This makes my head hurt. So if a religious person does something bad in the name of his particular religion, like, say the 9/11 attacks, that does not count as being due to their theism?
Are you sure you’re really saying that? I agree with begbert2 - that can’t possibly be your argument!
The closest I could come to that would be an atheist doing something good to show theists that atheists can be moral also - but I’m not at all sure that this would count.
What you don’t get is that atheism is descriptive, not prescriptive. Atheism has no oughts. Atheism just describes the state of a person’s belief (or lack of belief) and that’s it.
Others have already made the point I am about to make, and better at that, but I wanted to give my perspective because, well, I’m a Doper and I don’t think you can live without it 
The argument I’ve quoted is, in my opinion, the strongest one presented as a rebuttal to the common theistic charge that the crimes of Stalin and Mao were somehow attributable to their atheism. It is a powerful rebuttal because it asserts, correctly, that it is impossible to draw a causal connection between atheism and violence (or charity, for that matter).
The reason no such connection can be made is simple. There is, quite literally, nothing to atheism. The word ‘Atheist’ is used to describe a person who has opted out of a belief system and consciously chosen not to replace it with anything. Atheism is not a philosophy. It is not even a view of the world. It is simply a lack of faith in the existence of Gods. One cannot conceive of a link between an action, any action, and the epistemological void gated by the word ‘atheism’. If you doubt this, I challenge you to quote a single tenet of atheism which could plausibly serve to inspire a person to violence. You’ll find that you can’t, because atheism has no tenets.
The impossibility of tracing a causal link between violence and atheism contrasts starkly with the trivial ease with which one could trace such a link between violence and religion. Consider: A courtroom full of Islamic zealots sentences some poor soul to death for apostasy. They cite, as their inspiration, both the Qu’ran and the Hadith. A cursory examination of the Qu’ran, which is perfect in every syllable, finds it to be choc full of furious denunciations of the infidel. The hadith, which is often used by Muslims as a lens through which to interpret the Qu’ran, contains the following verse: Whosoever changes his religion, kill him. A five year old could connect the scripture to the sentence.
It is perfectly fair and valid for atheists to claim that religion has inspired immense cruelty, violence, and mayhem. The perpetrators themselves are very helpful in this regard as they invariably cite chapter and verse in justification of their atrocities. The same cannot be said of atheism, and that is why the argument works. The distinction is genuine and insurmountable.
Are you honestly asserting that saying that Christianity is not rational is not an attack on Christianity?
That is exactly what many prominent Marxist thinkers such as Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci, and Georg Lukacs believed.
You’ve got it! Atheism is utterly neutral, inspiring neither cruelty or charity.
That is what i’m saying.
I mean, if we take it at the start and go back and say “he’s saying it’s because of his religion, but if he weren’t a theist, he wouldn’t have his particular religion”, what’s stopping us from going back further and saying “Ah, it’s not his theism, it’s that he holds beliefs on the nature of the universe”? Or “Ah, it’s not that he philosophises, but that he thinks at all that is the problem!”. We can keep going back like that, and technically we can say that so-and-so did something and that they think or exist is to blame - if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have done it. But it’s an endless stream of things you could take away to make sure it wouldn’t happen. Better in my mind to say it is due to the specific reason they say it is (well, assuming they aren’t lying), their specific motivation, rather than go back through all the links in a blame chain.
tl;dr = Yes, because it’s their religion, or philosophy, or whatever that motivates them, not their theism.
Given the failure of their idealogy on such a grand scale, why are their ideas to be trusted?
I mean, I assume they thought Marxism would be a success, if not a big one. Why would you be willing to take their word for it on this? I presume it is due to your accepting already the idea that atheists wouldn’t stand up for religious freedom?
Oh, and to answer your question from earlier - yes, athiesm has given nothing good to the world, just as theism has not. It is a position on the existence of gods, nothing more or less. For goodness/badness, we need to look at the particular systems of morals and ethics and the like that a theist or atheist may hold, whether that be religious in nature or atheist.
But, their religion IS their theism. They might adopt a different theist belief if they ever abandon their current religion, but for as long as they believe that Thor, God of Thunder, he who would smitest the Christian Infidels, is the one true god, then belief in Thor is their theism. They believe in a god, and he’s that god. Thorism is their particular flavor of theism.
I’ll tentatively concede that I think that nobody with the vague “I think there’s a god, out there somewhere, but don’t really know anything about it” flavor of theism has gone out and done evil in the name of their rather mild beliefs. But that doesn’t mean all the other flavors of theism aren’t theism too!
To say that their is no dogma, text, or authority central to atheism, is a lot different from saying that it causes neither good nor ill.
Consider an example. Suppose that Bob has a tenet that Al is wrong about everything and should therefore be ignored in all circumstances. By itself in the abstract this causes neither good nor harm. However, suppose Al realizes that Bob is the only one who can stop a certain disaster, and gives Bob instructions on how to do so. In this circumstance, Bob’s tenet suddenly becomes quite harmful.
So the tenet of rejecting religion can cause good or ill, even if it doesn’t specifically endorse those things in the abstract.
The only good that atheism had brought humanity is that everyone who is an athest isn’t a theist, and so lacks that random element with its occasional propensity for encouraging non-neighborly behaivor.
It’s kind of like being on land, instead of the ocean. It’s not that there’s anything particularly special about being on land; however you’re a little less likely to drown while you’re there.
I’m not disagreeing that whatever religion-avec-deity is theistic. Certainly it is. But I disagree that their religion is their theism. As soon as you bring in a specific deity, you’ve moved into religion. Theism is the answer “Yes” to the question “Is there a god?”. That’s all. Not “Yes, and it is Thor”. That’s religion.
When religious people do bad things (and yes, atheists also do bad) because of their religion, it’s not just because a god/gods exists, it’s because their god/gods exists and he/she/they say to do these things. It’s the specific religion and not the theism that’s the motivating part.
In short, George Kaplin’s line of argument goes back to what I was saying earlier, suggesting that huamn nature is a blank slate which will do nothing wrong until it is affected by some dogma which leads to wrong. If I don’t accept this tenet then the argument doesn’t hold water. I believe in original sin (i.e. that all human beings are naturally sinful) and that religion is the most effective way to address the problem. From that, it follows that anyone who seeks to tear down religion is clearing the path for sin.
Now George may reject the idea of original sin. Or he may accept original sin but say that religion isn’t the best way to deal with it. But to simply fail to address the argument is not an answer.
From now until the end of time (and possibly longer), I want you to mentally translate when I say “theism” to mean “the intrinsically theistic and theism-based belief system(s) under discussion”, because this is a hair so fine I don’t feel inclined to waste my time splitting it.
Atheism isn’t a “rejection” of anything. It’s just a failure to be convinced. 'Rejection" implies choice. Theistic belief or non-belief is not voluntary. It’s Al’s failure to persuade that causes the harm, not Bob’s quite reasonable failure to be conviinced.
Your analogy misrpresents the issue anyway since atheism is not predicated on any sort of opinion about theists and cannot be called a 'tenet" under any circumstances. It’s not a belief.
Atheists don’t accept Christianity. Since Christianity is universal in the sense that all men must accept Jesus to be saved, for us to do so means we must consider Christianity to be wrong. So, in a sense an atheist attacks Christianity by his very existence. In the same ways, the stubborn insistence of Jews that they did not need to convert was considered an attack on Christianity.
They weren’t the only ones. The majority opinion in the '50s was that if everyone didn’t go to church every Sunday the godless Commies would get us.
There you go again. Atheism has no tenets. Someone, who for a variety of reasons rejects all religions and does not have god belief, is an atheist. He can do it after years of study, or because a priest sodomized him, or out of a total misunderstanding of what religion is about. It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t really make head or tails of your example, but the only thing atheism makes someone not do is say “I believe in God.”
No, he’s saying that atheism is a blank slate. Whereas religion is not. Religion is full of commands and restrictions and dogma about how the world is and works, about what’s good and bad; atheism isn’t. Atheism doesn’t even proclaim that IT is good.
Define “good”; atheism doesn’t. As for me, I consider being atheist good in itself since it’s right. And I believe that atheism tends to produce more moral and capable behavior on average, also because it’s right. But those aren’t ATHEISTIC beliefs, they are mine. You could believe that atheism is evil, destructive to humanity, and still be an atheist; you wouldn’t be very cheerful but you could.
Neither has a-goblinism or a-unicornism.
Actually, I would say that the purging of religious asumptions from empircal observation of the natural worls (i.e. scientific method) has brought more good than any religion has ever done.
You could also say the same for establishing a secular government in the US.
I think you make a good point, but one that errs in conflating theism in general with specific iterations of it, i.e., religion(s). It is very possible that we were created by God and that man just hasn’t understood what that means yet and ALL religions get it wrong. Maybe by a little, maybe by the width of God’s arms.
I would. In twelve years of Catholic school, the term “faith” was bandied about pretty freely. Faith is, by its nature, irrational. Not necessarily wrong, but irrational, and the Church admits as much.