I’m surprised you’re managing to so completely misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not claiming at all that “we can’t get rid of religion” in the sense that “we can’t allow or encourage societies to grow more secular in the course of their modern historical development”. Of course we can, and we are, and that’s fine.
What I’m saying, with good reason, is that we can’t just pretend that modern secularism has somehow magically erased all the influence of religion on modern secular societies. Consequently, we can’t use our opinions of modern secular societies to assess the social value of religion.
In other words, your experimental sample is hopelessly contaminated, “bro”.
And my point—which I’m sure you can understand if you think about it—is simply that you actually have no empirical basis for assessing the “net value” of religion to society, because there’s no such thing as a human society that hasn’t been fundamentally shaped by religion.
Hey, attack away if you want, it may amuse you and it doesn’t hurt me. But I admit to thinking that civil discussion is generally the best way to understand and resolve disputed points, even in the Pit. (Though I can’t deny the charge of spectacularly failing to live up to that standard of discourse myself much of the time.)
No, stop and think about this. There are countries that have no religious practice to speak of today. Say, some European countries or Japan. They used to have religion, the largely do not now. And they are fine, or better than fine for the lack.
That they once had religion doesn’t mean that religious practice now is worth anything.
The fundamental shaping of society by religion has utterly nothing to do with the value of religion now.
Think about it. A religion was probably a boon to society in the past. But that has exactly zero bearing on what it’s value is now that we have a technical society that knows what causes thunder and sickness.
Your point is, “Because society was shaped by religion we can’t know the value of religion now.” That’s utter vapid nonsense, that you’re only saying because you want to white-knight religion as an institution, and presumably can’t come up with anything better.
It just irks me to shit that it was an atheist the first to bring bigotry into the conversation. Because Love is good for the soul is such an original thought.
Saying Atheism is just a different brand of fundamentalism may sound clever and it’s a strike back at least from an evangelical person. From you it’s just sounds to me like idiocy and pretentiousness. But take it for what it’s worth.
I mean have you ever in your life ever heard of an atheist coming up to a dying person and calling them sheeple for believing in some purpose? Or saying “don’t worry, soon you’ll be gone and no one will remember you”?
Does that caricature even exist? If not why play to it?
And by the way, this claim holds true only with some pretty severe cherry-picking in the category of “countries that are less religious”.
For instance, one of the most strongly atheist countries in the world, in terms both of its percentage (and absolute numbers) of nonbelievers and its government’s official attitude toward theistic belief, is China, which I think most people would agree is not the most shining exemplar of “more than fine”.
And to spare you the risk of throwing your back out in your rush to get those goalposts moved, let me assure you that I’m well aware that China’s widespread and officially endorsed atheism doesn’t mean that it’s free of all oppressive ideologies of any sort. There are much more complicated issues involved in understanding the development of any society than just measuring how devoid of active theistic belief and practice it happens to be at some given moment in history. (Which happens to be the point I’ve been making all along.)
Speaking of Japan, I hear the cherries there are lovely this time of year. Sorry, can’t imagine what reminded me of that just now.
When did I claim that any of these thoughts of mine are original, or that it’s their originality that makes them valid?
Arguments about religion and atheism are interesting, but they’re not the place to look for original thought. Not around here, anyway.
[QUOTE=Pedro]
Saying Atheism is just a different brand of fundamentalism may sound clever
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More strawman arguing. When did I claim that atheism is “just a different brand of fundamentalism”? I certainly don’t think any such thing, as I’m an atheist myself and I would strongly oppose any accusation that I’m a fundamentalist.
What I’m saying is that espousing an atheist worldview doesn’t automatically make one immune to irrational thinking and emotionally-laden hyperbole. And there are some atheists who are so emotionally invested in the rightness of their cause that it does indeed make them sound like fundamentalists.
[QUOTE=Pedro]
I mean have you ever in your life ever heard of an atheist coming up to a dying person and calling them sheeple for believing in some purpose? Or saying “don’t worry, soon you’ll be gone and no one will remember you”?
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:dubious: That’s setting the bar rather low for expectations of civil and rational behavior, don’t you think?
I have to say that I don’t actually feel obligated to refrain from criticizing irrational and disingenuous arguments from fervent atheists just because those atheists stop short of literally harassing dying people about their beliefs. I mean, that’s commendable of them and all, but no, it doesn’t actually earn them an exemption from deserved criticism on other grounds.
So, you’re just not able to discuss this intelligently.
Your position is drivel. I’ve explained why. My position is, “Religion provides no net benefit to modern society.”
My position may not be right, but at least it isn’t mushy nonsense that you’re scrambling to justify with inept arguments.
I’m glad that even unthinking atheists like you are helping move this country forward. But because of your mewling deference to some magical value that religion has, that you’re unable to describe, you’re doing it less so than you could. But at least you’re stumblefucking in the right direction. <3
It’s a potentially a very interesting discussion, if one is capable of having one in the Pit.
Issues:
Do you mean religion as belief in a god concept or religion as tribal identity or just a global response to the question: “Is religion important to you?” The latter seems to what is implied by “less religious” so let’s use it. That is the definition of “irreligion.”
Then if there is a strong correlation between irreligion and “being fine” one still has to be cautious regarding concluding which direction causation goes. Is it that the being a culture that is progressive and whose members are not feeling much threat from each other or others allows for the devaluation of various -isms, of which religion is a major example of? Both faith and tribal affiliation tend to increase in importance when individuals feel threatened (although there are plenty of atheists in foxholes!)
That preamble out of the way, what does the data actually show? Depends how we want to count.
By population the greatest number of people without a religion live in China, not exactly currently a culture much renown for its progressive culture. (Although there has, I understand, been some progress in gay rights issues in recent years.) The next big chunk of irreligious people live in Japan, wonderful place, but a country with the seventh highest suicide rate of all countries in the world.
Sorting by country (using Gallup’s more complete list) you get the top three being Sweden, Denmark and then China again. Certainly wonderful progressive countries the top two.
But the countries above and below the U.S. are a mixed bag … less religious of course Russia, also Ukraine, and then also France, Spain, the U.K. … more religious Italy, Greece, Brazil and then also some of the rigid Islamic states.
Hard to see a real pattern there let alone to draw any causations.
That’s just senseless. Imagine the same claim restated with some other fundamental cultural institution in the place of “religion”, such as “schools” or “marriage”, and you’ll see how silly it is. You simply can’t* separate, in any meaningful way, the whole existence of a such a basic cultural institution in the present day from its whole existence throughout human history.
If what you’re clumsily trying to express is that the contributions of various aspects of religion (or schools or marriage, for that matter) to various societies in the past don’t obligate us to retain those aspects of religion in modern societies if we don’t want them anymore, then sure, that’s true and I’ve never disputed it.
But you simply have no empirical basis for thinking that that somehow makes you able to meaningfully assess any kind of objective “value” of religion, either now or at any other point in human history.
My position is, “Religion provides no net benefit to modern society.”
My position may not be right
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The “may not be” is the whole point here. Note that I’m not claiming, and never have claimed, that your position isn’t right.
I’ve simply been pointing out all along that we don’t have any empirical way of determining whether your position is right or not, because we don’t have any observational data about human societies in which they’re not inextricably entwined with religious influences.
I don’t really understand why that unremarkable statement of fact has been getting you all upset.
I’ll have to come back later for a debate. The offer of which I appreciate.
But just because I don’t go around chasing old ladies that love Jesus to cuss out and can’t be arsed to figure out or care if you believe in Spinoza’s God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t mean I don’t think the conversation needs a certain dose of reality sometimes. And I never said my truth was the absolute truth. It’s just my own.
So let’s be very clear that there are no “sheeple” here, at least as far as I’m concerned. That rhetoric is just your strawman to make yourself seem smarter by comparison.
Well, the only thing to discuss is the fact that you’ve extrapolated from one incident to the whole. You pick one bad apple and use it to condemn the whole group.
The vast, vast majority of people in this community do not burn down their house with a hot plate. Therefore any correlation with their religion has not been established.
It seems that you are the one in need of a “dose of reality.”
But just to be clear to anyone else, my “dose of reality” was not aimed at the tragic Sabbath deaths. It was aimed at Kimstu’s stance, or more accurately, my problems with it.
Is that a way to say “let us break bread together”? That’s clever. I assumed it must be a Catholic thing to say, but no, Google says this is the only page on the Internet with these words.
And sure, because I needed that. I’ve been getting hostile response after hostile response today to criticism (on other sites).
Criticizing Jews for a hot plate causing a fire is like criticizing Muslims should a planeload of Muslims heading to Mecca crash. In both instances, a religious tradition is what indirectly led to the fatalities (Jews using hot plates, Muslims making a pilgrimage to Mecca), but isn’t the direct technical cause.