Discussion on setting up of Irish Atheist association

lostexpectation

sink wrote: »

Then that is basically nihilism a

[/LIST]

no its not.

lostexpectation

Tim Robbins wrote: »

No. Atheist does not stipulate antipathy. That would be militant atheist.

militant atheist, hahahaha , hahahaha you're sounding like Mary Kenny again. Im interested in discussing atheist ireland but i don't have time to argue with somebody who's clearly taking the piss. you argueing for argument sake and you're trolling, go away.

Dades

lostexpectation wrote: »

Im interested in discussing atheist ireland but i don't have time to argue with somebody who's clearly taking the piss. go away.

Nobody need go away unless they decide it, or mods do.

If we're going to have a thread about Atheist Ireland we're going to encourage discussion from both proponents and opponents. TR has a point. There's nothing in the definition of atheist that automatically assumes any dislike for religion.

Tim Robbins

lostexpectation wrote: »

militant atheist, hahahaha , hahahaha you're sounding like Mary Kenny again. Im interested in discussing atheist ireland but i don't have time to argue with somebody who's clearly taking the piss. you argueing for argument sake and you're trolling, go away.

No I am putting arguments to you that you can't answer.
Why:
1. Misrepresent atheists, just because you won't call yourselves by a more appropriate name?
2. Organise a separate grouping to a another group that you seem incapable of differentiating yourselves from?
3. Enter an atheist forum, promoting your organisation when you won't even deal with serious questions and points people put to you?

Before you promote AI, you should definetly point out that even though you want to change things in this state you have no interest in meeting the government and you have an unclear way of how you intend to do whatever it is you set out to do.

It might save people's time. Wasting it is trolling.

P.S.
AI's idea for the government not to collect religious data is just more nonsense. The best argument for a more secular state and secular schools is the massive and every increasing amount of people that tick the non - religious box in the census.

It's about 180,000 now. That means a lot of votes and something that can't be permantely ignored.

If we can get up again in the next census, it will be nigh impossible for government not to change things.

ChocolateSauce

Tim Robbins wrote: »

No I am putting arguments to you that you can't answer.
Why:
1. Misrepresent atheists, just because you won't call yourselves by a more appropriate name?
2. Organise a separate grouping to a another group that you seem incapable of differentiating yourselves from?
3. Enter an atheist forum, promoting your organisation when you won't even deal with serious questions and points people put to you?

Before you promote AI, you should definetly point out that even though you want to change things in this state you have no interest in meeting the government and you have an unclear way of how you intend to do whatever it is you set out to do.

It might save people's time. Wasting it is trolling.

P.S.
AI's idea for the government not to collect religious data is just more nonsense. The best argument for a more secular state and secular schools is the massive and every increasing amount of people that tick the non - religious box in the census.

It's about 180,000 now. That means a lot of votes and something that can't be permantely ignored.

If we can get up again in the next census, it will be nigh impossible for government not to change things.

I agree, we must collect religious data, not only to document the inevitable rise in the "No religion" category, but simply because knowledge is power and it would be gross negligence to be unable to say how many people in our country subscribe to what faith. Faith is real and we can't make it go away by refusing to acknowledge it.

On further thought, I've come to believe that Atheist Ireland is not a good name. I assume that AI is a so-called militant organisation (a cause I support), but not all atheists are militant (I don't actually know how many are/aren't...a poll maybe?) and this mis-represents the demographic, who are so famously diverse it has given rise to the term "hearding cats", as I'm sure we all know. A better name would be something along the lines of "Anti-theists Ireland" or "Secular Ireland".

sink

Anti-theists Ireland seems like a good name.

pH

sink wrote: »

I'm an atheist but atheism is only one part of my beliefs I have many others. Religion provide people with a moral structure and gives their lives purpose. Atheism on it's own without any philosophical grounding is meaningless.

We've been through this countless times, and the answer is no and no. We are innately moral (or more correctly have an innate morale compass whether we follow it or not is another question). As for purpose, again no, the only purpose religion (such as Christianity) appears to give people is to pretend they're in some sort of bizarre carbon-based test, sorting the wheat from the chaff.

What positive side? Atheism is entirely neutral. If you are talking about the positives of rationalism or secularism than you are talking about rationalism and secularism not purely atheism.

If some set of actions or ideology is negative then abandoning it, even without replacing it with anything *is* a positive step. "Not killing people" is entirely neutral (in involves doing/believing nothing) but in a society where murder was rampant and tolerant of murder, moving to this position would be (IMHO) positive. Your argument sounds like you'd be saying to this murder-rife society "You can't possibly just give-up murdering each other without replacing it with something else!"

Atheism is not believing in dieties, hard atheism is an active belief that deities don't exist, soft atheism is just simply lacking belief in deities. There is nothing else to it. Atheism is not a philosophy for life. There are many atheistic philosophies as there are many theistic theologies.

This seems to be splitting hairs, the statements "I don't believe in vampires" and "I believe vampires don't exist" seem pretty much equivalent to me, are there hard & soft deniers of all claims?

Tim Robbins

pH wrote: »

We've been through this countless times, and the answer is no and no. We are innately moral (or more correctly have an innate morale compass whether we follow it or not is another question). As for purpose, again no, the only purpose religion (such as Christianity) appears to give people is to pretend they're in some sort of bizarre carbon-based test, sorting the wheat from the chaff.

You're incorrect there. The scholary work shows yes we have an innnate moral compass, but how the needle gets set is largely determined by cultural values, enviroment and personal experience. That's why the Spartans killed the kids they didn't like, whereas we'd put such people in jail. Cultural values and environment would include religion for many people, even if not of it is true.

Atheism makes no comment on morals. Humanism does. It argues moral actions can be determined using reason, based on the axiom that human suffering is bad.

If some set of actions or ideology is negative then abandoning it, even without replacing it with anything *is* a positive step. "Not killing people" is entirely neutral (in involves doing/believing nothing) but in a society where murder was rampant and tolerant of murder, moving to this position would be (IMHO) positive. Your argument sounds like you'd be saying to this murder-rife society "You can't possibly just give-up murdering each other without replacing it with something else!"

Atheism makes no comment on murder. Religion and humanism does. As stated, atheism makes no social comment even on religion. Alister Campell describes himself as a pro - faith atheist. Many atheists, would be pro or at least sympathetic to faith organisations. Others want it whiped out. But all atheism is a personal statement, that one has no belief. That's it - there's no social comment after that.

This seems to be splitting hairs, the statements "I don't believe in vampires" and "I believe vampires don't exist" seem pretty much equivalent to me, are there hard & soft deniers of all claims?

Well better to split hairs than to grossly misrepresents atheists.

One bad argument you'll always here from a Christian is:"I am Christian so XYZ".

What they invariantly fail to realise is that there are many different versions of Christianity some "XYZ" means Christianity others it certainly does not.

Each denomination thinks its subjective take on Christianity is the objective version of it.

AI by taking a word, which unlike Christianity has more reliable objective definitions, puts its subjective meaning on it.

So their's is the following transformation:

Objective Language -> Subjective use of Language

whereas the Christians go from

Non Objective Language -> Subjective use of Language

Whose commiting the greater logical fallacy?

sink

pH wrote: »

We've been through this countless times, and the answer is no and no. We are innately moral (or more correctly have an innate morale compass whether we follow it or not is another question). As for purpose, again no, the only purpose religion (such as Christianity) appears to give people is to pretend they're in some sort of bizarre carbon-based test, sorting the wheat from the chaff.

I agree that we have an inbuilt moral compass and that the religious impose their innate morality upon their religion and not the other way round. What I mean by moral structure is that religion can be used as a tool by it's followers better understand their own morality through it's support structures. Everyone comes face to face with though decisions in life and we all require help in finding a way through. Religion provides people with help in the same way you or I might seek help from a councillor. Different methods will suit different individuals better.

pH wrote: »

If some set of actions or ideology is negative then abandoning it, even without replacing it with anything *is* a positive step. "Not killing people" is entirely neutral (in involves doing/believing nothing) but in a society where murder was rampant and tolerant of murder, moving to this position would be (IMHO) positive. Your argument sounds like you'd be saying to this murder-rife society "You can't possibly just give-up murdering each other without replacing it with something else!"

That would be true only if what you are abandoning is absolutely negative but I don't believe theism is any more negative than atheism. Both are empty of ethical ramifications as neither pertain directly to ethics. It is their attached philosophies/theologies which can have negative or positive attributes. One atheist philosophy might promote eugenics and the euthanasia of the handicapped while a theist theology might promote altruism and devoting oneself to helping the handicapped. Neither are good or bad directly because of their atheism/theism and so abandoning their atheist/theist side will not impact their ethical sides.

pH wrote: »

This seems to be splitting hairs, the statements "I don't believe in vampires" and "I believe vampires don't exist" seem pretty much equivalent to me, are there hard & soft deniers of all claims?

Effectively yes but the mindsets of hard and soft deniers are generally very different. I don't believe in a god because I have no reason to. I am more than happy to let somebody else believe in god because I don't have a reason to stop them. Someone who believes that there is no god is more likely to want to push their active beliefs upon others. It is very subtle but the difference is there.

pH

sink wrote: »

That would be true only if what you are abandoning is absolutely negative but I don't believe theism is any more negative than atheism.

Possibly for some value of theism, some as yet not invented religion of the masses. However back in the real world, considering the theists I see in front of me *I* personally would prefer that the dictates, wants, needs, agendas and superstitions of the churches established in Ireland are not part and parcel of the state and social policy.

To be honest, what we replace it with (if anything) is another question, I just know that I don't want this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5268745.ece

sink

pH wrote: »

Possibly for some value of theism, some as yet not invented religion of the masses. However back in the real world, considering the theists I see in front of me *I* personally would prefer that the dictates, wants, needs, agendas and superstitions of the churches established in Ireland are not part and parcel of the state and social policy.

To be honest, what we replace it with (if anything) is another question, I just know that I don't want this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5268745.ece

Well all you have to do is change the religion of the masses. Religion has been evolving since it's birth and shown itself open to change. It would possibly be easier to change a religion than to eliminate religion altogether.

pH

sink wrote: »

Well all you have to do is change the religion of the masses. Religion has been evolving since it's birth and shown itself open to change. It would possibly be easier to change a religion than to eliminate religion altogether.

So now the atheist agenda should be somehow to convert the masses to one true religion of peace and prosperity? I can no longer tell if you're being serious or taking the piss.

Tim Robbins

pH wrote: »

So now the atheist agenda should be somehow to convert the masses to one true religion of peace and prosperity? I can no longer tell if you're being serious or taking the piss.

I think he's talking about looking at the bad effects of religion and trying to influence change on them. So for example, religious descrimination at schools, many religious people don't support this. So if atheists join forces with these people they'd have a better chance of changing it rather then calling them all stupid for having an imaginary friend.

sink

pH wrote: »

So now the atheist agenda should be somehow to convert the masses to one true religion of peace and prosperity? I can no longer tell if you're being serious or taking the piss.

We have already established that religious people impose their innate morality upon their religion so to change religion all we need to do is to appeal to their inbuilt moral compass and leave the changing of religious doctrine up to them. The same process has being happening for several thousand years. Today don't see many christians burning witches at the stake, do you?

You have to ask yourself why do you want to eliminate religion? Is it because believing in god is bad or is it because the implications of certain religious doctrines are bad? If it's the former then by all means continue bashing religion, if it the latter try examining whether the heavy handed approach of destroying religion is best. Dropping 500lbs bombs may be satisfying to but will it have the desired effect or would a surgical strike to eliminate only the bad be better?

pH

sink wrote: »

You have to ask yourself why do you want to eliminate religion?

That may have been rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway. Simple answer is I don't, I'm quite happy with people believing in God, gathering together to worship him and imposing on themselves additional morals and rules that they believe he has ordered them to live by. I draw the line when they want to impose those rules on me, or expect me to bow down, respect and worship their imaginary God.

sink

pH wrote: »

That may have been rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway. Simple answer is I don't, I'm quite happy with people believing in God, gathering together to worship him and imposing on themselves additional morals and rules that they believe he has ordered them to live by. I draw the line when they want to impose those rules on me, or expect me to bow down, respect and worship their imaginary God.

So in order to stop them trying to impose their religious doctrine upon you, you attempt to destroy their entire religion. Would the path of least resistance not be getting them to stop trying to impose their beliefs upon you. In this task you could also recruit believers who are sympathetic to you views.

lostexpectation

i sorry dades,I gave myself a day off, i can't take what tim robbins is saying seriously, somebody who is close to some type of atheism or agnosticism, and a humanist using the phrase 'militant atheism', i feel like this is candid camera and he's going to reveal himself to be jeremey beadle.

how many more times can i tell you all, its my personal opinion, that i don't think the government is an honest broker.

i doubt the HAI represents every humanist in ireland, there's a organisation called the irish primary parents network, it doesn't represent ever parent with a child in primary schools in ireland, im sure it hopes too, but it doesn't that's the nature of associations, i dont' get what the big deal is.

i don't understand sink we've called ourselves atheists, not simply secularist i don't see why your saying that's inappropriate. i think your being restrictive in what an atheist can and can't do.

but at the end of the day you don't agree with 'AI', you think the best strategy is to have an organisation with secular theists, ok, 'AI' will strive on without you.

i hope there aren't any nihilist under your bed, don't watch the big lebowski it will give you nightmares.

the census thing isn't written in stone, AI only half exists as of yet.
somebody made a very good point that the religious stat is always going to be dubious and inaccurate, because of parents filling it in and how you define whether somebody really follows a religion or not.

lostexpectation

Dades wrote: »

There's nothing in the definition of atheist that automatically assumes any dislike for religion.

i never said there was? ok so i said it was antipathy, well this is ireland so i think for atheists its hard to be indifferent, your forced to actively avoid religion, maybe for some that might create a small sense of frustration or antipathy.

jesus, i feel like im being crucified. for what?

sink

lostexpectation wrote: »

i sorry dades,I gave myself a day off, i can't take what tim robbins is saying seriously, somebody who is close to some type of atheism or agnosticism, and a humanist using the phrase 'militant atheism', i feel like this is candid camera and he's going to reveal himself to be jeremey beadle.

how many more times can i tell you i don't think the government is an honest broker.

i don't understand sink we've called ourselves atheists, not simply secularist i don't see why your saying thats inapropriate. i think your being restrictive in what an atheist can and can't do.


the census thing isn't written in stone, AI only half exists as of yet.
somebody made a very good point that the religious stat is always going to be dubious and inaccurate, because of parents filling it in and how you define whether somebody really follows a religion or not.

All I am really saying I would rather you didn't go on a religion bashing crusade with a name like Atheist Ireland as it will inevitably lead to all atheists being painted with one brush.

Rev Hellfire

In fairness to AI, its a pseudo-organisation at this stage, without a concrete agenda who's been judged on the postings of one individual.
And if part of the complaint here is that it all atheists will be judged by its actions, it doesn't seem fair that its been judged on a the postings (here at least) of a single poster who may not be representative of its members also.

Dades

lostexpectation wrote: »

jesus, i feel like im being crucified. for what?

Ah now! People are just raising valid points and in the time-honoured tradition of A&A refusing to allow them to be dropped!

There's a few issues that seem to be concerning people here, which until they get sorted might turn them off the AI concept.

1) A lack of an agenda significantly different to that of the HAI.
2) The belief that any change can come about without interaction with the government.
3) That by taking a more 'fervent' approach to matters, you alienate people and the term atheist becomes synonymous with barely organised religion bashers.

That said, I don't believe anyone here doesn't hope AI turns out to be something worthwhile.

Tim Robbins

lostexpectation wrote:

i doubt the HAI represents every humanist in ireland, there's a organisation called the irish primary parents network, it doesn't represent ever parent with a child in primary schools in ireland, im sure it hopes too, but it doesn't that's the nature of associations, i dont' get what the big deal is.

Maybe they don't but they aim to. You argue AI don't aim, claim to represent ever atheist in Ireland. See the difference?

lostexpectation wrote:

the census thing isn't written in stone, AI only half exists as of yet.
somebody made a very good point that the religious stat is always going to be dubious and inaccurate, because of parents filling it in and how you define whether somebody really follows a religion or not.

You were arguing having no stats at all, not to make the current stats more accurate. Big difference.

Rev Hellfire wrote:

In fairness to AI, its a pseudo-organisation at this stage, without a concrete agenda who's been judged on the postings of one individual.
And if part of the complaint here is that it all atheists will be judged by its actions, it doesn't seem fair that its been judged on a the postings (here at least) of a single poster who may not be representative of its members also.

I've been to their website and had discussions with several of them. All I am getting is the same tetchy responses to the same questions.

My experiences with NGOs, and volunteer groups is it takes some remarkable people to keep them going. Intelligent, hard working, reliable and willing to give up huge amounts of time to get anything done.

Without that, they fall apart once everyone has their rant.

robindch

Interesting to see that some atheists are far more worried than most religious people are when it comes to letting other people use a perceived common identity to deliver some message or other.

Wouldn't have expected that.

Zamboni

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

In fairness to AI, its a pseudo-organisation at this stage, without a concrete agenda who's been judged on the postings of one individual.
And if part of the complaint here is that it all atheists will be judged by its actions, it doesn't seem fair that its been judged on a the postings (here at least) of a single poster who may not be representative of its members also.

Probably the smartest post in this thread Rev.

I went to the meeting and at the moment I am 50/50 with the idea. Hell I don't even like the name.
There was good and bad points. Whilst the meeting was fairly organised and there was some smart people present, AI is flipping miles off having anything concrete in structure or constitution. There were only 30 people there (some of which were drinking pints openly - appropriate?:rolleyes:)
Ftr one guy stood up and wanted AI to, and I quote, 'destroy the catholic church' (beer in hand may I add).
Its very easy to judge and poor old LE has had a hard time on this thread.
Any of the laptop armchair critics should grow a set and actually attend the meeting AI might be directed more to their liking.
There is no point sitting back and complaining if you haven't got the stones to participate yourself.

ChocolateSauce

robindch wrote: »

Interesting to see that some atheists are far more worried than most religious people are when it comes to letting other people use a perceived common identity to deliver some message or other.

Wouldn't have expected that.

Very interesting. Religion is still respected, and certain institutions like the Catholic church, which has sinned heinously for its entire existence, are still viewed as being respectable. Yet in the eyes of many, a few people like Hitchens and Dawkins give us all a bad name which will not easily be remedied.

Seems to me like....dare I say it, fear of "religious" persecution by the majority?

lostexpectation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axwDOiRPZRg

don't take it too seriously guys, thanks to dj

lostexpectation

Dades wrote: »

Ah now! People are just raising valid points and in the time-honoured tradition of A&A refusing to allow them to be dropped!

There's a few issues that seem to be concerning people here, which until they get sorted might turn them off the AI concept.

1) A lack of an agenda significantly different to that of the HAI.
2) The belief that any change can come about without interaction with the government.
3) That by taking a more 'fervent' approach to matters, you alienate people and the term atheist becomes synonymous with barely organised religion bashers.

i've dealt with them all several times. they seem to think there the only people to think about these questions.

im not trying to be spokesperson for AI but seeing i posted the constitution and the aims i though i should continue to explain them, i thought they'd get a friendly audience.