New Atheism and Your Probs With It, If Any

[vanlose kid]

...when your theist sensibilities are offended as they easily are...

you think far too highly of yourself and your skillz in rhetoric Jack.

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[H_C_E]

Nonsense. Atheism is not a belief in nothing. ...

Atheism is a refusal to believe in an invisible and sentient super-powerful creator-ruler-god on the sole basis of someone's say-so without evidence, or someone's expectation that you should have faith.

So sez you. How ever you want to spin it, from my POV atheism is a denial
of anything deeper than or beyond\behind the material world. I can't abide the
notion that the scientific materialist description of our world is true or accurate.
So I still contend that atheism is a belief in nothing, and requires just as much
faith as other beliefs.

And it is a belief. I'm not comfortable with that degree of certitude.

My religion is summed up in the following three words: I DON'T KNOW

[compared2what?]

.... It is true that educated, liberal societies (European ones, for example) tend to produce more rational people ...

there you lot go again. Jack does it all the time so i'll pick on you for once. is this an empirical claim? or is it just party propaganda?

let's out it this way (i know Jack will agree with the following but i'm asking you) are atheists rational by default or is it of their essence--is it because of the higher level of evolution which they have reached that makes them superior, scientifically speaking?

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I think before you go back to stuffing your words in other peoples' mouths you owe the board an admission that you propagated a sheer falsehood a couple of pages ago in your attempt to falsely categorize the fanatical theist and would-be Messiah, Adolf Hitler, and his pro-Christian movement, the National Socialists, as atheists.

.

no, i propagated the research of academics at Cambridge. they disagree with you Jack, imagine that huh?

He would have to, because they don't. Let's review:

The strategy of the New Atheists has been to downplay the accusation that atheism has led to secular tyrannies (Marxism and Nazism), and stress the tradition of atheist secular humanism.

That's a when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife gambit, utterly unsupported by research. I mean, it's footnoted to what I presume are passages by Hawkins and Hitchens uncontroversially pointing out that both Hitler and Nazism were pro-Christian. Which they can get away with doing, because that's manifestly and unambiguously what they were, as a matter of both enormously well-documented historical record and presently still-living memory..

Still. It's such a low tactic when they do it that I have no idea why anyone would want to fight very hard to make them look honorable by comparison.

[vanlose kid]

c2w, did you miss the part Jack has been responding to all this time or are you just pretending to, so you can display your smarts?

it's here: http://www.investigatingatheism.info/po ... fficulties

you know, there is a reason he's been accusing me of pulling Godwin on him, right? i know you think i'm delusional and Jack's the bee's knees, but try to be fair, ok? try. you don't HAVE to.

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[vanlose kid]

re the OP. i find it mildly ridiculous and very amusing that some atheist are going around worried about other atheists who are, supposedly, tarnishing the name of atheism, or something.

i've been looking into atheist ethics and the general consensus which can't be called one because all atheists are individuals who make up their own minds man is that the only true and objective atheist ethics is personal. Hitchens says that atheism is not a moral code and carries no moral implications: you can be atheist and fascist without contradiction.

Jack says that atheists are all about independent moral reasoning. all that being so, what's the problem? Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris are atheist and fascist. and they came to their fascist views through independent scientific and fact-based rational moral reasoning with a bit of intuition and some sidelong glances toward what the majority of their peers thought was ok, all on their own, of course.

just what atheists of all stripes, old and new, advocate.

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[compared2what?]

c2w, did you miss the part Jack has been responding to all this time or are you just pretending to, so you can display your smarts?

it's here: http://www.investigatingatheism.info/po ... fficulties

Honestly, it's just my position that you were mistaken. There's not a defensible case to be made for the atheism of Hitler and/or Nazis. They weren't atheists. I didn't miss that piece. But since I don't see what I said that's contradicted or otherwise undermined by it, you're going to have to tell me

you know, there is a reason he's been accusing me of pulling Godwin on him, right?

If there is and it's not the above-referenced foisting off of Hitler/Nazism on atheists, I guess I don't.

But i know you think i'm delusional and Jack's the bee's knees, but try to be fair, ok? try. you don't HAVE to.

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I like you. I always have. Also, I don't think you're delusional. I just think you're wrong. But if I am, tell me why. Seriously. I wasn't trying to be mean or partisan.

[undead]

I didn't say that atheists are more rational - only that affluent societies which provide education to their people tend to produce more rational people, and coincidentally or not, more atheists. I will not go into the benefits and disadvantages of over-education, or of atheism. I'm finished with this conversation because I found it to be of little practical value or relevance. Enjoy yourselves.

[vanlose kid]

dude, i don't know anything about foisting nothing on nobody. but there are a number of people who seem very serious and who have looked into it who think it makes sense to identify the influence of atheism on nazism, you know, from Nietzsche? or do you think Nietzsche is christian? i can see it.

i can also see that it makes little sense to say conclusively as Jack here does, that the nazis were christian. i mean not even Hitchens went that far man.

so what is your problem with me?

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[compared2what?]

dude, i don't know anything about foisting nothing on nobody. but there are a number of people who seem very serious and who have looked into it who think it makes sense to identify the influence of atheism on nazism, you know, from Nietzsche? or do you think Nietzsche is christian? i can see it.

i can also see that it makes little sense to say conclusively as Jack here does, that the nazis were christian. i mean not even Hitchens went that far man.

so what is your problem with me?

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I don't have one. I have a problem with the claim that atheism was identifiably an influence on Nazism. Because it's false.

I didn't see Jack conclusively say that. I saw him say "pro-Christian." And that struck me as an acceptably scrupulous way of avoiding saying they were Christian in context, although I wouldn't want to see anybody making a habit out of it when questions of religion weren't in play, They were fascists, Religiosity was definitely a part of their program Whether or not religion was is more debatable. But i'd probably say it was, personally.

And that being so, I guess I'd have to find some way of saying that the religion that happened to be lying around was Christianity without saying that Nazism was a Christian movement. Because it wasn't. And also without omitting to say that, in fact, the Nazis persecuted some Christians and suppressed some forms of Christianity. Because that's what happened.

I don't see how that's a disservice to theists. But if it is, I'm sure you'll let me know.

[JackRiddler]

c2w, did you miss the part Jack has been responding to all this time or are you just pretending to, so you can display your smarts?

it's here: http://www.investigatingatheism.info/po ... fficulties

Are you this delusional? You just make up whatever you like. You will murder discussion on this subject by flooding with invented bullshit, like the above, and by demonizing me. You are a thug.

Of course the linked passage isn't "the part I have been responding to all this time," or at all, and it doesn't particularly interest me. I don't recall reading it, although I may have. It's generic and forgettable stuff: 1) Once again, trying to smuggle in the 100% lie that the Nazis were per-se an "atheist" tyranny; and 2) a restatement of the tired old stuff about how the lack of a strong god will cause violence and moral breakdown -- as opposed to the state of things under strong-god societies? As if this supposed moral imperative for a strong god somehow constitutes evidence for its existence, or changes anything in the reality that all morality has always been human-created, regardless of attribution.

We must appease the Ancient Ones or the world will end!

[vanlose kid]

c2w: I don't have one. I have a problem with the claim that atheism was identifiably an influence on Nazism. Because it's false.

I didn't see Jack conclusively say that. I saw him say "pro-Christian." And that struck me as an acceptably scrupulous way of avoiding saying they were Christian in context, although I wouldn't want to see anybody making a habit out of it when questions of religion weren't in play, They were fascists, Religiosity was definitely a part of their program Whether or not religion was is more debatable. But i'd probably say it was, personally.

And that being so, I guess I'd have to find some way of saying that the religion that happened to be lying around was Christianity without saying that Nazism was a Christian movement. Because it wasn't. And also without omitting to say that, in fact, the Nazis persecuted some Christians and suppressed some forms of Christianity. Because that's what happened.

I don't see how that's a disservice to theists. But if it is, I'm sure you'll let me know.

*****

where did i say it was a disservice to theists? that has nothing to do with anything. as for the part about nazis not being atheist or in any way influenced by atheists (Nietzsche, the superman)--woohoo! if you say so ma'am. you jus' mus' be rayt.

as for this: "that atheism was identifiably an influence on Nazism is false" i'm sure that you, like Jack, woould love to dictate what the truth is. i'll say, however, your claim that it is false is false. and that just like Jack you know it is.

oh, and the way you dress up Jack's ex cathedra pronouncements with liberal fuzzwuzz? cute. but it ain't no flying pig.

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[vanlose kid]

Are you this delusional? You just make up whatever you like. You will murder discussion on this subject by flooding with invented bullshit, like the above, and by demonizing me. You are a thug.

Of course the linked passage isn't "the part I have been responding to all this time," or at all, and it doesn't particularly interest me. I don't recall reading it, although I may have. It's generic and forgettable stuff: 1) Once again, trying to smuggle in the 100% lie that the Nazis were per-se an "atheist" tyranny; and 2) a restatement of the tired old stuff about how the lack of a strong god will cause violence and moral breakdown -- as opposed to the state of things under strong-god societies? As if this supposed moral imperative for a strong god somehow constitutes evidence for its existence, or changes anything in the reality that all morality has always been human-created, regardless of attribution.

We must appease the Ancient Ones or the world will end!

*****

do you ever read and consider what you say? i mean your own admonitions for instance? because you contradict yourself all the damn time. i guess you're just too het up to notice. either that or you have the morals of a superman.

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[vanlose kid]

that is to say, none.

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[vanlose kid]

oh, and one more thing about the level of stupidity atheism subjects you to.

A: "nazis could not have been atheists because they persecuted atheists. QED."

B: "But you say they're christian?"

A: "Yeah, man. it's a proven fact."

B: "But they persecuted christians."

A: "Yeah, but that's different. they're religionists."

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Catholic priests in the Dachau concentration camp

Dachau became the camp where 2,720 clergymen were sent, including 2,579 Catholic Priests. The priests at Dachau were separated from the other prisoners and housed together in several barrack buildings in the rear of the camp. There were 1,780 Polish priests and 447 German priests at Dachau. Of the 1,034 priests who died in the camp, 868 were Polish and 94 were German. Source: "What was it like in the Concentration Camp at Dachau?" by Dr. Johannes Neuhäusler.

Other clergymen at Dachau included 109 Protestant ministers, 22 Greek Orthodox, 2 Muslims and 8 men who were classified as "Old Catholic and Mariaists."

Dr. Johannes Neuhäusler, an auxiliary Bishop from Munich, was one of the 8 clergymen at Dachau who had a private cell in the bunker, the camp prison building. He was free to leave his cell and walk around the camp. He could also receive visitors from outside the camp. The worst thing that happened to Dr. Neuhäusler at Dachau was that he was once punished by being confined indoors in the bunker for a week. He was punished for secretly hearing the confession of a former Italian minister who had just arrived at the bunker the day before. Dr. Neuhäusler wrote in his book entitled "What was it like in the Concentration Camp at Dachau?" that he had been betrayed by a Bible inquirer (Jehovah's Witness) who worked as the Hausl (housekeeper) in the bunker.

Dr. Neuhäusler did not mention any ill treatment at Dachau but he did write about how he was beaten when he was initially sent to the Sachsenhausen camp.

...

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScr ... Life3.html

don't let the facts bother you though. you all belong to the ministry of truth.

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[JackRiddler]

Please use the quote function to distinguish my words (and those of others) from yours. Thank you.