscribe to certain beliefs. Were the individuals that tortured them not Roman Catholics, this would never have happened.
All Roman Catholics are (deemed) Christians, but not all Christians are Roman Catholics.
So, Dades, your logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that none of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or other historical atrocities were actually carried out in the name of Christianity. Will you admit that? Or do you want to have your cake and eat it?
Your really missing the point PDN.
The problem isn't just the specifics of the doctrine.
The problem is the system of obedience/reward/punishment system based around the infallibility doctrine in the first place.
What the doctrine is is largely irrelevant to this. The system is surprisingly independent of the actual details of the doctrine. A Islamic suicide bomber rants the same way as a die hard atheist Communist or a fundamentalist Christian Creationist.
Their motivations for why they choose to accept as infallible what they choose to accept are again amazingly similar. It is all based on this idea that some doctrine is the only way to provide a better life, be that the Bible, the Qu'ran, Diaentics or the Communist Manifesto.
And at the end of the day the people killed during Communism are no more or less dead than the people killed during the Crusades or the Inquistion.
You keep focusing on the specific doctrine because you seem to want to be able to say that your obedience to the infallibility of your particular doctrine is ok, while freely admitting that others who have obedience to the infallibility of other doctrines, religious or otherwise, are obviously wrong and this leads to bad things.0 -
Yes, I have a problem with it because it is untrue.
Christianity = Faith in the promise of salvation in return for obedience to the commands of Christ = feeding the hungry, turning the other cheek, blessing your enemies
Christendom = Oppression carried out for selfish reasons in the name of Christianity
Communism = Oppression carried out for selfish reasons in the name of atheism.
You guys really seem to have a problem with that point.
As a couple of people have already said, that's because it's wrong. Those who tortured Joseph, in your example, wished him to renounce religion because you cannot be a good Communist without doing so, according to the major interpretations of Communism.
Your little cartoon above requires that Communism be something undertaken to promote atheism - whereas atheism is something undertaken to promote Communism. What is correct is:
State atheism = form of oppression carried out in the name of Communism
By the way, if we similarly swap the terms in the other statement, we get:
Christianity = form of oppression carried out in the name of Christendom
which has also often been true, as I'm sure you'd agree.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
I think it's more direct than that.Scofflaw wrote:Those who tortured Joseph, in your example, wished him to renounce religion because you cannot be a good Communist without doing so, according to the major interpretations of Communism.
The Chinese Communist Party runs China as a one-party state and they've been in the business of controlling political power, remarkably successfully, since they first gained it. Powerful independent churches constitute a dangerous network of independent political power to the unbroken authority of the one-party state. Joseph's torture was intended simply to break his loyalty to his church, so that some kind of residual loyalty to the Communist Party could once again be assumed. And to encourage the others, of course too.
If you believe the Communists, Joseph's torture may well have been carried out "in the name of atheism", but what his torture was called is not the same as what his torture was for. Suspicions should be aroused that the Communist Party may be speaking with less than total honesty when one notes that the country has an "official catholic church" run by the state and whose bishop-apparatchiks are appointed by the Communist Party rather than the Vatican which seems to behave, with a certain degree of justification, as though its trademark had been swiped.
Rather, Joseph was tortured because the requirements of his religion for absolute loyalty to itself came into conflict with the paranoid Communist Party's requirements for absolute loyalty. He decided that his religious loyalty was the more important and paid the savage, and utterly unnecessary, price for doing so.
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Fanny Cradock wrote: »
May I chop and change here?Scofflaw wrote:Christianity = form of oppression carried out in the name of Christendom
Christendom = form of oppression carried out in the name of Christianity (but without consent)
Be my guest! However, mine is a simple reversal of PDN's, done solely for comparison with the equivalent transformation of his atheist one. Your reversal yields, essentially, PDN's version again, with a rider.
Presumably you mean "without the consent of Christianity"? I don't really think that's true, though - it's clear that the early Christian community accepted the Eusebian compromise with Constantine's Rome as being good for Christianity.
Since that's the same early community from which all Christian churches derive their lineage, it would seem that the usual tactic of blaming these things on the Catholic Church is inappropriate.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
I’m not totally satisfied at where this discussion ends (but then I am a bit of a bollix, really).
Atheism, indeed, can simply be taken to mean not believing in a god, with no further implication. Similarly, theism can be taken to mean believing in a god, with no further implication.
Both atheism and theism are broad churches (cough). You can have oppressive atheist philosophies like Stalinism. You can have oppressive theist institutions, like the Inquisition. You can equally have peaceful atheist and theist movements like, say, Buddhists or Quakers.
Marxism simply was an attempt to use reason to define the ideal human society. It doesn’t require ‘obedience’ in the same sense as a religion, which makes me feel Wicknight’s point in this regard is not correct. Marxism purport(s/ed) to explain by use of human reason – not by faith. You don’t have to ‘believe’ in the dialectic – Marx would feel he simply discovered what makes society works, and would also feel he could support his analysis with evidence. That contention might be right or wrong – but it’s not an act of faith calling for obedience.
Marxism is an example of where a materialist conception of the world took one deep thinker – and where many followed, convinced by his logic. Clearly it’s silly to say all atheists are Marxists, just as its silly to say all theists are Inquisitors. But if someone wants to maintain that the Inquisition is all the fault of theism, that would seem to be much the same as saying Stalinism is all the fault of atheism. The conclusion I would draw from this, if we can take a pragmatic meaning for ‘bad’ for a moment, its that a philosophy based on atheism and reason can be just as bad as a philosophy based on theism and faith.
[Note: I accept that what I’m saying here is just taking belief systems at face value. Clearly someone might join a revolutionary movement for irrational reasons, just as someone might adopt a religion for quite cool logical reasons. But I don’t think those human motivation questions are at issue here.]0 -
I’m not totally satisfied at where this discussion ends (but then I am a bit of a bollix, really).
Atheism, indeed, can simply be taken to mean not believing in a god, with no further implication. Similarly, theism can be taken to mean believing in a god, with no further implication.
Both atheism and theism are broad churches (cough). You can have oppressive atheist philosophies like Stalinism. You can have oppressive theist institutions, like the Inquisition. You can equally have peaceful atheist and theist movements like, say, Buddhists or Quakers.
Marxism simply was an attempt to use reason to define the ideal human society. It doesn’t require ‘obedience’ in the same sense as a religion, which makes me feel Wicknight’s point in this regard is not correct. Marxism purport(s/ed) to explain by use of human reason – not by faith. You don’t have to ‘believe’ in the dialectic – Marx would feel he simply discovered what makes society works, and would also feel he could support his analysis with evidence. That contention might be right or wrong – but it’s not an act of faith calling for obedience.
Marxism is an example of where a materialist conception of the world took one deep thinker – and where many followed, convinced by his logic. Clearly it’s silly to say all atheists are Marxists, just as its silly to say all theists are Inquisitors. But if someone wants to maintain that the Inquisition is all the fault of theism, that would seem to be much the same as saying Stalinism is all the fault of atheism. The conclusion I would draw from this, if we can take a pragmatic meaning for ‘bad’ for a moment, its that a philosophy based on atheism and reason can be just as bad as a philosophy based on theism and faith.
[Note: I accept that what I’m saying here is just taking belief systems at face value. Clearly someone might join a revolutionary movement for irrational reasons, just as someone might adopt a religion for quite cool logical reasons. But I don’t think those human motivation questions are at issue here.]
Hmm. Part of the problem is that nearly all Marxists agree that Stalinism wasn't Marxism. Mind you, nearly all Christians agree that the Inquisition wasn't Christian.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
Indeed, and I'd have no problem if we proposed that the following concepts were equivalent:Hmm. Part of the problem is that nearly all Marxists agree that Stalinism wasn't Marxism. Mind you, nearly all Christians agree that the Inquisition wasn't Christian.
The religious equivalent of atheism is theism;
The religious equivalent of Marxism is Christianity;
The religious equivalent of Stalinism is the Inquisition.
Clearly I'm just suggesting these as rough examples to get the idea across. I'm not inviting exhaustive comparisons of Marxism and Christianity to see if they are truly equivalent in detail. I'm just making a point that I think is reasonably clear. Just as Christianity is an example of theist thought, Marxism is an example of atheist thought. Just as many theists regard Christianity as utterly invalid, many atheists regard Marxism as utterly invalid.
Apologies on labouring the point, but I do feel that it needs to be put to bed. Apologies also on once again seeking acceptance of commonsense meanings for 'good', 'bad', 'better' and 'worse', but I need these terms for my conclusion.
I think we should be capable of recognising that a bad atheist philosophy is worse than good theist beliefs. I feel its also hard to argue that a good atheist philosophy is better or worse than a good theist philosophy just because its atheist (and vice versa).0 -
Indeed, and I'd have no problem if we proposed that the following concepts were equivalent:
The religious equivalent of atheism is theism;
The religious equivalent of Marxism is Christianity;
The religious equivalent of Stalinism is the Inquisition.
Clearly I'm just suggesting these as rough examples to get the idea across. I'm not inviting exhaustive comparisons of Marxism and Christianity to see if they are truly equivalent in detail. I'm just making a point that I think is reasonably clear. Just as Christianity is an example of theist thought, Marxism is an example of atheist thought. Just as many theists regard Christianity as utterly invalid, many atheists regard Marxism as utterly invalid.
Apologies on labouring the point, but I do feel that it needs to be put to bed. Apologies also on once again seeking acceptance of commonsense meanings for 'good', 'bad', 'better' and 'worse', but I need these terms for my conclusion.
I think we should be capable of recognising that a bad atheist philosophy is worse than good theist beliefs. I feel its also hard to argue that a good atheist philosophy is better or worse than a good theist philosophy just because its atheist (and vice versa).
That I agree with. Personally, I don't, in any case, consider religion as some kind of font of evil or folly - it's simply the clothes evil and folly sometimes put on.
However, I have pointed out before that there are Christian Communists, and there is nothing in Marx's economic or social theory that requires personal atheism. I don't see it as an example of "atheist thought", only of the thoughts of an atheist.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
Atheism, indeed, can simply be taken to mean not believing in a god, with no further implication. Similarly, theism can be taken to mean believing in a god, with no further implication.
Yes but believing in a god has an implication, that being that the person believes in a god. That puts into play a certain number of factors.
Communism, as practised in the USSR and China, does require obedience.Marxism simply was an attempt to use reason to define the ideal human society. It doesn’t require ‘obedience’ in the same sense as a religion, which makes me feel Wicknight’s point in this regard is not correct.
If you want to debate if that form of Communism is really Marxism or not go ahead, but its missing the point.Clearly it’s silly to say all atheists are Marxists, just as its silly to say all theists are Inquisitors.
True, but then that isn't what is being said.But if someone wants to maintain that the Inquisition is all the fault of theism, that would seem to be much the same as saying Stalinism is all the fault of atheism.
No, it makes as much sense as saying Stalinism is the fault of Communism.
To say that Stalin was the result of atheism is to fail to see any of the history of how Stalin rose to power.
Ask yourself why Stalin was able to reach the position of power he did with the support of the people he did?
Then ask yourself how the Inquisition was able to carry out the actions it did with the support of the people it had?
There is a common thread connecting the two. I wonder if people can guess what it is.
Well no offence Schuhart but you are utterly and completely missing my point by your insistence of discussing this issue in terms of a debate between reason and faith.The conclusion I would draw from this, if we can take a pragmatic meaning for ‘bad’ for a moment, its that a philosophy based on atheism and reason can be just as bad as a philosophy based on theism and faith.
This is actually nothing to do with reason or faith. Reason goes out the window in both systems.
It is to do with the consequences of systems of promise/reward/punishment.
A system like Russian Communism and Christianity are far more similar than they are different. The supernatural elements of the religion are simply window dressing, one of many ways to set the system up initially, a way of giving it a convincing authority.
And the end of the day it comes to do a rather simple system of people allowing moral of issues to be muddled because of the promise of some form of reward from a higher authority if they are obedient to the higher authority.
That higher authority can be God, or it can be the Party. It doesn't actually matter.
This issue has always been about how humans manipulate other humans and why some humans allow themselves to be manipulated
Its that simple0 -
That I agree with. Personally, I don't, in any case, consider religion as some kind of font of evil or folly - it's simply the clothes evil and folly sometimes put on.
My reading of that is that you disagree with Weinberg's
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil — but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.”
Which when I think about it - that is all I really want to say on the matter. I just can't stop thinking that once you're convinced there's a sky god out there whose work you're doing it's easy to justify to yourself that what your god wants overrides everything else.
Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.
Is there any way to get there with atheism?0 -
My reading of that is that you disagree with Weinberg's
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil — but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.”
Which when I think about it - that is all I really want to say on the matter. I just can't stop thinking that once you're convinced there's a sky god out there whose work you're doing it's easy to justify to yourself that what your god wants overrides everything else.
Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.
Is there any way to get there with atheism?
Well, obviously not exactly there.
Can I imagine someone saying "religion is a source of evil, and needs to be stamped out for the good of humanity"? Sure. Can I see that leading, in the wrong hands/minds, to "the priests and preachers of religion must die, that everyone else can better live. They are teachers of lies and delusion. Kill them all, and burn the books.". Heck, I have days like that.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
But presumably we could also drag in Mother Teresa, who seems to have been an atheist that lived out Christian ethics. I’d guess that some atheists and agnostics might vote for or join parties called ‘Christian Democrats’. It would strike me that any term we use is an approximation that can be quibbled about at the edges.Scofflaw wrote:However, I have pointed out before that there are Christian Communists, and there is nothing in Marx's economic or social theory that requires personal atheism. I don't see it as an example of "atheist thought", only of the thoughts of an atheist.
Just as Christianity is essentially theist, it would strike me that Marxism is essentially atheist. At the end of the day it is laying out a view of how impersonal forces in this reality determine how we live. Strictly speaking, it may not absolutely require atheism. However, it would very strongly suggest that every religion we know was ultimately created by those impersonal forces and not by divine revelation. In the perfect Marxist society religion would disappear as there would cease to be a need for it. (Which, I suppose, makes me think that we’re beating around the bush a bit).
But surely atheism similarly puts in play some factors. The point is more how those factors are turned into something concrete. A theist might say ‘my belief in a god is just about me – it has no impact on anyone else’ just as an atheist might say ‘my disbelief is just about me – it has no impact on anyone else’. Or a theist might say ‘it’s very important that everyone believes in the same god as me, as it is the only good way for humanity to live’ and an atheist might say ‘it’s very important that everyone gives up this god delusion, as reason is better than unreason’.Wicknight wrote:Yes but believing in a god has an implication, that being that the person believes in a god. That puts into play a certain number of factors.
There’s a common sociology in how human organisations work. If that’s all you mean to say, that’s fine.Wicknight wrote:There is a common thread connecting the two. I wonder if people can guess what it is.
All I’m worried about is a tendency (which you may not share) to run from acknowledging that Marxism bears a similar relationship to atheism as Christianity does to theism.0 -
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None that I can think of.But surely atheism similarly puts in play some factors.
As is often said atheism is a belief like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I'm all ears if you can think of them. If you are going to say that an atheist will be humanistic in outlook, will prefer rationality over spirituality, will believe in no after life etc etc I would simply remind you that none of those beliefs or outlooks are necessary to be atheist.
Well a disbelief in something wouldn't have impact on anyone anyway. What matters is what the atheist actually believes. And that can have a big impact on other people, such as a belief like Communism.A theist might say ‘my belief in a god is just about me – it has no impact on anyone else’ just as an atheist might say ‘my disbelief is just about me – it has no impact on anyone else’.
But that isn't "atheism" ... an atheist can believe that but that belief isn't anything to do with atheism.Or a theist might say ‘it’s very important that everyone believes in the same god as me, as it is the only good way for humanity to live’ and an atheist might say ‘it’s very important that everyone gives up this god delusion, as reason is better than unreason’.All I’m worried about is a tendency (which you may not share) to run from acknowledging that Marxism bears a similar relationship to atheism as Christianity does to theism.
Well I'm equally worried about this inability people seem to have at looking at what actually is happening with these social/political systems, and instead jump for easy and convenient (yet very inaccurate) groups along the lines of Christianity is to theism what Communism is to atheism just because it makes for snappy sentences.
No one is running from the fact that Communism was an anti-religious movement. Quite the opposite, it was one of the worst things about Communism as it highlighted the terrible abuses of individual human freedom to believe as one wishes.
But to say that atheism was the belief system behind Communism is nonsense. Not nonsense in a "oh that really offends me" but nonsense in that atheism isn't belief system. Its simply bad English.
Theism is a specific thing. It is a specific type of supernatural belief structured in a certain way, in the same way that stamp collecting is a specific hobby.
The beliefs of an atheist can be anything else that isn't theistic, in the same way that "not collecting stamps" can be any other hobby or activity under the sun.
Atheist simply means "non-theist"
If you then say Marxism bears a similar relationship to non-theism you can see how ridiculous that sentence is, like someone saying child hood obesity bears a similar relationship to not collecting stamps. There is no proper information in either sentence, because for them to mean anything you need to know what the person believes, not what he doesn't, just like you need to know what the child does each day, not that he doesn't collect stamps.0 -
I think we can say that atheists who believe that everyone should stop believing and become atheists are the equivalent of theists who believe that everyone should follow their religion - in both cases the important point is that they believe everyone should think what they think.
After that it's down to what means are acceptable to achieve that end. However, the majority of Christians believe that everyone should be Christian, whereas the majority of atheists are perfectly happy that others believe, as long as they are not forced to.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
I think you need to reflect on that. If you’re telling me that conceiving of the universe as something with a material rather than a divine origin (taking origin as a commonsense term) has no implications for what someone does next strikes me as just wrong.None that I can think of.
If so, its incorrectly said. At the end of the day, atheism is a belief. It might be a belief that we regard as reasonably effortless. But theism of the ‘I just feel there’s something’ type seems pretty effortless to some people too.As is often said atheism is a belief like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Which is sort of the deal. Atheism will not found believes on faith in a deity by definition (unless, of course, we’ve deemed religion to be a necessary lie).Well a disbelief in something wouldn't have impact on anyone anyway. What matters is what the atheist actually believes. And that can have a big impact on other people, such as a belief like Communism.
Which is identical to saying that believe in the risen Christ has nothing to do with theism. In strict terms, you’d be correct – theism just means belief in a god, not necessarily a god who sent his son to Earth. But hopefully you’d start seeing that conceiving of the world as something purely material means that people will seek material explanations of what’s around them. Marxism certainly was one of the most popular material explanations of just that.But that isn't "atheism" ... an atheist can believe that but that belief isn't anything to do with atheism.
Unfortunately, its not just a snappy sentence. However, there certainly is a tendency to duck anytime someone makes the perfectly mundane remark that Marxism is an atheist philosophy. So is Buddism. What are we afraid of, exactly?jump for easy and convenient (yet very inaccurate) groups along the lines of Christianity is to theism what Communism is to atheism just because it makes for snappy sentences.
Hopefully we’ve established at this stage that, in fact, you are simply spending a lot of time avoiding what should be just obvious and non-contentious.If you then say Marxism bears a similar relationship to non-theism you can see how ridiculous that sentence is, like someone saying child hood obesity bears a similar relationship to not collecting stamps.
Indeed.I think we can say that atheists who believe that everyone should stop believing and become atheists are the equivalent of theists who believe that everyone should follow their religion - in both cases the important point is that they believe everyone should think what they think.
You may be right there, but is it fair to point out that we don’t really have any information on that. Just anecdotally, many Christians I’ve spoken too do have an awareness that if they’d grown up in another country they could well be following a different religion believing it to be the right one – and so, at some level, do accept that they don’t have a monopoly on truth. On the other hand, I think at different times (and particularly after a few beers) we’ve probably all expressed a desire to see religion gone.However, the majority of Christians believe that everyone should be Christian, whereas the majority of atheists are perfectly happy that others believe, as long as they are not forced to.
Is it fair to say that humans are not consistent – we don’t necessarily believe the same thing at all times and in all circumstances.0 -
Originally Posted by Wicknight
As is often said atheism is a belief like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Probably be better put as "atheism is a belief system, like not collecting stamps is a hobby".If so, its incorrectly said. At the end of the day, atheism is a belief. It might be a belief that we regard as reasonably effortless.
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