Thoughts on Atheism Stripping Society of a Willingness to Survive

[GatorAbe7]

Originally Posted by Distant Gator

Great thread. If any are interested in another perspective (especially the OP), please read "The Righteous Mind" by Haidt. Haidt is a liberal atheistic college professor but concludes that religion is very useful for society (among many other conclusions.)

He also says something like our postmodern atheistic democracies (Europe, Japan) have done the worst job in human history in converting resources into offspring.

Apologies in advance for botching the quote- but again- I'd recommend the book.

Thank You!

Looking up on Amazon as I post.

[108]

Instead of trying to find the meaning of life, find what gives you meaning

We are all life living itself subjectively...create as you would like

[wargunfan]

There is no history of long lived societies based on atheism for very good reasons. Nations do not spontaneously organize around the common idea that life is meaningless and that man has no soul. These ideas do not provide the impetus for men to reach for higher meaning in their lives. The examples we have of nations which promoted atheism did so by force and terror. Not exactly methods which make the idea endearing. Once freed from the oppression of force and terror these nations have returned to religion as their unifying force. It is estimated that there are over 300,000,000 Christians in China alone. A recent Billy Graham crusade in Russia resulted in 180,000 new converts in one week. There are over 80,000 churches in Russia today. There is no question that religion, unlike atheism, is a unifying force in societies.

[wgbgator]

Originally Posted by GatorAbe7

Thank You!

Looking up on Amazon as I post.

This is another recent one:

http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Athei...lain+de+botton

Here's a Q&A with the author:

Q&A with Author Alain De Botton
Q: Is it possible to be a good person without religion?

A: The problem of the man without religion is that he forgets. We all know in theory what we should do to be good. The problem is that in practice, we forget. And we forget because the modern secular world always thinks that it is enough to tell someone something once (be good, remember the poor etc.) But all religions disagree here: they insist that if anyone is to stand a chance of remembering anything, they need reminders on a daily, perhaps even hourly basis.

Q: What do you think of the aggressive atheism we have seen in the past few years?

A: I am an atheist, but a gentle one. I don't feel the need to mock anyone who believes. I really disagree with the hard tone of some atheists who approach religion like a silly fairy tale. I am deeply respectful of religion, but I believe none of its supernatural aspects. So my position is perhaps unusual: I am at once very respectful and completely impious.

Q: Are you nostalgic for the deeply religious past?

A: Like many people, of course I feel nostalgic. How is it possible not to feel nostalgic when you look at 15th frescoes or the rituals of an ancient carnival? However, we have to ask: how should I respond to my nostalgia? My thought is that we can use it creatively, as the basis for a rebirth, for the creation of new things, for the creation of things that later generations will feel nostalgic about... So it frustrates me when people say things like, 'Well, they knew how to build in the 15th century, now it is impossible...' Why! Anything is possible. We should not sigh nostalgically over religion, we should learn from them. We should steal from them.

Q: If we were to replace religion with a secular equivalent, who would be our gurus?

A: We don't need a central structure. We are beyond the age of gurus and inspirational leaders. We are in the age of the Wiki structure. This means that it is up to all of us to look at religion and see what bits we can steal and place into the modern world. We might all contribute to the construction of new temples, not the government, but the concerned, interested individual. The salvation of the individual soul remains a serious problem--even when we dismiss the idea of God. In the 20th century, capitalism has really solved (in the rich West) the material problems of a significant portion of mankind. But the spiritual needs are still in chaos, with religion ceasing to answer the need. This is why I wrote my book, to show that there remains a new way: a way of filling the modern world with so many important lessons from religion, and yet not needing to return to any kind of occult spirituality.

Q: Don't you think that, in order to truly appreciate religious music and art, you have to be a believer--or, at least, don't you think that non-believers miss something important in the experience?

A: I am interested in the modern claim that we have now found a way to replace religion: with art. You often hear people say, 'Museums are our new churches'. It's a nice idea, but it's not true, and it's principally not true because of the way that museums are laid out and present art. They prevent anyone from having an emotional relationship with the works on display. They encourage an academic interest, but prevent a more didactic and therapeutic kind of contact. I recommend in my book that even if we don't believe, we learn to use art (even secular art) as a resource for comfort, identification, guidance and edification, very much what religions do with art.

[rivergator]

Originally Posted by wargunfan

There is no history of long lived societies based on atheism for very good reasons. Nations do not spontaneously organize around the common idea that life is meaningless and that man has no soul. These ideas do not provide the impetus for men to reach for higher meaning in their lives. The examples we have of nations which promoted atheism did so by force and terror. Not exactly methods which make the idea endearing. Once freed from the oppression of force and terror these nations have returned to religion as their unifying force. It is estimated that there are over 300,000,000 Christians in China alone. A recent Billy Graham crusade in Russia resulted in 180,000 new converts in one week. There are over 80,000 churches in Russia today. There is no question that religion, unlike atheism, is a unifying force in societies.

10 least religious countries:


Country Yes, important No, unimportant
Estonia 16% 78%
Sweden 16.5% 83%
Denmark 18% 80.5%
Czech Republic 20.5% 74.5%
Norway 20.5% 78%
Hong Kong 23% 75.5%
Japan 23.5% 75%
United Kingdom 26.5% 73%
Finland 28% 70%
France 29.5% 69.5%

10 most religious:


Country Yes, important No, unimportant
Niger 100% 0%
Bangladesh 100% 0%
Oman 99.5% 0.5%
Indonesia 99% 1%
Democratic Republic of the Congo 98.5% 1.5%
Malawi 98.5% 1.5%
Morocco 98.5% 1%
Sri Lanka 98.5% 1.5%
Somalia 98.5% 1.5%
Mauritania 98% 1.5%

[bluelang]

Originally Posted by Lawdog88

So unorganized atheists on the whole tend to behave more goodly than organized religionists ?

Surely you jest.

If you really believe that though, organize, man, organize, and get out there and make this thing better. I'll be watching.

No, I was saying that religion or lack of it has no bearing on atrocities. The religion (or lack of it) are just excuses for being an asshole plus a great way to coerce other people into doing it too.

[CalSFGator]

Obviously, I don't agree with the premise of the OP that atheism declares there is no meaning in life - nothing could be further from the truth - but I think I understand the more subtle point that theism has a natural and worthwhile role in civilization, at least to date.

Voltaire said that "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him." And that is exactly what we have done - not because atheism declares there is no meaning, but that is doesn't declare one that matches our personal and social goals and allays our terrestial fears. The beauty of God is he is everything you ever wanted him to be - by definition. He is the great nobodaddy that makes the hard truths of life a little more bearable.

Atheism, on the other hand, is just the resignation to the uncomfortable reality that the whole of the universe was not made for our benefit, that God did not make us in his image, the earth does not spin to give us balance and the stars do not burn out in order that we may have light. Atheists can persist on even with the unflattering idea that our “making” was nothing more than random happenstance, a thoughtless twitching of irreconcilable and disjointed coincidences in a reality far, far too big to even register our existence as a whisper of a tickle in the breath of time and space. I am content with the idea that I am nothing beyond a random puddling of otherwise disinterested atoms, which find common ground in my existence for some marginal period of time and collude haphazardly to make me me, all without hope of everlasting cosmic life. That fleeting and purposeless conglomeration of atoms makes me as immortal as I need to be, and I take an immense amount of pride that I probably have a few that passed through Shakespeare in me, maybe a couple from Galileo, maybe even some from a truly dead Jesus Naggar. I don’t require God to have wanted me at all.

Epicurus once proposed a meeting of frogs in a pond in which they proclaim “for our sakes the world was created.” Human beings would naturally find the contention absurd, but would it be for the frogs? Gods may very well exist, but need they do so to account for the existance of frogs? The question this distinction poses is whether humans would feel the same way they do about their creation were there entities of more profound intellectual or mechanical capabilities to compare ourselves to. Seems unlikely that our notion of God would be the same in the context of humans as a second tier invention, relegated to the role of the muttering background lifeforms that litter the lush garden of some other more cosmically-compelling entities’ Eden.

From the vantage point of the infinite, we are no more, and no less, than the microbes that coarse the crenulated pores of our skin and wiggle about meaninglessly in the crevices of our lower intestines. We have the fortune, and that is all it is, to the most complex and beautiful of conceptions fluttering in the sparks of our synaptic firings. One of the failings of our firings, however, is that they we not entirely self-aware. We contrive a greatness out of the broad aether of our misunderstanding. Incomplete and chaotic at times, nothing soothes the frayed, pink-embered edges of overtaxed minds like a cosmological constant. Einstein, as great a mind as perhaps has ever graced our little sliver of existence, even fell into this trap.

Theists create rules that they deem prudent to live by (as we all do) that they then attribute to God, coloring their own desires, fears and greed with the polishing grace of divinity, often just deifying their own stupidity. They write and translate books they claim to be the very word of God (making their God an unenviable literary failure - considering the means at his disposal), to which one can only imagine an actual God shrugging incredulous shoulders at. They place their idiocies on God’s tongue and pray the world tremble at it. They seek credibility for their actions, words and bigotries through God - so what pretends to be submission to a higher calling is little more than self-indulgent sycophancy. They then condemn the non-believers to eternity of endless torment for not knowing what they think they know, seeing what they see and believing what they believe. God is just man’s conscience writ large, made external, and given the means – the carrot and stick of heaven and hell, respectively - by which to effectuate his most petty desires. Friedrich Nietzsche once asked “is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?” I would go farther and say God isn’t just an unfortunate blunder of man, he is the sum of all of them, a vast celestial conglomeration of man’s weaknesses. He is our insecurities, our absurdities, our stupidities, prejudices, fears and shame freed from ourselves, rolled into a ball, shrouded in righteousness and placed safely beyond reproach.

[Lawdog88]

Originally Posted by rivergator

10 least religious countries:

Country Yes, important No, unimportant
Estonia 16% 78%
Sweden 16.5% 83%
Denmark 18% 80.5%
Czech Republic 20.5% 74.5%
Norway 20.5% 78%
Hong Kong 23% 75.5%
Japan 23.5% 75%
United Kingdom 26.5% 73%
Finland 28% 70%
France 29.5% 69.5%

10 most religious:

Country Yes, important No, unimportant
Niger 100% 0%
Bangladesh 100% 0%
Oman 99.5% 0.5%
Indonesia 99% 1%
Democratic Republic of the Congo 98.5% 1.5%
Malawi 98.5% 1.5%
Morocco 98.5% 1%
Sri Lanka 98.5% 1.5%
Somalia 98.5% 1.5%
Mauritania 98% 1.5%

I would say you left out the MOST religious (or actually, spiritual) of them all:

Uganda . . .

Where President Museveni recently celebrated Uganda’s 50th anniversary of independence from Britain at a National Jubilee Prayers event in October, 2012. During the celebration, he did something very unusual for a national leader: he publicly repented of his personal sins and the sins of the nation.

Museveni began his prayer with thanks, then declared his intention to make a firm break with the past:

Father God in heaven, today we stand here as Ugandans, to thank you for Uganda. We are proud that we are Ugandans and Africans. We thank you for all your goodness to us. I stand here today to close the evil past and especially in the last 50 years of our national leadership history and at the threshold of a new dispensation in the life of this nation. I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness. We confess these sins, which have greatly hampered our national cohesion and delayed our political, social and economic transformation.

We confess sins of idolatry and witchcraft which are rampant in our land. We confess sins of shedding innocent blood, sins of political hypocrisy, dishonesty, intrigue and betrayal. Forgive us of sins of pride, tribalism and sectarianism; sins of laziness, indifference and irresponsibility; sins of corruption and bribery that have eroded our national resources; sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness and debauchery; sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge; sins of injustice, oppression and exploitation; sins of rebellion, insubordination, strife and conflict. These sins and many others have characterized our past leadership, especially the last 50 years of our history. Lord, forgive us and give us a new beginning. Give us a heart to love you, to fear you and to seek you. Take away from us all the above sins.

We pray for national unity. Unite us as Ugandans and eliminate all forms of conflict, sectarianism and tribalism. Help us to see that we are all your children, children of the same Father. Help us to love and respect one another and to appreciate unity in diversity. We pray for prosperity and transformation. Deliver us from ignorance, poverty and disease. As leaders, give us wisdom to help lead our people into political, social and economic transformation.

We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want Uganda to be known as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation, whose God is the Lord. A people you have chosen as your own.

I renounce all the evil foundations and covenants that were laid in idolatry and witchcraft. I renounce all the satanic influence on this nation. And I hereby covenant Uganda to you, to walk in your ways and experience all your blessings forever. I pray for all these in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/genevei...idents-prayer/

[GatorAbe7]

Originally Posted by CalSFGator

Obviously, I don't agree with the premise of the OP that atheism declares there is no meaning in life - nothing could be further from the truth - but I think I understand the more subtle point that theism has a natural and worthwhile role in civilization, at least to date....................

Well said, and not to agree or disagree, but if it can be hypothesized/tested that Faith is better for the individual and society whether it's true or not, what kind of position does that leaves us in? If Atheism is true, yet generally bad for us, which do we go with?

[wargunfan]

Originally Posted by rivergator

10 least religious countries:


Country Yes, important No, unimportant
Estonia 16% 78%
Sweden 16.5% 83%
Denmark 18% 80.5%
Czech Republic 20.5% 74.5%
Norway 20.5% 78%
Hong Kong 23% 75.5%
Japan 23.5% 75%
United Kingdom 26.5% 73%
Finland 28% 70%
France 29.5% 69.5%

10 most religious:


Country Yes, important No, unimportant
Niger 100% 0%
Bangladesh 100% 0%
Oman 99.5% 0.5%
Indonesia 99% 1%
Democratic Republic of the Congo 98.5% 1.5%
Malawi 98.5% 1.5%
Morocco 98.5% 1%
Sri Lanka 98.5% 1.5%
Somalia 98.5% 1.5%
Mauritania 98% 1.5%

River, you have listed countries where organized religion is dying. That is very different than saying these countries organized themselves around atheism. In fact, the reason for the reduction in church attendance in these countries is, IMO, prosperity (at least relative prosperity) and monolithic churches wherein form has replaced faith. Dead churches and prosperity do not make for corporate faith. That does not mean there are not many believers in those countries just not many church goers. Atheism has little or nothing to do with it.

[CalSFGator]

Originally Posted by GatorAbe7

Well said, and not to agree or disagree, but if it can be hypothesized/tested that Faith is better for the individual and society whether it's true or not, what kind of position does that leaves us in? If Atheism is true, yet generally bad for us, which do we go with?

It leaves us wherever we are. Don't take the analogy as belittling (I don't mean it that way), but I think you can think about it in the way that parents will let their children believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. They know that at some point the illusion must be broken, but the structure those archetypal myths provide is conducive to growth, or at least a tested template with more predictable results. Gods may be necessary for a period of time in the early growth of mankind, but I would argue we are approaching our prepubescence, and we will do away with them as we continue to grow collectively.

It can be hard for a society to see a transitional mental paradigm while in their own. It wasn't long ago that we simply could fathom pure space, even the greatest of scientists, and the most radical of thinkers struggled with emptiness, and so they created out of thin air (the most apt phrasing possible) a luminiferous aether. Something for the parts of existence we could name to travel in - a medium, a pathway, something one could apply a teleological meaning to. Eventually, after searching for it with nothing more than the feeling that something should be there, we realized we didn't need the luminiferous aether. God will fall by the same token, as we continue to box him in to a smaller and smaller semantical box. First we will work towards an Einsteinian God, and then inexorably stop naming our natural awe. During that transition, the organizing value of religion will decrease proportionately. People will, one hopes, live good lives because it's all they have, or at least can count on. They will do well to others, not because someone told them with the thundering voice of a contrived God behind them, but because that is what their molecules have jumbled to promote - the proliferation of life as a worthwhile venture.

[GatorAbe7]

Originally Posted by CalSFGator

It can be hard for a society to see a transitional mental paradigm while in their own. It wasn't long ago that we simply could fathom pure space, even the greatest of scientists, and the most radical of thinkers struggled with emptiness, and so they created out of thin air (the most apt phrasing possible) a luminiferous aether. Something for the parts of existence we could name to travel in - a medium, a pathway, something one could apply a teleological meaning to. Eventually, after searching for it with nothing more than the feeling that something should be there, we realized we didn't need the luminiferous aether. God will fall by the same token, as we continue to box him in to a smaller and smaller semantical box. First we will work towards an Einsteinian God, and then inexorably stop naming our natural awe. During that transition, the organizing value of religion will decrease proportionately. People will, one hopes, live good lives because it's all they have, or at least can count on. They will do well to others, not because someone told them with the thundering voice of a contrived God behind them, but because that is what their molecules have jumbled to promote - the proliferation of life as a worthwhile venture.

So, in short, it is best for mankind organize themselves around religion because mankind is in it's pubescent state, so to speak? In other words you believe mankind will grow out of needing religion?

A number of beliefs, such as Classical Mythologies, have permanently phased out, so what makes especially Christianity and Islam built to last?

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Built to last in what sense? Islam is what, 1,500 years old. Christianity is approximately 2,000 years old. Greek Mythology survived for about 1,300 years. The animalists from Gobekli Tepe survived in some form for 3,000 years or so.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Hell, Zoroastrianism is still going strong.

[CalSFGator]

Originally Posted by GatorAbe7

So, in short, it is best for mankind organize themselves around religion because mankind is in it's pubescent state, so to speak? In other words you believe mankind will grow out of needing religion?

A number of beliefs, such as Classical Mythologies, have permanently phased out, so what makes especially Christianity and Islam built to last?

I am not sure it is, or was, the best way - but it is certainly the approach we took, and yes, I think we will grow beyond God. In some ways, we already have. At a minimum, you can see God being pushed further and further into the periphery of our minds. In very brief sense, we have travelled from polytheistic local gods that played a role in every component of existence (the planets and tides, the weather, the crops, etc.) to a fighting for supremacy monotheistic Yahweh-type Gods in the face of intersecting tribalism (necessary to make the hardships you suffer bearable), to the less petty, omnipotent and more cosmic yet still anthropomorphic God of Christianity and Islam, to a detached, westernized God of deists and alleged agnostics that gives us a natural (if entirely arbitrary and unsatisfying) stopping point to the frustrating cosmological question of existence, to a completely formless mathematical God of Einstein or Carl Sagan.

The more we come to understand ourselves and our universe, the more we take away from God, until he is stripped of what made him meaningful in the first place and we eventually realize that you don't need to name what you don't understand for it to be there, and prayer is hope externalized and nothing more. I have no problem with God being real, but at some point you realize that it really doesn't matter.

1 Corinthians 13:11.....

[northgagator]

Originally Posted by 92gator

That's like saying that whatever Christians have done, had nothing to do with their belief in God, but rather their belief in Chirst.

Marxism and communism are built on a foundation of atheisim, that affirmatively asserts that there is no God.

Communists either renounce God--or any 'god'-- upon and/or in order to become communist, or renounced God/any god, before becoming communst.

First of all I posting a view of the author for the link I supplied.

Second the author of the above link was making the point that three atheists who were devote Marxists were responsible for millions of deaths and attacks on religion. He stated that the atrocities they carried out were not done to advance an atheist cause but to advance Communism.

The point that the author is making that Marxist like Stalin and Mao are/were not out to subdue non atheist but are/were out to subdue both atheists and non atheists who are/were to subdue the non Marxists.

I know that this is a minor difference but yet it is a difference.

[umcpgator]

Animals, both social and solitary, don't seem to have a problem finding a willingness to survive without a known religion. Maybe the willingness to survive isn't strongly correlated with a theological construct.

[bluelang]

Originally Posted by wargunfan

There is no history of long lived societies.

I agree. We are an infant species.

[Spurffelbow833]

Originally Posted by wargunfan

There is no question that religion, unlike atheism, is a unifying force in societies.

Religion in general, or a specific religion in a specific society? The unifying force in a city like Dearborn, Michigan is the universal desire to not be shot by National Guard troops, not some cum-bye-ya common thread of truth. Belfast and Jerusalem aren't shining examples of your assertion, either.

[108]

religion can be a unifying force, but so can the Gators

tell me, anyone else experience some sort of spiritual experience being surrounded by 90,000 fans going nuts after the Gators score a TD versus a huge rival?

religion gets too much credit