The Problem with Religious Moderation

[helene_t]

2) Suppose you and your friend are standing next to a candy machine full of gums. He asks you 'do you believe there is an even number of candies in this machine?' You naturally say 'No, I don't believe so.' So now he asks you 'Aha, so you believe there is an ODD number?'

I would answer "I don't know". Of course if I only have the choice between "yes" and "no" I would say "no" but I think that most people would interpret "I don't believe X" to be equivalent to "I believe (not X)". I take this more as one of many illogical features of our language than as a sign of lack of recognition of the agnostic option.

 

In many situations the distinction is important. For example if I say that I disbelieve (to distinguish from merely "don't believe") in astrology, I mean to say that I strongly believe that in the unlikely event that there is a correlation between month of birth and personality type, the correlation is not likely to work better for the zodiac calendar than for any other calendar, and certainly not caused by annual variations in cosmic radiation.

 

But whether someone disbelieves in god or merely "doesn't believe" in god doesn't matter except if that someone has a very precise idea about what god would look like and would like to know whether that particular god exists or not.

 

Do I disbelieve, or merely "not believe", that the epitome of love and goodness exists? Well, it is an abstract concept so it exists for you if you find it useful to think of the world in terms of such concepts. I don't but that's just me.

 

What about the creator of the universe? Well I don't think much about cosmology so it isn't an issue that I would think about if you asked me to write an essay about my world view. As for what, if anything, predates the Big Bang, I have no clue. And the question doesn't give me sleepless nights.

[Fluffy]

Your ignorance is showing, despite your attempt to mask it as humour with that emoticon.

I'd prefer to say that your arrogance is showing, as usual on religious threads BTW.

 

The only good thing about fanatic atheists that want to get rid of all of us is that at some point, hopefully soon, religious leaders will realice there is no point in fighting each other any more, and will finally realice that all religions are essentially the same ending up with most of the stupid culture-related customs long time obsolete.

[WellSpyder]

... at some point, hopefully soon, religious leaders will realice there is no point in fighting each other any more, and will finally realice that all religions are essentially the same ...

I'm happy to share your hope, but I must admit that as a forecaster I won't be putting any money on it happening soon!

[Vampyr]

I would answer "I don't know".

 

Yes, I thought that analogy was very strange.

 

 

What about the creator of the universe? Well I don't think much about cosmology so it isn't an issue that I would think about if you asked me to write an essay about my world view. As for what, if anything, predates the Big Bang, I have no clue. And the question doesn't give me sleepless nights.

 

I think about this a lot; perhaps not to the extent of sleepless nights, but it is fascinating and frustrating for me. There must have been a "beginning" but there couldn't have been a "beginning"... AARGH! Another thing I think about is that, surely, "nothing" is overwhelmingly more likely than "something", yet a whole lot of "something" exists.

 

I can see why a person would resort to a god to explain these mysteries, but adding another entity seems the last thing that would help!

[barmar]

The people with the power will find other ways to justify and exercise that same power, and the people wanting the power will find other ways to invigorate the people and justify the actions required to get it, and the same things will happen.

This reminds me of the argument against gun control: If you take away guns, violent people will find other ways to kill people, so there's no point in it.

 

What both arguments miss is the quantitative difference. Just as guns make it easier to kill large numbers of people (when was the last time you heard of a "stabbing rampage"?), religion has long had much success at motivating large numbers of people.

 

It doesn't have exclusivity, I'll admit. Patriotism is also pretty effective -- Nazism was a patriotic movement. But examine history and contemporary society, and you'll see that religious fervor is most effective.

[Vampyr]

The only good thing about fanatic atheists that want to get rid of all of us is that at some point, hopefully soon, religious leaders will realice there is no point in fighting each other any more, and will finally realice that all religions are essentially the same ending up with most of the stupid culture-related customs long time obsolete.

 

This would put the "Universal" in Unitarian Universalist, and would be a very good thing. It is difficult to see it happening, though, because members of religions believe not only in a god, but in the associated theology. And for many the theology and rites are very precious to the practitioners.

[Vampyr]

This reminds me of the argument against gun control: If you take away guns, violent people will find other ways to kill people, so there's no point in it.

 

What both arguments miss is the quantitative difference. Just as guns make it easier to kill large numbers of people (when was the last time you heard of a "stabbing rampage"?), religion has long had much success at motivating large numbers of people.

 

Quite. In a country where even the police don't have firearms, we have a mass gun murder about once every 8-10 years, on average. The US seems to have one every 8-10 weeks (OK, probably more like months). There is knife crime, but when there is a fatal injury the number of victims is virtually always exactly one.

[ArtK78]

pot: kettle: black.

Nomination for best post in the Water Cooler.

 

Awesome.

[ArtK78]

........, hopefully soon, religious leaders will realice there is no point in fighting each other any more, and will finally realice that all religions are essentially the same ending up with most of the stupid culture-related customs long time obsolete.

Don't hold your breath.

[Winstonm]

My argument is that I do not believe it would do that - and that there is being made no arguments that removing one type of violence would in fact, reduce violence. It is simply assumed without comment.

 

As the damage done to American liberty from the Communist witch hunts (and anti-communism in general) became "required", and expanded (as Communism retreated as a threat), to fight "the horror that is drugs in our community", which has seamlessly migrated (given that even most backers of the War on Drugs know that it hasn't reduced anything, it's not sellable any more), thanks to a spectacular failure of intelligence (not unreasonable, and failures of intelligence of that level happen every day; just that this one had spectacular results), into a huge expansion "to fight Terrorism"... my strong belief is that, after about 5 years, should religion go the way of the dodo tomorrow, the reduction in violence would be - zero at best.

 

The people with the power will find other ways to justify and exercise that same power, and the people wanting the power will find other ways to invigorate the people and justify the actions required to get it, and the same things will happen. Some will fall, and some will rise. Soviet Communism was a pervasive, destructive beast with power concentrated unnaturally. Since 1988, what has changed? Do not the people with influence still have influence? Do not the extra-legal ways things work not still work? Is there still not injustice and violence, at scales (if not by the same methods) as before? Even many of the people are the same.

 

Is there any reason to believe that that would be any different should Religion fall?

 

Of course, there is no way to know the answer. At the same time, there is at least a reasonable assumption that if you reduce the motivations for bloodshed by 1, there will be less bloodshed. To assume otherwise is to believe that man is a predominantly bloodthirsty animal who will always find a reason to kill or that "X" amount of deaths are preordained and will occur regardless of motivations.

 

I reject both suppositions. If there had been no belief in god, there would have been no Great Inquisition or Spanish Inquisition, and the people who died in those atrocities may have met another early death from another source but it is doubtful each of those deaths could be accounted for that way. The same thing can be said for any death caused by a religious belief in god and belief in an afterlife - some may have died by other murderous means but to think each one would die that way runs counter to our modern understanding of mortality tables.

 

When one argues generalities, quid pro quo murderous motivation tradeoffs can sound reasonable, but when one identifies specifics, a true quid pro quo tradeoff is highly unlikely. There is no evidence that removing the evil men do in the name of religion will only cause an increase in non-religious motivated evil unless your initial assumption is that evil is a constant. I do not think that is the case.

[RSClyde]

I'd prefer to say that your arrogance is showing, as usual on religious threads BTW.

 

The only good thing about fanatic atheists that want to get rid of all of us is that at some point, hopefully soon, religious leaders will realice there is no point in fighting each other any more, and will finally realice that all religions are essentially the same ending up with most of the stupid culture-related customs long time obsolete.

A clever use of words, atheists want to "get rid" of all of us. I'm assuming that the antecedent for us is "religious people". If by "get rid of" you mean eliminate a belief system then how is this different from anything else?

Don't nonastrologers want to "get rid" of adherents to astrology?

Don't nonbelievers in Zeus want to "get rid" of believers?

Don't doctors want to "get rid" of anti-vaccine wackos?

But if you're talking about disbelief in Yahweh, the bush burning, manna dropping, pestilence inflicting god of iron age Palestine, then suddenly "getting rid" of believers takes on some dark meaning. There is now a subtle suggestion of violent eradication.

 

Similarly with the word "fanatic". Anyone can point out that there's no reason to believe in Thor, Apollo, Poseiden, etc. But only a fanatic would point out that there's no reason to believe in the god of the ancient Israelites.

 

The only sense in which all religion are "the same" is that they are all man made. If this is what you meant then you would be an atheist yourself. If not then in what universe are all religions the same? Probably the same one where religious leaders stop fighting join hands and sing Kumbaya. I'd be happy if people just stopped blowing themselves up, even that seems like a far fetched goal.

[mikeh]

I'd prefer to say that your arrogance is showing, as usual on religious threads BTW.

 

The only good thing about fanatic atheists that want to get rid of all of us is that at some point, hopefully soon, religious leaders will realice there is no point in fighting each other any more, and will finally realice that all religions are essentially the same ending up with most of the stupid culture-related customs long time obsolete.

I take it that I am your fanatic atheist :D

 

What have I ever written that suggests that I want to 'get rid of' any human being?

 

I would love to learn that some religious believer lost his or her belief in all religion, since, after the initial pain, that person's life would be, I believe, enriched and, more importantly, the power of the religion to which he ascribed would have been diminished, even if only trivially. Were the person to also lose faith in the existence of a god, then so much the better, for him or her and for the rest of us.

 

You appear to lack the intellectual resources to understand this...not, I am sure, due to stupidity....you are clearly intelligent...but due to having been immersed in religion for so long, and from such an early age, that you can't see beyond your blinkered prejudices.

 

I know that you will dismiss this post as more arrogance, which is your right and might even be valid. However, one day you might wake up...and if anything I have written plays a role in that, well, it would have been worth all the anger I provoked in you now.

 

 

Edit: you accuse me, and by implication, at least some other atheists, of arrogance. Yet I have seen none of us argue that religious believers cannot appreciate or create beauty to the same extent as do atheists, nor have I seen any of us argue that a belief in god will make us all murderers...that last being one of your statements about atheists and the effect of non-belief, fluffy. Who is really the arrogant one?

[billw55]

I take it that I am your fanatic atheist :D

 

What have I ever written that suggests that I want to 'get rid of' any human being?

Fluffy is a non-native English speaker; you should not be so literal. It is obvious to me that he meant "fanatic atheists want to expunge religious belief" rather than expunging the actual human beings ...

 

I would love to learn that some religious believer lost his or her belief in all religion, since, after the initial pain, that person's life would be, I believe, enriched and, more importantly, the power of the religion to which he ascribed would have been diminished, even if only trivially. Were the person to also lose faith in the existence of a god, then so much the better, for him or her and for the rest of us.

... which he seems quite correct in believing. Not that this is necessarily bad or good, just that he is right in this particular respect.

 

You appear to lack the intellectual resources to understand this...not, I am sure, due to stupidity....you are clearly intelligent...but due to having been immersed in religion for so long, and from such an early age, that you can't see beyond your blinkered prejudices.

IMO you are the one who misunderstood as above. I don't think you lack the intellectual resources, but I do think your own bias led to your hasty conclusion.

 

Edit: you accuse me, and by implication, at least some other atheists, of arrogance. Yet I have seen none of us argue that religious believers cannot appreciate or create beauty to the same extent as do atheists, nor have I seen any of us argue that a belief in god will make us all murderers...that last being one of your statements about atheists and the effect of non-belief, fluffy. Who is really the arrogant one?

I don't see where Fluffy said atheists cannot create beauty.

 

So far, I would score you as the more arrogant.

[Vampyr]

I would love to learn that some religious believer lost his or her belief in all religion, since, after the initial pain, that person's life would be, I believe, enriched and, more importantly, the power of the religion to which he ascribed would have been diminished, even if only trivially. Were the person to also lose faith in the existence of a god, then so much the better, for him or her and for the rest of us.

 

I can assert that the best way to create a generation of atheists is to send them to nine years of Catholic school.

[mycroft]

The people with the power will find other ways to justify and exercise that same power, and the people wanting the power will find other ways to invigorate the people and justify the actions required to get it, and the same things will happen.

This reminds me of the argument against gun control: If you take away guns, violent people will find other ways to kill people, so there's no point in it.

 

What both arguments miss is the quantitative difference. Just as guns make it easier to kill large numbers of people (when was the last time you heard of a "stabbing rampage"?), religion has long had much success at motivating large numbers of people.

Well, there was that guy in China that all the people using that argument were going after, earlier this year. And you're right: Casualties 16, Fatalities Zero.

It doesn't have exclusivity, I'll admit. Patriotism is also pretty effective -- Nazism was a patriotic movement. But examine history and contemporary society, and you'll see that religious fervor is most effective.

This argument I'll accept. I may or may not agree with it - after all, Stalin's non-religious (unless you treat "unshakable belief that Communism can not be wrong" as a religious belief) '30s killed more *civilians* than the rest of the 20th century's deliberate killings combined, but I'll accept it.

Of course, there is no way to know the answer. At the same time, there is at least a reasonable assumption that if you reduce the motivations for bloodshed by 1, there will be less bloodshed. To assume otherwise is to believe that man is a predominantly bloodthirsty animal who will always find a reason to kill or that "X" amount of deaths are preordained and will occur regardless of motivations.

My argument is that in many cases, religion wasn't the bedrock motivation - or if it was, it was tied up with "fear/hate of the Other", using religion as an Othering.

I reject both suppositions. If there had been no belief in god, there would have been no Great Inquisition or Spanish Inquisition, and the people who died in those atrocities may have met another early death from another source but it is doubtful each of those deaths could be accounted for that way. The same thing can be said for any death caused by a religious belief in god and belief in an afterlife - some may have died by other murderous means but to think each one would die that way runs counter to our modern understanding of mortality tables.

I would suspect that the Jewish pogroms of the Middle Ages were *exactly* othering, rather than Religious in nature. Sure, they wanted the Jews to convert to The Right Religion, but that also meant they wanted the Jews to conform to the Right kind of behaviour for Spain - and bring more people under the power of the Catholic Bureaucracy.

 

The nature of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages really suffered from its massive temporal power. I would suggest that even without the actual troops, the nature of American Fundamentalist Christianity is really suffering from its current massive temporal power.

 

When one argues generalities, quid pro quo murderous motivation tradeoffs can sound reasonable, but when one identifies specifics, a true quid pro quo tradeoff is highly unlikely. There is no evidence that removing the evil men do in the name of religion will only cause an increase in non-religious motivated evil unless your initial assumption is that evil is a constant. I do not think that is the case.

As I am trying to make clear, or unless my initial assumption is that "in the name of religion" is not the base motivation. I believe that power and the desire to control are much more likely to be the base motivation, and that religious structures, especially strictly hierarchical ones, are some of the best power levers the world has ever known. So, as I said above, I'll accept Barmar's argument, but only because we would be replacing the religious control system with a less successful one, not because the existence or not of a God, or that Power's influence in our lives, in Itself promotes Evil.

[PassedOut]

I can assert that the best way to create a generation of atheists is to send them to nine years of Catholic school.

Constance tells me that the same is true of twelve years of Lutheran school.

[mikeh]

Fluffy is a non-native English speaker; you should not be so literal. It is obvious to me that he meant "fanatic atheists want to expunge religious belief" rather than expunging the actual human beings ...

 

 

You may well be correct, and I hope you are. However, I think it is arrogant for you to assert that he didn't mean that which his words clearly appear to convey. We need fluffy to say whether, being now aware of how his words read in English, he meant something else. I hope he did and that your interpretation is the correct one.

 

 

 

I don't see where Fluffy said atheists cannot create beauty.

 

And I don't see where I said he did. Do you?

 

 

So far, I would score you as the more arrogant.

I am disqualified from scoring since I am biased :P

 

Let me, however, posit a situation for you.

 

Some (not all, I am sure) believers assert and appear to believe that a group of 'others' (atheists), by reason of their lack of faith in a god entity suffer two problems in life and another, presumably far more important in their view, problem 'after life'.

 

Atheists, due to their lack of the moral guidance afforded by religious faith, have no reason not to rob, rape, steal, or even kill if they think they can get away with it. Believers, by virtue of the teachings of their faith, know not to give in to these (presumably universal?) desires.

 

Atheists, altho capable of enjoying beauty and art, and to some degree of creating the same, are less able to do so because, after all, so much beauty and art was inspired by or produced for the purpose of glorifying 'god'. So we are stunted.

 

Now, I am sure that many believers would say that they don't believe one or both of the foregoing, but the next problem must dwarf the first two.

 

Atheists, and here we are merely a subset of a far larger part of humanity, are doomed in the (very, very)long run. The details vary from faith to faith, but should we die without recognizing the correct god (out of so many choices! It's worse than going to Baskin-Robbins for an ice cream cone), we are at the least denied the opportunity to go to heaven or whatever glorious après-life experience is said to await the lucky/wise few. For many religionists, our fate is not merely a loss of a great opportunity but far worse: terrible, unimaginable pain and torment for eternity.

 

By contrast, I know of no atheist who suggests that any believer is going to face eternal punishment of any kind, and certainly not that the believer will suffer while the smug atheist luxuriates. Btw, what kind of amoral monster could bask in the glory of a god without feeling some shame that so many other humans have been condemned to suffer/denied this glory by their god? Edit: some later posts have criticized this, and I suppose I have to fall back on a sort of bill55 explantion: I meant no criticism of believers who feel that they are going to heaven, or wherever, and others aren't, during their life: at least I certainly don't consider such as amoral monsters! What I meant was that it occurred to me that if I were basking in the glory of my god, it would, I hope, occur to me to be horrified that so many were not merely being denied my joyous experience but were being subjected, at the behest of that being that I was worshipping, to unimaginable, never-ending torture. How, I wonder, could any decent 'soul' feel happy about that? End of Edit.

 

Nor do I know any atheist who argues that religious belief inevitably leads to atrocities or crimes. Yes, we argue, and have compelling evidence to support us, that religion is often given as the cause of or justification for acts of extreme cruelty. Mycroft and others correctly point out that other 'isms' can lead to similar results and that in many cases of apparent religious extremism, religion may be being used as a motivational tool rather than being the true cause. Valid tho those arguments appear to be, there seems to be no escaping the fact that religion is one of the most powerful sociological tools yet discovered by humans for the creation of the basic and horrific divide between 'us' and 'them'. We are inclined to be nice to 'us' and relatively unkind to 'them'.

 

Get rid of religion, and one of the most pernicious tools for the inspiration of hate will disappear. I don't, for a moment, think that this would be a panacea, but so what? Should we cling to this barbaric view of humanity only because it isn't the only barbaric view?

 

Nor do I know of any atheist who doesn't acknowledge that many of the great works of beauty produced by the human species weren't inspired or influenced by religious belief. Of course, religion can destroy beauty as well....witness the Taliban destruction of the Buddha's in Afghanistan, and the destruction of much religious art in Europe during the Reformation, when the more extreme Protestants sacked many Catholic churches because of the 'idolatory' nature of the art therein.

 

However, it appears, from my limited understanding of the nature of artistic genius, that an artist will be driven to create by internal imperatives, and that external factors (cultural) will influence the media used and the topic of the art, but that art will out...and my personal view is that there is so much in the world that ought to inspire us and fill us with awe that swapping religious faith for an appreciation of the world as it (apparently, so far) is, would lead to as much, if different, humanly produced beauty and art as would have been or will be produced in the name of faith. I can't prove that, of course :D But it is my opinion.

 

So tell me this: as someone who is very careful to try to avoid being identified as a believer or as an atheist, which group appears to be the more arrogant in terms of their views of the other?

[ArtK78]

I would suspect that the Jewish pogroms of the Middle Ages were *exactly* othering, rather than Religious in nature. Sure, they wanted the Jews to convert to The Right Religion, but that also meant they wanted the Jews to conform to the Right kind of behaviour for Spain - and bring more people under the power of the Catholic Bureaucracy.

The term "pogrom" typically refers to the slaughters of Jews in Russia in the 19th and early-20th centuries, not to atrocities against Jews committed at other times or elsewhere (such as the Inquisitions in 15th century Spain). You may be using the term "pogrom" generically, but it really is not meant to be used that way. You might as well say Holocaust.

[Vampyr]

Btw, what kind of amoral monster could bask in the glory of a god without feeling some shame that so many other humans have been condemned to suffer/denied this glory by their god?

 

Yes, I used to wonder about this, and I came to the conclusion that all believers of this sort, if they have any compassion (either for humanity or just their friends and relatives) should work to make enough to live frugally on, and spend the rest of their time proselytizing. What possible excuse can there be for doing otherwise?

 

So get off the internet, all you Christians, and get busy converting people!

[Trinidad]

Btw, what kind of amoral monster could bask in the glory of a god without feeling some shame that so many other humans have been condemned to suffer/denied this glory by their god?

Why do you think Jehovah's Witnesses (and others) go from door to door?

 

You may not agree with religious people, but calling them "amoral monsters" for basking in the glory of their god alone when they take virtually every opportunity to convince you to join them is completely uncalled for.

 

This over-the-top-behavior is what gives non-believers a bad rep.

 

Rik

 

Edit: I see Vampyr posted something similar right before me.

[Trinidad]

Kind of spooky to have a Vampyr in a religious discussion a few weeks before Halloween. ;)

 

On a related note:

A school in the Dutch town of Werkendam (about 35 miles from where I live) got the idea to celebrate Halloween with the school kids this year. When the township board heard of this they forbid all school Halloween celebrations: There is a religious party on the board (in a coalition with other parties). This religious party doesn't want these pagan celebrations, therefore there won't be any Halloween. (Not that there is much Halloween in the Netherlands, but still.) There will be sports activities to celebrate the Fall instead.

 

This is the kind of thing that gives me -as a non believer- the creeps (more than Halloween does ;) ).

 

Rik

[billw55]

So tell me this: as someone who is very careful to try to avoid being identified as a believer or as an atheist, which group appears to be the more arrogant in terms of their views of the other?

Of course, there are a great many more arrogant believers than arrogant nonbelievers. Mostly this is because there are, comparatively, so few nonbelievers. If we look at per capita arrogance, and assuming that degrees of arrogance don't matter (you just are or are not), it is not obvious to me which group wins this trophy. No small share of atheists consider most/all believers to be simple minded fools, or slaves to their upbringing, or any of several other shades of mental handicap. It certainly counts as arrogance to me.

 

In fairness, a fair share of believers think in their hearts that those who believe otherwise will suffer some sort of spiritual consequence, or are unelightened, or agents of the devil, etc. Usually one will find more of these, because there *are* so many more in absolute numbers. It would be easy to fall into an availability fallacy.

 

Also I think perhaps you are taking your criticisms (many of them eminently fair) of a certain type of believer, and applying them too broadly to believers in general.

[mikeh]

Why do you think Jehovah's Witnesses (and others) go from door to door?

 

You may not agree with religious people, but calling them "amoral monsters" for basking in the glory of their god alone when they take virtually every opportunity to convince you to join them is completely uncalled for.

 

This over-the-top-behavior is what gives non-believers a bad rep.

 

Rik

 

Edit: I see Vampyr posted something similar right before me.

You have a point: please read (if interested) the edit I inserted.

 

I suspect, however, that you didn't understand the idea that I was putting forward.

 

 

Edit: to make it shorter

 

I don't call anyone an amoral monster. To the contrary, I was suggesting that any decent, moral human would, when basking in the glory of the afterlife, be troubled by the knowledge that so many others were not merely being denied such unadulterated joy but were, in fact, suffering eternal torment at the behest of the god who was bestowing such joy on them. It seems to me that the supposition that such a decent, moral person would have no issue with this makes no sense: only an amoral monster could be oblivious to the horrors being inflicted, for all time, on so many others, some of whose sins were trivial in the grand scheme of things (altho maybe not to a jealous god).

 

I see this issue as yet another contradiction that is rarely, if ever, discussed by those defending, for example, Christianity.

[Vampyr]

Edit: I see Vampyr posted something similar right before me.

 

I was serious, though. Sure, Jehovah's Witnesses go round from door to door, and so do Mormons (but only for two years). These two groups form a very small minority of those who believe that non-believers will go to Hell.

[Fluffy]

The fanatic atheist was that Sam whatever that started the thread quoted from Winstonm, but he is not the only one, I have heard atheist saying that world would be better of without religious people, nobody has been killed in the name of atheism yet, but violence is there, some people irrupting in middle of a church to stop the rite and profanate the altar has happened already.

 

I fail to understand why thinking my mother is in a better place now, or that doing evil will have consequences after I die can harm them, but they seem to think I would be better off dead.