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Interesting to read a summary of what are essentially Socratic rhetorical techniques. To me the question is, why bother, and what is the conclusion of choosing
by motohagiography 6y ago
Interesting to read a summary of what are essentially Socratic rhetorical techniques. To me the question is, why bother, and what is the conclusion of choosing an atheistic belief? I was a fan of Hitchens, and I took his atheism the same way I take an actor's belief in astrology, in that it is a part of who they are, but not what I find interesting about them.
There is a western tradition wherein atheists are considered untrustworthy men, as no matter how different or foreign someone is to you, if you can agree there exists a god (by whatever name) who rewards good and punishes evil, and that some intentions of this being have been revealed, this belief is a foundation for a basic level of trust that transcends language.
The whole atheist enterprise is premised on an "anti-" identity, where the "-ist" person evaluates their own identity against a perceived reflection of this divine straw-man. A recent pope described "hell" as being "the absence of God," I suspect atheist hell is the absence of someone to hector with tedious hypothetical arguments. The anti- identity is what we used to call being a punk, or someone who identifies as exempt from the scale of "good," because they perceive themselves as having been victimized by the bearers of that standard, and they look for others to seduce with a misery-loves-company sympathy. They're people you tolerate and have compassion for, but don't take as much risk to invest in. Whether or not one agrees with the morality of that, it's a summary of the very roots of what we call western civilization.
Edit: removed some snark.
- myWindoonn 6y agoIt is worth remembering that this same "Western tradition" that you mention also did not consider Jews or Muslims trustworthy, and eventually broke into several factions which mutually distrusted each other. Today, as a Pastafarian, I am routinely lumped in with atheists, Satanists, or pagans, despite not being any of those. Perhaps the "Western tradition" is European Christianity?
- tiglionabbit 6y agoQuite right. It seems Christians are more threatened by Muslims than they are by Atheists, despite them both being abrahamic religions.
- motohagiography 6y agoIt's not at all. Post enlightenment, Muslims, Jews, Lutherans, and even Catholics could find a basis to get along. The U.S. founding documents are based on those same principles of universalism, but a universalism based on there being a god.
- tiglionabbit 6y agoWhy make people into atheists? Don't you want to live in a world where people make decisions based on observable things, rather than blind faith in arbitrary nonsense? You can't reason with a religious person. Their axioms can be completely incompatible if, for example, they believe the afterlife is more important than actual life.
- meheleventyone 6y ago> To me the question is, why bother, and what is the conclusion of choosing an atheistic belief? For me I was a kid and approaching confirmation in the Catholic Church and realized I didn't believe in any of it. The conclusion was that I don't think there is any reason to believe in the existence of a god or gods so I don't spend my time worrying about them. The rest of your rant is getting confused between anti- and a-. There is nothing negative or combative implied by a-theist that there is with anti-theist.
- b_t_s 6y agoYea, this is an important distinction. The overwhelming silent majority of Atheists simply don't believe because they have no reason to, and they generally try to avoid the topic because it is unimportant to them and just causes conflicts(due to the prejudices deeply ingrained in euro-christian society...no we're not immoral). ANTItheists are essentially evangelical atheists. That's exhausting, and as atheism isn't inherently evangelical, these folks are mostly self motivated by the belief that organized religion has such a negative effect on society that it's worth devoting significant personal effort to combating it. They're lightning rods for attention, but far from the norm.
- meheleventyone 6y agoI think it's worthwhile making a distinction between being anti-theist in terms of being very vocally against the idea of there being a god or gods and being an atheist but also anti-organized religion or against specific organizations. It's pretty clear that the cultural position of religious organizations in many places has lead to enormous and enduring harm. Which is particularly galling given their claims around morality. Whilst this is true for non-religious organizations as well I won't give religious organizations a free pass because it opens up a claim of being anti-theist or an uppity atheist.
- gnulinux 6y agoThe simple answer is that, if one is convinced that religions are not real (not even necessarily an atheist, a deist can believe this as well) seeing their loved ones "wasting" (again, according to them) their lives on things that do not exist kicks in an instinct to "protect" these people. This is the simplest explanation of why people try to convert others to atheism. I'm not making a judgement call, I'm just explaining why people do that. As an atheist (well, I identify as an ignostic [1] which I view it so be a subcategory of atheism) I don't go convince people to be atheist. This is partially because all my close friends are already irreligious; and partially because religion is inflammatory so the cost/benefit trade-off isn't in my favor. However, if I had a very close friend, say my wife, who believed in God and spent a good amount of time and energy I would consider talking about these issues with them. This certainly doesn't sound crazy to me, as long as you're being civil, polite, considerate etc all that jazz. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism