Istvan

[Istvan]

Davis wrote:

Misrepresenting other people’s views is a very bad habit best avoided.

Tell me about it. I start a Hi-how-are-you thread and all of a sudden I’m being accused of not only being a closet theist but also an apologist for slavery and oppression.

I think I’ve seen enough of your Crank Tank here. If you ever wonder why people don’t think atheists are ready for a seat at the grown-up table of society’s discourse, take a look in the mirror.

[Istvan]

Davis wrote:

It didn’t work very well for those who enjoyed slavery, sanctioned by that religion. It didn’t work very well (and currently doesn’t in some of the world’s quarters) for 50% of the population (women) who had/have negligible say/control, suppression/inequality and a fairly large dose of the misery that came with it. It didn’t work well for those who chose not to believe the religious nonsense. It worked fairly badly for those who had other ideas, were born with different sexual identities. It was fairly ghastly for those who had various birth anomalies or mental illnesses who were identified as cursed or witches (something that has only been remedied by secularism and rationalist approaches) nor the millions of serfs who lived miserable lives supported by serfdom/nobility encouraged by many religions while religious organisations engorged themselves with money and power. Yeah…you sound a lot like Dr. Bob. All these religions helped inspire all the things we enjoy now even though they fought most of it kicking and screaming.

Once again, you’ve dealt yourself a winning hand by equating religion with oppression. Am I allowed to point out that the advent of the secular, rationalized, managed society hasn’t produced the freethinking utopia we’d expect if religion were the sole source of all our woes?

You seem to be blaming all the bad things in history solely on people’s beliefs in The Big G. You may as well blame the murder rate on people’s mistaken beliefs about where knife points and bullets belong; you’re ignoring so much historical, cultural and socioeconomic context that it’s absurd.

[Istvan]

Okay, so you’ve decided to

jakelafort wrote:

Yeah Istvan it is working out well for the pedophiles who find sanctuary for their peculiar practices.

Hey, so you decide the most appropriate way to typify religious believers throughout history is the pedophile priest. Congratulations on having no qualms whatsoever about arranging the premises to lead to the conclusion you prefer.

[Istvan]

Davis wrote:

Ironically, this is the same blind spot that many atheists have toward what we call reality. To my way of thinking, if someone can’t deal with metaphor or ambiguity, they’re mistaking the finger for what it’s pointing to.

This is post-modern rhetoric. If a metaphor cannot be explained, then it is poetry and should be enjoyed as something poetical, not a “way of living”. If your “way of life” is based on metaphors that cannot be explained, unverifiable claims, authority and claims for which you cannot even determine which are literal or not, and for those which are literal…even a reliable guide to determine which can be verified or not…you are locked in confusion, dogma, received wisdom, morality that cannot be analysed through reason and practices which are extremely difficult to question let alone change.

Hey, if it doesn’t make sense to us, that’s probably why we’re atheists. But our reluctance to meet religion on its own terms isn’t religion’s problem. For plenty of people it works just fine.

[Istvan]

jakelafort wrote:

“To my way of thinking, if someone can’t deal with metaphor or ambiguity, they’re mistaking the finger for what it’s pointing to.”

Care to elucidate without ambiguity?

Okay. If we’re going to dog fundies for being literal-minded, we should avoid being similarly literal-minded. That’s all.

[Istvan]

jakelafort wrote:

If it is not literal then it is not true. It isn’t real.

Ironically, this is the same blind spot that many atheists have toward what we call reality. To my way of thinking, if someone can’t deal with metaphor or ambiguity, they’re mistaking the finger for what it’s pointing to.

[Istvan]

Autumn wrote:

Admittedly, the cross section of Christians I meet is far from statistically significant, but despite some metaphysical claims that are way too out there for my tastes, there appears to be a growing contingent that isn’t all that strict about biblical literacy and generally is on board with science despite sprinkling a little sprinkling of deity on top of it all.

People seem to gravitate toward the type of belief or nonbelief system that fits their personality. Tolerant, open-minded folks either become UU-type Christians, Buddhists or agnostics with no real bone to pick. Narrow-minded, self-righteous people who crave certainty either become religious fundamentalists or immature New Atheist types.

[Istvan]

Davis wrote:

However, when you no longer hold a certain number of core claims as literal, you can no longer be a meaningful adherent of a religion or ideology.

I don’t see why not. Daniel Dennett observed that from the point of view of the religion, there’s no difference between a Muslim who prays five times a day because he literally believes in a literal Allah and the literal truth of every word of the Koran, and a Muslim who prays five times a day because that’s what Muslims do. It’s the behavior that religion motivates that perpetuates the construct; the beliefs themselves, and people’s belief in their literal validity, are beside the point.

We each define religion in the way that is useful to us. If someone is only interested in online debates, he’ll define religion merely as a set of literal truth claims that he can demolish. If someone is interested in arriving at mutual understanding, she’ll be more likely to define religion according to what the symbols, myths and rituals mean to the religious.

[Istvan]

Religion isn’t about generating reliable knowledge, it represents things like meaning, identity, authority and community. And I’d never deny that that can be a bad thing as well as a good one, but it’s important to take it on its own terms.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Davis.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Davis.

[Istvan]

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

All I meant by the New Atheist reference is that I’m not an antitheist anymore. I don’t see religion as a set of literal claims about the world that can be judged true or false the same way as claims about natural phenomena or history. I don’t claim that my worldview is a matter of “following the evidence” or that it’s a mere lack of religious belief, I take responsibility for it as deriving from what I already believe about things like agency, history, anthropology, and psychology.

And I have to say, I’m much less enamored of Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris than I was when I was in my where’s-your-evidence phase.

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