Atheism: new religion?

[llamatron]

The vocal atheists (Dawkins et al) claim that religion is the root cause of much of the worlds troubles, and claim that the world would be a better, less violent place, if there was no religion.

 

They don't claim that all atrocities are carried out by the religious, at least not directly.

 

They do tend, however, when confronted with examples of atheists committing atrocites, for example, the Stalinist regime, that, in fact the Stalinists were not actually atheists, but followers of a personality cult that made them, in effect, religious.

 

I can't really think of many atheist regimes other than the Stalinists who carried out atrocities (historically atheism has been heavily suppressed by religious organisations), so, if vocal atheists do believe that all, apparently atheist regimes guilty of atrocities, were in fact, not actually atheists, but religious (see above) then, by implication, that would suggest that, yes, in their eyes all atrocities would then have been committed by the religious.

 

Of course, that would only apply to the more vocal atheists who support the theory that Stalinists, despite claiming themselves to be atheists, were in fact religious.

 

It doesn't imply that, I think you are believing your own assumtions far too readily. Just because they attribute these examples to religion doesn't imply they attribute all wars to religion.

[Lockjaw]

I'm as happy as a pig in **** with that

 

I don't believe humanity 'invented' logic- logic preceeds humanity, the universe and God.

 

Are you, therefore, suggesting that something existed before the "creator"?

 

 

Humanity 'discovered' logic, or perhaps 'mapped' it.

 

Otherwise humanity could have invented a logic where 4=5.

 

Why ever would humanity have done that then?

[onewheeldave]

Here's one example-

 

http://stupac2.blogspot.com/2006/10/hitler-stalin-and-mao-were-not-atheists.html

 

 

here's a relevant quote-

 

Stalin and Mao are a bit tougher to crack, mainly because there’s no quotations attributable to them either way (at least that I can find, if you know of a reliable source for some, feel free to tell me). But most people seem to assume that because they abolished religion, they must be atheists. In fact, they abolished religion so that they could establish cults of personality, and become gods themselves

 

others have gone into much more detail, google has many such links.

 

My personal opinion is that the idea is pretty absurd.

 

sadly, it seems to be the nature of the vocal atheists, when confronted by solid examples that go against their ingrained belief (that atheists are basically better, more rational and less destructive than believers) to dismiss it, usually in a very clever and convoluted way, in this case by claiming that Stalinist atheists were in fact religious!

 

and, in the past, it's tended to work, because most of the believers they were arguing against were of the fundamentalist variety, who were, to out it bluntly, either a bit thick, or certainly not adept at spotting a flawed piece of reasoning.

 

And, it is difficult to deal with an approach that is deliberatly obtuse and convoluted, as any response is met with more convolution.

 

Personally, my approach is, if an atheist wants to insist than stalinist atheists were in fact religious, don't attack it directly, just follow it through and look at the consequences.

 

Which, in this case, are that atheists who do believe the above, are going to have to conclude that all atrocites were committed by believers (as any atheist committing atrocities is automatically considered to be religious).

[onewheeldave]

Are you, therefore, suggesting that something existed before the "creator"?

 

Not 'something' (unless you want to define what you mean by 'something'- is it for example a physical thing)- but, like i said, logic preceeds everything.

 

 

Why ever would humanity have done that then?

 

Doesn't matter- the point is that, if logic was 'invented' by humanity, they could have decided 4=5.

 

Such a thing is (to me at least) clearly absurd, and thus indicates that humanity could not have invented logic.

 

Logic preceeds humanity and, 4 does not equal 5, never has, never will, in this universe or any other.

[llamatron]

Here's one example-

 

http://stupac2.blogspot.com/2006/10/hitler-stalin-and-mao-were-not-atheists.html

 

 

here's a relevant quote-

 

 

 

others have gone into much more detail, google has many such links.

 

My personal opinion is that the idea is pretty absurd.

 

sadly, it seems to be the nature of the vocal atheists, when confronted by solid examples that go against their ingrained belief (that atheists are basically better, more rational and less destructive than believers) to dismiss it, usually in a very clever and convoluted way, in this case by claiming that Stalinist atheists were in fact religious!

 

and, in the past, it's tended to work, because most of the believers they were arguing against were of the fundamentalist variety, who were, to out it bluntly, either a bit thick, or certainly not adept at spotting a flawed piece of reasoning.

 

And, it is difficult to deal with an approach that is deliberatly obtuse and convoluted, as any response is met with more convolution.

 

Personally, my approach is, if an atheist wants to insist than stalinist atheists were in fact religious, don't attack it directly, just follow it through and look at the consequences.

 

Which, in this case, are that atheists who do believe the above, are going to have to conclude that all atrocites were committed by believers (as any atheist committing atrocities is automatically considered to be religious).

 

you make such wild accusations and seem to think they are factual??? if people think we would do better without religion it doesn't follow that they think they are better because they are not religious!

 

And you are grouping vocal atheists together, as someone has pointed out, would you group non-stamp collectors together? or people that don't wear hats?

[onewheeldave]

you make such wild accusations and seem to think they are factual??? if people think we would do better without religion it doesn't follow that they think they are better because they are not religious!

 

And you are grouping vocal atheists together, as someone has pointed out, would you group non-stamp collectors together? or people that don't wear hats?

 

Personally, I see no real need to group non-hat wearers together.

 

Although it's entirely possible to do so- pretty much a basis of set-theory is to group things together according to a characteristic they share, and that characteristic could be a negative one (such as the fact that they don't wear hats).

 

After all, the negative characteristic of 'not wearing a hat' is pretty much equivalent to the positive one of 'having a bare head'.

 

But, I digress- when it comes to vocal atheists, my reasons for grouping them together were covered in detail in a previous post.

 

Part of the reason is to distinguish them from the less-vocal atheists, who tend mot to make the same extreme claims- so I want to ensure that any rebuttals I make aren't seen as applying to all atheists.

[onewheeldave]

you make such wild accusations and seem to think they are factual??? if people think we would do better without religion it doesn't follow that they think they are better because they are not religious!

 

Doesn't it?

 

How does that work then?

 

If atheists think the world would be a better place if religion was absent, doesn't that imply that a world full of atheists would be a better world than a world full of believers?

 

And doesn't that imply that the people in the first world, are, on the whole, better than the people in the second?

 

(in the sense that your average vocal atheist, given the choice of living their lives out in the world full of atheists, would prefer to do so?)

 

If you think otherwise, then great

 

But, with the vocal atheists currently claiming that, pretty much by definition, a religious believer is irrational, non-scientific and, given the opportunity for any kind of power, potentially dangerous, I do assume that they tend to rate them a bit low, especially in comparison to atheists.

 

That's certainly the impression given when vocal atheists claim that religious belief, in and of itself, is the cause of so much of the worlds suffering and violence.

 

And that religious belief is incompatible with rationality.

 

I agree, it does sound really bad, but, when wild claims are made, there are consequences, and a lot of vocal atheists do make some pretty wild claims.

[Cyclone]

Religious belief is by definition irrational, that's why it requires faith. Generally speaking if someone is irrational about one thing, is it safe to assume that they're rational about anything else?

 

Of course nobody had expressed that opinion until just now on this thread, so onewheeldave is busy setting up lots of targets here in order to knock them down. Whilst ignoring the original topic of whether atheism is a religion (ie not rational and requiring faith).

[Lockjaw]

Doesn't matter- the point is that, if logic was 'invented' by humanity, they could have decided 4=5.

 

Such a thing is (to me at least) clearly absurd, and thus indicates that humanity could not have invented logic.

 

Logic preceeds humanity and, 4 does not equal 5, never has, never will, in this universe or any other.

 

Since 4 does not equal 5, how could humans have invented a system of logic which would suggest this to be true?

 

Furthermore, aren't numbers also human inventions? Do you believe a numbering system existed before humans? Is it not true that, outside of the abstract idea of numbers as an entity themselves (invented by humans, of course, unless you answered yes to the previous question), that 4 can equal 5?

 

For completeness, by the way, you appear to have missed my first question in the post (233) to which you replied.

[onewheeldave]

Since 4 does not equal 5, how could humans have invented a system of logic which would suggest this to be true?

 

 

they couldn't- that was my point. it was in reply to someone who claimed that humanity invented logic

 

 

Furthermore, aren't numbers also human inventions? Do you believe a numbering system existed before humans? Is it not true that, outside of the abstract idea of numbers as an entity themselves (invented by humans, of course, unless you answered yes to the previous question), that 4 can equal 5?

 

 

How could humans invent numbers?

 

a 'numbering system' probably is a human invention, because it's a systemisation of something already around (numbers), but numbers, like logic, preceeded humans.

 

For example, there's one Earth, and, before humanity, there was one earth. And 'x' number of stars, both after and before humans came on the scene.

 

 

post 233 was-

 

Since 4 does not equal 5, how could humans have invented a system of logic which would suggest this to be true?

 

Furthermore, aren't numbers also human inventions? Do you believe a numbering system existed before humans? Is it not true that, outside of the abstract idea of numbers as an entity themselves (invented by humans, of course, unless you answered yes to the previous question), that 4 can equal 5?

 

For completeness, by the way, you appear to have missed my first question in the post (233) to which you replied.

 

my answer to the first question was-

 

Doesn't matter- the point is that, if logic was 'invented' by humanity, they could have decided 4=5.

 

Such a thing is (to me at least) clearly absurd, and thus indicates that humanity could not have invented logic.

 

Logic preceeds humanity and, 4 does not equal 5, never has, never will, in this universe or any other.