Atheism
April 2, 2008My previous entry got hijacked (unintentionally, I’m sure) by a religious debate - welcome to teh intertubes, I suppose.
Anyway, this link got posted. A quote:
ATHEISM IS NOT A RELIGION OR A FAITH!
Atheism, by definition, is the absence of theism. If you cannot say “I believe in a Deity/God/Supreme Being” then you are an atheist. If you are not a theist, then you are an atheist.
And thank you for the insult. Let me explain.
I am not religious, and do not ‘believe’ in a god/do not think there is a god. In fact, I don’t really give a damn either - my life is perfectly complete without guys with beards in the sky telling me what (not) to do. I don’t need a book to tell me how to behave. I’m fine with people needing the guys with beards and the books, don’t get me wrong, but I’m fine without it.
However, I do not, in any way, wish to be associated with “atheism”. People who call themselves atheists have this very, very nasty habit of feeling superior to religious people, of looking down upon them, of belittling them. “Atheists” never pass on an opportunity to profess their atheism, their moral superiority, and they more often than not try to convert religious people to atheism.
Exactly. For all intents and purposes, atheism has become a religion in and of itself, complete with feelings of moral superiority to those who are not atheists and a drive to convert others to atheism (to spread the faith). So yes, if you look at the true meaning of the word, anyone who doesn’t do the beard and book stuff, is an atheist. However, out in the real world, atheism means a whole lot more, something I do not wish to be associated with.
Of course not all atheists are like that, but many of them are, and they ruined it for everyone else. Which, coincidentally, brings atheism yet another step closer to religion.
World | 
Even though I am a believer, I echo your sentiment. For the first 20 years of my life I was an agnostic. I called myself a 99.9% atheist, meaning ther was a chance (albeit slight) that I was wrong about the whole god thing. As a believer, I try to remember that I was “on the other side” and not get a “holier-than-thou” attitude. Basically, no matter who we are, we are still more like stray cats lost in a rain storm than anything else. I don’t think most of us have all that much to really be so haughty about. That’s all.
Comment by Tom Dison — April 2, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
Hear hear! I think you’ve hit the nail on its head. Atheism/theism are both beliefs. But, proselytizing for atheism makes it a religion.
Comment by Mark — April 2, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
This is bullshit. Complete bullshit.
Answer to me this question: If atheism is a religion, WHAT ISN’T a religion?
Comment by Eugenia — April 2, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
I haven’t seen any atheist knocking my door. I know I haven’t knocked any doors either. Except a few people who would go for some online debates, purely from the geek point of view rather than “proselytism”, I have not seen any of my atheist friends doing any such job. I’d say that 99.9% of the atheists don’t even advertise the fact that they are atheists, so saying that you don’t want to be “associated” with atheists, while Thom obviously IS one, is not realistic.
I am sorry, but I can not agree with the idea that atheism is a religion, because it’s not. It’s not a belief system, because MOST atheists are technology-related people, and therefore, they want scientific proof for the existance of God. And no, I don’t agree with the proselytism argument. While online debates will always exist, and some people might advertise that they are atheists on their blogs, this is far from trying to convert anyone. Most atheists DON’T care.
I believe that Thom has the whole “atheist” thing very convoluted in his mind, and with a lot of misconceptions too. He somehow is afraid of the word “atheism”.
Comment by Eugenia — April 2, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
If it comes with feelings of morel superiority, drive to convert, and a sense of having the universal right, it’s probably a religion.
And Eugenia, please read the new rule, in bold. All quotes must be done with the blockquote tag, else the comment gets deleted (consistency issue). I’ll fix this one for now.
Comment by Administrator — April 2, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
Agreed, Thom.
Ive never really understood why many people seem to have so much difficulty thinking about things in any other than very black and white dualistic terms?? Is it that people just still have too low IQ or what??
Now, there are many sorts of philosophical, cosmological, religious, theological, etc.etc. opinions. Traditional western theism and atheism are just two points of views among dozens of possible points of views and philosophies.
Both theists and atheists in the west often seem to consider things only from the traditional point of view of traditional western Christianity vs. traditional western atheism. There are, however, not only various sorts of Christianity and atheism, but also hundreds of other isms that do not have much to do with either Christianity or atheism.
Ever heard of agnosticism? Deism? Buddhism? Taoism? Animism? Dozens of other religions and cosmological philosophies?
If you are not a convicted atheist, in other words strongly wanting to believe in the non-existence of anything divine and supernatural, but are not ready to be a convicted theist either, then you’re an agnostic, not an atheist.
Comment by irbis — April 2, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
I don’t disagree with that. What I disagree with is that you put atheism in that bag, while maybe, only 0.01% of atheists might be like that. Most atheists just live their lives and never knock a door or even go into religious discussions when with friends.
And put the rule in red. It is not easily noticeable.
Comment by Eugenia — April 2, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
Eugenia said:
You might think a bit differently if you had lived behind the iron curtain in some of the communist dictatorship countries. They were, and still are, in countries like North Korea, very aggressively trying to convert people into confessional atheism. People who disagree may be tortured, killed etc. North Korea is a country were atheism together with communism and worship of the leaders has taken the position of religion.
In China (that is the main protector of North Korea, by the way) things are not anymore quite as awful, but not very good either. The existence of free thinking, that in China can also mean freedom to believe in God, or some other religion like Buddhism (that doesn’t necessarily have a god) is strongly restricted and sometimes aggressively controlled by the atheist government. Just think about the situation in Tibet. Has there been true religious freedom in Tibet? No there hasn’t, because of the atheist and communist dictatorship of China.
Comment by irbis — April 2, 2008 @ 9:59 pm
Well, I haven’t. The fact that some *countries* do that, does not mean that the people in the west are like that. EXACTLY because atheism is not a religion, you can NOT associate the atheist of the west, to these kinds of “atheists”. Just because there is a single word for all people who don’t believe in a God, does not mean that they are all under the same “rules”, just like there is for Christians or Jews. You associate a specific religious rules and mythology with these words, but for the word “atheist”, ANYTHING goes, so it is not associatable.
Comment by Eugenia — April 2, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
irbis:
I meant convinced, not convicted, of course… :P
Comment by irbis — April 2, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
What I mean to say is that I, and almost every atheist in the West, have nothing in common with North Korea’s way of conducting business. However, a Jew of Kenya has much in common with a Jew of Israel. And a Christian of Italy has much in common with a Christian of Brazil. Religions bind people under some common rules. But atheism, exactly because it’s not a religion but a state of being, is not related to anything and anyone. You are on your own, on your own journey. It is not relateable, and so you can’t put everyone in the same bag.
Comment by Eugenia — April 2, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
In the end, the concept of religion seems to be somewhat controversial, even among scientists of religion and academic theologians.
Depending on the point of view, religion can be used as a derogatory term (and note this: also from a theist, not just atheist point of view), a scientific term, a theological term etc.
What is religion? Buddhism, taoism and confucianism seem to be very different from the traditional western religions, yet nobody denies that they are a religions also. Some liberal forms of Christianity, like the theology of Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, seem to be more close to atheism than traditional Christian doctrine. Yet, people still consider that a form of religion too.
I cannot see much difference in the degree of confessionalism of confessional Marxism-Leninism or confessional Confucianism, both are mainly social ideologies, trying to give ultimate answers to questions like what is a good society, what are its main problems and how to achieve the ultimate good, and both build a lot on assumptions that can be considered religious, not based on pure facts. In that sense, communism is a religion too.
Communism may be out of fashion especially in the west. But despite that I have seen many confessional atheists in the west who are not communists but still trying to “convert” other people to their thinking, and using very nasty and insulting words of other people who have just a bit different world views. Of course, they themselves may think that they are being only rational, but so may others, like Christians, or Buddhists, or agnostics, or Deists (etc.) think also.
Also many traditional Christians want to distance their thinking from the concept of religion, saying that what they are preaching is not actually religion at all, they are - in their own opinion - defending truth, just like the atheists think of their own atheist activity…
Actually it seems rather impossible to define what religion means scientifically. It seems to have something to do with supernatural, and with explaining things that we cannot grasp in purely materialistic terms. But there is much also in our common life and world that we cannot completely understand in materialistic terms: many things in ethics, the most difficult problems of material science too etc.
I would much rather see people talking in more exact philosophical terms of metaphysical, cosmological, ethical, ontological and such philosophies instead of them using a few all too simplistic, reductionist and derogatory terms (like religion vs. anti-religion) to label each other.
Comment by irbis — April 2, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
This entire thing is hypocritical, and I can’t even understand the point that you’re trying to make other than that, for one or more reasons, you don’t like to be called an atheist. When I began reading it, I thought it would begin as a well-conceived rant against the usage of labels to describe spirituality or the lack thereof. Instead, I read some nonsense about how the term atheist is bad because atheists look down on other people and you don’t look down on other people except people who call themselves atheists because, in your experience, atheists are stereotypically on a moral crusade to convert everyone to the church of pure reason. So instead of fighting stereotypes, you try to duck a stereotype of your beliefs, and in so doing introduce a completely new stereotype of atheists. Now instead of convincing everyone that your way of life is better, like the atheists do, you preach the ideal that anyone who calls themselves an atheist is subscribing to this perception.
How is this possibly constructive to anyone in any way? The entire post is a “No True Scotsman” fallacy, and you’re running away from a public perception when you should be fighting.
Comment by Mr. Heavy — April 2, 2008 @ 11:49 pm
I completely understand this sentiment, and yet, I feel differently.
I think that there is much more agreement amongst atheists about the basic nature of reality, but the philosophies of what to do about it are as individual as can be. Let’s talk popular authors: Chris Hedges and Sam Harris fit the mold for what you describe as an atheist. Their simplistic bludgeoning of other values makes them our camp’s version of a fundamentalist, which is distinguishable not so much but what you believe as it is how you draw your conclusions and act on them.
Me, amongst the current crop of atheistic authors, I like Richard Dawkins. Definitely read The God Delusion if you haven’t; it is perfectly possible to apply reason and logic with good humor.
An atheist newly enlightened after years of religious dogma can often be angry and condescending towards religionists, especially if their own past experience with it was bad. It’s like they just learned the truth about Santa Claus in an awful way. If you can make your peace with myths, though, you can start to see all of them as good things, handled rightly. Much of what Jesus Christ, Gauthama Buddha, etc. did in the stories about them showed exemplary character. I believe the atheist mindset makes you free to distill those examples along with your own observations and get to the heart of the matter.
Do not be dismayed at the stink-job religionists have given atheists, or the occasional intemperate crowd. If you believe something, you believe it, and you can openly say what you believe and why with tact and good humor no matter what the stereotypes are.
Comment by Daniel — April 3, 2008 @ 12:38 am
After we sort out this religion/atheism thing, let’s take on politics next.
Comment by Tom Dison — April 3, 2008 @ 12:46 am
There are a lot more than 0.01% of atheists that are assholes with a bad attitude.
Being an atheist does not make you better or smarter than someone who believe in Buddha or Mohamed or God or a bee from outer space named Joe.
If you don’t believe in God, fine. If you believe in God, fine. I don’t care. I just want you to shut the hell up about it and stop telling me that religion is for the deluded or that religion is the only way or how stupid religious people are or how evil atheists are.
Comment by Soulbender — April 3, 2008 @ 3:33 am
What Thom is actually saying is not that atheism is a religion but that is is LIKE a religion, on some ways. It’s pretty obvious what he mean.
I guess some atheists are so hardcore that the bare thought of being in any way compared to a religion freaks them out.
Comment by Soulbender — April 3, 2008 @ 6:40 am
Soulbender, you’re the one who got the message.
Nowhere did I say atheism is a religion. I said it’s very, very, very ALIKE to a religion - for all intents and purposes, yes, it’s a religion. However, that does NOT mean it IS a religion.
Reading has become an endangered activity on the net, it seems.
Comment by Thom Holwerda — April 3, 2008 @ 8:13 am
There are no doubt both moderate and fanatic atheists, like there are also moderate and fanatic Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and fans of Winnie the Pooh philosophy… So let’s not get stuck into such an obvious fact.
But could someone define what atheism actually is? It is obviously anti-something, right? But what is that something that atheists do not want to believe in? God in general? Or only the traditional western theist concept of God but not necessarily a pantheist concept of god (god = universe)? Or is atheism the same as denying the existence of all sorts of spirituality including all religions, becuse all spirituality is seen as a form of belief in god? The latter sort of philosophy would be more naturally called materialism.
I am not sure if even atheists themselves agree on what religion, and therefore also atheism is? Some Buddhists do say that they are atheists too, while I’m sure that many atheists would insist that those Buddhists can never be atheists according to their interpretation of the concept atheism. Some Marxists would claim that all other atheists except those who believe in Marxism also, are but ignorant fools. Some Nietzschean nihilists would claim that a true atheist must also be a nihilist in moral question, or at least a person who doesn’t believe in any higher moral ideals than what he himself sets for himself. And so on.
The question about religion, God, and the nature of existence in general is much broader than many (most?) atheists seem to be willing to admit. That is why I often feel that many atheists are quite poor and naive philosophers (to some extent including people like Richard Dawkins). Many of them seem to quite blindly trust even in the most naive forms of scientific positivism and materialism, while in the world of philosophy, and also in modern science in general, things are seen to be much more complicated than that.
The simple fact in philosophy seems to be that everything can be doubted. Every time some philosopher has tried to say that some things (like ego, perceptions, material world etc.) truly exist, there has been some other philosopher who has managed to but those assumptions into doubt…
It seems to me that in a way most philosophies are just forms of pragmatism. People have some need, and from that need they form their philosophy that seems rational and useful for them, at least in that situation. Now, atheism is just another such philosophy, maybe suitable for some people in some sort of situations. But a true sceptic can also be sceptic about atheism, right? A true sceptic could be sceptic aven about his own existence,or about the existence of the outside world.
Now, total scepticism would, of course, be like hell, and highly impratical in our daily life. That is why we have to choose all the time: which things, feelings, ideas, concepts, books, stories, perceptions, values, scientific theories, tv programs, friends etc.etc. to trust, which not. Just because your current philosophical (or other) choices seem good to you now, in your current surroundings and situation, doesn’t yet mean that all the other people in the world would be stupid if they don’t make the exact same choices.
Whether you were a Muslim, a Marxist, a liberal atheist or a follower of Winnie the Pooh, please, give other people and their thoughts some respect although they might have completely different values and ideas from those of yours. By respecting (and thus, to some extent, trying to understand) others and their thoughts and opinions, you also give the signal that you earn the same respect from those others too. Also then, instead of an often useless polarized and dualistic yes & no fight we might more often get a truly rational and open philosophical discussion that might be more useful to everyone than some fanatic attack against your neighbor who has a bit differing opinions from those of yours.
If we take the atheist like Richard Dawkins, does he respect the opinions of religious thinkers? No, he doesn’t seem to want to do that. Instead he seems to want to follow very naive and aggressive propaganda tactics: he picks out the most extreme examples of religious intolerance and stupidity from the human history, and tries to convert people to become atheists on the basis of his one-sided, black and white hate-propaganda… But he forgets that we can also pick out very extreme examples of intolerant and violent atheism from history if we want. Or we can also pick out very good examples of saint like religious figures from history, or important scientists who have also been religious believers etc.
Black and white hate propaganda is bad whether it comes from religious, non-religious or anti-religious source.
Comment by irbis — April 3, 2008 @ 8:20 am
Well, as in any other case of seemingly unreversible newspeak, i.e. when a word’s meaning has deviated too much from what it’s supposed to mean (in this case got to mean the general behavioral patterns of the people who use the term to define themselves, and not the religious belief or the lack of it), only one way remains, find another word to describe the original intention and start using it.
Comment by l3v1 — April 3, 2008 @ 8:50 am
It’s not a state of being, it’s a belief; the beleif that there is no God.
I’m yet to see any conclusive evidence that there is no God or, for that matter, any conclusive evidence that there is.
Comment by Soulbender — April 3, 2008 @ 9:15 am
No it’s not. If that’s a belief too, then what’s not a belief?
…and round and round we go…
Comment by Eugenia — April 3, 2008 @ 10:12 am
When ever i hear someone claim that ateisme is a religion, I always think of the quote…
“If ateisme is a religion, _not_ collecting stamps is a hobby.”
It is NOT a belief, it is absents of belief. It is completely different from having a belief.
It isn’t proven one way or the other that I have the invisible pink unicorn sitting in my living room.
But since I claim that it is where, I should be able to provide proof of it’s existence and not the people not believing me, who should prove me wrong.
Comment by m_abs — April 3, 2008 @ 10:46 am
Comment by Manik — April 3, 2008 @ 11:00 am
And the coin drops, Eugenia. EVERYTHING in this world is a belief, as irbis already detailed so well. You cannot be sure of anything, THAT is the basis of science.
You can say that all crows are black, because you’ve never seen a white crow. However, since it is impossible to have seen ALL crows that exist or have ever existed, there is an amount of doubt in the hypothesis that all crows are black. We, as in the scientific world, believe all crows are black. But we’re not sure.
And the same goes for any other claim ever made by science. I have spent a lot of time reading scientific articles and books (seriously, way too much time) and you’ll never find, in a proper scientific article, statements of fact, for the simple reason that in proper science, you cannot be sure about anything. You can be reasonably sure, but you never know anything for sure.
So to answer your question: yes, everything is a belief, even your own very existence. That’s what the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific and philosophical principles that grew from it (which we still live by today), teach us.
Cogito ergo sum is not some vague, inapplicable statement - with it, Descartes summed up the entire foundation of both our scientific, as well as our religious world. As I’ve said before, science and religion are nor juxtaposed. They are two sides of the same coin, because they both deal with beliefs.
Comment by Administrator — April 3, 2008 @ 11:53 am
As lots of atheism seem to be closely related to strict philosophical positivism (often called scientism by critics), and materialism - that are just some possible philosophical and scientific world views (the extreme form of positivism being out of fashion in science for decades now) - it might be useful to read what, for example Wikipedia says about positivism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism
“Positivism is closely related to reductionism”.
In materialistically motivated positivism everything, also cultural facts, are tried to understand from the point of view of natural science. However, that is not only difficult, but it may also be impossible. It is like trying to understand poetry and literature from the point of view of mathematics and biochemistry only. That kind of very reductionist point of view might make sense to you only if you wouldn’t like and understand poetry yourself, and would like to ridicule everyone who likes it.
Very reductionist social and cultural theories, like Social Darwinism isn’t exactly the most fashionable social theories these days, and for a good reason. We simply can’t understand everything from the point of view of material energy and atoms. Some things seem to really exist more in our cultural world than in material world, and cannot thus easily be studied by the methods of natural science only.
Just because you may not be able to very well explain and understand, even see, some non-material things like ideas, values, beliefs and ideologies by the means of natural science of material world only, doesn’t yet mean that those things wouldn’t even exist. There are also lots of things in physical world that are still hard to explain by our current knowledge of natural science, but that doesn’t mean that those things (and theories and thoughts about such things), although maybe not even perceived yet scientifically, would be without any value. Not to mention things that may belong to another level (like culture) than natural world and couldn’t be studied by the means of natural science only, because natural science has its natural boundaries and cannot reach beyond that. Just because a blind man doesn’t see a cat, doesn’t mean that the cat wouldn’t exist. Our senses, and means of natural science, are restricted. So saying that poetry is stupid and useless, not to mention dangerous, because natural science cannot explain it, is stupid, and quite likely dangerous, itself.
Wikipedia summarizes some of the main philosophical issues of positivism like this:
” 1. Since all of our most certain knowledge, namely, that of our ourselves and our own mental states, is inaccessible to objective science (being personal), how is positivism to account for what we know? And since our inferences about what we do not directly know, but only surmise on the basis of our actual experiences, comprise the objective world of scientific entities imagined by positivist philosophy, how is it supposed to be possible to account for any knowledge at all positivistically?;
2. Since the self and its knowledge is known and experienced (not only subjectively but) qualitatively not quantitatively, how is it supposed to be possible to give an objective quantitative account of the source and core of all knowledge–scientific and otherwise–namely the scientist himself?;
3. If an experience is ‘reduced’ to something else, does it cease to exist as a subjective qualitative thing, or not? If not, doesn’t it remain in a crucial sense unreduced to a ’scientific’ object? If so, what inspired the ‘reduction’?
4. Since science is descriptive in nature, and posits how a given thing is, how can scientific methods describe how something ought to be?”
Comment by irbis — April 3, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
Edited by admin: Please have something positive to add to this discussion. This is a touchy subject, but so far it’s on track. I want to keep it that way.
Comment by Troy Banther — April 3, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
It looks like ‘Mr. Heavy’, Daniel, and Eugenia are the ones that have made the best points here, otherwise I’m hearing the same tired garbage I head in _high_school_! Let’s look this word up shall we…
www.dictionary.com says atheism is:
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The first problem with this whole rant has been the confusion between religion and doctrine (or belief). Do children believe in Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc? (usually, yes) Do children religiously worship them? (hopefully not) And for reference, most people have issues with the ‘old man in the clouds’ image of religion - it’s just too fanciful.
But the last time I had to deal with an unpleasant atheist was in high school, and that’s where the argument has stayed (apparently :P). In the last nine years I’ve spent in the REAL world, not once have I witnessed an atheist pestering anyone about jack-f-s. Perhaps I’m not looking hard enough for them, but I doubt it. I’m an optimistic agnostic, so to me the only people who know diddly about death and the great-beyond ARE DEAD and everyone else is just trying to convince themselves they really believe something.
In all honesty, I think religion is completely unnecessary - at least in my life. But when people don’t get the difference between religion, belief, faith, hope, etc, I get irked. I fully defend people’s right to believe whatever they want, but keep the _garbage_ to yourselves - ie: Christians are dumb, Muslims are evil, atheists are immoral and rude, etc…’ - there’s no place for that BS amongst intelligent people. So lumping atheists together the same way is JUST as prejudice.
I have faith, I believe things (that aren’t proven), I hope for stuff, so to some people I’m a “religious atheist” - whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. Atheists (from what I understand) get defensive because religions (in general) have hijacked public conceptions of morality and spirituality, claiming that you can’t be a good person if you’re not religious.
Or, god forbid - they had a bad day.
Let’s not forget that the Romans ridiculed the Jews and Christians for having ‘ just one’ god. Now the ridiculed have turned their backs to those who have ‘0′ gods.
I’ll go a step further and declare that I worship -1 supreme beings.
Comment by Jacob Munoz — April 3, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
I know a lot of religious people. People who believe in god. Yet, they do not worship him either. They just believe in him - but don’t actually worship him. What are those people then?
You are - as usual for many people - juxtaposing atheism/non-belief in a god vs. religion/belief in a god. However, as most in this thread have tried to explain, it’s not a case of 1 or 0. It’s a sliding continuum - heck, no, it’s a continuum with multiple axes, not just two or even three - but many more, where no one shares a position with anyone else. Saying you’re either atheist or religious is completely ludicrous.
Not one Christian is like another, just like not one atheist is like another. An atheist may see a light in the sky and claim it was an alien craft - another will see that same light and claim it was god. Who is right?
I’d say both need to lay down on the alcohol, but that’s just me.
Comment by Administrator — April 3, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
…then let’s clarify, Thom.
First off, people don’t need to be classified by how they worship - spirituality isn’t a taxonomical subject. Perhaps the O.C.D. community needs to do this, but most rational people get along just fine without knowing their neighbor’s degree of religiosity. It’s actually rather rude.
But your opening statement in this post (I won’t quote it, you can read your own writing) was an all-inclusive declaration that every atheist has a bad habit of being derrogative towards the religious. That’s absolutely wrong and you know it. Despite the fact that you’ve back-paddled somewhat, it’s still quite striking that you seem to think people who share some common philosophy must all act the same (specifically, attitude problems).
Apologize to them.
I could just as well make ignorant, short-sighted, and rude statements about the Dutch - which I’m sure you wouldn’t take kindly to. I’m only using ‘Dutch’ as an example, I don’t know (or care) what your religious values are - I just picked something to group people by. It’s offensive, isn’t it?
Comment by Jacob Munoz — April 3, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Of course it’s wrong. I said so clearly in my post. Read it again, and you’ll see. Hint: final paragraph.
You wanted to say we Dutch are arrogant? Know-it-alls? Sheepish? Scrooges? I wouldn’t be offended, for the simple reason all of those have very firm roots in reality.
So, to answer your question - no, I don’t find it offensive.
Comment by Administrator — April 3, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
No, it’s an example of what an insult looks like.
Comment by Jacob Munoz — April 3, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
(I may have already written all too many words here…, and Thom already had good points above, but I add one more comment…)
As the terms theism and atheism are clearly not enough to cover all religious or non-religious thinking, I think, some people here may have been looking for some of these terms:
- irreligion
- agnosticism
- skepticism
Irreligion covers much more thinking than atheism. While atheism is convinced (and seemingly also often quite outspoken) disbelief in the existence of gods and supreme beings, irreligion can also mean simply lack of religion, or indifference to religion, which is not the same thing as convinced atheism.
In religion, skepticism refers to “doubt concerning basic religious principles (as immortality, providence, and revelation)”.
Agnosticism is a neutral point of view, somewhere in the middle between religious and irreligious, willingness at least not yet to draw any final conclusions about the existence of supreme beings.
At the other end there are various, very different, more or less religious world views. Traditional theism is only one of them. There’s also deism, pantheism, pandeism, panentheism, polydeism, various forms of mysticism like in Buddhism, many parapsychological world views, and who know’s what other more or less religious kind of belief systems from transcendental meditation and scientology to new UFO religions. At least personally I could add some atheist ideologies like Marxism-Leninism or Maoism to the group as also Marxism-Leninism seems to believe in certain kind of supreme forces behind the world that only its holy books by Marx and others can supposedly explain to us properly…
Atheists may not - usually - preach their faith or disbelief to others, maybe because they don’t have much to preach except their faith in science etc. But don’t tell me that there wouldn’t be also lots of aggressive atheists who love to attack those who do not share their disbelief in gods and supreme beings, because there sure are them too, besides of more moderate atheists, agnostics and skeptics.
I hope also convinced atheists could become a bit more humble, and not so arrogant, in front of the complicated and multi-level world we are living in, not so naively worshiping their “god”, the “almighty power” of positivistic natural science only. Through that they could maybe learn to respect the wide spectrum of differing faiths and beliefs of other people a bit more instead of too often using derogatory and too simplistic black and white labels in describing differing beliefs.
Comment by irbis — April 3, 2008 @ 6:26 pm
A few points.
There is a world of difference between these two statements:
A. “A large number of atheists have convictions that are fundamentally indistinguishable from religious convictions.”
…and…
B. “Atheism is a religion.”
A does not equal B in this case, nor is B a valid conclusion to make based on A.
Yes, many so-called atheists do argue against the existence of God - largely, IMHO, based on a dislike of organized religion. But that doesn’t mean those people have a monopoly on the term - there are plenty of us who are able to consistently apply the principle of “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” and refrain from making unverifiable claims about the non-existence of God.
There is a fundamental difference between the positions “there is no God” and “I am not convinced of the existence of God.”
I choose to describe myself as an atheist - of the “I am not convinced” variety. I’m not going to refrain from using the literally-accurate term just because that same term is widely mis-used. When someone learns that I’m an atheist and jumps to an assumption, I take that as evidence of that person’s ignorance - and I see not reason to go out of my way to accommodate that sort of ignorance.
I highly dislike the notion that we should rely *only* on descriptive lexicography (words defined by popular (mis)use). It’s a truly pathetic state of affairs when people who know how the language *ought* to be used are expected to mis-use it, just to make themselves understood.
Comment by Stephen B. — April 3, 2008 @ 9:05 pm
When you’re down to zero gods in a world mostly comprised of people who believe in at least one, and the popular framing of morality depends on a god’s expectations, it’s really showtime for you. You don’t have the carrot and stick routine of heaven or hell, which one might argue is the crudest form of a moral code. You have to get your own ducks in a row, and there are no excuses for you. You have to boil away the idea of what is sinful down to what actually causes harm and grief in the real world, and if you sin then, teachings of confession and forgiveness are still helpful except that now it’s just other people and you.
The fact that you step away from what many people think is essential to being a good person puts an extra spotlight on you; your foibles will count doubly against you in the eyes of the religionist who believes that the lack of a god means moral anarchy. Accept it and move on.
In the end, we all want to live in a world where people are kind to each other and look after those in need, right? These are intrinsic properties for most of us. To this end, atheists can go further in discussing philosophies of kind and humane conduct, which shows what we have in common with any person of goodwill out of the human family.
Beyond this, I think this guy summed it up as nicely as can be. I recommend listening.
Comment by Daniel — April 3, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
Oh, and - as always - Robert Heinlein put it better than I ever could:
“I do not *believe* anything. I *know* an extremely small handful of things from direct, personal experience - but I do not believe them. Belief gets in the way of learning.”
IMO, that should be the manifesto of any thinking person who calls himself an atheist.
Comment by Stephen B. — April 3, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
Well, Heinlein discards the basis of modern science, then. His choice, of course, but I surely wouldn’t want certainty to be the basis of my thinking. Certainty usually leads to rusted-in… Beliefs, and certainty of one’s ‘rightness’. Just like religious people tend to do.
A well thinking and open human being does not know anything. They believe things. Knowing implies the inability to adapt to new information.
And this inability has held mankind back for ages, and in fact, is still holding mankind back.
Comment by Administrator — April 3, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
Religion is ‘just’ a language.
A way of describing stuff.
Read Jalaluddin Rumi and you know what I mean.
Atheism is boring. Atheism is like running Linux because of hating Windows, not because of liking Linux. :P
Comment by herman — April 3, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
I have yet to meet an atheist who cares enough about what others think to try to persuade them to be atheists.
Perhaps you should get out more.
Comment by michael — April 3, 2008 @ 11:28 pm
Hi Thom!
Being atheist means “i do not beleive in gods” nothing less nothing more.
It’s just a shorter word for “i think that gods don’t exist”.
You might have met people that hate religious people, that disgusted you of the word “atheism”, but by definition, being atheist doesn’t induce any political doctrine.
Another point on wich most of your argumentation is based is the link between atheism and communism. Communism says “you _must_ not beleive in gods” wich is very different, besides, the irony is that communism adds “oh and i forgot, you _must_ venerate our (semi-god) leader”! Communist dictatoships are very religious-like in the end, so there’s nothing to do with atheism, and anyways, every dictatoship (religious or not) kills people.
So you can’t say anymore that atheists killed as much people as religions.
I’m seeing more and more people saying they are not really atheist, trying to find new words, changing definitions, trying to be better than atheists, like if it was something to be ashamed of. Probably due to an history of communism/nazi anti religious killings wich are miles away from the simple “i don’t beleive in gods” claim.
Comment by aldeck — April 4, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
edit: (damn html) at the end of my post, i wanted to quote :
“I am not religious, and do not ‘believe’ in a god/do not think there is a god.”
Comment by aldeck — April 4, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
Err, I didn’t bring up the whole communism thing.
And no, I’m not an atheist. For the same reason that not every religious person in the world is a Christian, not every non-religious person is an atheist.
Comment by Administrator — April 4, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
Oh sorry, maybe you said it in another post, maybe it wasn’t you, but it’s a common argument against atheism. So you agree with me?
Man, you’re an atheist, this is the definition, don’t you beleive in dictionnaries? You don’t change the meaning of words just because you met a few morons that claimed they where simply atheist although they were more anti-religious (if not worse) than anything else.
It’s like if you didn’t want to get called “blond with blue eyes” just because nazis did horrible things. You can’t change the definition of blue or blond, it’s the same with atheist.
Comment by aldeck — April 4, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
Aldeck, read the blog entry carefully, and it will answer your questions. It’s right there in plain sight.
A dictionary will tell you that “gay” means “happy”. Yet, I don’t think you’d be very happy when people tell you you’re gay every time you’re being happy.
In addition, please quote properly, using the blockquote tag. It says so on the comment form.
Comment by Administrator — April 4, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
Excuse me??? As an atheist and an anti-theist, it’s my duty to rise and speak against the bad things religion had put people through throughout history. It’s my duty to try to fix the world when it is damaged by religious beliefs.
Does this make me arrogant? Probably, but this is because I have this belief, that religious people are wrong and have to be proved wrong, in order for the world to be a better place. If you do not like the noise that this activity creates, rent a cottage and spent the rest of your life there, but if you’re not going to do anything about the world, you should not bash anti-theists for being vocal.
Otherwise you’re just a moderate annoyed by the diverging opinions you get in contact with everyday. Just get out of the way and these arguments won’t reach your ears and piss you off.
Have a very good day, sir!
Comment by zugu — April 4, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
Ok, nice try, but atheist has only one definition.
Ohh, yes, i know you’re not the only one being so pedantic about quoting! The official quotation symbol is (”) a.k.a quotation mark. I know your special quotation looks pretty, but for a single phrase or word i think we shouldn’t get blamed for using quotation marks. Besides, how am i supposed to know this html shit, you don’t even put a complete example, and there’s no preview to try! Why not provide a button that quotify a selection like everywhere else, and stop agressing people that took time to answer?
I hope the quotes worked!
Comment by aldeck — April 4, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
How do you figure that? The requirement of evidence and verification is one of the most fundamental tenets of science.
You’ve described conviction, not certainty.
Comment by Stephen B. — April 5, 2008 @ 2:31 am
As Stephen Colbert reminded us recently, “an agnostic is an atheist without balls”.
(I am a naturalist by training and scientist by profession, and the established fact that e.g. more than 90% contemporary members of US National Academy of Sciences are atheists is not that they have the aura of intellectual smugness and superiority that you accuse them of. No. The fact is they are i) intelligent people, ii) have spent lots of time studying nature in detail, iii) many have spent time studying different and mutually incompatible religious beliefs, too and iv) as a consequence, they do not think God(s) do(es)n’t exist - they just think that, al things considered, that the probability that it/they exist is vanishingly small. That is how any scientific belief works. If you haven’t read Dawkins or (if you prefer less militant tone) Ehrman on the subject, google up Bertrand Russel’s essays “Why I am nor a Christian” and “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish” - both products of a brilliant mind who refused to declare agnosticism without considering the facts of life - and rightly so.)
Comment by jrlah — April 8, 2008 @ 6:44 am