In his Boston Globe column today James Carroll writes concerning Boris Yeltsin’s Russian Orthodox funeral ceremony: Yeltsin's lifetime spanned an interruption in world history, an era that left everything changed, including religious dogmas that claim to be unchanging. The rituals with which the Russian leader was buried last week may be ancient, but for the dogmas they represent, another god has failed. Beginning, perhaps, with Karl Marx's 1844 broadside that religion is “the sigh of the oppressed creature . . . the opium of the people,” secular critiques have challenged believers to see how faith, too, can be yoked to injustice.
If Carroll is correct that such secular criticism really began with Marx, I would be surprised. But even omitting the entire Old Testament, I recall non-secular yet harsh critiques directed to religious believers concerning this subject.
18 comments:
I can't reallty make sense of this post or Carroll's column, but I wonder how many times god(s) will have to fail before people come to the realization that is more probable than not that they don't exist.
'more probable than not'? - do gods roll dice?
"gods" certainly failed when the communist atheists killed 100 million in the twentieth century - man, if you can't trusts atheists or theists, what's left?
No gods don't roll dice. But humans do, and as you can't disprove the existence of gods, just like you can't disprove the existence of anything made up, the caveat that it is more probable than not that one doesn't exist is necessary. There is not the slightest shred of evidence that any god exists so I can't think of any reason for believing in a particular one.
As for the communist atheists, they did not kill people because they were atheists. They killed people because they believed in an ideology where social engineering served the completion of a historical process. Atheism had nothing to do with it, and there are no well thought out atheistic arguments in Communist philosophy. Religion is just something that redirects one's consciouness away from class oppression.
Anywya the point is that their atheism had nothing to do with the fact that they killed people. It was their ideology, and additionally, Russian and Asian cultures have a much different view of the value and role of the individual which make them more predisposed to an ideology of social engineering. Think of how fractious the French are. Far higher rates of atheism, but do you think any program of social engineering would be sustainable there. Look what happened to the Jacobins.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,967,The-Damned,John-Evans
a rather instructive video on how mature your religious books are.
Without the 'slightest shred of evidence' that gods do not exist as well, seems like a flip of a coin. Please consult Pascal for a reason.
Communists killed for lots of reasons - Trotsky did not die of old age - religion offered an alternative to the Communist ideology - a path to justice and freedom that relied on a relationship outside the party. For some reason the communists could not just wait until world domination was complete before the kicked the legs out from under the tired old Church - the priests were the first marched off to the gulags. Two paths to overcome the selfish gene and create a New Man - one theist and one atheist and the communists could not broker the presence of religion. Really cute that you and Dawkins now ascribe a lack of fully developed 'arguments' in favor of atheism to the latest resident of the dustbin of history.
And spare me the cultural collectivism that the chinese worker ants aren't ready for freedom - no tickee no liberty! - and the russian peasants used to centuries of czarist oppression could not take the shock of the ballot box. What about those Cubans? Now there is a culture of unmanly blandness and deep abiding atheism quite unready for the rigors of freedom and perfectly fitted for submission with alacrity to the blessings of communism.
Pascal's wager is absurd and is not even a serious philosophical argument. It is not a 50-50 coin flip that something exists in absence of evidence for it. There is no evidence to support the existence of unicorns but it is not a 50-50 shot they exist. Plus can you really convince yourself to believe something is true by hedging your bets. The mere fact you would allude to Pascal's wager shows how intellectually shallow you are.
An how can you debate that there are not cultural factors which predispose certain people to different forms of government. LOOK AT IRAQ. If cultural factors didn't play a role in how people organize their governments then Iraq should be a federal democracy by now. Obviously they're more willing to kill people and accept totalitarian states than we are, and for one reason in this case, religion. I don't see how you can make the case than atheism has ever been a motivating factor in histories atrocities. Religion's track record of bloodshed is obvious but I know of no society which has turned violent because people actually demanded evidence for their beliefs.
So go on and believe lies because you have a really bad comprehension of probability theory. By the way, which god are you going to decide will be the one which exists when you hedge your bets. The odds you are right diminish every time you actually take a bit of time to think.
Pascal's wager remains a useful starting point to consider God, your insults of me notwithstanding. Of course the gods to bet on are those with infinite, everlasting rewards and the odds I am right do not change with further thought according to the logic of the proposal.
The Iraqis who daily place their asses on the line to support a fledgling democracy are a great example of how a long-oppressed people can emerge from a dictator's dungeon to rally around freedom. Your example hence contradicts your culturally racist point, your capitalization notwithstanding.
Conveniently removing communists and nazis from the atheist camp turns it into a veritable boy scout jamboree and really makes religion look bad-bad-bad. If communists are not atheists yet do not broker religious freedom, in this scheme are they really just agnostics with a bad genocidal attitude? Does an atheist immediately get downgraded to an agnostic when he steal pens from work? We know wearing a Roman collar gets the automatic pedophile upgrade, on the flip side of the coin.
They do not get downgraded to agnostics when they do bad things. I have never denied they were atheists but it is ridiculous to say that atheism was what motivated their atrocities. The difference is that atheism was not what motivated atheists acts whereas religion is the entirety of the motivation for religious fanatics.
It is absolutely ludicrous to claim there is no such thing as a cultural impediment to democracy and the example of a few goos Iragis aside you can't claim that that nation has recieved it well. To hold the belief that all people will want to organize themselves democratically is to essentially deny the existence and importance of culture. An astonishingly naive and intellectually worthles proposition as it will essentially justify anything anywhere and ends all debate. A telling sign of you dogmatism when you just dismiss me as racist. I'll dismiss you as a delusional neocon.
I won't dicuss Pascal's wager anymore. The arguments you make in favor of it are so ignorant that you obviously have very little background in philosophy and have given it little thought.
Read this for a start:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2007/04/the_cost_of_betting_on_faith.html
though there are many other problems with it.
If you think religion motivates religious wars, I'll quote Michael: "Who's the naive one, Kay?"
Having racist ideas does not make one a racist. Just as seeing mankind worthy of freedom does not make one a neocon. So take heart.
It works back to nature or nature's god - neither can refute the other aside from theological details.
If you think religion motivates religious wars, I'll quote Michael: "Who's the naive one, Kay?"
So then the people through history who have said they are fighting wars for their god have been lying? In reality they didn't believe in any god and they have been trying to trick us so we will think religion is violent?
Muslims don't want Jews to have a state not because they feel an infidel is befouling holy lands but for what?... Natural resources. Mohammed Atta really just disliked the WTC architecture? Hindus and Muslims have killed a million of each other since the British left the subcontinent for what?... The vast strategical advantages of Kashmir? The Balkans fractured into warring states after the fall of trhe Soviet Union because of what? Differences of cuisine? The slaughter of millions in Europe through the 15th 16th and 17th centuries was motivated by what? Sunnis and Shia are killing each other in Iraq why? Bad falafel? I can't stand this politically correct garbage that essentially denies that people don't believe what they say they believe. Even when they kill themselves over it. It is nothing more than an intellectually bankrupt attempt to shield religion from criticism and it is having terrible consequences.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,983,My-response-to-the-GOP-evolution-question,Brian-Coughlan
You mean to tell me people lie? and they have throughout history? I am learning so much on this thread to overcome my intellectual bankruptcy.
It'a about power - why doesn't Osama strap on a bomb and walk into a Karachi disco? Power. And when atheists rule - it'll be another power struggle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go_XII
So then suicide bombers are lying. They really don't believe God wants them to blow themselves up on buses.? Are you honestly saying that?
Oh Muslim fanatics really do believe, but they have been snookered by the power hungry. Same kind of snookering suffered by a Khmer Rouge guerilla who kills 1 in 7 (and outlaws religion in the process) to turn Cambodians into "New People." See, atheists like Pol Pot are just like regular folks - exhibiting all the murderous, duplicitous foibles of hidebound religionists.
How is that even relevant? I have not been saying that there have not been bad atheists but that their atheism had nothing to do with the motivation for their violence, whereas the theology and holy books of major religions have been directly responsible for motivating violence. When a follower of a supposed holy book kills unbelievers, says he does it because god commands it, and indeed the book he claims was written by god says to do it I have a hard time seeing how this violence isn't motivated by religious belief. Much less I have a hard time seeing how he might be wrong in believing that god indeed does want him to do it. After all it is in the book.
Finally, a Ramon I can deal with!
Communists, who are atheists (a fact that took a little prodding for acceptance by that vile other Ramon) had to line up and kill their enemies to establish their own God-free paradise - this usually included capitalists, sometimes intellectuals and always the priests. Why? Well I tried to have Ramon A. answer that in a a socratic exercise, but received every fallacious argument in the book. He's is an expert at the strawman and very good a putting words into your mouth. The ad hominems fly as well. And he is a dyed-in-the-wool cultural collectivist. So watch out for that guy.
But back to you. As I said, you seem like a Ramon I can deal with. The reason why communist/atheists killed Christians wherever they encountered them is because they could truck no God before the state. Albania, the first atheistic wonderland, persecuted the Church to extinction. Bourgeois and for the weak of mind, religionists were to be reeducated or terminated, not because their breath stank.
Watch out for the other Ramon's ability to change the subject. Killing the infidel fills up the Koran, but if he would look beyond that he would get plenty of historical evidence of atheists killing for atheism, or whatever violent interpretation they make of the atheistic scriptures.
I don't know what you are talking about. You're point gets really vague and I tire of answering really dumb objections on this single post. But atheists have never killed for atheism. The religious always have killed purely for their god. Communists killed for Communism which was atheistic but whose atheism had little to do with its violence.
Come on flymorgue, what is your soft spot for religion. Why do you feel the need to carry water for it?
Oh and I love when people cry "strawman." It is always a good sign that they have met an arugument to which they have no answer.
Oh and by the way, I must counter this fallacious belief among the faithful that the supposedly good effects of their religion (which every study ever undertaken says don't exist) have some relevance as to their religions truth. They don't Your religion remains a delusion, just one that happens to have a pacifying effect on people.
A double-dip on the postings, New Ramon? Another faux pas. But all is forgiven - my pacifying delusion instructs me to turn the left cheek.
Unfortunately, history informs us that atheists did kill for their 'religion:'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless
And a 'strawman' is a logical fallacy that you should learn to avoid in your postings. Such an argument need not be addressed because it is without merit, not because it is meritorius:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
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