Atheism

[stonedog2]

It certainly takes an extraordinary sort of intelligence to keep on believing in a set of beliefs when a perusal of the evidence and the application of reason suggests that those beliefs are basically bunk. :lol:

You may mean me.

Please expand on this? It's fascinating to think that on a Fortean board someone can decide that all data are in and they can pronounce final judgement.

If you weren't a mod I'd be rather stronger.

Kath

 

[lupinwick]

It certainly takes an extraordinary sort of intelligence to keep on believing in a set of beliefs when a perusal of the evidence and the application of reason suggests that those beliefs are basically bunk. :lol:

Really? I know many highly intelligent people who have had a personal experience of "god" or the divine.

In the end its just another way of viewing the world.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

It certainly takes an extraordinary sort of intelligence to keep on believing in a set of beliefs when a perusal of the evidence and the application of reason suggests that those beliefs are basically bunk. :lol:

You may mean me.

Please expand on this? It's fascinating to think that on a Fortean board someone can decide that all data are in and they can pronounce final judgement.

If you weren't a mod I'd be rather stronger.

Kath

Well, if those who've taken exception to what I've written would actually read what I've written, instead of what they think I've written, they'd see that I haven't actually written anything about belief in God, spiritual matters, or a sense of the Divine, per se.

Some people must realise that certain beliefs, like, for example, the Bible based belief that the World was created in 7 days and is only 6000 years old, do not match up to the evidence. And yet, some of those same people continue to profess those beliefs and exhibit great ingenuity in maintaining and defending them. I'm not necessarily suggesting any intentional, or unintentional, dishonesty, they may still genuinely believe in those beliefs. But, at some level, or levels, a great deal of very ingenious intellectual sophistry may be required.

Since this line of discourse was about relative levels of intelligence, I just mentioned something I've often thought about a certain kind of believer.

Perhaps I could have made the statement a bit clearer and less ambiguous.

 

[rynner2]

Atheists fail to cough up for London bus ad
A campaign to put an atheist advert on the side of a London bus looks to be dead after the organisers failed to raise enough cash.
By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 4:48PM BST 01 Aug 2008

Campaigners hoped to raise the raise the £23,400 necessary to buy a prominent two-week slot on a “bendy bus” by collecting £5 pledges from atheists online.

They even made a mock-up photo of a bus carrying their chosen message: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life."

The project attracted huge attention on atheist message boards and was even featured on the website of scientist and promiment atheist Richard Dawkins, but it appears that too few non-believers actually put their hands in their pockets.

A specially-created website had attracted only 877 pledges when its deadline passed on Thursday, far short of the 4,678 people needed.

The month-long campaign, headed by political blogger Jon Worth, was started in reaction to the Christian adverts that are currently carried on the side of many buses in the capital.

The religious adverts carry Biblical quotes such as: "When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" and direct readers to the JESUSsaid.org website.

The adverts are funded by a group based in Twickenham called Proclaiming Truth in London, according to the website.

It is not yet clear whether Mr Worth plans to use the money pledged - £4,385 - to fund a smaller, cheaper advert.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... us-ad.html

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

"There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life." say a pro-athiest campaign.

Shouldn't this be in the 'Oh the Irony' thread?

 

[ihatethatmonkee3]

i am an atheist, but am tolerant of others beliefs as long as they don't try to ram those beliefs down my throat.

this attempt to put that slogan on a bus is trying to ram an atheistic view down the throat of everyone who believes otherwise. very wrong.

at what point did atheism become a religion?

should that be in the "oh the irony" thread?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

I believe the intended message was indeed intended to be ironic.

There probably are buses festooned with adverts for God Botherers being driven around the city, on a regular basis. In the Netherlands blasphemy and cursing are the God Botherer obsession of choice, almost every railway station of note is plastered with warnings not to 'vloeken.'

It is extremely fitting that the atheist fraternity were not stirred enough to try and Evangelize their fellow citizens.

That's the whole point of lack of belief.

 

[ihatethatmonkee3]

has this need to push atheism been around since before richard dawkins became our "messiah", or is he the "prophet" who will "show us the way"?

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

has this need to push atheism been around since before richard dawkins became our "messiah", or is he the "prophet" who will "show us the way"?

I think the fact that Dawkins has an enthusiastic 'following' is merely representative of a popular movement elsewhere. The reason atheism (rather than Dawkinsism) is gaining in militancy is due in part to the events of 9/11 and - not unconnected - the increasing influence of the Christian right in America. No need to shoot the messenger (peace be upon his slightly weedy countenance).

 

[ihatethatmonkee3]

lol.

while i can understand the need to press the american right wing for banning schools from teaching evolution, the problem i have is the religious overtones that the movement is given.

the more i hear of dawkins speak, the more i remember the episodes of south park, where cartman freezes himself so he can get a nintendo wii quicken, but is then defrosted 500years into the future, where dawkins is seem as a prophet, but the differing factions of atheism are all fighting over who is more logical!

 

[lupinwick]

Some related thoughts in this piece. Perhaps this could start a new thread but the article reflects the stupidity of all sides involved in the various debates on religion.

My great-grandfather drank infrequently but seriously, as a respectable Protestant in county Fermanagh should. Sessions involved a bottle of whiskey, some suitable masculine company and a little ritual to start the evening off. He would retire to his study with bottle and guest, remove the cork from the bottle and throw it on the fire. While it burned, they would drink the first toast, which was always the same: "Fuck the Pope!" Then the glasses would be drained.

There were few men he liked to drink with. One thought worthy was the local Catholic priest. This raised a difficulty with the toast, which was solved by the priest waiting discreetly outside the study until it was time for the second glass. After that there would be no toasts or talk offensive to his ears, and he was warmly welcomed.

How very different the conduct of religious discussions on the internet. On the web the participants are often sober and they spare no pains to offend and insult one another, even when there is nothing at stake. I nearly wrote "nothing but prestige" but prestige in whose eyes? Who is watching? The strange, weightless intimacy of online communication has enabled complete strangers to hate each other passionately within minutes. This has had measurable effects in the real world. In the US, for instance, the breakup of the Anglican Communion has already resulted in some huge and juicy lawsuits and will certainly result in many more as conservative parishes try to remove their churches from the liberal central body. The schism could never have happened without the internet, which allowed each side to see exactly what the other was up to, and then deliberately to misunderstand it.

The same thing is happening in another American context, where the New Atheists are winding up the creationists and vice versa. Last month the American evangelical atheist and biology professor PZ Myers made a series of posts announcing that there was nothing magical in a consecrated communion wafer: that it was, as he said repeatedly "just a cracker", and that if anyone could get him one he would desecrate it to prove the point. Naturally, this brought out of the woodwork all the Catholics crazy enough to take him seriously. He was sent death threats and his university was asked to sack him. All this correspondence from disturbed people he gleefully printed, as if it demonstrated the essential irrationality of all Christians.

Finally he posted a photograph of his bin, in which reposed a consecrated wafer which he had stabbed with a rusty nail, along with a few ripped-out pages of the Qur'an and some from Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Almost all the thousands of comments that followed were entirely predictable. I gave up after the first couple of hundred, but none I found from either side made any attempt to understand why their opponents might be upset or what they might be trying to say.

But then Myers is also the author of the The Courtier's Defence, a little essay described by Dawkins as "brilliant" because it claims that there is no need for atheists to understand what theologians say because they already know that the theologians are talking about something that doesn't exist. This dismissal, in advance, of everything your opponents might say as meaningless is the hallmark of all popular philosophical or religious discussion on the internet. It's odd to find it so enthusiastically embraced by academics, because it is not so very different at all from the demand of students opposed to all uncomfortable learning that anything they don't understand should be removed from the syllabus.

In County Fermanagh, religious differences were real enough for people to kill one another: my great-grandfather is buried in Enniskillen, which was the scene of one of the worst bombings. Perhaps because of that, people learned not to give offence unless there was something really serious at stake. But online, everything feels like a game, and in the teeth of all the evidence we persist in believing that there is a clear sharp line between gaming and reality.

Source

 

[ramonmercado]

17 comments (so far) at link.

Does Science Obviate Religion? A debate last week provided strong opinions, but no final answer
By Greg Soltis

Last Monday at New York's Pierre Hotel, outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens and physicist/theologian Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete met to tackle the question of whether or not science makes belief in God obsolete.

According to the forum's hosts, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham and Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, religion riles its vilifiers when it makes truth claims without evidence -- at least evidence that would hold up in a court of science. The conflict seems to stem from a difference in understanding as to what evidence and truth truly are.

This discrepancy of perspective was clear in a statement made by Monsignor Albacete: "Religion is a different form of knowledge that has its own evidence."

"The credibility of the gospels is crucial," he said. "Faith without evidence: I don't know what that is."

When rattling off his gripes with religion during the question-and-answer session, Hitchens argued that believers seem to love God out of a requirement, not out of freedom. "The compulsory love of someone you must fear is something of a celestial North Korea," said Hitchens.

But Monsignor Albacete discovers truth in religion's ability to connect with his daily life. "If I can't relate doctrine to why I care about what I care, then it is all just theoretical matter and you can substitute the Great Lizard for Christ for all I care."

Humans have always tried to find patterns and explanations for why things are the way they are. And religion can provide a relevant avenue for doing so, just as science does.

http://www.popsci.com/greg-soltis/artic ... e-religion

 

[ramonmercado]

Atheist soldier alleges discrimination by military
By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An atheist soldier says in a federal lawsuit that his superiors required him to be present for Christian prayers, and that the military allows fundamentalist Christians to proselytize.

Spc. Dustin Chalker, a combat medic with an engineering battalion, alleges he was required to attend three events from December 2007 to May 2008 at Fort Riley in which Christian prayers were delivered. Chalker has served in Iraq and Korea.

Chalker and and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed the lawsuit against Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday in Kansas City, Kan. It alleges violations of the soldier's religious freedoms.

The lawsuit alleges the military allows religious discrimination by fundamentalist Christians who try to force their views on others, especially subordinates. Its examples include programs for soldiers, presentations by "anti-Muslim activists" and a "spiritual handbook" for soldiers endorsed by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East.

Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said Friday the department has received fewer than 50 complaints alleging religious discrimination in the past three years. The armed forces have more than 2.2 million active-duty and Reserve personnel.

"The department respects (and supports by its policy) the rights of others to their own religious beliefs, including the right to hold no beliefs," Lainez said in a statement. "There are systems in place to provide a means to address and resolve any perceived unfair treatment."

Lainez said the department does not comment on pending lawsuits.

In March, the foundation and another atheist soldier at Fort Riley, Pfc. Jeremy Hall, filed a lawsuit raising similar issues. Hall alleges he was harassed by fellow soldiers in Iraq and after he returned late last year to military police duty, and that his promotion to sergeant was blocked.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i-FI ... QD93EN4880

 

[ramonmercado]

Atheist soldier to leave Army, drops religion suit
Army
By JOHN MILBURN

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An atheist soldier who accused U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Defense Department of violating his religious freedom dropped the lawsuit Friday, citing his plans to leave the Army next spring.

But the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which filed the suit in 2007 with Pfc. Jeremy Hall, still plans to pursue allegations of widespread religious discrimination within the military in a separate lawsuit it filed with a second atheist soldier.

Attorneys for Hall filed papers Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., to dismiss the case, said Mikey Weinstein, head of the foundation.

Hall and the foundation sued over Hall's claims that a major prevented him from holding an atheist meeting while deployed in Iraq. That officer denied the allegation.

Dropping the lawsuit avoids a fight over whether Hall has standing to sue if he is no longer in the Army, which he plans to leave in 2009, Weinstein said.

"He broke the barrier for us to have more people come forward," Weinstein said of Hall. "He served as a shining light that attracted all the other potential witnesses."

This is the second time Hall, 24, and the foundation have withdrawn the lawsuit. They refiled in March, adding claims that Hall was threatened with retaliation from other soldiers and officers, including the blocking of his promotion to sergeant and a telephone death threat against him and his wife that was traced to another soldier.

Fort Riley investigators said that the threat wasn't serious and that the soldier who left the message was intoxicated.

Spc. Dustin Chalker, a combat medic who filed the second lawsuit in October, also named Gates as a defendant. Chalker alleged he was required to attend three events from December 2007 to May 2008 at Fort Riley at which Christian prayers were delivered.

The lawsuit cited examples of the military's religious discrimination by fundamentalist Christians, including programs for soldiers, presentations by "anti-Muslim activists" and a "spiritual handbook" for soldiers endorsed by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East.

Defense officials have declined to comment on either lawsuit but have said the military has a longstanding policy against discrimination that preserves religious freedom for all in uniform. It also has said complaints about alleged religious discrimination are rare.

Weinstein said Hall recently was transferred to another military police company. He plans to attend college and serve as a liaison with the foundation on religious freedom issues.

On the Net:
Military Religious Freedom Foundation: http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org

 

[hokum6]

Atheists fail to cough up for London bus ad
[/size]

That saying about organising atheists being like trying to herd cats comes to mind.

 

[segovius]

Maybe it was the 'Probably there is no God' that jammed their atheist antennae and prevented the authorization of hand movement to wallet.

This is essentially an agnostic statement rather than an atheistic one and our current hapless crop of neo-atheists (at least those of what we might call the 'Dawkins skool') are nothing if not literalist fundies - which is why they are on a 'Crusdade' to fight all other literalist fundies, it's basically a turf-war - so maybe they objected to the syntax.

Or maybe they're just a bunch of tightwads. Who knows? Who cares?

What I really want to know is how the hell did Dawkins ever get hold of Dr Who's hot assistant????

 

[hokum6]

I think it's more likely that most of us just don't care about religion that much to hand over cash. Religion is a silly thing and not worthy of my time or attention, I'm certainly not going to give money for an advert, no matter what the wording.

Anyway, that has always been Dawkins' position on it, he says God probably doesn't exist. It's not agnosticism.

 

[misterwibble]

Atheists fail to cough up for London bus ad
[/size]

That saying about organising atheists being like trying to herd cats comes to mind.

In life, as in so much else, timing is everything.

'No God' slogans for city's buses

Bendy-buses with the slogan "There's probably no God" could soon be running on the streets of London.

The atheist posters are the idea of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and have been supported by prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins.

The BHA planned only to raise £5,500, which was to be matched by Professor Dawkins, but it has now raised more than £20,300 of its own accord.

It aims to have two sets of 30 buses carrying the signs for four weeks.

As the campaign has raised more than anticipated, it will also have posters on the inside of buses as well. The BHA is also considering extending the campaign.

The complete slogan reads: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Professor Dawkins said: "Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children."Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.

"This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion."

Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the BHA, said: "We see so many posters advertising salvation through Jesus or threatening us with eternal damnation, that I feel sure that a bus advert like this will be welcomed as a breath of fresh air.

"If it raises a smile as well as making people think, so much the better."

But Stephen Green of pressure group Christian Voice said: "Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.

"I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.

"People don't like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don't like it."

The buses with the slogans will run in Westminster from January.

 

[colpepper1]

Probably? Such conviction! The sponsors should get Ladbrokes to work out the odds.
Can't speak for the posters but the buses can bring you nearer your maker/eternal nothingness pretty quickly if you ride a bike.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Probably? Such conviction! The sponsors should get Ladbrokes to work out the odds.
Can't speak for the posters but the buses can bring you nearer your maker/eternal nothingness pretty quickly if you ride a bike.

The 'probably' reflects a reassuring scientific thoroughness. It resists the urge to be too dogmatic.

 

[colpepper1]

Or running scared of the ASA.

 

[segovius]

The 'probably' reflects a reassuring scientific thoroughness. It resists the urge to be too dogmatic.

I guess Dawkins didn't write it.

 

[barfing_pumpkin]

"There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

But the thing is ... most religious people (in my experience) aren't all that worried anyway. In fact, many of them have such absolute certainty that they are right that worry simply doesn't figure in the equation.

So who, exactly, is this advert trying to preach to?

As for Stephen Green, the one sole memb - sorry, spokesperson - of the pressure 'group', Christian Voice. Well, you gotta laff, ain't ya:

"Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.

Unproven, in both cases. But who needs analysis when the statement itself is so funny. As Stephen Fry said: 'Never analyse comedy, Hugh!'

 

[segovius]

So who, exactly, is this advert trying to preach to?

Exactly. Perhaps though it is just trying to respond or 'redress the balance'.

I heard an atheist on the radio yesterday speaking about this - she said that she wanted the right to respond to Xian propaganda. Fair enough but there is a philosophical conundrum here...

If the right to respond is granted (and it should be imo) then the xian right to respond to the atheists should be granted...and then the right to respond to the response of the xians and on and on....

And where does it get anyone? Eventually everyone will get tired and start kicking each other's heads in. That's what happened (and happens) in religion but it happened because of human nature not religion itself....

And that's why Dawkins is either intellectually dishonest or an idiot (or both) because he refuses to accept this is human nature and blames all ills on religion.

It almost makes me wish all the Fundie nonsense was true so I could relish imagining his shock when he reaches the Pearly Gates...

 

[barfing_pumpkin]

Well, I don't hold much of a brief for Dawkins either - he does get on my tits, sometimes - and I have to agree that religion certainly ain't the cause of all society's ills. But Dawkins clearly isn't intellectually dishonest - he's received too many brickbats for that - and neither is he an idiot, as his sterling work in illustrating evolution shows. To my mind, he's just one of those people who gets irritated by those who do not think like him - and he's far from being alone in this regard.

Secondly, I don't get your point about religion leading to arguments which then leads to violence. Are you suggesting that we should instead simply sit there and keep shtum? What about politics, or philosophy - or just about any idea going? Should we just not talk about these things because human nature, as we all should (apparently) know, is such that any debate upon these matters will only lead to pointless arguments followed by violence? Fair enough, then - but what counter-model do you propose, other than waiting out our lives in an enfeebled silence, making no progress whatsover in art, philosophy, science or belief, because it all leads to us getting our heads kicked in anyway?

 

[Dr_Baltar]

That's what happened (and happens) in religion but it happened because of human nature not religion itself....

And that's why Dawkins is either intellectually dishonest or an idiot (or both) because he refuses to accept this is human nature and blames all ills on religion.

But religion isn't an entity outwith human nature. Dawkins blames some of society's ills on that construct of human nature we call religion. I think he just finds blind faith intellectually frustrating, and in many ways I can see his point.

 

[segovius]

@Dr_Baltar & barfing_pumpkin

yes, I can see Dawkin's frustration there and would be in full agreement with him if he did not use the term 'religion' unquestioningly and as a catch-all.

I do think he is being dishonest in this. Take as an example Christianity (a belief I do not myself hold btw); it is well known and observable that the Church and the established dogma is pretty much at variance with the teachings of Christ. Christ did not preach an Inquisition.

So we have a situation where the 'religion' in question is a corruption of the teaching of the founder. Dawkins should elaborate on this. But he never does.

I read an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury recently where he was asked if any arguments with atheists had made him think or challenged him and he said that many had but Dawkins was too simplistic and the atheists who were most intellectually 'tough' were people like Pullman.

And another problem with Dawkins: he is too Western-centric - his arguments that religion is anti-scientific are true only in a Western context. Hinduism contributed much to scientific thought and the Islamic contribution to science is a purely religious one but which underpins a large majority of western thought and science to this day.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I think the atheist bus advert campaign just got off to a slow start, that's all. Last time I looked, they'd raised over £93000 from people - most of it received as a result of media/press interest.

Most atheists aren't much bothered, and don't belong to an atheist organisation, hence the reason why there was a low level of awareness at the start.

After I heard about it, I made a donation.

I think it's necessary, because religious ideas should not go unchallenged without at least some opposing argument. It's only fair...

 

[colpepper1]

And another problem with Dawkins: he is too Western-centric

If I had to pick one that would be it. He assumes people with fishy bumper stickers are fair game but avoids the native beliefs of, for example, micronesia because they don't know any better. Do island people live less happy and fulfilled existences because their world views are different to a western academic?

 

[hokum6]

And another problem with Dawkins: he is too Western-centric

If I had to pick one that would be it. He assumes people with fishy bumper stickers are fair game but avoids the native beliefs of, for example, micronesia because they don't know any better. Do island people live less happy and fulfilled existences because their world views are different to a western academic?

The problem he has with the fishy bumper sticker crowd is not that they just have silly beliefs, it's that they try to force them on other people. I doubt we'd be hearing much from Mr Dawkins if it wasn't for religious crazies trying to present their mythology as science. If someone came from an island and attempted to teach their beliefs in a school, then I'm sure they'd come under criticism too.