Michael Nugent speaks for Atheism

Tim Robbins

Full article here

Fair play to Michael for stirring a debate but I think he misrepresents atheism. He sets it up as a sort of life stance on a range of issues. This is incorrect. All atheism is, is a position on an existential question, that is whether God exists or not.

He says things like:

Atheists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings.

Who is he to say atheists agree on such matters? I applaud Atheist Ireland for a lot of the work they do but I find the way they extend the definition of atheism and speak as if they are speaking for all atheists a tad annoying.

seamus

From reading the article, when he says, "Impersonal forces", it appears that he's talking about things like gravity, probability, etc etc, as opposed to any supernatural forces.

While it's always fraught with error to say that all atheists agree on anything, it's fair to say that the vast majority agree that there are forces within our universe which do not care about us.

cavedave

And so a growing number of religious people are redefining the idea of god to mean an impersonal force, or a set of universal values such as love and goodness, or even suggesting that the laws of nature are god.

With the preceding paragraph he could be implying that impersonal forces like gravity and electromagnetism make life possible. I find this hard to disagree with. Impersonal forces do exist in the universe.

As for the existence of Love and Goodness I am reading The Price of Altruism at the moment about the work of people like Price, Hamilton and Dawkins (part 3 of this documentary deals with Price and his conversion to Christianity) to explain why there is goodness. Altruism, attraction and pair bonding are scientific concepts. Are you arguing they don't exist?

Tim Robbins

seamus wrote: »

While it's always fraught with error to say that all atheists agree on anything, it's fair to say that the vast majority agree that there are forces within our universe which do not care about us.

Yes the vast majority agree on such matters. But the way he pushes it to the next level like a pushy sales person opens the door for the head recking Stalin argument.

It's very easy for anyone to say:

"Michael Nugent claims athesits "agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings". Does he include Stalin and Pol Pot in his analysis?"

If he was more clinical with the logic and not make himself so easy to counter argue - it would be better.

Zombrex

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Full article here

Fair play to Michael for stirring a debate but I think he misrepresents atheism. He sets it up as a sort of life stance on a range of issues. This is incorrect. All atheism is, is a position on an existential question, that is whether God exists or not.

He says things like:



Who is he to say atheists agree on such matters? I applaud Atheist Ireland for a lot of the work they do but I find the way they extend the definition of atheism and speak as if they are speaking for all atheists a tad annoying.

I don't really see anything objectionable in what Nugent said. It seems to be an article combatting the many myths about atheism.

Isn't objecting to it sort of like Harvey Milk saying gay people believe in love, marriage and have a desire to have children (ie combatting stereotypes about gay people just being hedonistic and interested in meaningless sex) just to have a gay person turn around and say who the feck is Harvey Milk to say that about gay people, that I'm a hedonistic gay man only interested in meaningless sex, Milk doesn't speak for me.

Rev Hellfire

I look forward to your letter in the times letter page...

Beruthiel

Tim Robbins wrote: »

If he was more clinical with the logic and not make himself so easy to counter argue - it would be better.

Someone's angling to be Michael's new PR Agent.

Tim Robbins

Beruthiel wrote: »

Someone's angling to be Michael's new PR Agent.

Well at least Michael gets up of his arse and does something to try to change things. I respect that.

Hopefully he might take what was meant to be a bit of constructive feedback.

Tim Robbins

Zombrex wrote: »

I don't really see anything objectionable in what Nugent said. It seems to be an article combatting the many myths about atheism.

Isn't objecting to it sort of like Harvey Milk saying gay people believe in love, marriage and have a desire to have children (ie combatting stereotypes about gay people just being hedonistic and interested in meaningless sex) just to have a gay person turn around and say who the feck is Harvey Milk to say that about gay people, that I'm a hedonistic gay man only interested in meaningless sex, Milk doesn't speak for me.

Well if Stalin was gay you might have a point

Dades

This article don't bother me at all, unlike the name "Atheist Ireland" which does bother me as I don't agree with some of it's policies.

The group, rather than the article are more likely to give people preconceptions of what an atheist is.

Zombrex

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Well if Stalin was gay you might have a point

Where did Stalin come from, I can't see any reference to it in the IT article.

Michael Nugent

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Fair play to Michael for stirring a debate

Thanks.

Tim Robbins wrote: »

but I think he misrepresents atheism... He says things like:

Atheists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings.

Who is he to say atheists agree on such matters?

Tim, I’ve used qualifiers like ‘some’ and ‘most’ elsewhere in the article, but I didn’t think such a qualifier was needed here. If you read the sentence in the context of the sentences before and after it...

In recent centuries, at least in the western world, science has weakened the idea of gods as intervening supernatural beings, and secular democracy has weakened the idea of gods as moral guides. And so a growing number of religious people are redefining the idea of god to mean an impersonal force, or a set of universal values such as love and goodness, or even suggesting that the laws of nature are god. Atheists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings. But describing such natural phenomena as “god” creates an illusion that there is a wider acceptance of the idea of a personal intervening god, because it uses the same label to describe a very different type of idea.

...it means that religious people claim that certain things are evidence of a god, and that atheists agree that such things exist but argue that they are natural phenomena. I think that is true for such an overwhelming majority of atheists that, outside of an academic treatise, it doesn't require qualifying. That said, you are correct that it would have been technically more accurate to qualify it with something like "virtually all atheists agree".

Tim Robbins wrote: »

It's very easy for anyone to say: "Michael Nugent claims atheists "agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings". Does he include Stalin and Pol Pot in his analysis?"

There are broadly two possible responses to this.

Yes. Values such as love and goodness were part of the the experiences of Stalin and Pol Pot as human beings. So were values such as hate and badness. All of these values are part of the overall experience of being human and interacting with other sentient beings. For the purposes of this argument, the important point is that these experiences are natural and not supernatural. We shouldn’t just cherry-pick the positive experiences, and either attribute them to a god or say that they actually are god.

No. Michael is mistaken about this. Here’s why. (insert explanation.) However, that doesn’t invalidate other things that he says about atheism, which on the basis of the best currently available evidence seem to be correct, such as (insert examples). Also, if atheists are fundamentally mistaken, and there is a god, that would raise other moral questions about Stalin and Pol Pot. Did this god know they were doing bad? Was this god unable to stop them doing bad? Or was this god able but unwilling to stop them doing bad?

Dades wrote: »

This article don't bother me at all

That is surely the height of praise on this forum.

Dades

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Dades wrote: »

This article don't bother me at all

That is surely the height of praise on this forum.

Heh, I only meant that in the context of this thread. Tis a fine article!

fitz0

Atheists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings.

I don't agree with that.

Tim Robbins

Michael,
I greatly admire the amount of freetime you are putting into this.
I think the way you've expressed your opinion here are clearer and hope you don't mind a bit of what was meant to be some constructive feedback. You should go on Vincent Browne and make some noise about the President having to take a religious oath!
Cheers.

cavedave

fitz0

"Atheists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings."
I don't agree with that.

Which bit and why?

fitz0

cavedave wrote: »

Which bit and why?

The "Atheists agree" bit. We rarely all agree on anything beyond the no god concept.

Anyway the statement is fairly wishy-washy. I have a great respect for Michael Nugent and the work he does and I know I'm only picking at one line but that statement says absolutely nothing. It may as well read "Atheists agree that grass is green and that disliking Monday mornings is part of our experiences as human beings." I'm sure theists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings. They just set up a god background to the whole thing.

seamus

fitz0 wrote: »

I'm sure theists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings.

I think that's kind of the point though.

There is a popular perception that Atheism is synonymous with being cold, antisocial and looking at the world in a dark and depressing way.

My impression of the statement was that he was simply trying to say that, "Hey, look, atheists are just like everyone else; we live, we learn, we laugh, we love. We just don't consider God to be part of the human experience".

cavedave

If it is just the 'atheists agree' part you don't like is it a black swan problem where he is saying something like "All swans are white" and you think somewhere out there currently undiscovered is a black swan (there are black swans in Australia the example comes from a time when people didnt know this). As in you are arguing "Somewhere out there may be an atheist who does not agree even if we have not discovered them yet"? If you held all newspaper articles to only saying something is agreed (or happened) if there was no possibility of it being disproved in the future there would not be newspapers.

If everyone here does think "there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings." is the same as "grass is green and that disliking Monday mornings" it would be a pretty hard statment to disagree with wouldn't it?

but that statement says absolutely nothing

if a statemenet says nothing how can you disagree with what it isn't saying?

Daftendirekt

I think it's quite a good article. Seems to address the main misconceptions about atheism, and even clarifies that many atheists identify as agnostics as well. And it does it all in a nice non-confrontational tone. It's good to see something like this in the Irish Times.

Oh, and the headline's good too.

fitz0

Seamus: I can agree with that, I hadn't looked at it in that way. I had interpreted that single line to say that atheists as a closed group agreed this, an assumption that doesn't really hold up in the cold light of day. The context of the article doesn't support that assumption so I stand corrected.

I was being slightly facetious to begin with, I guess without the :pac: it didn't really pan out. *backs quietly away*

UDP

Well done Michael, a very well written argument.

I see at the bottom you mention "over the coming weeks" - does that mean you will be writing a few more articles on the times?

nozzferrahhtoo

I hear he is to have a series of articles in the same slot on the same day for 4 or 5 weeks, maybe more if it proves successful who knows.

Michael Nugent

Tim, on Wednesday you wrote:

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Michael,
I greatly admire the amount of freetime you are putting into this.
I think the way you've expressed your opinion here are clearer and hope you don't mind a bit of what was meant to be some constructive feedback. You should go on Vincent Browne and make some noise about the President having to take a religious oath!
Cheers.

On Friday, you posted the following on the Atheist Ireland forum:

Tim Robbins wrote:

It's ridiculous making arguments that atheist agree on things they don't have to agree on. Michael is doing that throughout the article.

1. "We atheists will change our minds if evidence shows we are wrong" - You can be atheist and are free to refuse to change your mind if you are wrong.
2. "Atheists reject the idea that your preferred god exists, in the same way that you reject the idea that other gods exist: because there is no reliable evidence that they do exist, and lots of reliable evidence that they are ideas invented by humans." - You can be atheist on whatever terms you want. You don't have to similar reasons to any religious person's rejection of another God or have any opinion that they are ideas invented by humans.
3. "Why are atheists so certain that gods do not exist? Actually, most of us aren’t. We merely reject the assertion that one or more gods do exist, based on the best currently available evidence." - Again - speak for yourself Michael.
4. "We would change our minds if we were given new and credible evidence that we are mistaken." - You don't have to.
5. "Atheists reject the idea of personal gods as intervening supernatural beings." - Well not really. They only have to disbelief which is slightly weaker than reject.
6. "We(atheists) do not get our morality from books such as the Bible and the Koran..." - incorrect. You can be atheist and still believe it is possible to get morality from the bible
7. "Atheists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings."
As stated atheists don't have to agree on such matters.

In summary, Michael only speaks for himself. But, he acts like he speaks for all atheists. In the same way as this organisation presents itself as speaking for Irish atheists when it only speaks for its members and its own agenda.

I wish Michael would caveat his opinions more. In the same way as I wish this organisation would caveat its opinions and stances more.

The way he goes makes atheism sound like a religion. A set of stances and reasons for those stances.
It impinges on the freedom that is associated with the philosophical stance on atheism.

In addition:
1. "And pragmatic atheists simply ignore the idea of gods as being in practice irrelevant to their lives."
I have heard weak atheism and strong atheism but I have never heard pragmatic atheists.

2. "most atheists are also agnostics" - oh really...

Personally, I hope the next article is of a higher standard.

Tim, where would you prefer to continue this discussion? Here or on the Atheist Ireland forum? It’s probably easier to follow if we keep it all in the same place. I’ll post this message on both, but after that I think we should focus on one or the other location. Wherever you want to continue it, can I ask you some questions?

Why are your opinions on this so volatile? Why were you originally concerned about just one statement in my article, then responded supportively to my explanation, but are now less supportive and are concerned about nine statements in the article?

Why are you suggesting that I should go on Vincent Browne and make some noise about the President having to take a religious oath, given that it is theoretically possible that some atheists might want the President to have to take a religious oath?

In other conversations, do you implicitly understand words like 'some' and 'many' and 'all' to be intended where it is reasonably obvious from the context, or do you insist that they are always made explicit?

Why do you think that your preferred meaning of atheism (which is not even the dictionary definition) should be the default meaning for everybody else?

Arcus Arrow

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I hear he is to have a series of articles in the same slot on the same day for 4 or 5 weeks, maybe more if it proves successful who knows.

You "hear" there is to be a series of articles? Why wouldn't you since your'e a member of Atheist Ireland and one of it's most dedicated acolytes. It's a bit pathetic to continually go around trying to promote your leader while attempting to mask that fact.

nozzferrahhtoo

Still playing that record?

Arcus Arrow

The article is wrong after the first 3 words of the title "We atheists will....". All that follows is based on the delusion that anyone can quantify or represent people based on what they do not believe.

If the article was written with less arrogant self promotion and more honesty it would read rather differently. Like any article by an atheist it could only say "I'm an atheist and I do/don't [whatever] or I'm the leader of Atheist Ireland and I and the members do/don't [whatever].

The article is not about atheists, it's about professed atheists in a particular atheist organisation and even that may only be true to some degree.

It's presumptuous for anyone to even imagine they can represent the views collectively of people whose only tenuous connection is an incidental like non belief in the Tooth Fairy.

An atheist is a human who does not believe external entities like gods exists.

It's not necessarily a human who professes the belief that gods don't exist.

An atheist might just as well be a pope having worked his way to power on the basis that the only forces he has to deal with are other humans. In fact in an organised religions an atheist may well be in the best positions to out compete those of his contemporaries who actually believe the bull****. An atheist might be an IRA assassin who makes a point of showing his devotion at Sunday Mass knowing how useful it can be. Professed atheists might not like to deal with reality but reality is reality. An atheist could be someone who will kill you with hardly a pause if they know they are 100% certain of getting away with it.

Anyone claiming to speak for "atheists" is engaging in the same arrogant claims so often repeated from the balcony of St Peters when they presume they represent 1.5 billion Catholics. That number includes you if you happen to have been baptised at birth.



http://www.youtube.com/user/AtheistIreland

Arcus Arrow

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Still playing that record?

Why don't you put on your profile upfront that you're a member of AI. Is this part of building an "ethical" society?

Dades

It's common knowledge nozzferrahhtoo is a member of AI. As is your distaste for the organisation.

If you guys want to have handbags take it to the AI forum.

cavedave

Arcus Arrow
The article is wrong after the first 3 words of the title "We atheists will....". All that follows is based on the delusion that anyone can quantify or represent people based on what they do not believe.

Your claim here is that you could not make the statement "atheists believe the sun emits light" when I believe someone could make that statement.

Atheists agree that there are impersonal forces in the universe, and that values such as love and goodness are part of our experiences as human beings.

Arcus Arrow your claim seems to be that someone who is an atheist but claims not to be. They do not believe in personal forces but pretends to. How does that make this statement false? They still believe in impersonal forces and still recognise goodness as a human experience

The statement could be false in a number of ways
1. You don't hold these views though your an atheist
2. You know of an atheist who does not hold them.
3. You believe its possible to be an atheist and not hold them

3. the black swan scenerio is true but if you were to remove everything in the newspaper that could possibly be disproved in this manner there would be no paper.
If 1 or 2 is true I can argue why you should believe them. Basically because they are covered by scientific concepts, gravity and altrusim for example

nozzferrahhtoo

A simple yes would have sufficed. However to answer the question it was the Atheist Ireland forum I heard this one, which is nothing to do with membership. Non members can use the forum too.