Atheists: the most distrusted minority in USA - II

Perhaps the fundamentalist whackos should have studied science because the rise of "militant" atheism is more likely a reaction to the whackos.

Poetry, love, romance, and a sense of wonder are human qualities that give rise to learning and science and continue on in spite of the religious strait jackets imposed on far too many.

You say there is a greater market for religion. I say you are wrong. People turn to religion for certainty and mostly they are rewarded with chaos and hate.

Peace will come when people realize religion is the philosophical equivalent of fools gold. But probably too late.

Their is the need to differentiate between the fundies that are in every religion and those who are open to change and modernization.

I will just focus on my synagogue which is Conservative.

Historically in Conservative Judaism women did not wear a tallit, tefillin or were counted as part of a minyan.

the COnservative movement has modenized and at my Conservative synagogue all has changed. Women wear talit, lain tefillin and yes are counted as part of a minyan.

So to group all religion together stating that they do not change, can not be modernized is simply false.

While we must keep our eyes open against the fundies no matter what religion they come from we must also recognize that not all religions or religious people are fundies.

To group all together is to do a great disservice to those who have chosen a path that includes belief in a God etc.

ETA: recently my family has gone through a couple of tragedies and deaths. One thing that has kept me going was my belief in God and my knowledge that my relatives were reunited together.

I have never considered myself a fundy before.

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:
[b]
the COnservative movement has modenized and at my Conservative synagogue all has changed. Women wear talit, lain tefillin and yes are counted as part of a minyan.
[/b]

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Sorry for chuckling when I read this, but before I read your punch line, I honestly thought you were going to say:

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The Conservative movement has modernized and at my Conservative synagogue all has changed. Men no longer wear tallis, or lay t'fillin, nor do we go by the magic quorum of 10 Jews.

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I guess there's more than one way to "modernize"!

PS: Pardon my dogmatism, but "laying t'fillin" is a translation from the Yiddish, "leg'n t'fillin". So you can't say "lain t'fillin" (which sounds a bit like "lehn Torah"). It's either "lay t'fillin" or "laig t'fillin".

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Originally posted by unionist:
[b]So you can't say "lain t'fillin" (which sounds a bit like "lehn Torah"). It's either "lay t'fillin" or "laig t'fillin".[/b]

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You are right. Oy Gevalt. a shunda I say a shunda [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
[b]

Geneva wrote:
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in Canada, religion generally means your local neighbourhood United Church of Canada or Reform synagogue, hardly hotbeds of violent rhetoric and extremists,
more likely home of Tommy Douglas or David Lewis voters

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That is what religion once meant. But if you put down your Margaret Wente column for just five minutes and visited those churches, you would notice the declining pools of grey. That is because those shining examples of liberal Christianity are on the decline while angry pools of narrow minded bigots who call themselves Christians are on the rise. The same is true for all the major religions.

[/b]

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In a world context (or an American one) I'd agree with you. However, in the Canadian context, I believe Geneva is correct. If you look at the statistics, reactionary and bigoted churches such as the evangelicals or Catholic Church are experience a massive exodus of young people, who attended with their parents as children. I know several who have followed this course, and wound up joining the United Church. Some are LGBT's who were disgusted with the hatred and bigotry expoused in the Churches they were brought up in, but did not want to abandon religion all together. For young people today, the dogmatism, bigotry, and hatred of backwards Churches is a non-starter. Progressive churches such as the UCC are the only ones with the opportunity to gain members from large parts of younger Canadians because they have a message that resonates with tolerant, progressive minded people who don't want to spend 60 minutes every Sunday morning listening to some demagogue preaching hatred and bigotry.

For the churches that refuse to follow the path of progress and grow with society, they will slowly disappear all together over the next few decades as their membership dies off, and whose children want nothing to do with hatred and extremism.

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Kevin_Laddle ]

anyways, the core subject of the thread is the existence or non-existence of God,
and the manifestations of religion or not in Canada are secondary issues,

although the notion that talking about God = fundamentalism is wrong, remains important, otherwise no debate is possible without accepting a very restricted discussion

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Originally posted by Palamedes:
[b]Michelle - in your last post you suggested that you were against having parents let their children die. What if the children want to die? Will that be OK?[/b]

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No. Children are not old enough to decide that, especially since it's likely that their nutcase parents will have influenced the decision.

Suicide, like drinking, like sex, like driving, like everything else with consequences that children don't fully understand, is for adults.

In any case, I put forward to you that any supposed major surge in bigoted/fundie Christian churches in Canada is for the most part alarmism. Religious attendance is plummeting, as it has been for the past 30 or 40 years. There may be the odd group of evangelical kooks whose church is having modest growth relative to mainstream churches such as the UCC, but they are so small to begin with that it really isn't a concern. As for the RCC, young Canadians simply do not buy into their dogmatic bigotry and hatred. There flock is slowly leaving, as the Church becomes more and more out of touch with the modern world. But even if it weren't, nature will take its course over the next few decades, and most of the hateful old bigots will have passed on by then anyways.

By the way, I don't want it to sound as if this is some huge victory for progressives, and an end to right-wing hatred and reactionary tendencies (though it's a big help). Certainly right-whingism will persist to some extent even as their religions are rejected by mainstream society. But the most hateful aspects of modern conservatism - hatred of women, gays, Muslims - are driven primarily by the ideology stemming from the relgious right.

I'm tired of playing this game with you. Sorry. Go troll with someone else for a while.

(Edited to add - whoops. I didn't think abut the fact that, as moderator, this would look like I just banned him. I didn't. That was just me saying I'm tired of debating with him. If I felt like sitting around all day debating right-wingers who think it's intolerant to be intolerant of intolerant religious freaks who harm children, hate women, and want to shove their fundy views down society's throat, I'd go post on FD.)

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

*moderator hat currently on my other head*

While Michelle of course speaks elequently for herself, I suspect she called you a troll for being intentionally vexing, and continually baiting with what have been clearly pointed out to be circular and really rather sophmoric arguments. I would call that trolling.

I however think you're engaging in the perseveration of the true zealot, one who is capable of learning nothing and forgetting nothing. You don't debate, you parry; you don't listen to understand you listen to oppose. From my reading of this debate, I'd say you were not doing either all that well.

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If I felt like sitting around all day debating right-wingers who think it's intolerant to be intolerant of intolerant religious freaks who harm children, hate women, and want to shove their fundy views down society's throat, I'd go post on FD

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Lovely, more childishness.
I don't agree with you. Therefore I must be a right-winger. Simply because someone does not have complete disdain for all religion and does not assume that they know with absolute certainty that God does not exist - does not make them a right winger.

But fuck, you're a moderator here, so do whatever you like.

Incidentally, I've never voted Conservative in my life and don't believe in God but you seem to be unable to imagine that someone might actually try and defend points of view that aren't their own.

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Palamedes ]

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Originally posted by Palamedes:
[b]"Children are not old enough to decide that, especially since it's likely that their nutcase parents will have influenced the decision."

So children are not old enough to give up their lives, but they are old enough to give up their soul?

Is that what you believe? Why do you think that the life is more important than the soul? Or is it because you don't think that they will lose their soul?[/b]

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More wows. Sorry Palamedes, but this is an Extremist statement which goes against even the most basic assumptions of reformation Protestantism, as well as almost universally held principles of consent. Children simply canNot make those kind of life and death decisions for themselves, least not in any rational society. This is a thin red line which all religious beliefs have to respect, it begins right about where harm is being done to another, which by definition means our children. They are not property to be disposed of for Any ideological reason, not even by their parents, or more accurately legal guardians. If any refuse to accept that little, then they too should be willing to martyr Themselves to our criminal justice system. No rational society can tolerate any less than that.

Erik,

Let me give you an example:

In Saudi Arabia, a building containing 15 schoolgirls was on fire.

They could have been rescued but the religous police deemed that since they were not properly attired, they could not come out of the building.

Consequently, they all died.

Now, here in North America, where the majority of people are not extremely devout Muslims, we view this as a tragedy brought on by foolishness.

Obviously, not everyone in Saudi Arabia thinks so because they do not have a culture of atheism as the presiding assumption in making their laws.

We in North America do. Our laws essentially allow religion, unless it gets in the way of another right, or could cause harm - regardless of any religious consequence.

Thus, in the case of a Jehovah's Witness, the government will not allow a child to lose its life, but will allow it to lose its soul(in the view of the JW's). This is because it is understood that religion is not real - and therefore it will be tolerated so long as there are no real sacrifices to be made for it.

Fortunately, Christianity requires very little in the way of sacrifice, particularly in the way it is practiced today - and thus there are very few conflicts between what the religious believe, and what makes sense for modern day society.

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In any case, I put forward to you that any supposed major surge in bigoted/fundie Christian churches in Canada is for the most part alarmism.

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Take a drive through a new sub-suburb. You know, the kind built around a "powercenter" of Walmarts and Mcdonalds, and there will inevitably be one or two brand new megachurchs. Calgary is lousy with them, and Edmonton, that liberal city, isn't too far behind (Red Deer is in an Ozark all its own).

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Jingles ]

Why is it that someone so fervently behind atheism is so desperate to be a martyr?

last weekend the Intl Herald Tribune published a good piece asking why Dawkins has been getting hammered by serious critics who might otherwise be expected to sympathize:
[url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/06/news/atheist.php]http://www.iht.c...

best line:
one writer used to call Dawkins a "professional atheist", but now thinks he's just "an amateur" ...
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

[i]"The most disappointing feature of 'The God Delusion,'" Orr wrote, "is Dawkins' failure to engage religious thought in any serious way. You will find no serious examination of Christian or Jewish theology" and "no attempt to follow philosophical debates about the nature of religious propositions."

Eagleton surmised that if "card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins" were asked "to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Africa, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could." He continued, "When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster."[/i]

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[ 10 March 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

So, if atheists are so distrusted, why is Dawkins's books so popular? And is everybody who believes in God writing a book about it? It's nice though, that for someone arguing for the robustness of the scientific approach is defending someone for writing a book out of ignorance.

This reminds me of the audiences of Left Behind, who, though Kirk Cameron's DVD's hit the top ten DVD sales every time they are released, convince each other that Christianity is under attack because the mainstream theatres [i]would never show this stuff![/i]

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]Funny, millions of deluded individuals manage to believe in God without knowing anything about "theology". Nobody criticizes them for that.

But apparently people who do [b]not[/b] believe in holy ghosts need to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of "theology" in order to justify their non-belief.

Go figure.[/b]

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OK, I will "go figure":

Individuals are just that, they have every right to their private individual views. Not believing in God and/or being indifferent to the issue is a dime-a-dozen viewpoint these days. No need to reply or criticize.

If your Uncle Floyd presses you about your personal religious beliefs over Thanksgiving dinner, it is usually considered gauche, out of place, whatever, since those views are not publicly discussed by many people.

By contrast, when a prominent professor and public figure, one who is moreover a veteran polemicist -- and whose Oxford job title requires him to engage the broader public with science-related issues -- publishes a topical book, you have every right to debate /challenge its method and conclusions.

A polemicist is expected to:

- propose solid arguments;
- offer sustained reasoning in support of his thesis;
and generally:
- show an unusually sound grasp of the subject matter, even by comparison to his specialist readers.

The critics quoted in the article above, many of whom have published records as religious skeptics, found that Richard Dawkins fell way short on most counts. They concluded he did not deliver the convincing and structured arguments he promised. In short, no "knock-out punch" for theism.

So, they panned his book -- just as they would any book they judged poorly reasoned or superficial on, say, climate change or foreign policy or economic trends.

There, I went and figured: there is no double standard.
Just a single standard: the arguments in a book have to be solid and convincing.

Otherwise, the author gets hammered. QED.

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[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

very good question!
look, I am just outlining (above) why Dawkins' book got hammered by many critics;

as to my own views, I am interested in all points of view about God and I would love to read a slam-dunk debunking of theology -- Marx is full of energy, Nietzsche of course is sensational -- but neither of these obviates the relentless human need for a sense to life; here we are in the 21st century with religion often the No.1 public discussion topic

there are millions of pages of discussions of the use /misuse /sense of theology, dating over 20 centuries, and it was of course the core and founding discipline of most Western universities, from the Sorbonne to Laval;

so read a resume of the views of , say, Augustine, Aquinas or Pascal, who would give way way better reasons for studying the ineffable and unprovable than I would ever venture

Pascal offers the advantage for today's sensibility of being a top-class A-rank scientific mind historically, so his theological reflections (Pens'ees) probably answer you best:
[url=http://tinyurl.com/2fudaz]http://tinyurl.com/2fudaz[/url]

[i] Blaise Pascal (pronounced [blez pɑskɑl]), (June 19, 1623–August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli.

Pascal also wrote powerfully in defense of the scientific method.

He was a mathematician of the first order. Pascal helped create two major new areas of research. He wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen and corresponded with Pierre de Fermat from 1654 and later on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science.

Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he abandoned his scientific work and devoted himself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensйes. [/i]

[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]What do the religious believe, by the way?

They believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful invisible entity. They believe that they should worship this entity. They believe that this entity will reward them if they are "good" and punish them if they are "bad". They believe that this entity listens to their prayers and actually grants requests from time to time. They believe in heaven and hell. They believe in angels. They believe in miracles.[/b]

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A strawman if I've ever seen one. Essentially you completely ignore anything but the most base, literalist and childish form of "belief". Never mind that there are subtler levels of meaning present even in the charicature of ideas you've chosen to represent "the religious". Any one of the key nouns you've mentioned can be taken on many different levels; literal, analogical, allegorical.

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[b]Those who accept the Nicene Creed, for example (one of the basic statements of belief in the Roman Catholic, Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite) Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, Anglican, Lutheran, and most other Protestant Churches), believe that this invisible entity created heaven and earth. They believe that Christ came back to life after being brutally killed. They believe their spirits will live forever after they die.[/b]

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The idea of a rebirth after self-sacrifice (Jesus wasn't just "killed", he offered himself up for the taking) is far more poignant than the literalist notion of a physical rebirth after a physical death. Again, as Dawkins does, you take only the outermost layer of the onion for the whole thing.

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[b]And you don't see any conflict between those sorts of beliefs and "what makes sense for modern day society"?[/b]

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Not at all, although it all depends on what you mean. Eagleton's criticism stands as well for your position as for Dawkins'.

[ 11 March 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]These theological "giants" all lived centuries ago. Thanks to science, we now know a lot more about the world than we did then. "Theology" has not advanced at all in the meantime.

Theology is more than just arguments for the belief in God. In fact, if it were, you could master theology in an afternoon, because the arguments are pretty thin.

Dawkins considers all the arguments for the belief in God and demolishes them. Read the book and see for yourself, instead of just relying on hostile critics. Having demolished the underpinnings of theology, there's no need to do more. The edifice will collapse on its own.[/b]

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there seem to be 4-5 arguments/assertions here, each confusedly jockeying for a place:

- 1. "many top theologians lived long ago";
a non-argument, so did Galileo, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Descartes: are they "invalid"? would 2+2=4 be more compelling if proven just 100 years ago, or 2000 or more years ago?

- 2. "science has advanced, theology has not";
the former excellent, the second again unproven and/or irrelevant;

- 3. "arguments for God are thin";
asserting the conclusion in the argument, invalid;

- 4. "Dawkins demolishes arguments for God";
see above, unproven;

- 5. "theology will collapse";
unproven and/or irrelevant.

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M. Spector: You don't think Dennett's [i]Breaking the Spell[/i] goes a long way to doing just that?

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It's a good contribution. I hope Dennett lives long enough to continue and advance this work. However, my point is just that I don't think it makes much sense to predict the demise of an institution, like religion, when its origin isn't fully understood. There's much to be done in the sociology of religion, the history of religion, etc.

I should add that I myself am a church-goer. I also come from an atheistic tradition, both in my family and personally. The kind of democratically-minded , socially conscious congregation that I belong to [Unitarian Univ.] feels pretty comfortable and, for the time being anyway, I get something out of it. Why shouldn't I get such benefits ... even if it from an institution that could be, for all I know, doomed? People won't dispense with something if it is still useful to them. I think a large part of what atheists need to do, to be successful, is to skillfully disentangle the harmful from the useful in religion. If the state and society can provide what people get from religion and churches then we will, finally, have no need of them.