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> many atheists also seem to proselytize with a religious fervor as well Could that be availability bias? You don't hear from the many that don't proselytise.

• dpoochieni 6y ago
  Hmmmm isn't climate change and enviromentalism in general the eschatology of the average modern atheist? And they do proselytize quite a bit. The average atheist is as separate from the process of science as the average NFL fan is from actually scoring a touchdown. They're both spectators under a similar set of illusions regarding their claims as to their relevance in each ones game. Go TEAM SCIENCE!!!
  • redler 6y ago
    Climate change can be extrapolated, through science, to a potentially very challenging future environment. Eschatology is about religious constructs like judgment by deities, prophecies, life after death, "end times", and the like. Believe in the latter if you like, but the former is about evidence, statistics, logic, and reasoning.
  • paulryanrogers 6y ago
    No more than climate denial is the eschatology of Christianity.
    • dpoochieni 6y ago
      At least we are getting somewhere now :)
  • FabHK 6y ago
    It might be, for many (not for me, for example), but it certainly isn't a defining or necessary feature. Future atheists, for example, with entirely different concerns (and eschatology) would still properly call themselves atheists if they're without belief in some deity. The average liberal might like their caffè latte, but neither classical nor progressive liberalism contains a commitment to certain beverages.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Hmmmm isn't climate change and enviromentalism in general the eschatology of the average modern atheist? No, neither factual belief in climate change (in general, or more specifically anthropogenic climate change) nor ideological belief in environmentalism is eschatology ("the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind") to start with, and even if they have a weak correlation with atheism, there is no essential connection between them and atheism (they may sometimes have a common cause, in that both atheism and factual belief in climate change can be grounded in scientific rationalism.) > And they do proselytize quite a bit. Proselytizing atheists are disproportionately visible, because people that aren't trying to shove their beliefs down your throat are a lot less noticeable. So, sure, if you aren't an atheists, the people whose atheism you notice will be very disproportionately those who are proselytizers. That doesn't mean atheists in general are proseltyizers, and atheism has no unifying belief in the value of proselytization the way, say, mainstream Christianity does.
    • dpoochieni 6y ago
      Now you're just repeating definitions. I'll ask you this, why would any one give a damn about "anthropogenic climate change" if they did not have some theory in their heads about "the final destiny of humankind"? Cause I hope they do have a theory that connects to their personal values, otherwise they are just following blindly. PS. did you just make up "factual belief"? I mean it is a tautology on many levels. But let's take it as qualified belief. Isn't that the root of religion? It's okay, we humans need to believe in something
      • amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        I have no idea about “the final destiny of humankind”, but I’m pretty sure anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomena.
      • dragonwriter 6y ago
        > I'll ask you this, why would any one give a damn about "anthropogenic climate change" if they did not have some theory in their heads about "the final destiny of humankind"? Because they have some concern about the quality of life people experience in the future, independent of any concept of the final destiny of humankind. > Cause I hope they do have a theory that connects to their personal values, otherwise they are just following blindly I'm not sure what your point is, unless you are unable to separate the idea of having values from eschatological theory. While certainly these can (and often are) ties together in religion, values can exist without any eschatology. > did you just make up "factual belief"? No. > I mean it is a tautology on many levels. It can't be a tautology because it's not a proposition, much less one that is true by definition. You might mean to say it's redundant, but it's not that. A factual belief is a belief on a question of fact, as opposed, e.g., to a question of values.
  • goto11 6y ago
    Perhaps in the US, but I don't think this is the case in say China. Communism is atheist but not known for environmentalism. Atheism does not imply scientism or rationality either. People seem to have a really hard time grasping that atheism does not imply any particular world view or ideology beside believing in zero gods.
• svieira 6y ago
  Saying "there is no God" instead of "I don't know whether or not God exists" presumes a certain understanding of cause and effect, of being and essence, of meaning and purpose. After all, the atheist says "there is no need for another uncaused cause because ..." - that "because" serves the purpose of religion. I would argue that one cannot be an atheist without that "because". An agnostic can act in the fashion of an atheist (presumptive atheism), but an ill-considered atheist-in-act is not an atheist in intellect. In fact the branches of natural philosophy nominally used to make the determination "God cannot exist" by the atheist cannot speak to being and essence (because the sciences presuppose them) and cannot speak categorically to meaning and purpose (because those depend on what philosophy has determined about being and essence). Prescriptions on how to live (i. e. what the moral response to being must be) flow from the first two and therefore also cannot flow from science alone which presupposes whatever kind of universe the scientist finds himself existing in. "Can I derive 'ought' from 'is'" is presumed by the physicist and can only be addressed by the philosopher. To put it another way, one cannot be an atheist without a religion - one can only be agnostic. To put it a third way, Cicero says "religion consists in offering service and ceremonial rites to a superior nature that men call divine." The atheist says "there is none to serve" - but that is patently untrue, for in that case there would be no end to strive after and all atheists would perish by inaction. Therefore, all atheists have chosen to serve some superior nature, either themselves, or some ideal (Chaos, Order, Balance, etc.).
  • Retric 6y ago
    You’re assuming people must hold beliefs based on rational evidence when religions aren’t based on rationality. Thus your argument is inherently flawed. An atheist with atheist parents hardly needs to deeply consider the matter. Not believing in a God(s) is no different than not believing in perfectly square pigs. It’s people that have a specific religious belief that put much importance on the subject. PS: Saying the universe or your life has no purpose is hardly a cause do nothing any more than it’s a cause to build churches.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Saying "there is no God" instead of "I don't know whether or not God exists" presumes a certain understanding of cause and effect No, it may just be grounded in an epistemological approach in which entities which are not necessary to explain observations are presumed not to exist. > To put it another way, one cannot be an atheist without a religion - one can only be agnostic. Many self-described atheists reject the atheist/agnostic distinction as meaningless, viewing the absence of belief as equivalent to unbelief in their epistemology. > To put it a third way, Cicero says "religion consists in offering service and ceremonial rites to a superior nature that men call divine." The atheist says "there is none to serve" - but that is patently untrue, for in that case there would be no end to strive after and all atheists would perish by inaction. That is fantastic illogic. The absence of a "superior nature" to which one might have a reason to offer "service and ceremonial rites" does not deny that there are goals that one might strive for. Maximizing one's own experienced utility, for instance, requires no assumption of a "superior nature", nor even a rejection of solipsism, but still provides an end to strive after and motivate action. > Therefore, all atheists have chosen to serve some superior nature, either themselves Serving yourself is not serving a "superior nature", since "superior" is meaningful only in comparison to something else, and in Cicero's statement it is clearly in comparison to the self.
• redler 6y ago
  As has been said elsewhere, atheism is a religion the same way not playing baseball is a sport.
  • mensetmanusman 6y ago
    The difference being there aren’t conferences for people that don’t play baseball :)
  • mannykannot 6y ago
    This is, in many ways, the perfect response, as it cuts through a Gordian Knot of tendentious argumentation in one stroke.