Faith vs. atheism on behavior

I admit that's an assumption I made because most people in general are religious, and they would probably raise their kids that way. I can look for some data, though.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:12:47 AM by JosefBugman

I was raised irreligiously, though not atheistically. I'm a soft atheist/soft agnostic.

Ah, that's right. Europe and the rest of the Western World is a lot more secular than the States. If we're talking about America, virtually all atheists were raised religious. I don't know about the stats in Europe.

Edit: Damn, can't find much specific stats.

Edit 2: I did find that atheists are younger than the general population.

edited 16th Apr '11 12:42:19 PM by OnTheOtherHandle

And how many are from religious-when-its-convenient families?

The only other two atheist I know where both not raised religious either and I am from the states too.

edited 16th Apr '11 12:40:00 PM by TheDeadMansLife

@OTOH: Read Bury the Chains, then tell me if you still believe atheism helped abolish slavery.

Antebellum Southerners called abolitionism "fanaticism" for a good reason.

How about this? [1]

I never said atheism helped abolish slavery, first of all. Athesits as a group were far too small back then to affect much of anything. I said that changing and progressive moralities did. And plus, Christian fantaicism is not the only fanaticism around. The Southerners could easily have been referring to liberal or Deist fanaticism - or, you know, they could have been using a term inappropriately as a slur.

Edit: I find it ironic that the subtitle of that book is "Prophets and Rebels Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves". Rebellion is against the ideals of conservatism (which resists change) and traditionalism (which places great weight on the authority of elders).

edited 16th Apr '11 12:47:26 PM by OnTheOtherHandle

@OTOH And many of those "progressive" moralities were inspired by how people interpreted Christ's teaching.

Welp, my dad was an atheist but my mum was Catholic, so I went to Catholic school when I was very young. However, nobody ever sat me down and said, "hey kid, there's this dude called God and he has magic powers, also he's real." so I never believed in God. I also never heard the word "atheist" before I was about 15, I guess it just never came up.

It was kind of strange when I grew up and realized that most people are actually religious.

edited 16th Apr '11 12:48:10 PM by Talby

@OTOH: So you admit that 19th century social progress was Christian, then? Whig history, the Social Gospel, postmillenialism, and all that?

Edit: If you read the book, those rebels were Quakers and Evangelicals. Actual atheists were blase about slavery.

edited 16th Apr '11 12:48:10 PM by Rottweiler

Yes, of course I admit that. It was a Christian society, and change was brought on by interpretations of Christian morals. Why would I not admit that?

Edit: I think you got the impression that I hate religion. I don't. I was simply pointing out that changing moral ideas, which you dismissed as "fashions", were crucial to creating a more humane society.

edited 16th Apr '11 12:50:08 PM by OnTheOtherHandle

edited 10th Jan '13 9:15:16 AM by JosefBugman

Slavery, atheism, and Christianity? [1]

edited 16th Apr '11 12:54:04 PM by LoveHappiness

@KCK: I don't understand why you put "progressive" in quotes. Certainly, the change was inspired by Christ's teachings, but how is it not progressive to change a society's attitudes so radically? Do you believe that religion somehow invalidates progressive ideas?

edited 16th Apr '11 12:53:27 PM by OnTheOtherHandle

@OTOH No, but I'm against the idea what religion inherently invalidates "progressive" ideals.

I didn't quite understand what you said, but I'm assuming you're against people who believe religious people can't bring about positive social change? I completely agree. I was just wondering why in this quote:

you put progressive in quotes as if you were using it sarcastically, implying that progressiveness is bad, or that abolitionism was not progressive.

edited 16th Apr '11 1:00:49 PM by OnTheOtherHandle

@OTOH: Progress can be progress toward making a society live up to its religion's standards. Or it can be progress in the modern French style, toward godless equality.

To quote Maistre, "Man in relation with his Creator is sublime, and his action is creative: on the contrary, so soon as he separates himself from God, and acts alone, he does not cease to be powerful, for this is a privilege of his nature; but his action is negative, and tends only to destroy."

@OTOH I put it in quotes because it seems to be quite common for some sorts to believe that progress can only come about by debasing religion and the religious.

@Rott: Firstly, about the book, the fact that the rebels were religious doesn't mean they weren't rebels. Do you think that I think you have to be an atheist in order to rebel against the status quo? I most definitely admire the efforts of abolitionists, and I definitely would not say they weren't progressive simply because they were religious. As for athesits being blase about abolitionism, I would remind you that most Christians were, too. Most people of all demographics were blase about it, because people who push for change are always outnumbered by people who don't really care. Also, there were several prominent athiest and deist abolitionists: just as I acknowledge that Christianity is not evil and being Christian doesn't mean you can't fight for justice and social change, you have to acknowledge the same about atheists. Here's an excerpt from Love Happiness's earlier link, in case you missed it:

Joseph Loconte's Feb. 23 Point of View column titled "Religious faith ended slavery" is an example of turning history on its head.

Loconte says that it was Christians, not atheists, who led the effort against the slave trade. Perhaps he forgets that slavery was abolished in France in 1791, not by the church, but by the atheistic founders of the revolution.In the United States, the early critics of slavery - Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams - were all either atheists or deists. Later, the abolitionist cause was taken up by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister turned atheist; William Lloyd Garrison, an atheist; and Robert Ingersoll, the "Great Agnostic." Indeed, the "Great Emancipator" himself, Abraham Lincoln, never acknowledged being a Christian and was (at the very least) thought to be a freethinker in matters of religion. In England, atheists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were leading abolitionists.

edited 16th Apr '11 1:10:10 PM by OnTheOtherHandle

edited 10th Jan '13 9:19:09 AM by JosefBugman

@OTOH:

"Early critics of slavery" who owned slaves. A sex slave, in Jefferson's case.

The Christian abolitionists actually abolished slavery. Your "early critics of slavery" were drivers of Negroes, as Samuel Johnson (a fiery Tory/theocrat who made toasts "to the next slave revolt in the West Indies" and made a black man his heir) aptly called them in Taxation No Tyranny.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:21:31 AM by JosefBugman

Yes, I know the founding fathers owned slaves. The fact that they didn't emancipate all their slaves on the spot (which might have left them at the mercy of harsher owners) doesn't meant that they didn't provide a voice against slavery. They might have been hypocrites, they might have suffered from akrasia, but they still spoke out against the concept of slavery.

I don't deny that Christian abolitionists abolished slavery, but they were joined by non-Christian abolitionists as well. You had a valid criticism of the Founding Fathers, but what about the rest of the paragraph?

Later, the abolitionist cause was taken up by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister turned atheist; William Lloyd Garrison, an atheist; and Robert Ingersoll, the "Great Agnostic." Indeed, the "Great Emancipator" himself, Abraham Lincoln, never acknowledged being a Christian and was (at the very least) thought to be a freethinker in matters of religion. In England, atheists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were leading abolitionists.

Are you going to say that all these people owned slaves, or that they somehow played a negligible role in the history of abolitionism?

@OTOH: Read Bury the Chains, then get back to me with an informed opinion. It's hardly Christian propaganda; the author is ethically Jewish and politically radical, simply having the intellectual honesty to report the historical facts.