# Reading > Religious Texts >  Scholarly Hypatia Was Murdered by a Degenerate Clique of Christian Fundamentalists

## Red Terror

Scholarly and saintly Hypatia of Alexandria Was Murdered by a Degenerate Clique of Christian Fundamentalists. How many people remember her contributions to science? Religion and science do not mix.

----------


## tailor STATELY

Interesting article... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

Your argument (Hypatia of Alexandria Was Murdered by a Degenerate Clique of Christian Fundamentalists therefor Religion and science do not mix.) IMHO leans toward a _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_ conclusion http://skepdic.com/posthoc.html .

The events I see in the wikipedia article appear to be spurred by politics more than anything else: "According to _contemporary_ sources, Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob or by Christian zealots known as Parabalani after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria, the governor, Orestes, and the bishop, Cyril of Alexandria." Note: executed by zealots similar to those who have a propensity for violence even today.

Not all followers of religion are zealots - prolly a HUGE minority based on current events; to further define the word 'zealot'... Google: "a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their *religious, political, or other ideals.*"

Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

----------


## YesNo

Given the Big Bang and Quantum Physics it is more likely that science _and atheism_ do not mix.

I watched a YouTube video by Inspiring Philosophy recently ("Is Atheism a Delusion?"). You might find it interesting for the references he gives. I've even read the one by Barrett he mentioned. (He is some sort of Christian. I don't know what kind, but his points do not depend on Christianity.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ii-bsrHB0o

----------


## Red Terror

> Scholarly and saintly Hypatia of Alexandria Was Murdered by a Degenerate Clique of Christian Fundamentalists. How many people remember her contributions to science? Religion and science do not mix.


Dude, what are you taking about???? * In those days there was no separation between church and state just as there was no separation between church and science.** In other words, there was no separation between politics and religion.*

----------


## YesNo

> Dude, what are you taking about???? * In those days there was no separation between church and state just as there was no separation between church and science.** In other words, there was no separation between politics and religion.*


Today, atheists think there is no separation between atheism and science. But there is. 

It is your claim that science and religion do not mix that I am objecting to. My claim: Science and religion mix very well.

If you check the link that I provided you will see references to scientific evidence that theism is the biological default position for our species. On top of that default position the various religions and atheistic traditions formed through cultural activity. 

I have noticed three overlapping problems with the various religions (including atheism) although many of these religions also enhance the default theistic position:

1) Imperialism: Claiming that followers of other religions go to hell because they have a different opinion is a form of imperialism. Also claiming that people who do not support atheism are suffering under some "viral meme" is imperialistic. They are both missionary positions to build a larger political group.

2) Dehumanization: Burning people at the stake is a form of dehumanization. Also atheistic justifications for genocide fall under this category.

3) Idolatry: This is another form of dehumanization where texts are made sacred. Those sacred texts are also mathematical texts atheists use to justify determinism. Essentially, taking what is subjective and reducing it to what is objective and then "worshiping" that object is what I mean by idolatry.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> Scholarly and saintly Hypatia of Alexandria Was Murdered by a Degenerate Clique of Christian Fundamentalists. How many people remember her contributions to science? Religion and science do not mix.


Oh, dear. First of all "scholarly Hypatia" was a Neoplatonist philosopher whose mathematics and astronomy would have reflected as mystical and ultimately as monotheistic a perspective (giving primacy to a transcendent One) as any Christian theologian--some of whom deeply admired her. RT's source on Hypatia, the 2009 film Agora, apparently includes the ahistorical information that Hypatia was persecuted for advancing a claim of heliocentrism. This seems to be an attempt to create resonance with Galileo's case more than a thousand years later (oh, those rotten Christians just never give up on that one). But I have not seen Agora (nor even watched RT's video), and I really should give it a proper gander. Heh heh. 

The suggestion that Hypatia was murdered by "a degenerate clique of Christian fundamentals" is also anachronistic. Hypatia was killed in the early 5th century. Christian fundamentalism (which is not the same thing as Biblical literalism) did not exist until the end of the 19th century. The term was not even coined until the 1920s. Oh wait, I know how much Red likes Wikipedia so here ya go: 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chri...fundamentalism

Of course, degenerate people are never pleasant--especially the cliquey ones. But Hypatia was just not murdered by Focus on the Family. For what it's worth, though, I share your opinion that religion and science don't mix. 




> Note: executed by zealots similar to those who have a propensity for violence even today.
> 
> Not all followers of religion are zealots - prolly a HUGE minority based on current events; to further define the word 'zealot'... Google: "a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their *religious, political, or other ideals.*"


I have to respectfully disagree with your approach, tailor. Hypatia's assassins cannot be written off as mere zealots. Zealots they were, of course, and a dangerous mob, but they were also the means by which the Christian political elite got rid of this influential Neoplatonist thinker. And that was part of a wider, longer, deliberate, mainstream crackdown on other religions (including Hellenism and Neoplatonism) in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. I cite Oxford professor Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years:

"The Council of Constantinople...radically narrowed the boundaries of acceptable belief in the Church, creating a single Imperial Christianity backed up by military force. It was one half of a profound transformation in of Christian status in the empire in the 380s. The declaration of Constantine and Licinius at Milan back in 313 had proclaimed general toleration. That had been a reaffirmation of traditional Roman practice, with the one great exception of Christianity, which had leapt from persecuted to favoured religion. Now 'Catholic' Christianity was given monopoly status, not just against its own Christian rivals but against all traditional religion: ancient priesthoods lost all privileges and temples were ordered to be closed even in the most remote districts. The process began with a decree in Constantinople in 380, but politics intervened to accelerate the new situation. In 392 a barbarian general of the Roman army named Arbogast backed a coup d'etat against the legitimate Western emperor, Valentinian II, who was murdered and replaced with a modest and competent academic of traditionalist [that is Hellenic pagan] sympathies named Eugenius.

"Moves to restore honour and equal treatment to the old religion had not got very far when, in 394, Theodosius intervened from the East and destroyed the usurping regime. His conclusion, naturally enough, was that his policy, already launched in the East, should be extended throughout the empire. The Olympic Games were no longer celebrated after 393. Further decrees after his death banned non-Christians from service in the army, imperial administration or at court. This was backed up by ruthless action: some of the most beautiful and famous sacred places of antiquity went up in flames together with a host of lesser shrines. Monks were prominent agitators in the crowds which exulted in the destruction, and dire consequences are always likely to follow rampaging mobs. Perhaps the most repulsive case was the death in 415 of the Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia, so well respected for her learning that she had overcome the normal prejudices of men to earn pre-eminence in the Alexandrian schools. Christian mobs were persuaded that she was instrumental in preventing the Prefect of Egypt from ending a quarrel with Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, so she was dragged from her carriage, publicly humiliated, tortured and murdered. The perpetrators went unpunished. It was a permanent stain on the episcopate of Cyril and few Christian historians have had the heart to excuse it. Nearly fifteen hundred years later, the breezy Anglican clerical novelist Charles Kingsley used Hypatia's story to annoy Roman Catholics, casting them in a none-too-veiled parallel in the role of the intolerant Alexandrian killers."

Thus the murder of Hypatia cannot be dismissed as the action of a few fanatics. By the start of the 5th century century, intolerance had become a matter of policy. Violent mobs--in this case drawn from the urban poor--simply became a handy weapon for bringing the policy to innocent victims like Hypatia. The perversion of Christianity was not incidental. It was institutional.

----------


## tailor STATELY

Hey PB: My leap is from a present view. I agree with your analysis on faith, will read more when I can, that in the time of Hypatia: Religion and science *did* not mix... but that times have changed.

MT: Ok, you agree with PB, cool. The original argument, at least to me, was all too general and is therefor false. "*In those days* there was no separation between church and state just as there was no separation between church and science. In other words, there was no separation between politics and religion." I have no problem with the analysis that in the past things were different. IMHO a more proper analysis for *today* would be religion and politics do not mix... which I would agree with whole heartedly. I disagree that for *today* that religion and science do not mix. Again the original argument is too general IMHO.

Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

----------


## Pompey Bum

Oh, no. You were quite right that RT's logic was specious, and for exactly the reasons you said. In my view religion and science do not mix, but that has nothing to do with what RT thinks he knows about Hypatia. In fact, I imagine that if he really thought it through, RT would decide (as an atheist and a communist) that science must replace religion, and therefore they must interact polemically. I cannot read YN's posts anymore, but I know his philosophical paganism requires him to marry the two. My own belief is that religion makes lousy science and science makes lousy religion. Best to keep them apart for now. But again, I'd be very surprised if that's what RT meant. I'm pretty sure we only agree on paper.

----------


## mona amon

> Oh, dear. First of all "scholarly Hypatia" was a Neoplatonist philosopher whose mathematics and astronomy would have reflected as mystical and ultimately as monotheistic a perspective (giving primacy to a transcendent One) as any Christian theologian--some of whom deeply admired her. RT's source on Hypatia, the 2009 film Agora, apparently includes the ahistorical information that Hypatia was persecuted for advancing a claim of heliocentrism. This seems to be an attempt to create resonance with Galileo's case more than a thousand years later (oh, those rotten Christians just never give up on that one). But I have not seen Agora (nor even watched RT's video), and I really should give it a proper gander. Heh heh. 
> 
> The suggestion that Hypatia was murdered by "a degenerate clique of Christian fundamentals" is also anachronistic. Hypatia was killed in the early 5th century. Christian fundamentalism (which is not the same thing as Biblical literalism) did not exist until the end of the 19th century. The term was not even coined until the 1920s. Oh wait, I know how much Red likes Wikipedia so here ya go: 
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chri...fundamentalism
> 
> Of course, degenerate people are never pleasant--especially the cliquey ones. But Hypatia was just not murdered by Focus on the Family. For what it's worth, though, I share your opinion that religion and science don't mix. 
> 
> 
> ...


That was very informative, thanks Pompey. I'm glad history did not forget this terrible incident. Clearly the state and religion do not mix, nor religion and science, nor religion or anything else. Or the State and anything else, for that matter. Religion should be practiced by the individual, for spiritual purposes only. I wonder if RT will agree with this, or whether he only wants religion to be vanquished from the face of the world.

----------


## Red Terror

> Oh, dear. First of all "scholarly Hypatia" was a Neoplatonist philosopher whose mathematics and astronomy would have reflected as mystical and ultimately as monotheistic a perspective (giving primacy to a transcendent One) as any Christian theologian--some of whom deeply admired her. RT's source on Hypatia, the 2009 film Agora, apparently includes the ahistorical information that Hypatia was persecuted for advancing a claim of heliocentrism. This seems to be an attempt to create resonance with Galileo's case more than a thousand years later (oh, those rotten Christians just never give up on that one). But I have not seen Agora (nor even watched RT's video), and I really should give it a proper gander. Heh heh. 
> 
> The suggestion that Hypatia was murdered by "a degenerate clique of Christian fundamentals" is also anachronistic. Hypatia was killed in the early 5th century. Christian fundamentalism (which is not the same thing as Biblical literalism) did not exist until the end of the 19th century. The term was not even coined until the 1920s. Oh wait, I know how much Red likes Wikipedia so here ya go: 
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chri...fundamentalism
> 
> Of course, degenerate people are never pleasant--especially the cliquey ones. But Hypatia was just not murdered by Focus on the Family. For what it's worth, though, I share your opinion that religion and science don't mix. 
> 
> 
> ...


Bullocks!!!!! Calling everything by its rightful name is the beginning of wisdom. These degenerates were fundamentalists _avant la lettre_. Ditto for the degenerates who threatened 
Galileo with the stake if he did not renounce his scientific discoveries. The people who persecuted Galileo cited:

1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Ecclesiastes 1:5 (but see varied interpretations of Job 26:7). Heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth was a planet, which along with all the others revolved around the Sun, contradicted both geocentrism and the prevailing theological support of the theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

There you go, Pompey Bum. Sweet trolling though.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> That was very informative, thanks Pompey. I'm glad history did not forget this terrible incident. Clearly the state and religion do not mix, nor religion and science, nor religion or anything else. Or the State and anything else, for that matter. Religion should be practiced by the individual, for spiritual purposes only. I wonder if RT will agree with this, or whether he only wants religion to be vanquished from the face of the world.


You're welcome, Mona. Somehow truth survives all the barbarity.





> Heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth was a planet, which along with all the others revolved around the Sun, contradicted both geocentrism and the prevailing theological support of the theory.


Oh, I see. Galileo, you say? Mmmmm, yes, fascinating. Well, I'll just wait here then while you bring me the evidence that Hypatia advanced an argument for heliocentrism. No, no, do take your time. 

You know the movie I liked? Doctor Dolittle. I don't know, I just always wanted to talk with animals. 

Found anything yet?

----------


## Red Terror

> You're welcome, Mona. Somehow truth survives all the barbarity.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, I see. Galileo, you say? Mmmmm, yes, fascinating. Well, I'll just wait here then while you bring me the evidence that Hypatia advanced an argument for heliocentrism. No, no, do take yout time. 
> 
> You know the movie I liked? Doctor Dolittle. I don't know, I just always wanted to talk with animals. 
> 
> Found anything yet?


In Hypatia's case they called her a witch --- straight from the case of Samuel and the witch of Endor. It is pure misogyny. I'm sure they had the case of Eve in mind when they persecuted her. They were just envious and jealous fellows.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> In Hypatia's case they called her a witch


Well, true enough, Red Terror, but since that happened in the 7th century it didn't affect her murder in 415, right?

Anything on heliocentrism yet?

----------


## Red Terror

> Well, true enough, Red Terror, but since that happened in the 7th century it didn't affect her murder in 415, right?
> 
> Anything on heliocentrism yet?


Hypatia also investigates the heliocentric model of the solar system proposed by Aristarchus of Samos; by having an object dropped from the mast of a moving ship she demonstrates to Orestes that a possible motion of the Earth would not affect the motion, relative to Earth, of a falling object on Earth. However, due to religious objections against heliocentrism, the Christians have now forbidden Hypatia to teach at the school. The Christians and the Jews come into conflict, committing violent acts against each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora_(film)

----------


## Red Terror

She also worked with the concept of ellipse --- that the earth did not revolve around the sun in a perfect circle but in an elliptical revolution. That last scene where she is being suffocated by her former slave, the movie had her looking at the ellipse on the ceiling or a skylight ... whatever you want to call it.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> Hypatia also investigates the heliocentric model of the solar system proposed by Aristarchus of Samos; by having an object dropped from the mast of a moving ship she demonstrates to Orestes that a possible motion of the Earth would not affect the motion, relative to Earth, of a falling object on Earth. However, due to religious objections against heliocentrism, the Christians have now forbidden Hypatia to teach at the school. The Christians and the Jews come into conflict, committing violent acts against each other.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora_(film)


Heh heh heh. Right, Red Terror, but that is from a description of THE FILM. My contention is that the film was ahistorical in suggesting that very thing. But I will gladly stand corrected if you can provide evidence that the above story is true, or that Hypatia of Alexandria ever advanced the idea of heliocentrism. If you can't, I call on your integrity to admit that you have given undue credence to the historicity of this movie.

In the meantime, happy hunting!  :Smile:

----------


## Drkshadow03

So atheist amateur historian Tim O'Niell wrote a whole post about this topic and the film Agora that many of you might find interesting: link.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Thank you, Drkshadow03. Very much appreciated.

"And, as usual, bigots and anti-theistic zealots will ignore the evidence, the sources and rational analysis and believe Hollywood's appeal to their prejudices. It makes you wonder who the real enemies of reason actually are."

----------


## YesNo

Part of my problem with the Hypatia example is that it happened too long ago. The same with Galileo. We have changed since then.

What is more interesting is what has happened in the past 100 years or our attitudes now towards events that happened long ago.

----------


## Red Terror

> Thank you, Drkshadow03. Very much appreciated.
> 
> "And, as usual, bigots and anti-theistic zealots will ignore the evidence, the sources and rational analysis and believe Hollywood's appeal to their prejudices. It makes you wonder who the real enemies of reason actually are."


Sweet trolling, Pompey Bum.

Man is quite insane. He wouldn't know how to create a maggot, and yet he creates Gods by the dozen. 

*Michel de Montaigne* 

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

*Richard Dawkins*

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

*Christopher Hitchens*

Jesus Christwho, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavenscan now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad? The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.

*Sam Harris*, *The End of Faith*

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

*Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion* 

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you. 

*Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion*

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. 

*Richard Dawkins*

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

*Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814*

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.

*Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816* 

Priests...dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live. 

*Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Correa de Serra, April 11, 1820*

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. 

*Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823*

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse of St. John], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams. 

*Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825*


Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

*Lucius Annaeus Seneca* 

The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.

*Ralph Waldo Emerson*

The god who presides over the Judeo-Christian belief system bears a disquieting resemblance to those imperfect creations known as human beings. This suggests that either he really did fashion us in his own image or we fashioned him in ours. 
*
Michael Parenti* 

It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crimeas it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single daybut it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. 

*Sam Harris, End of Faith*

Evolution sceptic: "Professor Haldane, even given the billions of years that you say were available for evolution, I simply cannot believe it is possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body, with its trillions of cells organized into bones and muscles and nerves, a heart that pumps without ceasing for decades, miles and miles of blood vessels and kidney tubules, and a brain capable of thinking and talking and feeling." 

Professor John Burdon Sanderson Haldane: "But madam, you did it yourself. And it only took you nine months. 

*Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution* 

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. 

*Benjamin Franklin*

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.

*Benjamin Franklin*

In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.

*Ethan Allen, Reason the Only Oracle of Man, pamphlet, 1784* 

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

*John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816*

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

*John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, from George Seldes*

"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....
"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."

*Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, US Consul)* 

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded project.

*James Madison*

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

*James Madison* 

The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately dash their brains out: by this means they secured that these infants went to Heaven. No orthodox Christian can find any logical reason for condemning their action, although all nowadays do so. In countless ways the doctrine of personal immortality in its Christian form has had disastrous effects upon morals ...

*Bertrand Russell*

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. 

*Stephen Roberts*

----------


## Pompey Bum

I'll take that as a panicked surrender. ;-)

----------


## YesNo

> I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. 
> 
> *Stephen Roberts*


So many spells. Too little time. 

It is the people who think they have found that privileged frame of reference, that higher ground, where they think they no longer worship any gods who are the most bedeviled.

----------


## Danik 2016

Thanks for introducing me to this interesting historical figure, Red.



> So many spells. Too little time. 
> 
> It is the people who think they have found that privileged frame of reference, that higher ground, where they think they no longer worship any gods who are the most bedeviled.


I think that when we stop querelling about our different gods or faiths, we will have advanced considerably in our human evolution.

----------


## mortalterror

Is irreligious bigotry so common now that it's become invisible?

----------


## YesNo

> I think that when we stop querelling about our different gods or faiths, we will have advanced considerably in our human evolution.


People will always want to express and justify their views. It helps clarify their position for themselves, but I tend to agree with this. If people don't think someone else is going to hell for having a different opinion or that they are suffering from some "viral meme" and just accept the differing opinion as different, that looks to me like a form of social improvement.

People who have positive near death experiences hold all sorts of opinions ranging from atheist to fundamentalist whatever. So I am not worried about hell. 

Having a viral meme suggests that holding a different opinion or behaving differently could help someone live a healthier or happier life. That might be true. One could do research on such questions. A book I read by Will Johnson, "The Posture of Meditation", makes me suspect that just aligning oneself with gravity can clarify one's mind. It has worked for me, but I don't think it should be something everyone is forced to do.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Oh gee, looks like I left the heat shield down for a sec. My bad.  :Smile: 




> And I don't even want to get started about atheists. They gross me out the most.





> If you are an atheist, I need an explanation justifying the genocide of the Khmer Rouge--for a start. I don't accept arguments that the Khmer Rouge did not kill "in the name of" atheism so atheism is excused from the dehumanization it has caused throughout history. Those are atheist dogmas, not mine. I am not aligned with your religion.





> Then the atheists try a counter missionary move and say, "Oh! We dislike bigotry! We are so good and superior and rational and scientific!" But when you challenge them about genocide they whine just like the OP and say stuff like, "We are so superior we don't have to justify ourselves to anyone!"

----------


## Danik 2016

> People will always want to express and justify their views. It helps clarify their position for themselves, but I tend to agree with this. If people don't think someone else is going to hell for having a different opinion or that they are suffering from some "viral meme" and just accept the differing opinion as different, that looks to me like a form of social improvement.
> 
> People who have positive near death experiences hold all sorts of opinions ranging from atheist to fundamentalist whatever. So I am not worried about hell. 
> 
> Having a viral meme suggests that holding a different opinion or behaving differently could help someone live a healthier or happier life. That might be true. One could do research on such questions. A book I read by Will Johnson, "The Posture of Meditation", makes me suspect that just aligning oneself with gravity can clarify one's mind. It has worked for me, but I don't think it should be something everyone is forced to do.


I didn´t quite grasp this idea of "viral meme" Yes/No probably because I don´t go in the social nets.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Oh, this one as well.




> However, there is one general religious form that I think should be abandoned because its idolatry is self-destructively dehumanistic. That religious form is atheism...Atheism is the most violent religion out there both in the physical damage it has caused to other human beings (Khmer Rouge, Maoism, Naziism) and in the bedeviling trance state in which it leaves its adherents.





> I didn´t quite grasp this idea of "viral meme" Yes/No probably because I don´t go in the social nets.


You know, Danik, I was having a hard time grasping that one myself. ;-)

----------


## Danik 2016

I´m sure there will be an explanation, Pompey.

----------


## Pompey Bum

...........

----------


## Pompey Bum

> I´m sure there will be an explanation, Pompey.


Well, I'm dying to hear it Danik. 




> And I don't even want to get started about atheists. They gross me out the most.





> However, there is one general religious form that I think should be abandoned because its idolatry is self-destructively dehumanistic. That religious form is atheism...Atheism is the most violent religion out there both in the physical damage it has caused to other human beings (Khmer Rouge, Maoism, Naziism) and in the bedeviling trance state in which it leaves its adherents.





> If you are an atheist, I need an explanation justifying the genocide of the Khmer Rouge--for a start. I don't accept arguments that the Khmer Rouge did not kill "in the name of" atheism so atheism is excused from the dehumanization it has caused throughout history. Those are atheist dogmas, not mine. I am not aligned with your religion..





> Then the atheists try a counter missionary move and say, "Oh! We dislike bigotry! We are so good and superior and rational and scientific!" But when you challenge them about genocide they whine just like the OP and say stuff like, "We are so superior we don't have to justify ourselves to anyone!"

----------


## YesNo

> I didn´t quite grasp this idea of "viral meme" Yes/No probably because I don´t go in the social nets.


The "viral meme" is a view of religious belief as a harmful "meme". A "meme" would be the way some hope to model our cultural interactions. It is similar to a gene viewed as an unconscious and random object that tries to "selfishly" propagate itself.

I don't actually believe in the meme model. It is based on too much unconsciousness. I also don't believe in the hell concept as a place to put people who don't believe according to some orthodoxy. That is not to say that there are no hellish afterlife experiences. People have reported them in near death experiences and so I have to take that into account.

----------


## Danik 2016

Thanks, Yes/No,
I may be wrong but I see it as an attempt to addapt discussions about religion to the current internet pattern of interactions.

----------


## YesNo

> Well, I'm dying to hear it Danik.


I am glad to see that you are still reading my posts, Pompey Bum. 

I am interested in religious expression based on three aspects: (1) imperialism, (2) dehumanization and (3) idolatry. Although I consider atheism a religion, it is not the only religion that has problems with those three aspects.

----------


## Red Terror

> I am glad to see that you are still reading my posts, Pompey Bum. 
> 
> I am interested in religious expression based on three aspects: (1) imperialism, (2) dehumanization and (3) idolatry. Although I consider atheism a religion, it is not the only religion that has problems with those three aspects.


How on earth can you classify atheism as a religion since there is no deity to genuflect to???

*I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.* 
---- Tom Paine _The Age of Reason_

----------


## tailor STATELY

> I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.


Religion: (other than the obvious) Google - a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. Atheist have their gods: Themselves (first and foremost), Dawkins, Tom Paine, etc. of whom they quote and espouse as voraciously as any Bible thumper I've known, or as Dorothy Rowe eloquently said: "Many people believe that, because they hold certain ideas, they are morally superior to those who do not hold these ideas. In believing this they commit the deadliest of the deadly sins, namely pride, but they do this willingly because they believe that their moral superiority entitles them to patronise, proselytise, and, under certain conditions, maim and kill those they despise." I think YesNo has covered the last quite well in this and other posts. Theists and non-theists have the same divine potential; we are equal in that respect. My faith's Article of Faith #11: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."... I would hope that ideal would be a universal clarion call.

Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

----------


## mortalterror

Atheism is religion without God. All of the defects, none of the benefits.

----------


## Clopin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjr_7mxH3Rs

(litnet teaches a course on atheism)

----------


## desiresjab

Agnostics are some of the finest folk on the planet. Atheists are our radical brothers, theists are our radical brothers. 

I will say this for atheists, very few atheists are robbers and burgulars. Their jobs as mathematical physicists and chemists allow them very little time to be militant about something as silly as religious beliefs. Still, they purport to know something which they do not.

When christians and moslems and hindus are acting like monkeys, blowing things up, throwing acid on women or insisting the world is only 8,000 years old, atheists are there to point out that the whole spectacle is silly, without seeing themselves as part of that spectacle, of course.

Atheism is the only doctrine I can think of that overtly challenges the ancient claims and nonsense of religionists.

I do not wish to stamp out atheism or religion. I am allowed to hope they will eventually stamp themselves out in favor of true rationalism, which is agnosticism.

If religionists were not so dogmatically certain, I have a suspicion most atheists would show their true colors. I believe most atheists are merely fed up, reactive agnostics!

----------


## YesNo

> How on earth can you classify atheism as a religion since there is no deity to genuflect to???


I think tailor STATELY answered the question. Also mortalterror brought up a good point about atheism having all the defects but none of the benefits of a religion.

----------


## desiresjab

> I think tailor STATELY answered the question. Also mortalterror brought up a good point about atheism having all the defects but none of the benefits of a religion.


They did? I heard the word benefits, but I didn't hear what they were. Apparently, though, they are benefits which atheists can never hope to harvest from their beliefs. Just what are these big benefits which an atheist simply cannot get, pray tell?

----------


## Drkshadow03

While we're on a forum and topics do drift, the original claim was that Hypatia was murdered due to her scientific contributions being an offense to Christians (while he doesn't directly state this, the idea is implied by the last sentence of the quote which follows). 




> Scholarly and saintly Hypatia of Alexandria Was Murdered by a Degenerate Clique of Christian Fundamentalists. How many people remember her contributions to science? Religion and science do not mix.


 *The actual issue is confusing historical fiction (in this case a film) with the study of actual history.* We can remove religion from the equation entirely. The only evidence provided for this claim was a modern film. A rebuttal to the accuracy of this film was offered in a link in my previous post.

However, to address the second problem: atheism is NOT a religion. There is too much variety. Some atheists simply don't believe in God and otherwise have no interest in religion, some are staunch proponents of Secular Humanism, some are anti-Theists and can't see anything good in religion. It seems to me another problem is that nobody bothered to define religion. What does one mean by religion?

----------


## mortalterror

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjr_7mxH3Rs
> 
> (litnet teaches a course on atheism)


I guess atheists just totally get religion and understand it better than the people who practice it, but we religious don't understand you guys at all. It's probably because you're all so much smarter.




> Agnostics are some of the finest folk on the planet. Atheists are our radical brothers, theists are our radical brothers. 
> 
> I will say this for atheists, very few atheists are robbers and burgulars. Their jobs as mathematical physicists and chemists allow them very little time to be militant about something as silly as religious beliefs. Still, they purport to know something which they do not.
> 
> When christians and moslems and hindus are acting like monkeys, blowing things up, throwing acid on women or insisting the world is only 8,000 years old, atheists are there to point out that the whole spectacle is silly, without seeing themselves as part of that spectacle, of course.
> 
> Atheism is the only doctrine I can think of that overtly challenges the ancient claims and nonsense of religionists.
> 
> I do not wish to stamp out atheism or religion. I am allowed to hope they will eventually stamp themselves out in favor of true rationalism, which is agnosticism.
> ...


Please, most atheists are mouth breathing troglodytes. They aren't mathematicians and physicists any more than the majority of Christians are teachers, priests, and doctors. As for atheists not committing crimes, that's simply not true. There are many atheist murderers like Christopher Harper Mercer who kill because of their atheist beliefs, or who are atheists but perpetrate crimes for other reasons. However, cases of people doing horrible things for the sake of atheism are under reported like certain other crime categories (rape, Islamophobic hate crime). 

As for the report that said there are few atheists in prison (which I assume you were referencing), that can be explained when you factor in how atheists are often discouraged from reporting their actual beliefs in such settings and criminals are encouraged to over report strong religious convictions in hopes of attaining parole. Ie they are lying criminals and that masks their true numbers and beliefs.

I feel that here I should remind you that for about a century until relatively recently it was atheistic anarchists and communists who had a reputation for blowing things up, arson, sending dynamite in the mail, and assassinating leaders, or rounding up believers for re-education in gulags. Atheists also cling to their own pseudo-history pretending that either Jesus didn't exist, that until Columbus Europeans thought the world was flat, dissections were outlawed by the church in the middle ages, Christianity caused the fall of the Roman Empire and the dark ages, Giordano Bruno was a wise astronomer burned at the stake for religion's hatred of science, or more apropos of this thread that Christians burned down the library of Alexandria and killed Hypatia because they hate science. Their past objections to the Big Bang theory in Physics, the existence of fossils in Geology, and Mendel's theories of inheritance in Biology, are also a matter of public record.

And religion is the only doctrine I can think of that overtly challenges the ancient claims and nonsense of atheists.

Perhaps, truly rational individuals are religious like Descartes, Newton, Aquinus, Pascal, Leibniz, Kant, Plantinga, and when you look at the world objectively the only conclusion that a rational mind could come to is that there is a God.

I don't believe religious people are at all responsible for the antagonism of atheists. I believe that atheists are often errant, misguided, petulant children and are acting out because of some personal dysfunction.

----------


## mortalterror

> However, to address the second problem: atheism is NOT a religion. There is too much variety. Some atheists simply don't believe in God and otherwise have no interest in religion, some are staunch proponents of Secular Humanism, some are anti-Theists and can't see anything good in religion. It seems to me another problem is that nobody bothered to define religion. What does one mean by religion?


Really, you think there's a lot of variety in atheism? The studies I've read on the demographics and beliefs of atheists really don't bear that out. There's just not that much diversity there. The overwhelming majority are white, middle class, male, liberal, etc. And their beliefs tend to fall into a relatively small number of predictable categories. You're going to see a lot more diversity in Judaism for example. As much as atheists like to claim to be self-made men and free thinkers who've made up their own minds, they almost all fall into a few noticeable strands or denominations showing clear influences, behaviors, and convergences of thought. You can usually trace the lineage of their beliefs back to specific individuals like Dawkins or Marx, as opposed to really original thinkers like YesNo who I have no idea where he gets his ideas.

----------


## YesNo

> They did? I heard the word benefits, but I didn't hear what they were. Apparently, though, they are benefits which atheists can never hope to harvest from their beliefs. Just what are these big benefits which an atheist simply cannot get, pray tell?


I have been trying to look at the problems of religion (including atheism) by considering those problems from the perspectives of imperialism, dehumanization and idolatry. The benefits would be in the opposite directions from those. So the benefits would be diversity, humanization and subjectivity. 

Current science describes a default theism for our species. You can get a summary of the research in Justin Barrett's "Born Believers: the science of children's religious belief". Also I linked earlier to a YouTube video by Inspiring Philosophy, "Is Atheism a Delusion?", which surveys this science as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ii-bsrHB0o

Assuming this research is true, and there are people who call themselves atheists who acknowledge it, there is a default human theistic framework upon which one can define religion as those cultural expressions (texts, organizations, projections into theologies or atheologies) that are based on that default position trying to enhance it or diminish it or change it in some way. 

Seen in this perspective atheism is a religion since it attempts to change that default theistic position.

The default position itself is not cultural. It comes first. before culture, before education, before indoctrination. In other words religion is not based on a cultural expression of God so much as this default theistic position of our species. Religion (including atheism which is a religion by this definition) is a study of our reality as members of homo sapiens. 

The most atheists can hope for is to argue that that default theistic position is a delusion. But that default position will not go away. And given other scientific evidence regarding the big bang and indeterminism in quantum physics, it looks to me like a safer scientific bet to say that that default theistic position is true.

----------


## Red Terror

Can someone please answer the following question: *How can the universe be 6 or 7,000 years old--- according to the fundamentalist-apologists for Genesis--- when the light from distant stars have been travelling for more than 6 or 7,000 years to reach our eyes??* The speed of light??? 299,792,458 meters per second (yes folks, I'm using the metric system, get over it). By the way I'm quoting Sam Harris's book _The End of Faith_.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Gee, I don't know, Red. Can you show me where anyone on this thread has made such a claim? I mean, even once?

Say, how's the research going? Anything yet?  :Smile: 




> Heh heh heh. Right, Red Terror, but that is from a description of THE FILM. My contention is that the film was ahistorical in suggesting that very thing. But I will gladly stand corrected if you can provide evidence that the above story is true, or that Hypatia of Alexandria ever advanced the idea of heliocentrism. If you can't, I call on your integrity to admit that you have given undue credence to the historicity of this movie.
> 
> In the meantime, happy hunting!

----------


## Clopin

> I guess atheists just totally get religion and understand it better than the people who practice it, but we religious don't understand you guys at all. It's probably because you're all so much smarter.


Oh relax brah, I don't even consider myself an atheist. I'm just making light about the way this word seems to trigger a big reaction on here as of late.

----------


## Drkshadow03

> Really, you think there's a lot of variety in atheism? The studies I've read on the demographics and beliefs of atheists really don't bear that out. There's just not that much diversity there. The overwhelming majority are white, middle class, male, liberal, etc. And their beliefs tend to fall into a relatively small number of predictable categories. You're going to see a lot more diversity in Judaism for example. As much as atheists like to claim to be self-made men and free thinkers who've made up their own minds, they almost all fall into a few noticeable strands or denominations showing clear influences, behaviors, and convergences of thought. You can usually trace the lineage of their beliefs back to specific individuals like Dawkins or Marx, as opposed to really original thinkers like YesNo who I have no idea where he gets his ideas.


I was thinking more along the lines of this typology and personality research. In the typology studied in which they first interviewed 50+ nonbelievers and then had someone code for similarities and differences, they found six different types of nonbelievers:

1) Intellectual Atheist
2) Activist
3) Seeker-Agnostic
4) Anti-Theist
5) Non-Theist
6) Ritual Atheists

You can read the descriptions of each in the link above. I've met people in each of these categories in real life and the internet. What each of these sub-groups has in common is nonbelief in God, but their attitudes towards religion differ, their attitudes about atheism itself differ, and their attitudes about approach differ as well.

----------


## Jackson Richardson

> Can someone please answer the following question: *How can the universe be 6 or 7,000 years old--- according to the fundamentalist-apologists for Genesis--- when the light from distant stars have been travelling for more than 6 or 7,000 years to reach our eyes??* The speed of light??? 299,792,458 meters per second (yes folks, I'm using the metric system, get over it). By the way I'm quoting Sam Harris's book _The End of Faith_.


Genesis chapter 1 was never intended as a scientific account - light is created on Sunday and the sun and stars only on Wednesday. An interesting philosophic idea but scientifically untenable.

Just a thought about Hypatia - her murder is a total disgrace to Christianity, but there have been plenty of examples of mob violence being justified by socialism, I'm very sorry to say.

----------


## desiresjab

I notice the only ones calling atheism a religion are those who hate atheists. How curious. Not long ago I learned on here that math is only a story, science is only a myth. When you have no real arguments, this is the technique used, you insist that a metaphor is literally true. We have here religionists that call a stick a leg because some people have wooden legs. There are no legs in a pile of brush, just sticks, but they insist on seeing legs.

Religionists cannot defend God except to say belief is personal. A belief different from theirs cannot be personal. They have no good arguments. Therefore they accuse the deniers of practicing religion, hoping to dismiss their views that way.

Have I ever heard anything so weak as the exclusive benefits of religion include subjectivity, diversity and humanization? That is truly pathetic. I guess we can all now admit that atheists have no chance at subjectivity, diversity and humanization. Only religion can offer that. These things come exclusively with religion. That is the most anemic argument for religion I have ever encountered.

It is precisely because religionists do not have good arguments that they have resorted to hogwash these several thousand years. At least St. Thomas Aquinas tried to be sensible, and gave as good as he got.

Religion has never left people alone. Active proselytization is by their tenets a big part of God's game. Insisting they are right is a big part of their game. As if I should for an instant consider that authentically dull people figured it out and have their fingers squarely on the pulse of truth. Please. The poor churl who shows up at my door in white socks on Sunday with pants above his ankles to spread the word, has found the truth, eh? These people have found a secret the way someone under hypnosis finds they are a dog.

Atheists do not have to prove anything, unless they insist there is no God. If all they do is accuse religioinsts of fantasy until they can provide some proof, they themselves do not have to prove a thing. It should be their position that the relgionists do. Any atheist in her right mind should know she cannot prove there is no God, just as she knows no religionist can prove there is one. 

Advice to atheists and religionists: Leave people alone. Why should they believe you?

----------


## Pompey Bum

> I was thinking more along the lines of this typology and personality research. In the typology studied in which they first interviewed 50+ nonbelievers and then had someone code for similarities and differences, they found six different types of nonbelievers:
> 
> 1) Intellectual Atheist
> 2) Activist
> 3) Seeker-Agnostic
> 4) Anti-Theist
> 5) Non-Theist
> 6) Ritual Atheists
> 
> You can read the descriptions of each in the link above. I've met people in each of these categories in real life and the internet. What each of these sub-groups has in common is nonbelief in God, but their attitudes towards religion differ, their attitudes about atheism itself differ, and their attitudes about approach differ as well.


I didn't read this report in detail, but 50 is much too small a sample size for the results to be taken seriously, isn't it? I take it for granted, by the way, that there is a wide degree of personal diversity among atheists and theists (and especially among agnostics, since everyone is necessarily an agnostic and goes from there). But this approach seems to limit diversity by creating a few unsubstantiated categories in which some may be pleased to recognize themselves or others--rather like a horoscope of atheism.

----------


## tailor STATELY

> I notice the only ones calling atheism a religion are those who hate atheists. How curious.


No hate here... what a curious leap. I read an article (lengthy) earlier today from 9/10/2016 by one of my church's General Authorities that sums up what I believe re: theist non-theists, etc: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/articl...freedom-dallas 

Exerps and ycerps: 


> V.
> 
> How should we resolve current conflicts between nondiscrimination and the free exercise of religion? Our main message is that we should all cease fire in the culture wars and join in efforts to achieve fairness for all. In our pluralistic society all must learn to live peacefully with laws, institutions, and persons who do not share our most basic values.
> .
> .
> As noted there, we should encourage all to refrain from the common practice of labeling adversaries with such epithets as “godless” or “bigot.” This kind of name-calling chills free speech by seeking to impose personal, social, or professional punishments on the speech or positions of adversaries.


Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

----------


## Pompey Bum

From Tailor's cited quotation: "...we should encourage all to refrain from the common practice of labeling adversaries with such epithets as 'Godless' or 'bigot.' This kind of name-calling chills free speech by seeking to impose personal, social, or professional punishments on the speech or positions of adversaries."

With respect, Tailor, it is important to call bigotry what it is, and discouraging that kind of truth telling is the real chill on free speech. I will not sacrifice my free speech in any case, especially in the face of one who is actively oppressing others. That would be the bigot, not you, by the way.  :Smile:

----------


## Pompey Bum

.............

----------


## Drkshadow03

> I didn't read this report in detail, but 50 is much too small a sample size for the results to be taken seriously, isn't it? I take it for granted, by the way, that there is a wide degree of personal diversity among atheists and theists (and especially among agnostics, since everyone is necessarily an agnostic and goes from there). But this approach seems to limit diversity by creating a few unsubstantiated categories in which some may be pleased to recognize themselves or others--rather like a horoscope of atheism.


The study had two parts: a qualitative interview part with 50+ and then a quantitative part where they gave 1153 atheists (much larger sample) the six typologies with descriptions and asked them to select the one that best describes their understanding of their own atheism. They then also gave them multiple personality tests such as the Big 5 personality, Rokeach Dogmatism test, Ryff Autonomy and Positive Relationship with Others. 

While I'm not claiming to be an expert in social science methodology, it seems to me interviews for the sake of theorizing typologies don't require as large a sample size. You're analyzing the differences and similarities in responses. Everyone's responses are represented equally because the goal is to develop categories from interview questions. So if one group is overrepresented and another underrepresented it doesn't matter because each group is STILL represented in some way. You're not measuring how many atheists are in each group at this point, just that such people exist and they seem to have different attitudes on various dimensions represented by the interview questions. 

In quantitative data, you're measuring a particular attribute with numbers. Larger samples matter. Too small a sample allows extreme results to occur by chance. The problem is that all the individual parts and diversity is being represented in a single number and too small a sample can allow extremes to pull up the average. If you have a larger sample the closer you're to representing the actual population and approaching the actual number of that attribute of the population.

----------


## YesNo

> Can someone please answer the following question: *How can the universe be 6 or 7,000 years old--- according to the fundamentalist-apologists for Genesis--- when the light from distant stars have been travelling for more than 6 or 7,000 years to reach our eyes??* The speed of light??? 299,792,458 meters per second (yes folks, I'm using the metric system, get over it). By the way I'm quoting Sam Harris's book _The End of Faith_.


What I find valuable in Genesis I are two ideas (1) the universe was created and (2) it was good. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1 

That the universe had at least a beginning is validated by the big bang. To assume the universe is not good puts one into a very problematic philosophical position since we are part of the universe.

The idea that the universe is young is called "Young Earth creationism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism 

Among those who gave dates for the creation, Isaac Newton suggested it was 4000 BC and Kepler gave 3977 BC as the date.

----------


## YesNo

> Have I ever heard anything so weak as the exclusive benefits of religion include subjectivity, diversity and humanization? That is truly pathetic. I guess we can all now admit that atheists have no chance at subjectivity, diversity and humanization. Only religion can offer that. These things come exclusively with religion. That is the most anemic argument for religion I have ever encountered.


Atheists certainly have a chance at subjectivity, diversity and humanization. They are human like everyone else. Also other religions besides the various forms of atheism may not score high on these either. Mentioning imperialism, dehumanization and idolatry is a way to point out problems one might find in any religion, not just atheism.

Of course atheists and theists are not the same. Neither are Hindus and Catholics the same. One can continue creating subcategories.

At a high level atheists and theists share a common characteristic: They take a stand on the default theistic position that members of our species will accept as long as we exist as a species. It is because of that common characteristic that they can be classified as a religion rather than, say, a political group.

----------


## mona amon

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjr_7mxH3Rs
> 
> (litnet teaches a course on atheism)


 :FRlol:  I haven't watched much South Park but I do remember that episode.

----------


## mortalterror

> I was thinking more along the lines of this typology and personality research. In the typology studied in which they first interviewed 50+ nonbelievers and then had someone code for similarities and differences, they found six different types of nonbelievers:
> 
> 1) Intellectual Atheist
> 2) Activist
> 3) Seeker-Agnostic
> 4) Anti-Theist
> 5) Non-Theist
> 6) Ritual Atheists
> 
> You can read the descriptions of each in the link above. I've met people in each of these categories in real life and the internet. What each of these sub-groups has in common is nonbelief in God, but their attitudes towards religion differ, their attitudes about atheism itself differ, and their attitudes about approach differ as well.


I'll have to give that site a look. Categorizing atheists by the single stance of their relationship to religion or the All Mighty is definitely one way to go about it. But we don't usually categorize theists in that matter. I tend to think of the branches of atheist thought in terms of philosophical lineage. You have the French school that traces it's roots to Voltaire, Diderot, d'Holbach and other Enlightenment era atheists. Then you have the German school with Marx, Engels, Freud, Feuerebach, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. The British school of utilitarians such as Bentham, Godwin, and Mill. The Russians or communists which include Lenin, Stalin, Bakunin, Trotsky (Mao, Guevara). There's the Positivists starting with Comte and Durkheim. And the New Atheists represented by Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett. These are each sort of families with a series of common thoughts among them and well established positions on materialism, atomism, utilitarianism, positivism, rationalism, empiricism, liberalism, etc.

Personally, I'm a little loathe to describe a group of people as "Intellectual Atheists" too since we don't describe any other group that way and it draws a natural contrast to it's opposite. Are theists then anti-intellectual? The adjective itself is prejudicial since everyone wants to be seen as an intelligent person, although in actual fact very few deserve that distinction. It would be like putting the word "loving" or "good" in front of Christian and asking people if they were that kind of Christian. That's sort of why I object to the term "Brights" because it implies that the rest of us are "dim." I think that while a lot of people in atheism prize intellect as a major virtue, what they really are is elitist since they have a corresponding disdain for people of average intellect. This contrasts with the more egalitarian philosophy of Christianity which says blessed are the meek, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, give us your tired, your weary, those with bad credit, low credit, no credit, etc.

----------


## Red Terror

> Genesis chapter 1 was never intended as a scientific account - light is created on Sunday and the sun and stars only on Wednesday. An interesting philosophic idea but scientifically untenable.
> 
> Just a thought about Hypatia - her murder is a total disgrace to Christianity, but there have been plenty of examples of mob violence being justified by socialism, I'm very sorry to say.


Thanks for citing evidence for your claim. I'm thoroughly convinced and won over to your side (sarcasm intended).

----------


## Pompey Bum

Thank you for that explanation, Drkshadow. 1153 still seems mighty small for the study to have much power (and there are also questions of selection bias, etc.), but I am willing to assume a diversity of views among atheists in any case. I also find the distinction between atheists and anti-theists helpful. That distinction was implicitly drawn in the conclusion to Tim O'Niell's blog post on the historicity of Agora, for which you gave us a link. It helped me put aside Red Terror's either-or thinking. This was O'Niell's final paragraph:

"And, as usual, bigots and anti-theistic zealots will ignore the evidence, the sources and rational analysis and believe Hollywood's appeal to their prejudices. It makes you wonder who the real enemies of reason actually are."

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2...d-strikes.html

As a matter of anecdotal experience (sample size = 1), the vast majority of non-believers I've met have been atheist intellectuals who were simply following the light of reason. We respected each other (I am a Christian), learned from each other, and had fun together. I have known anti-theistic intellectuals, too. Some I have respected, most I have disprected. But their anti-theism was not the direct cause of my disrespect.

In the looking glass world of the Internet I find the situation reversed. Atheist intellectuals like O'Niell and you (I am assuming you are an atheist) are the exception. Uneducated anti-theists--an odd mix of atheist wannabes and angry anti-intellectuals--are the rule. The wannabes don't really understand how reason works so they usually cut and paste other people's ideas rather than express their own (who has ears, hear). They seem to attack theists because they imagine it's just what atheists are supposed to do. My impression is that many of them have been overawed by atheist websites and/or cyber bullies. They want to join (or create) the pile on for fear the pile on will happened to them. So the bullied become wannabe bullies. It's an old story.

I find anti-intellectual anti-theists more common. They appear to be people who feel put down about their lack of education so they try to use scraps of science and atheism to show "who the smart ones really are." Their anti-theistic attacks are motivated by anger and class rage. They are more likely to learn their out of their intolerance than the wannabes.

For all that, theists are worse. Theistic anti-atheism is, of course, the norm. Members of different (and sometimes the same) religious groups regularly attack one another. And "scientific" theists are the worst of the all. Their ideology is necessary catholic (small c) and orthodox (small o), so their rage against atheism (or even ecumenism) is positively Medieval. At least atheists (usually) learn to live with their differences. 

Conclusion: the only one in the universe with any sense is Mona Amon. Yes you, Mona. Congratulations. It must get lonely.

----------


## JCamilo

> I'll have to give that site a look. Categorizing atheists by the single stance of their relationship to religion or the All Mighty is definitely one way to go about it. But we don't usually categorize theists in that matter. I tend to think of the branches of atheist thought in terms of philosophical lineage. You have the French school that traces it's roots to Voltaire, Diderot, d'Holbach and other Enlightenment era atheists. Then you have the German school with Marx, Engels, Freud, Feuerebach, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. The British school of utilitarians such as Bentham, Godwin, and Mill. The Russians or communists which include Lenin, Stalin, Bakunin, Trotsky (Mao, Guevara). There's the Positivists starting with Comte and Durkheim. And the New Atheists represented by Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett. These are each sort of families with a series of common thoughts among them and well established positions on materialism, atomism, utilitarianism, positivism, rationalism, empiricism, liberalism, etc.


I know Voltaire is not among your usual readings (even if he was a biased classicist and a big Racine defender), but he was not an atheist. In fact, he was pretty much anti-atheist, only giving some of them credit, because the tendency that out-spoken atheists be part of enlightment circles he had contact and that they were, according to him, tolerant while among religious people you would find intolerance. An Atheist would be a bit better than a Jesuit, but Voltaire considered an absurd the non-existense of God and the absence of cause (or reason) in the creation of the universe and thus all natural working. With all hyper-reason speech atributed to Voltaire, he considered that it was impossible to explain everything, in fact necessary to exist mysteries and that God was among those. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him was an attack on atheism after all.

----------


## Drkshadow03

> I'll have to give that site a look. Categorizing atheists by the single stance of their relationship to religion or the All Mighty is definitely one way to go about it. But we don't usually categorize theists in that matter. I tend to think of the branches of atheist thought in terms of philosophical lineage. You have the French school that traces it's roots to Voltaire, Diderot, d'Holbach and other Enlightenment era atheists. Then you have the German school with Marx, Engels, Freud, Feuerebach, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. The British school of utilitarians such as Bentham, Godwin, and Mill. The Russians or communists which include Lenin, Stalin, Bakunin, Trotsky (Mao, Guevara). There's the Positivists starting with Comte and Durkheim. And the New Atheists represented by Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett. These are each sort of families with a series of common thoughts among them and well established positions on materialism, atomism, utilitarianism, positivism, rationalism, empiricism, liberalism, etc.
> 
> Personally, I'm a little loathe to describe a group of people as "Intellectual Atheists" too since we don't describe any other group that way and it draws a natural contrast to it's opposite. Are theists then anti-intellectual?


I think there is more than one way to approach the issue. As you suggest, another approach can be to trace different types or strands of atheism through intellectual history. It is a matter of different approaches, which will produce slightly different results. 

I don't find "Intellectual Atheist" that prejudicial as a term simply because the goal in this particular study seems to be to contrast different types of atheists with each other rather than with theists. The idea is not that they are smarter, but rather their atheism is grounded in their intellectual pursuits and that is how they express it. Many of them probably really enjoy Philosophy of Science and Religion and likely see their atheism as grounded in their study and interest in philosophy.




> Thank you for that explanation, Drkshadow. 1153 still seems mighty small for the study to have much power (and there are also questions of selection bias, etc.), but I am willing to assume a diversity of views among atheists in any case. I also find the distinction between atheists and anti-theists helpful. That distinction was implicitly drawn in the conclusion to Tim O'Niell's blog post on the historicity of Agora, for which you gave us a link. It helped me put aside Red Terror's either-or thinking. This was O'Niell's final paragraph:
> 
> "And, as usual, bigots and anti-theistic zealots will ignore the evidence, the sources and rational analysis and believe Hollywood's appeal to their prejudices. It makes you wonder who the real enemies of reason actually are."
> 
> http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2...d-strikes.html
> 
> As a matter of anecdotal experience (sample size = 1), the vast majority of non-believers I've met have been atheist intellectuals who were simply following the light of reason. We respected each other (I am a Christian), learned from each other, and had fun together. I have known anti-theistic intellectuals, too. Some I have respected, most I have disprected. But their anti-theism was not the direct cause of my disrespect.
> 
> In the looking glass world of the Internet I find the situation reversed. Atheist intellectuals like O'Niell and you (I am assuming you are an atheist) are the exception. Uneducated anti-theists--an odd mix of atheist wannabes and angry anti-intellectuals--are the rule. The wannabes don't really understand how reason works so they usually cut and paste other people's ideas rather than express their own (who has ears, hear). They seem to attack theists because they imagine it's just what atheists are supposed to do. My impression is that many of them have been overawed by atheist websites and/or cyber bullies. They want to join (or create) the pile on for fear the pile on will happened to them. So the bullied become wannabe bullies. It's an old story.
> ...


I agree the difference between atheist and anti-theist is useful. I think most people are reacting more to the latter. Not sure I agree all anti-theist are anti-intellectual, more like biased and close-minded. Do you have any evidence that they lack education? I'm also not really sure what you mean by "scientific" theists. Like Newton?

----------


## Pompey Bum

> I agree the difference between atheist and anti-theist is useful. I think most people are reacting more to the latter. Not sure I agree all anti-theist are anti-intellectual, more like biased and close-minded. Do you have any evidence that they lack education?


No, as I said, I have known intellectual anti-theists and even respected a few. The only anti-theists I have known to be uneducated are those (invariably online) who have boasted as much.




> I'm also not really sure what you mean by "scientific" theists. Like Newton?


No, I was talking about modern theistic "fringe science." When one's religion and science are equated, all differing religions must go. In my experience it ends up being a mask for intolerance.

----------


## Jackson Richardson

> Thanks for citing evidence for your claim. I'm thoroughly convinced and won over to your side (sarcasm intended).


I was making exactly the same point as I thought you were - the first chapter of Genesis is inconsistent with any scientific understanding of the world. I was not making any other "claim".

----------


## Drkshadow03

> No, as I said, I have known intellectual anti-theists and even respected a few. The only anti-theists I have known to be uneducated are those (invariably online) who have boasted as much.


Ah, my mistake.

----------


## mona amon

Thanks, Pompey!  :Blush:

----------


## Red Terror

> I was making exactly the same point as I thought you were - the first chapter of Genesis is inconsistent with any scientific understanding of the world. I was not making any other "claim".


That's not what I meant. I was referring to the 2nd part of your statement.

In any case, remember what the writer William James once said, "We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause."

*Letter to E.L. Godkin (24 December 1895)*

----------


## Pompey Bum

> Genesis chapter 1 was never intended as a scientific account - light is created on Sunday and the sun and stars only on Wednesday. An interesting philosophic idea but scientifically untenable.
> 
> Just a thought about Hypatia - her murder is a total disgrace to Christianity, but there have been plenty of examples of mob violence being justified by socialism, I'm very sorry to say.





> Thanks for citing evidence for your claim. I'm thoroughly convinced and won over to your side (sarcasm intended).


 


> I was making exactly the same point as I thought you were - the first chapter of Genesis is inconsistent with any scientific understanding of the world. I was not making any other "claim".





> That's not what I meant. I was referring to the 2nd part of your statement.
> 
> In any case, remember what the writer William James once said, "We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause."
> 
> *Letter to E.L. Godkin (24 December 1895)*


Good point, Red Terror. If socialists had murdered Hypatia it would have been okay.  :FRlol: 




> Heh heh heh. Right, Red Terror, but that is from a description of THE FILM. My contention is that the film was ahistorical in suggesting that very thing. But I will gladly stand corrected if you can provide evidence that the above story is true, or that Hypatia of Alexandria ever advanced the idea of heliocentrism. If you can't, I call on your integrity to admit that you have given undue credence to the historicity of this movie.
> 
> In the meantime, happy hunting!


Still nothin', huh?

----------


## YesNo

> That's not what I meant. I was referring to the 2nd part of your statement.
> 
> In any case, remember what the writer William James once said, "We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause."
> 
> *Letter to E.L. Godkin (24 December 1895)*


What is you view of the Khmer Rouge (Communist Party of Kampuchea) acts of genocide? Here is a documentary, but there are shorter ones on YouTube you could check out as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqiSgciK16k

----------


## Red Terror

You are a spammer, who likes to put words into people's mouths. Sweet trolling ...




> Good point, Red Terror. If socialists had murdered Hypatia it would have been okay. 
> 
> 
> 
> Still nothin', huh?

----------


## Red Terror

> What is you view of the Khmer Rouge (Communist Party of Kampuchea) acts of genocide? Here is a documentary, but there are shorter ones on YouTube you could check out as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqiSgciK16k


Their political programme can hardly be described as Marxist. They were more akin to ancient Sparta with a youthful military caste than Marxism-Leninism. I like the way how you totally ignored the massive U.S. bombing campaign which drove people into the cities to escape the horror of the countryside. Just because people call themselves communist does not mean that they are. Oh and did you know that the U.S. supported Pol Pot and his government when the Vietnamese government invaded and overthrew his regime? Food for thought.

----------


## YesNo

> Their political programme can hardly be described as Marxist. They were more akin to ancient Sparta with a youthful military caste than Marxism-Leninism. I like the way how you totally ignored the massive U.S. bombing campaign which drove people into the cities to escape the horror of the countryside. Just because people call themselves communist does not mean that they are. Oh and did you know that the U.S. supported Pol Pot and his government when the Vietnamese government invaded and overthrew his regime? Food for thought.


I agree with you about the problems with the US and Vietnam and Pol Pot. I am old enough to remember those days and I am not trying to justify them. 
 
Let me make this more hypothetical. Suppose the Khmer Rouge were communist by your way of thinking, would you approve of the actions taken? Do those means justify a communist end?

----------


## Pompey Bum

> Thanks, Pompey!


Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention, Mona.  :Smile:

----------


## Pompey Bum

> What is you view of the Khmer Rouge (Communist Party of Kampuchea) acts of genocide? Here is a documentary, but there are shorter ones on YouTube you could check out as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqiSgciK16k





> Their political programme can hardly be described as Marxist. They were more akin to ancient Sparta with a youthful military caste than Marxism-Leninism. I like the way how you totally ignored the massive U.S. bombing campaign which drove people into the cities to escape the horror of the countryside. Just because people call themselves communist does not mean that they are. Oh and did you know that the U.S. supported Pol Pot and his government when the Vietnamese government invaded and overthrew his regime? Food for thought.





> Let me make this more hypothetical. Suppose the Khmer Rouge were communist by your way of thinking, would you approve of the actions taken? Do those means justify a communist end?


And just to make it more interesting, let's say they were lying about being middle aged and having a master's degree in Shakespeare. Would you approve?  :Smile:

----------


## YesNo

> And just to make it more interesting, let's say they were lying about being middle aged and having a master's degree in Shakespeare. Would you approve?


I think there's a lot of lying going on. I don't know how to classify it. Some bothers me more than others.

If we compare Hypatia with the Khmer Rouge, it would seem that the Khmer Rouge was worse and more recent. I can imagine that Christians have learnt some lessons since the time of Hypatia, but the Khmer Rouge is very recent. My concern with all of this is to identify what thought processes made these acts possible and then rethink them somehow. 

Also any sharp distinction between atheism and theism is not all that sharp. We use the same words.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> I think there's a lot of lying going on.


You're not kidding.  :Smile: 




> I have seen the ghost of my aunt when she died over 20 years ago. I was in Maine, in graduate school, minding my own business, when she appeared in the student common room of the house where I was staying. We had a brief conversation in our minds and she vanished. Later I got a call from my parents saying that she had died.


Somebody pass the marshmallows.  :FRlol:

----------


## mortalterror

> Somebody pass the marshmallows.


I'm not prepared to call bull**** on that, however unlikely and out of the norm it seems. I've read about things like that occurring to people and have had similar experiences myself. There are other more mundane explanations, often more psychological than paranormal, but once you've actually experienced something like that a totally rational explanation is never completely satisfying. I prefer the logical, scientific explanation, but I leave a small window of doubt open for other possible explanations. I don't believe that most cases of miracles are authentic, but I also don't rule them out completely either. It seems like there are so many accounts by so many people over the years that if even one or two were real it would change everything we think we know about the nature of reality.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> I'm not prepared to call bull**** on that


Yikes, I sure am. I don't begrudge YN his views, but I do begrudge him his sanctimoniousness, especially in the face of a whopper like that. Fess up when you fib, YN, and let's all move on. You too, RT.

----------


## mortalterror

> And just to make it more interesting, let's say they were lying about being middle aged and having a master's degree in Shakespeare. Would you approve?


proof.jpg
In case anyone doubts that I have a BA in Engish.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Washington, huh? Suddenly it all makes sense. [  :Smile:  ]

----------


## mortalterror

> Yikes, I sure am. I don't begrudge YN his views, but I do begrudge him his sanctimoniousness, especially in the face of a whopper like that. Fess up when you fib, YN, and let's all move on. You too, RT.


The thing about that is there are always multiple possible interpretations of events, and depending on the observers personal philosophy one interpretation will always be more likely than another. Personally, I like to leave myself a little latitude, a measure of wiggle room for my conclusions. When it comes to religion or science I am largely convinced but with reservations. I have my doubts about the accuracy of both. I find that in cases of extreme credulity or incredulity what most subjects boil down to are the bedrock issues of probability, justification, and warrant.

Interestingly enough, I've read studies where atheists were more likely to believe in the supernatural than theists were. There appears to be a psychological replacement going on. When they reject religion they replace it with a belief in magic, ghosts, psychics, aliens, lucky charms, the evil eye, etc. Conversely, the more religious and orthodox a person was, the less likely they were to believe in such things. Sometimes, I wonder if the Inquisition was an attempt by the Church to impose rationality on superstitious peasants, and cleanse Europe of all irrational belief in magic or fairies rather than a witch hunt like it's often portrayed.

One of the things I've noticed in the atheist community is their unwillingness to trust authority figures or subscribe to the official explanation on certain subjects. This leads large numbers of people to believe in some very far fetched things. I've long wanted to see statistics on the religious beliefs of 9/11 truthers or people who think Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy, just to confirm this hunch, but to my knowledge nobody has gathered that data yet. There are so few studies done on the beliefs of atheists compared to the massive data pool on believers. It's really a shame how little we know about this interesting minority of society.

----------


## Red Terror

I admire Lenin's conception of true morality which is based on class interests not on superstitious nonsense. This is the truth. This is what's real!!!

Lenin said:

"But is there such a thing as communist ethics? Is there such a thing as communist morality? Of course, there is. It is often suggested that we have no ethics of our own; very often the bourgeoisie accuse us Communists of rejecting all morality. This is a method of confusing the issue, of throwing dust in the eyes of the workers and peasants. 

In what sense do we reject ethics, reject morality? 

In the sense given to it by the bourgeoisie, who based ethics on God's commandments. On this point we, of course, say that we do not believe in God, and that we know perfectly well that the clergy, the landowners and the bourgeoisie invoked the name of God so as to further their own interests as exploiters. Or, instead of basing ethics on the commandments of morality, on the commandments of God, they based it on idealist or semi-idealist phrases, which always amounted to something very similar to God's commandments. 

We reject any morality based on extra-human and extra-class concepts. We say that this is deception, dupery, stultification of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landowners and capitalists. 

We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat's class struggle. Our morality stems from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. 

The old society was based on the oppression of all the workers and peasants by the landowners and capitalists. We had to destroy all that, and overthrow them but to do that we had to create unity. That is something that God cannot create." 

*By the way, do you know that the U.S. invaded the Soviet Union???? I wonder if any of you are aware of this little item of history?*





> I agree with you about the problems with the US and Vietnam and Pol Pot. I am old enough to remember those days and I am not trying to justify them. 
> 
> Let me make this more hypothetical. Suppose the Khmer Rouge were communist by your way of thinking, would you approve of the actions taken? Do those means justify a communist end?

----------


## Red Terror

> I agree with you about the problems with the US and Vietnam and Pol Pot. I am old enough to remember those days and I am not trying to justify them. 
> 
> Let me make this more hypothetical. Suppose the Khmer Rouge were communist by your way of thinking, would you approve of the actions taken? Do those means justify a communist end?


*I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I posed about the U.S. invading the Soviet Union. In the interim I will leave you all with a little reflection about why the Russians clamped down on Eastern Europe from 1945-1989.*

Of course it is not possible for the people of an un-bombed, un-invaded nation really to understand what happened to the Russians. The Nazis and their allies occupied Soviet territory in which 88,000,000 people had lived. They destroyed, completely or partially, fifteen large cities, 1,710 towns, and 70,000 villages. They burned or demolished 6,000,000 buildings and deprived 25,000,000 people of shelter.

They demolished 31,850 industrial enterprises, 65,000 kilometers of railway track and 4,100 railway stations; 36,000 postal, telegraph and telephone offices; 56,000 miles of main highway, 90,000 bridges and 10,000 power stations. The Germans ruined 1,135 coal mines and 3,000 oil wells, carrying off to Germany 14,000 steam boilers, 1,400 turbines and 11,300 electric generators.

Any reflection on these figures by American city dwellers will undermine the idea that Russia can have no motive in the world except aggression. Farm people, too, will see another possibility when they think of the meaning of 98,000 collective farms and 2,890 machine and tractor stations sacked and the following numbers of livestock slaughtered by the Germans or carried away by them: 7,000,000 horses, 17,000,000 cattle, 20,000,000 hogs, 27,000,000 sheep and goats, 110,000,000 poultry. What would the American countryside be like if this kind of scourge had passed over it? And what feelings would be left behind?

The Germans and their satellites were no more tender with Soviet cultural institutions. They looted and destroyed 40,000 hospitals and medical centers, 84,000 schools and colleges, and 43,000 public libraries with 110,000,000 volumes. Some 44,000 theaters were destroyed, and 427 museums. Even the churches did not escape, more than 2,800 being wrecked.

In this country these figures do not burn holes in the page, but in Russia what they represent has been burned so deeply into the minds of the people that generations of safe living would be required even partially to eradicate them. There are between Nashville and Atlanta some people who still feel deeply about what General Sherman did on his march to the sea nearly a hundred years ago. What would our feelings be if the United States had been ravaged, as Russia was, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, with 15,000,000 people killed, twice as many made homeless, and 60,000,000 treated to every degrading and brutalizing experience that the fascist mind could invent? Only then could we really know how the Russians feel about their security from future attack through East Europe.

The Rule of Fear and Hindsight in World Politics 

D. F. Fleming 

The Western Political Quarterly 

Vol. 3, No. 4 (Dec., 1950), pp. 528-537 

Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/442512?s...n_tab_contents

----------


## Pompey Bum

> The thing about that is there are always multiple possible interpretations of events, and depending on the observers personal philosophy one interpretation will always be more likely than another. Personally, I like to leave myself a little latitude, a measure of wiggle room for my conclusions. When it comes to religion or science I am largely convinced but with reservations. I have my doubts about the accuracy of both. I find that in cases of extreme credulity or incredulity what most subjects boil down to are the bedrock issues of probability, justification, and warrant.


Oh, I'm completely open to ghosts being demonstrated under laboratory conditions with repeatable results. I'm not holding my breath, though. And I am of the opinion that YN is deliberately lying about his aunt (or whoever it was supposed to be). But if I found out that he wasn't lying, I would apologize. 




> Interestingly enough, I've read studies where atheists were more likely to believe in the supernatural than theists were. There appears to be a psychological replacement going on. When they reject religion they replace it with a belief in magic, ghosts, psychics, aliens, lucky charms, the evil eye, etc.


I have noticed that sort of credulity among some internet anti-theists. But most of the atheist intellectuals I have known--or at least the ones I have discussed the subject with--pooh-poohed ghosts and such things. But of course my experience is not a randomized one, as presumably a study would be.




> Sometimes, I wonder if the Inquisition was an attempt by the Church to impose rationality on superstitious peasants, and cleanse Europe of all irrational belief in magic or fairies rather than a witch hunt like it's often portrayed.


No doubt some of the friars in the field believed that's what they were doing, but the institutional goal was the promotion of unanimity and uniformity (that is, orthodoxy) by the destruction of dissent (that is heresy). But orthodoxy is not synonymous with theism or even Christianity. Indeed, many an unorthodox/heretical Christian went into the flames.

----------


## Danik 2016

For the sake of context I am including the link of the whole discussion about the faith in the supenatural which I found quite interesting:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...69#post1263969.
Personally, in spite of considering myself a predominantly rational person, I feel that the uncanny is present around us. And it is well so: without it neither the fairy stories nor the horror stories based on supernatural issues would ever affect us. And there wouldn´t be any nightmares either.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Thanks, Danik. This is from November 29, 2014. It is remarkably similar to what I just said to MT:




> I will believe in ghosts when they can be conjured up in laboratory conditions with repeatable results. Until then, they remain a matter of faith, and I do not have faith in their existence. (It is a source of amazement and amusement to me, by the way, how many people believe in ghosts, or souls, or soul mates, or a host of other things they find cool, but disdain faith in God as wishful thinking--but I guess that is for another discussion). I don't believe in ghosts, but of course I am open-minded to the possibility of their eventual "discovery."





> Personally, in spite of considering myself a predominantly rational person, I feel that the uncanny is present around us. And it is well so: without it neither the fairy stories nor the horror stories based on supernatural issues would ever affect us. And there wouldn´t be any nightmares either.


But that is only to say that the irrational mind is a part of the human experience. Take a stand, Danik. Do you or do you not believe in ghosts?

----------


## Danik 2016

I myself didn´t have this experience. But I heard storys including one of a person of my family, that is very close to me. So I believe yes that there are sensitive people with visions and forebodings. You yourself describe an experience in the same thread that might have an rational explanation or not.

----------


## Pompey Bum

No, as I said at the time, there was nothing supernatural about it. But your sudden conversion is interesting. If you believe there are "sensitive people with visions and forebodings" then you must think there is something that their sensitivity allows them to perceive. So despite your professed rationalism (and consequent rejection of religion), you do accept things that may not have a widely accepted rational explanation. Are you only a rationalist when rejecting a point of view you don't particularly like? Or are you just in the closet about being superstitious?  :Smile:

----------


## Danik 2016

No conversion here. When I say I am racional I merely am saying that I approach issues more often with the head than with the heart.
And I also don´t reject religion, I don´t know what one thing has to do with the other. I try to keep an open mind for things I don´t understand. That´s all.
And that is all I have to say on that matter. I don´t feel that religious discussions are fruitfull.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Okay, fine. I mean, I remember you telling me once that "we" had moved beyond religion, which is probably how got the idea you rejected it. But I certainly respect your privacy and your opinion.

----------


## YesNo

> *I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I posed about the U.S. invading the Soviet Union. In the interim I will leave you all with a little reflection about why the Russians clamped down on Eastern Europe from 1945-1989.*


I was unaware of the US invading the Soviet Union. As far as whether I would support such a thing, I am more or less a pacifist and so I would say that I would not although I don't know the details.

----------


## Danik 2016

I don´t remember the particular issue or thread. We had an discussion about the use of "we". It was in fact an language issue, something I only noticed when you objected to it. In Portuguese one often uses "we" when one means one. Since that discussion I always have used one to avoid the appearance of indignant bunny ears under my post.  :Wink:

----------


## YesNo

> Oh, I'm completely open to ghosts being demonstrated under laboratory conditions with repeatable results. I'm not holding my breath, though. And I am of the opinion that YN is deliberately lying about his aunt (or whoever it was supposed to be). But if I found out that he wasn't lying, I would apologize.


I wasn't lying.

Also you can search for "shared death experiences" or "after death communication" for information about other people who have seen "ghosts".

Also, you might want to read your own sacred texts if you need evidence for "ghosts". Christianity is based on the ghost stories of people who saw Jesus after his death.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> I don´t remember the particular issue or thread. We had an discussion about the use of "we". It was in fact an language issue, something I only noticed when you objected to it. In Portuguese one often uses "we" when one means one. Since that discussion I always have used one to avoid the appearance of indignant bunny ears under my post.


Okay look, you said you didn't want to pursue this, and now you're pursuing it. I walked away and you kept going. You are telling me now that when you said we you meant I because of Portuguese idiom. That's fine, but it also means that when you said "we" had moved beyond religion, you meant that YOU had moved beyond religion. So can you also say that you don't reject religion (for yourself, I mean)? 

I think you are trying to have things both ways. If you believe in ghosts but you don't believe in God, then fine. You have a right to your opinion, so stand by it. But straight answers please. Your hemming and hawing is driving me nuts.

So let's try this again:

Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in God?

And may I suggest that if you "don't feel religious discussions are fruitful" you might not want to post on discussions in the religion forum?  :Smile:

----------


## mona amon

> *By the way, do you know that the U.S. invaded the Soviet Union???? I wonder if any of you are aware of this little item of history?*


Do you mean the American Expeditionary force Siberia http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/siberia.htm ? That's all I found on Google. Hardly "an invasion of the Soviet Union". Or did I miss something?

----------


## Red Terror

> Do you mean the American Expeditionary force Siberia http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/siberia.htm ? That's all I found on Google. Hardly "an invasion of the Soviet Union". Or did I miss something


That website is a whitewash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What else can one expect of those "winners" who "write history". Fourteen foreign armies invaded Soviet Russia during these years: USA, England, France Japan among others --- a little over 100,000 troops invaded Russia and you call that "hardly an invasion"????

Imagine if the opposite had happened; you would never hear the end of it in the USA. Instead we are treated to great Hollywood productions like *Red Dawn* (starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, and C. Thomas Howell) showing how the Soviets, the Cubans and the Nicaraguans all invade the USA and are repulsed by a handful of teenage guerrillas in the Rocky Mountains. Television movies like *Invasion USA* and *Amerika* also depict America being invaded by the commies. The Americans and their allies, contrary to the claims of that website, were not "acting nobly" or were "protecting Russians." They were trying to restore the tsar to power and were committing atrocities in the process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied...sian_Civil_War

"The boys of capital, they ... chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century-- without exception-- has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement-- from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in El Salvador-- not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home." 

Its as if the Wright brothers first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of the world looked upon this, took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Man shall never fly." *Killing Hope by William Blum*

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Einstein.htm

----------


## mortalterror

> Okay, fine. I mean, I remember you telling me once that "we" had moved beyond religion, which is probably how got the idea you rejected it. But I certainly respect your privacy and your opinion.


I don't get how you can move beyond religion any more than you can move beyond science. Religion is basically just rituals and philosophy that enrich the inner life of man. It's spiritual technology meant to take one to the core of his being the way that a rocket ship takes men to the moon. Saying we could move beyond it is absurd, like saying we'd move beyond music, literature, or art.

----------


## Clopin

^ I think so too. 

Also Pompey brings up something I hadn't really considered in how many people who are outright disdainful of _religion_ are also huge advocates for all sorts of _spiritualism_ or other supernatural beliefs. I see this all the time with people around my age or a bit younger; if you asked a roomful of kids aged 19-24 at my school whether or not they were religious I think fewer than 1 in 5 would raise their hand, but you'd get a lot of chatter about Gnosticism and Deism and what they personally believe. I think it's a flattering self identity thing: "Religious people are dumb idiots who can't think for themselves but _I've_ developed my own theology that centres around like... nature so I'm better than that...", is, I think, what they're going for.

----------


## YesNo

Are there many students in your school who might take views similar to Red Terror's? I assume those views would be a form of atheism.

Sometimes people will present philosophic views claiming everything is deterministic, with some uniform randomness thrown in just in case. They get this from mathematical models of the universe. In those views, no one and nothing makes a "choice" and so no one and nothing can be conscious. Any subjectivity or consciousness is an epiphenomenon on top of unconscious matter. That implies that both religion and spiritualism are delusions. 

That would be the kind of view that I could see claiming "religious people are dumb idiots who can't think for themselves".

----------


## Clopin

Yes, I think Red Terror would fit in rather well lol

----------


## Pompey Bum

> I don't get how you can move beyond religion any more than you can move beyond science. Religion is basically just rituals and philosophy that enrich the inner life of man. It's spiritual technology meant to take one to the core of his being the way that a rocket ship takes men to the moon. Saying we could move beyond it is absurd, like saying we'd move beyond music, literature, or art.


To be fair to Danik, I was only paraphrasing him. He may have said we have moved beyond religion or we have put religion behind us or maybe something else. My recollection is that he was speaking in progressive political terms. We hadn't known each other long and frankly I think he was breaking out the PC to see if I'd flinch. (About the same he censured me for using the word chastity in a post--apparently it's bad for women if you say chastity). I told him, probably too sharply (sorry Danik), that he didn't speak for "we" where religion or anything else was concerned. But I don't think there was anything more to the conversation than that. We weren't discussing theology.

----------


## Ecurb

"We" (Charles Wallace and I) have moved beyond religion. Ok. Maybe not. But "we" need not include you, Pompey.

Ecurb, from WiFi in the back country, so I may not respond. Plus, I hate typing on my phone.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> "We" (Charles Wallace and I) have moved beyond religion. Ok. Maybe not. But "we" need not include you, Pompey.
> 
> Ecurb, from WiFi in the back country, so I may not respond. Plus, I hate typing on my phone.


Just then ecurb was eaten by the grizzly bear of silly equivocation.  :Smile:

----------


## Ecurb

I'm in Jasper national park. Every trail has warnings, suggesting one travel in groups of 4 or more and carry bear spray. I'm solo, and I haven't bought bear spray. 

Nonetheless, "we" is lousy writing, if it is vague. But it isn't "incorrect"

P.s. I only responded because pompey once assumed that my "we" (English is my native tongue, however little this may be evident) was incorrect. I bagged Mt. Edith Cavell yesterday. You can't have more fun than that.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Nobody was talking about the grammar.

Enjoy the moon.

----------


## Pompey Bum

> Yes, I think Red Terror would fit in rather well lol


Except of course RT (as he says) is middle aged with a master's degree in Shakespeare. You have to respect that. Heh heh.

----------


## Red Terror

> Except of course RT (as he says) is middle aged with a master's degree in Shakespeare. You have to respect that. Heh heh.


You should change your name to* Casey's Top 40* because answering your troll-posts allows me to send my threads to the top of the list again. If you were smart you'd shut your lid ... But it appears that I'll be moving up a notch ... Thanks ... keep up the bad work ...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Kasem

----------


## Pompey Bum

No doubt, no doubt. But your posts ARE fun. It always brings me a smile to see them there.  :Smile: 

So how come you lied about your age and education?

----------


## Red Terror

I haven't. There you go again. I'll be moving up a notch.

----------


## Pompey Bum

Interesting. I mean, I'm not trying to be confrontational (and, trust me, I don't care what notch you move to--is there some reason I should?). I've just never met a grown up who says things like "Dude, what's your problem????" and "Sweet trolling." So at this point, you're just trying to get out and save face, right? That's fine. Be well, Little Terror.  :Wink:

----------


## Red Terror

> Interesting. I mean, I'm not trying to be confrontational (and, trust me, I don't care what notch you move to--is there some reason I should?). I've just never met a grown up who says things like "Dude, what's your problem????" and "Sweet trolling." So at this point, you're just trying to get out and save face, right? That's fine. Be well, Little Terror.


Get that c_ck out of your hands so you can type more legibly and we can understand you better!

----------


## Red Terror

> That was very informative, thanks Pompey. I'm glad history did not forget this terrible incident. Clearly the state and religion do not mix, nor religion and science, nor religion or anything else. Or the State and anything else, for that matter. Religion should be practiced by the individual, for spiritual purposes only. I wonder if RT will agree with this, or whether he only wants religion to be vanquished from the face of the world.


I think religion should be a private matter between an individual and his conscience. Enough said.

----------

