New Atheism and Your Probs With It, If Any

[Hammer of Los]

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Apathetic agnosticism (also called pragmatic agnosticism) acknowledges that any amount of debate can neither prove, nor disprove, the existence of one or more deities, and if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans. Therefore, their existence has little impact on personal human affairs and should be of little theological interest.

Their existence has had quite a large degree of impact on my affairs, I must tell you.

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[Sounder]

HoL wrote...

Their existence has had quite a large degree of impact on my affairs, I must tell you.

Yes Hammer, whatever these 'deities' are, the 'synch's' provided that educate us through both joy and pain; if we care to pay attention, are a better investment than is trusting the silky words of dominant narrative pushers.

(You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists)

[Wombaticus Rex]

The irony is that Atheists literalize the metaphorical with a tedium similar to fundamentalists.

Got quite a chuckle out of that, thank you. Not sure if it's true, or just so elegant I want it to be.

[JackRiddler]

The irony is that Atheists literalize the metaphorical with a tedium similar to fundamentalists.

Got quite a chuckle out of that, thank you. Not sure if it's true, or just so elegant I want it to be.

Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, and not that it never happens with me, but yes, you seem, at least in this thread, to want things to be true because they're elegant, or "poetry." Even when you know a statement to be ridiculously idealized, atrociously misrepresentative, and rather absolutist in its categories, as is the case with the passage from Russell Means, above. Except for the curiosity of seeing it reposted by you, said passage would definitively meet with my apathyism or whatever they're calling this disguised form of disbelief I'm supposed to claim so as not to provoke the persecution complexes of highly sensitive religionists.

So I wanted to have a discussion about the neoconnish group who have set themselves up as the neoatheist intellectual mafia. Science mafia, in fact. But I seem to have underestimated or briefly forgotten the reserves of theist resentment and vim one can bring forth merely by speaking of atheism in general. Maybe the galactic shift in December has stirred the spirits. I don't mind, but can't spend the next week responding to this outpouring, so some general characterization of the posts in this thread will have to suffice, in lieu of a blow-by-blow. (I hope it won't be quite as thuggish and slow-witted as our would-be anarcho-philosopher's petty thread-derailing tactics.)

I thought atheism meant "without god," for me very much depending on how you define "god." Perhaps its greatest importance to me is political, meaning that it refuses attempts by human beings to rule over, lead or influence other human beings, either mentally or physically, by claiming special relations with an invisible higher power.

What have I learned instead from some of the posts above?

- At the moment I can't think of a way to hold back the stupidity and nastiness of the human being without a strong notion of God to govern him. Therefore God had better exist.

- Stupid or nasty things were said by someone calling themselves an atheist on the Internet. This attaches to all other persons calling themselves atheists. They are totally discredited. Let us mock them. QED.

- If you say you don't believe in x-version of God, or if you mock it in print, you are trying to violently tear god away from people who dearly love and need god. Good, regular people, not decadent urban elitists like you. Their physical violence in response is self-defense.

- Some persons who were atheist, professed atheism or disbelieved in God-X did very bad things. Therefore God-X exists. (Variant: Therefore all atheist thinking or even just the simple idea that you shouldn't believe magic on third-hand hearsay is equivalent morally and intellectually to the most extreme fundamentalist religion.)

- It's all the same God, and only vulgar materialists are too spiritually dull to see it. It may be spread among 12 to 14,000 individual spirit-deities who populate a universe of myths full of dreams, desires and fears. Or it may be consolidated in one Big Sky Man who has commanded his soldiers (so they say) to smash the altars of the individual spirit-deities and convert their followers at pain of death. But it's all One Great Love From The Source.

- The more you want specific terms to talk about it, the more you're missing that mystery is the thing. The less you know, the more you understand. Vague is holy. The vaguer the holier! Wanting to grasp things with your petty, dirty mind limits and debases your beautiful soul. Do you not acknowledge there will be limits to your knowledge? Best not to try. Poor, poor you.

- It's just those kids reactin' to their parents' over-indoctrination. They'll calm down again.

- Nowadays in most places atheists are never controversial if they just don't talk about it, therefore there is no prejudice against them. Except when they open their dirty trap, but that's their just due.

- Strong opinions make you look strident, dear.

- A good atheist is a silent atheist.

There are more, but that'll do.

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[Wombaticus Rex]

...Or, How to Philosophize With a Hammer

[Sounder]

Sounder wrote:
The irony is that Atheists literalize the metaphorical with a tedium similar to fundamentalists.

Got quite a chuckle out of that, thank you. Not sure if it's true, or just so elegant I want it to be.

Yeah, I don't know if it's true either, but if language cannot be used to subvert the dominant narrative, then what good is it anyway.

Here is another one, (for the google search engine); Western exceptionalism is hedonism dressed up as altruism.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it Jack.

[JackRiddler]

Does Your Toolbox Lack For One?

[JackRiddler]

Western exceptionalism is hedonism dressed up as altruism.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it Jack.

Strawmanning is cluelessness dressed up as wisdom.

Macho one-liner makes you a winner.

[82_28]

Hey Jack. You asked for opinions in this thread:

New Atheism and Your Probs With It, If Any

It seems to me you're getting them.

[kool maudit]

there are bob dylans, you know, and there are leonard cohens. it's all rigorous, and it's all somewhat intuitive. it's not decadent or whatever to put one's head in the clouds a bit for this one. it has that element to it. it also has the social element, the movement element, the cultural-change element -- but ultimately whether it's true or not has to do with the nature of consciousness. atheism and theism is a mystical conversation. how could it not be?

[Sounder]

Jack wrote...

Strawmanning is cluelessness dressed up as wisdom.

Macho one-liner makes you a winner.

Macho? Ok, I can consider that, along with other options.

And I am out to lunch on the strawmanning trick (although the proximity of strawmanning and cluelessness in your first sentence provokes a vague sense of irony in my head), but do notice that the accusation is often used to defer from treating the subject of the criticism. (Which is that; Atheism is closely tied to ideas that devalue both humans and the value and/or meaning within the learning experience.)

If you think a certain person is ‘highjacking’ the thread, by all means, stick to responding to what folk actually say (or write) in regard to their problems with New Atheism.

vanlose kids contributions would be a great place to start.

A fair illustration of many peoples problem with Atheism is well expressed by the following words.

According to Schroeder, Nietzsche's fully developed critique of morality in Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) leaves the reader in no doubt that Nietzsche saw the destruction of the most basic moral principles - including the fundamental moral obligation not inflict gratuitous harm on others - as the only position consistent with a genuine rejection of God. According to Nietzsche, traditional morality was essentially a product of Jewish, and subsequently Christian, resentment against the original aristocratic values of strength, pride, and hardness of heart of their pagan political masters.[9]Nietzsche traces the Judeo-Christian moral principles of non-violence, impartiality and altruism to the particular group interests of the subordinated Jews and Christians.[10]Consequently, since traditional morality is merely the product of particular group interests, it loses its claim to universal validity.[11]

Schroeder notes that having exposed Judeo-Christian egalitarianism and universalism as a mere disguise for the promotion of their particular interests, Nietzsche promotes a particularist morality for the 'strong'. Hardness of heart, cruelty, and the will to annihilate the inferior sort of human beings constitute the basic components of his 'ethics' which he proposes should replace the old (religious) morality.[12] As Schroeder further observes, Nietzsche did not stop at seeking the physical annihilation of those human beings whom he considered the detritus of life ('Ausschuss und Abfall des Lebens').[13] Like De Sade, the harming - and also the killing - of supposed inferiors is not only allowed by Nietzsche but positively encouraged, for the sake of the improvement of the race.

Marx and Marxist-Leninism
Another very influential strand of atheism which condoned violence was Marxist dialectical materialism. Marxism and Marxist-Leninism undoubtedly permitted violence as a means to an end, namely, the establishment of the communist society. The Marxist theory of ideology, as well as Marxist-Leninism which interpreted Marx faithfully in this respect, regarded morality as a mere ideological product or epiphenomenon of material conditions prevailing within a given society. It saw in morality no binding reason not to exercise violence in the achievement of its political ends, since the ideological critique had supposedly exposed morality and its claims to universal validity as the mere expression of particular interests.[14]

It is for this reason that Dawkins appears to be wrong in claiming that the insinuation that Stalin and Hitler 'did their terrible deeds because they were atheists' is 'false'.[15] Just as the connection between Nietzsche's atheism and his amoralism lies in his supposed exposure of Judeo-Christian morality as a mere disguised expression of its essentially partial will to power, equally the connection between Marx's atheism and his amoralism lies in his similar exposure of bourgeois Enlightenment morality as a mere disguise for the pursuit of the partial socio-economic interests of a particular class (the bourgeoisie). It can be argued that Lenin was only being consistent in regarding morality as just one more instrument in the political struggle. It was not immoral to commit violence, since morality was just ideology, and could be ignored in pursuing the aims of the communist revolution; as Schroeder notes, the events post-1917 in Russia were merely a consistent application of the atheistic and amoral principles of dialectical materialism.[16]


Difficulties for the New Atheists
Given the deeply ambivalent relationship between different forms of modern atheism and violence, there is an urgent need to debate the grounds for the New Atheists' confidence that a contemporary widespread promotion of atheism would realise the hopes of d'Holbach and Naigeon rather than repeat the failures of Marxism or Nazism. Despite Dawkins' protestations there does seem to be a case for finding a connection between atheist tyrannies and the atheism of the doctrines they apply; this is the case both for Marxism and for the influence of Nietzsche on the intellectual justification of Nazism.[17]

Jack, you should be happy to have gotten such a hearty response to your question about our problems with New Atheism. But I do understand your reticence toward considering connections between Atheism and coercive ideology historically and down to today.

Unpleasantness all round it seems.

The New Atheists have tended up to the present to bracket aside these difficult issues.

So far, -so far.

[undead]

That Russel Means article was very right-on. I believe that the atheism of the European and Euro-American left is a big reason why it never goes anywhere. That is just my opinion. But I think it is relevant that atheism as an ideology is historically very white, and can be construed as being quite racist when applied to indigenous belief systems. Which is not to say that you have to believe in Wakan Tanka, but making atheism an intellectual priority or a refurbished "movement" is not going to foster cooperation with indigenous peoples, nor with African and Latin Americans, nor with Muslims, nor with working class whites, all of whom are supposedly the beneficiaries of leftist causes.

I wonder why atheists need to form a group identity at all, besides dealing with issues of targeted discrimination against atheists. Is it insecurity? I guess that space needs to be filled with something. Certainly the polemic is really counterproductive and shows extreme insecurity. Isn't proselytizing what the really unbearable religious types do?

[undead]

Stupid or nasty things were said by someone calling themselves an atheist on the Internet. This attaches to all other persons calling themselves atheists. They are totally discredited.

I don't support this phenomenon but you must see how this happens in reality, exactly how you said it. This is why I question the utility of identifying oneself by what one does not believe, since there is the possibility of being lumped in with a bunch of people who you disagree with on other issues. Why does theism vs. non-theism need to be the most important issue anyway? Aren't there other values that are more important?

[Elvis]

Speaking for myself, and of strawmen, I didn't do this:

- Stupid or nasty things were said by someone calling themselves an atheist on the Internet. This attaches to all other persons calling themselves atheists. They are totally discredited. Let us mock them. QED.

I've had many good conversations with atheists, including good friends, who don't say nasty, stupid things.

Nor did I say or imply this:

- Strong opinions make you look strident, dear.

Being strident makes one strident. (Do I have to point that out?) By no means does strident describe all atheists.

[JackRiddler]

Enlightenment Optimism

The strategy of the New Atheists has been to downplay the accusation that atheism has led to secular tyrannies (Marxism and Nazism)

Marx was atheist -- though quite nuanced, including in his generally misunderstood quote about religion as opium of the people -- and the Soviet Marxists in power were doctrinaire atheists. (I'm not going to bother with whether their atheism was the motivating force behind their crimes, actual and alleged.)

But sorry. You can have your other historical distortions as too numerous and usually trivial to address. But you don't get to pin the fanatical theist, Adolf Hitler, on atheism. You don't get to call the reactionary theocracy of the Third Reich a "secular tyranny." Hitler's philosophy may not have corresponded to mainline Catholicism, since he claimed to be bringing something new into being, but he said constantly that he was doing God's work, and his followers agreed. They weren't remotely atheists. (Unless you want to argue that Hitler was a scam artist talking up God for his own gain, but in that case you can also blame atheism for Pat Robertson.) In Hitler's view God created the races and their hierarchy, and had a mission in mind for the Germans.

Furthermore, the Nazis did not attack the German churches. The clerical stance to Hitler went from a few isolated cases of resistance (hyped like crazy to this day, largely to disguise the fact that 90% of domestic resistance, such as it was, came from Communists, Social Democrats and the labor movement) to reluctant assent and cooperation (as in the euthanasia action, the mass murder of inmates at largely church-run asylums) to celebration and support. After the war, the two Christian church hierarchies were the busiest organizational lobby in favor of amnesty for all Nazis.

Hitler's Christianity
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

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