"Aggressive" atheism versus "gentle" atheism...

Interesting how some non-believers think the only reasoning for the morals of theists is because "God" said so.

Because by and large that's what we're told.

@Karmakin It's not good to believe everything one is told, is it?

@ KCK

Please, I've never said that all believers think so. I'm sure tat this is not the type of thinking the majority of religious people subscribes to. Some do, however, or so they say. What am I supposed to do - not believe them?

edited 17th Apr '11 5:55:32 AM by Beholderess

That's really the rub isn't it? It's also disrespectful to NOT take people at their word. So it's kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation isn't it? So vocal atheists often (and this comes up quite a bit!) generally error on the side of taking people at their word.

Relying on metaphor is a big problem, because first of all, you need to make it crystal clear that it's metaphor. And that generally isn't done. My experience from discussions on the subject is that I think people want their cake and eat it too, that is, they want to float between literalism and metaphor as it best suits them, or to be more precise, as it best suits the situation. It actually makes discussion of the subject almost impossible.

@Karmakin

I both agree and disagree with you on this. What you seem to be saying is that atheists should be doing what Christians call "witnessing" i.e. living out their beliefs, explaining them where necessary, rather than being more aggressively missionary about them. I think that's probably right and probably what the religious should do as well.

Whilst I can see why you would want atheism/deism to be completely successful, though, I can't agree with that. Partly because I'm a Christian, but I also think it would be objectively a bad idea for one belief system to be completely prevalent. One major reason for the sort of authoritarian behaviour from religious groups that you seem to oppose is/was precisely because they were/are in a dominant position. Look at the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages or modern Iran or on the atheist side, Soviet Russia. Power corrupts.

@Beholderess I wasn't referring to you specifically, but I'm sure it is a phenomena you may have noticed.

Sure it exists. On both sides of the spectrum. There are theists who claim that people are incapable of acting in decent manner without believing in god, and there are atheists who think that theists base their values solely on what their religion says.

They match each other

edited 17th Apr '11 6:44:26 AM by Beholderess

@captainbrass To be fair, I'm not advocating for an abolition of monotheistic religion. I'm advocating for a reform, or an evolution of monotheistic religion into non-theistic (probably deistic, pantheistic, or best in my mind, a sort of empathy/catharsis based belief system) based religions.

I see your point, but that does assume that the monotheists of the world would all be prepared to go along with that. What if they aren't?

Holy war, of course.

Well, that's why there is the "witnessing" to be honest.

The other way, in my mind, is to reduce the privilege given to religion in our society, as well as to make it more socially/culturally acceptable to be atheist/non-theist.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:43:55 AM by Karmakin

I'll be honest, I got a chuckle out of that.

@Brass: witnessing would be a pretty good comparison for what most atheists do in terms of conversion (if that's even the right word.)

edited 17th Apr '11 8:45:36 AM by thatguythere47

If you are encountering people who are saying that "Because God said so" then you're probably not dealing with a scholar or philosopher, but rather somebody who is the equivalent of a person who articulate Evolution by saying "Darwin said so!" which is hardly going to a real authority.

In my experience, most atheists are perfectly civil and tolerant when discussing religion.

Similarly, most religious people I've talked with are perfectly civil and tolerant when discussing religion.

Most of the people I've asked have similar experience, even if discussions in the Internet count.

Saying tha most atheists try to shove their beliefs down other people's throats is like saying that most religious people do that - in other words, simply untrue.

^^To paraphrase a very stupid man, We go to war with the religion we have, and not the religion we wish we have.

That is, I think too much is made of high-end theology when the theology is unknown/unfathomable/meaningless to a large portion of the population in that particular religion. I actually think it's more useful/accurate to discuss beliefs on the low-end rather than the high end for that very reason. And by and large it's the same with evolution, although to be honest the core concepts of natural selection are pretty clean and relatively straight forward, so I think the comparison is in the end misplaced.

The comparison is illustrative, I could have said the same about any number of subjects. The only question is, did it help you understand what I was saying?

The person making an argument may well determine its quality, but not the merits of the argument itself.

Indeed. You can still be wrong as shit and at least have a well researched and well spoken argument laid out in your defense, which means you'll win at the person who might have a more credible argument, but cannot illustrate the point they are trying to make through a lack of research or improper dialogue.

I'm still not seeing what's so bad about "God said so" as a reason for anything, so long as you're not trying to make other people who don't worship your God follow your views.

@ KCK: If some religious people claim that something is right "because God said so", what would you have other people believe? That those religious people were liars? I see no reason not to take them at their word.

Because if you don't believe in their God, or any God at all, it seems like a stupid reason for someone to be telling you to do or believe something, or even for them to do or believe something?

For me "Because so and so said so." is never an adequate reason why. I have to know the actual reason, and if that reason is a good one or not. There has to be a good reason to do anything, especially where the will of other people is concerned. It can be the consequences of doing so being negative, or the rewards of doing so being worth it, but I need a concrete and logical reason to believe things that I believe. I don't take anything completely on the word of another. That's why I personally reject the idea of "Because God said so." and find people who believe such to be simple minded and foolish, for not asking "Why?".

The normal response is that I will reconcile myself to go "Well, they believe it's true because they trust their God and the things he supposedly said. I don't approve of their willful ignorance and not fact checking, but if it's what they want, whatever."

edited 17th Apr '11 10:00:42 AM by Barkey

But if that reason essentially boils down to "because it's morally right"? That's how I interpret "because God says so".

I see it as foolish to let someone else build your entire moral compass for you.

Look, the lessons in the bible are a good start, but if you don't take the time to honestly believe them in the context of the world around us, it's just blindly following the word of another.

I see it as really foolish to just say "Well if it's in the bible, it's obviously right/good." Never trust a source so much that you blindly accept it and don't question it. Anything that can't stand up to scrutiny isn't worth supporting in the first place. "Love thy neighbor" for instance. I believe in the merit of such a phrase, essentially "Be good to others and treat them as your brothers." But I don't believe that simply because I read that in the Bible, I believe that because I stopped and thought to myself "Is being good to others good advice? Oh, yes, it is. And as such I believe I should be good to others."

edited 17th Apr '11 10:06:46 AM by Barkey

Not blindly. If they weren't building your moral compass for you, they wouldn't be God, they'd just be some kind of demiurge.

I'm not really talking about Biblical literalism specifically here.

edited 17th Apr '11 10:07:13 AM by BobbyG

The Demiurge is God, or rather it's one of many specific conceptions of who/what God is. Just like the Father, the Mother, the Lord, or the Supreme Being/Architect. God, as a concept and laid bare, has nothing to do with morality in and of itself. God being tied into morality is simply one conception of many.

I think we are using the word "God" differently here. I'm using it to mean a being who is worshipped.

I suppose I'm coming at this from an essentially theistic standpoint, whereas you're coming at it from a deistic one.