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    21st Century Ideas: Nontheism in the face of disaster

    In the face of disaster, and a rise in religious people, how can non-theists help keep the peace?

    Started by: QuietDoe Raves:20

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    I'm speaking as an atheist, and I don't mean to sound insulting to anyone, but there are Catholicism and "new religion" superstructs, and i fear that with violence from national pride, violence from religion or lack of could occur if it hasn't already. In our efforts to help each other, i think we should exclude religion as a reason behind our actions, or for the religious, include it as one of, but not THE reason we're helping. People are helping each other irregardless of nation, race, gender, all of that. I think we should be irregardless of religion as well, before we add an extra layer of complication between us all.

    What does it matter whether a person\\\'s motivation for doing good deeds comes from a sense of moral obligation, a spiritual calling, or an amoral sense of altruism? Do you feel that people of religion who do good deeds are less sincere than atheists who perform good deeds, simply because they are \\\"scoring points\\\" in Heaven? If so, you have an incorrect view of religion. What, precisely, are you suggesting? That anyone who shows up to work at a ReDS relief center sign a release form asserting they are not acting out of a sense of religious obligation? I don\\\'t think you\\\'ll get many takers on that. Better to simply appreciate the people around you who step forward to help in times of need, and don\\\'t cast aspersions on their motivations.

    I agree with Zephyr. Surely one of the most important ways to keep the peace is not to make religion an issue. Mentioning violence and religion in the same breath is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, kind of like \\\"don\\\'t think of an elephant\\\". Non-theists should, at the very least, encourage and work alongside non-violent, moderate and liberal religion. The more religions, the better, because the people we are helping will not see it as \\\"that other religion\\\" (or, indeed, atheism!) imposing themselves.

    There are rational groups. These should be supported. Then there\\\'s Jesusland, and it\\\'s impossible to have a rational discussion with someone who\\\'s too busy screaming about the eminence of the Rapture and how science and gays are wholly responsible for this current \\\"plague\\\". There\\\'s no talking to crazy.

    I agree with Pseudo and JWIV. The way religion will become an issue is if you make it an issue. A friend of mine put it best: Until people stop blaming or attributing things to religion or race or whatever, it will continue being an issue. The best way to work together is to accept their help, without questioning their motives. And obviously you can\\\'t act rationally with fanatics. Perhaps though we could turn this into a discussion to figure out how we can?

    As the founder of the \\\"new religion\\\" superstructure, I have to say that DavFlamerock put it best. It\\\'s only a problem if you make it a problem. I can see why you\\\'d consider it a barrier, but let\\\'s examine what the two superstructs are designed to do. The Catholic Church superstructure, while it mentions faith, is primarily about retaining a system, ideology, and infrastructure that has helped the world recover from other cultural disasters. Religimon is about manufacturing a new ideology that uses theology as a vehicle for dissemination. In the end, they\\\'re not competing at all, because they both want exactly the same thing, and can work with each other to get it. That said, I\\\'m glad you brought up the point because it\\\'s exactly that kind of vigilance that should be maintained to see that they and other faith-based superstructures DON\\\'T become barriers that are ultimately going to hurt our chances for survival.

    Sorry for putting the wrong message apart. I didn\\\'t mean to imply that the new religion and the catholocism superstructs are bad or represent the problem. I fear that there may be attacks of violence from the fanatics, the end of times callers, the people who think Jerry Falwell should be a saint, and how we can deal with to act rationally around those people, and also the fear of any big scared crowd. Zephyr, sorry to piss you off, i really didn\\\'t mean to, and I agree with you and Pseudonym that we should just all be appreciative and keep the peace despite beliefs, and that at the heart of all of this there is no divide, we are all people. Again, this divide worry could just as well be about nationality rather than religion, again referencing the Chinese nationalist attacks in the Generation Exile report. Again, sorry to piss everyone off, I didn\\\'t mean to, but if me screwing up my words is any sign, we all need to treat (or ignore seems to be the best option (the religion issure, not me screwing up) ) this one divide with the caution we treat all the other divides between equal human beings.

    No need to apologize. This was bound to come up at some point. Though assuming that religion and violence go hand-in-hand is a bit inflammatory. Yes, there are plenty of crazy religions fanatics out there, but there has been just as much evil committed in the name of a state or an ideology as for a religion. I support Flamerock\\\'s idea that we turn this thread away from a discussion of evil and violence, and towards constructive ideas to encourage atheists, agnostics, apostates, and the religious to work together to solve the superthreats.

    In order for people to come to a consensus about anything, they must be able to reconcile their ideologies. That is not to say that everyone must think in the same way, but they must be able to acknowledge the right course of action in accordance with people of other ideologies. As long as someone\\\'s ideology is cohesive, then it will not cause problems, but if they encourage irrationality on essential matters, they are not helpful to the process of resolving conflict and shouldn\\\'t be encouraged. Not all religious ideologies are non-cohesive, and there are many non-theistic ideologies that are non-cohesive, but it must be acknowledged that if someone is willing to believe something that as yet has not ever had any verifiable evidence, they may be willing to believe other things irrational.

    By voting and sustaining a clear separation between state and religion and defend your individual rights by all means. This is a short term problem that should not need to get out of control. On the long term the fallacy of religious nuts promises will become self evident and fundamentalist religion will be a marginalized phenomenon. Best example from history I can think of is 30 years war and the witch hunts. We only should not allow it to reach that proportions even if it involves taking up arms and fight for our freedom of conscience.

    I think faith motivates a lot of people though. I don\\\'t think you can pretend it doesn\\\'t. Two things have impacted my life and my willingness to serve others - become a parent, and finding the Baha\\\'i Faith. Parenthood didn\\\'t allow me access to a support network. Becoming a Baha\\\'i and studying the administrative order in it taught me a huge amount about community and working in consultation with others. I don\\\'t do anything here under a Baha\\\'i banner, but it certainly motoivates me. I\\\'m not going to pretend it doesn\\\'t.

    Navarre, your words made one of my eyeballs fall out of its socket. It rolled right up to the screen just to make sure. First off, \\\"Right course of action\\\"? It\\\'s a contextual idea. The only reason that the Catholics and the atheists and mad bastards are working together on this is entirely because it\\\'s in the context that the world ends in (as of now) 2045. Also, I wonder about irrationality. Who defines it? It seems like you\\\'re defining it empirically, but you can\\\'t be, because that would mean that all sorts of things that seem to exist now wouldn\\\'t (art? I\\\'ve never seen art, just pictures). Also, it bears pointing out that we believe all kinds of shit that has no verifiable evidence. Cause and effect (technically not provable, though reasonable), hell, even the existence of time is an illusion that we created to help us make sense of the world. For the case of religion (nonpracticing agnostic), I\\\'ll even go as far as gravity. Even in 2019, we cannot see gravity. We can observe its effects, and we can measure it (with standards that we made up based on its effects), but in that, it\\\'s not too different from a god. Ask a religious person for evidence, they\\\'ll tell you it\\\'s all around you. Ask a so-called rational person for the lack of evidence, they\\\'ll tell you the same thing. - Prophessor Bedlam, Exploding Your Text

    iar80: It\\\'s funny you should mention the 30 Years War, which was one of the big reasons that Enlightenment thinkers advocated separation of church and state. And it\\\'s a good idea. However, it\\\'s a little unattainable. You can separate water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen. You can separate a nucleus into protons and neutrons. You can separate a family into individuals, but you can\\\'t separate church and state in western society because they\\\'re both made up of the exact same thing: people. Furthermore, these people are usually heavily involved in both things. Look at the statutory holidays in most western nations, they include Christmas and Easter. When do businesses usually close early? Sundays. On every bill and coin in the united states it says \\\"In God We Trust\\\" (Though that was only added after World War I, apparently). Elements of religion are incorporated into states at every level, because the many of people running and participating in those states are religious. Religion is unique because it incorporates elements of spirituality and ideology, and we\\\'d be fools not to put that to use, rather than emphasizing a division that\\\'s always been claimed in modern states, and never really existed. I\\\'m think we should have religious tolerance, but separation? The idea that a person is going to pack the religious elements of their worldview away when they go out to play statesman is patently ludicrous (in no small part because a lot of the time they\\\'re not going to be able to identify those religious elements because, to them, they\\\'re not religious elements, they\\\'re the way things are). - Prophessor Bedlam, Stuck In the Middle With You

    Professor Bedlam: Thanks so much for exploding my text. May I take a minute to point out a few things? 'The right course of action' is of course contextual, hence why it is so handy that every single situation ever will provide a context in which the right course of action can be decided. Handy that. Of course that course will need to be discussed and of course there is no absolute answer, hence my statement directly after that you didn't feel the need to include in your reply. 'In accordance with others ideologies' means that the first thing would be to set a system of values, an end to be reached via the 'right course' i.e the means. Thankfully irrationality need not be decided by anyone, if something doesn't conform to rational thinking, it is irrational, simple. I don't quite understand your second statement about art. You seem to think that rational thinking means making random decisions about the definitions of terms. Frankly the whole paragraph seems like a big non-sequiter. You also seem to be making two mistakes/assumptions. Firstly you are assuming that 'empirical' means 'visible' and you are also assuming that by 'verifiable' I mean 'empirical'. Cause and effect has been shown to work through repeat experiments. No one is saying that it will always work all of the time, just that it will work 99% of the time, which it does. We created a system of measuring time, not time itself. Time is a facet of the universe, space in another form. Gravity is a force that doesn't need to be 'seen' to be proven. In fact all you are doing is succumbing to the ancient sensory bias humans have for things that are visible. There is no reason to prefer what can be seen to what can be sensed in any other way, especially since we know that not only is the majority of our universe invisible, but we also know that humans have a long history of seeing things that aren't there and not seeing things that are. There is no object or fact that could only be explained by the existence of a god. There is no piece of verifiable evidence. What there is however, is a burden of proof. That burden rest squarely on anyone who makes the claim that such a being exists. Just as if I were to claim that aliens or father christmas existed, you would expect me to prove it and no-one rational would expect you to disprove it. Hopefully you won't take this as a personal insult. The last thing I want to do on this site is to start a flame war. I will not however let you try and 'deconstruct' my argument with uninformed opinions and illogical rhetoric. If an argument is to be considered valid, it must have a basis, a solid foundation. Any argument that uses the existence of a god as a foundation will ultimately be flawed as it relies on a baseless assumption.

    Faith discourages people from solving difficult problems with survival. If you believe in heaven, why would you want to prolong this life at all? For those of us who believe this life is all we have, we will do everything we can and work hard everday to preserve it. of course we should accept help from anyone but i agree religion should be excluded. and religion will be an issue as long as it exists not because nontheists wish it excluded but because there are some theists who fight atheism and other religions with all of their might, something not done by atheists whom i know.

    I have to agree in some part to this post. It IS a valid fact to bring up this topic, because it could deffinitly become a problem. Not a problem for all those of you who are not extremist, do not force their veiws onto other, and clearly live and let live. But its the extremists that are born from the normality that will cause problems. The ones who focus and preach on hate, rather then look at the love in you dogmas. It IS those people who will cause the problems for the rest of us, INCLUDING yourselves. One anti-gay protest, one anti-multiculturalism protest, one snti-protest ANYTHING could trigger thousands of harmful reprocussions. I may be coming from a totally wrong point of veiw or something, but thats just the way I see it. You may dispute me, but after all, there is no way to disprove my thoughts if I can't disprove yours.

    Navarre: You're absolutely right on most counts, and props for throwing my postmodernist bullshit jargon back in my face. I was a little too quick to jump on the empiricism bandwagon, but my examples stand as ways that we make sense of things that seem to be happening. Religion is another one. More mystical and wonky for sure, but I wouldn't be too quick to paint it as irrational just because of that, and I'd point out that irrational doesn't always mean incorrect. Also, you were right to call my example on a sensory biased, but follow up by noting that there's no reason to prefer sight to other senses, but if a person claims they can sense some sort of infinite plane or being, how does one deal with that? I'm not making any claims for there being a god (that'd hardly be agnostic of me), especially since, again, no one can agree on what would constitute evidence. I've always found that the burden of proof really starts to sink in not on the mere existence of something infinite and metareal, but when people start touting that said infinity has some sort of ideology. Proving whether or not god exists is somewhat moot and ends in filibuster, but god wanting you to do stuff? That requires proof. Following along with it though, I don't know that it's irrational (not a word I throw around lightly, except in my own direction), because it does seem to work in rational directions most of the time. Granted, there are some people that I wonder about, but collectively the actions of a religion, though differently motivated sometimes than the action of a state, don't seem any less rational. - Prophessor Bedlam, Don't Worry Ma'am, We're From the Internet

    Prophessor Bedlam: I wouldn't claim that every idea contained in or coming from religion was irrational or to use a better word illogical. I would however state that the belief that gods existence is certain or even probable is flawed. If you wish I'll PM you a link to an argument I made as to why gods existence is less probable than her existence, instead of diverting this discussion. Of course irrational doesn't automatically mean wrong, but we must order and prioritise theories and hypotheses. We deal with someone claiming to have sensed an infinite claim the same way we deal with any claim, ask them to prove it. The burden of proof is simple to assign when you note that it would be impossible to prove a negative and hence logically no-one should be expected to. Most of the time you are right, whether or not god exists is largely irrelevant. It only becomes relevant when gods existence becomes the foundation of an argument or a piece of evidence, "Evolution isn't true because God exists" and stuff along that line. Sure many rational and positive things come out of religious people, but I would also make the claim that it is due to moral and logical people, not their religion. That's another argument for another discussion that I'd be happy to explain in PM if you wish.

    I regard religion as a personal, privater and potentially offensive hobby - like swinging. I don't frown on it, unless you rub my face in it. Keep whether or not you play jesus-LARP to yourself.

    Ruud dirven youre right. and this argument is not directed towards you, one who thinks it is a personal issue. this discussion is about the extremists. those are the ones who cause harm and discourage progress.

    Extremism is bad, be it religious, political or otherwise. I am a religious person myself and my desire to help save the world is partly driven by it (the other part is surely to make sure my two children have a world to live in). Maybe it's different in the US, but in Germany the different Christian religions have come to a mutual understanding and a sprit of cooperation. The only tension with religious groups is with the Exiles that are often muslim and more readliy extremist than the muslims that have already lived here for decades. Cooperation is key, regardless of religion.

    Fantastic topic to bring out in the open. Nothing creates more enemies than religion. :) I like the old Roman and Greek times, when Politheism was the norm, and they were tolerant to the new cultures/religions being conquered. However I think that people are different: some are born more easy-going than others. The extremists will appear in religion, ideology and even when it comes to say 'who's right and who's wrong'. I would say that if we start working on this now, the new generations might have a chance - if we start teaching the young ones to be tolerant. Just look at the whole 'intelligent design' discussion in the US. You'd think we'd overcome these issues, and yet.. here they are, pulling us back. I just cannot see the leaders of faith suddenly being tolerant and accommodating to others...

    Religion is beautiful because it organizes people, most of the time, it organizes people for good. Some cannot see that this is its purpose, and its primary reason to surface! they see it as something else, which is ok if they are doing good too, but when they are blinded by the same flashlight they call religion, that is when it stops being the practical little gargantuan greatest invention from man. You see doing something right for the wrong reason (by wrong I mean blindly), its not so bad, it would be much better if it would be for the right reason (which by the way if one sees religion from this perspective it makes a lot of sense!). But what about doing something that is thought by one to be right but is infact wrong, because of the same blindness that i mentioned before. That is the original point of this discussion I suspect.




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