The Atheist - Agnostic - Non religious thread

Just get a copy of the Tao Te Ching. It's everything you love and hate. It's nebulous as all hades, but out of the corner of your psyche you can feel than some big truths are being pointed to. It's infuriating. But as you expand you quest over the years, you start to come back to it again and again.

Edited by Negoba - December 03 2009 at 17:22

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2009/atheism-is-the-new-fundamentalism
Is Atheism the new fundamentalism?
 

Negoba wrote: One of the beliefs of the New Atheism is not only that Divinity does not exist but that all religion is a malevolent force on human life. One of their purposes is to try to do away with religion completely.

stonebeard wrote: Negoba wrote: One of the beliefs of the New Atheism is not only that Divinity does not exist but that all religion is a malevolent force on human life. One of their purposes is to try to do away with religion completely.   ....probably....   Especially those religions incompatible with scientific inquiry.   You mentioned later after this post the Tao Te Ching which, upon trying to read it, I thought it was a nice book of poetry, but really couldn't see how a coherent philosophy let alone body of religion could be built upon it.   It flew over my head, to say the least.   But aspects of Buddhism can be good for the "soul" in different ways, such as fasting and meditation, but I agree with them in that any religion has baggage that need not be carried along with the good aspects.   Very few religions are wholly detrimental. (Scientology is one, though. As far as I know, there's not one unique positive aspect to it.)

KoS wrote: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2009/atheism-is-the-new-fundamentalism Is Atheism the new fundamentalism?

Not at all. The key difference between New Atheism and Religion is that in New Atheism no dogma is required ... no "leap of faith", no ignorance of obvious evidence. When religious people make bold claims that Atheists are just yet another alternative to religion, they really fail to see this point.

What New Atheism is all about is: skepticism. Don't take the words of Dawkins or any other high profile figure in New Atheism for granted ... evaluated them objectively, weigh them against the teachings of religion, and then decide which is more probable, which makes more sense, which requires the least magic (or rationalization).

^ not the New Atheists ... they have decided to take a stand against religion. Not in a dogmatic or fundamentalist way, but still ... I think it's wrong to know that religion is wrong and to keep silent about it, or worse: be intimidated by what religious people might think or say when you bring up the subject.

And not only is religion wrong, it also causes suffering and, essentially, evil. Victor Stenger gives detailed evidence for that in his book, also taking into consideration the usual arguments against his claim. The most important finding is that morality is a naturally evolved concept in humans. You don't need religion to tell you what is right and what is wrong, people have that built into them.

^ the "findings" come mostly from the field of neuroscience. Much of our behaviour results from mechanism that are built into our brain, and thus they depend on evolution by natural selection just like any other bodily function.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnXmDaI8IEo

Of course our behavior also depends on social interaction and conditioning, but the point is that even if you take away all that, humans still exhibit a sense for morality. A good example would be some experiments done with very young children (like 9-12 months old, if I remember correctly). They were shown two pictures: One with a man helping another man climbing a hill, and the other one with a man pushing another man down while he's trying to climb the hill. The children almost unanimously liked the man in the first picture.

EDIT: And *no*, it made no difference whether they were baptized or not.


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - December 04 2009 at 08:55

^ watch the video I linked to if you're interested in this. I agree that morality might be more complex than that, but maybe - and this is shown in the video - there are several mechanisms at work in our brain to accomplish it, some older and more primitive, and some new and more sophisticated.

Negoba wrote: If I made a thread about killing all the folks from Indiana, I would expect the folks from Indiana to pipe up.

Uh, don't. We're nice.

ExittheLemming wrote:  Atheists don't give a sh*t about religion. Religious people really should recognise the same courtesy.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - December 04 2009 at 09:56