Tridimity

Good to see that you've brought something new to the table. Congrats.

Villain, Where was the word ‘must’ used? I am not saying that all theists force others into submission, but certainly some theists do make it their objective to force others into submission, as a way of controlling them for their own benefit. Theism, in this context, is often abused as a means to more easily achieve that power inequity. Falsely informing people that there is an omnipotent and benevolent creature in the sky who is constantly watching them, and that they must do as he says (or else face the consequences, which usually involve eternal damnation) is not exactly conducive to the development of critical thinking skills on the part of the person being indoctrinated. Even those who do not believe in a literal sky God recognise the implicit threat of being ostracised from the religious community. Behaving in a way that is deemed inappropriate will therefore result in expulsion from the community. It is not bigotry: I respect other people’s right to hold their own beliefs (beliefs reached in whatever manner the individual chooses, including faith) so long as those beliefs are not forced onto others or used as a tool to inflict suffering on others. However, respecting another person’s right to hold their own beliefs (with the caveats outlined above) does not equate to respecting the person’s beliefs as one’s own. For example, most adults respect the right of a child to believe in Santa Claus while not respecting the belief in Santa Claus itself and while not respecting the means by which the child has reached their belief (uncritical acceptance of dogma from an authority figure and from tradition). Does that make sense? The point at which I become angry and intolerant is the point at which theists wield their belief in God and their associated morality systems to impose suffering on others e.g. FGM. I refuse to apologise for being intolerant of the religious moral systems that are used to inflict suffering on others. Jehovah’s witnesses are just one example of conversion, and the pressure to conform is thankfully much lower than in previous centuries, however conversion does remain a point of contention for some. I am not worried about the strength of my position at all since, for one thing, I am not trying to convert anyone to atheism. I am merely stating my opinion, one which is as solid to me (as a way of living my own life) as is the desk at which I am sitting. If you deem my arguments to be weak, why are you continuing to argue? Why not just think to yourself, ‘Oh, what a silly humanist monologue’ and carry on with your day? I have already answered your questions with regards why atheists must question the Catholic agenda – which is, primarily, that their agenda is used to inflict suffering upon others (mostly women, who are not deemed equal to men; children, who they see fit to feed whatever memes it pleases, and who historically have been sexually abused by Catholic authority figures; and homosexuals, whose mutual love they deny). I will admit that Catholicism does not have too great an impact on my life personally, since I would not allow it to, and I do not care one jot for their opinions of myself. However, it does start to matter to me when, as I have previously stated, their God-driven agenda is used to inflict suffering upon others and to repress their intellectual and emotional potential. My comment was in response to a series of posts that were initiated by s1eep and that were continued by other members. Please read back through the thread, I am not going to do your homework for you.

Thanks Phi Villain, Factual correctness a. http://www.catholic.com/tracts/strategies-of-the-jehovahs-witnesses b. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3596 c. http://www.npr.org/2012/10/09/162570987/german-catholics-path-to-heaven-comes-with-taxes d. http://humanismbyjoe.co/catholic-sex/ e. http://www.foryourmarriage.org/catholic-marriage/church-teachings/divorce/ Relevance to the thread Title of the thread: ‘Are atheists religious?’ (for your benefit Villain) Point made by s1eep: i. S1eep posits that, because atheists answer and re-state their position on the existence of God, then they are religious ii. My comment pointed out the reasons (factually correct, above – please feel free to challenge if you think necessary) why it is impossible for atheists to ignore the God question and to ignore the quality control by which theists reach their conclusions – in a nutshell, many theist institutions seek to dominate various spheres of public life, on the back of conclusions that they have reached through faith alone. The consequences are shared by all. If you are unable to understand the logical progression of the two points above then it is beyond my powers to help you. No, I am not suggesting that these types of abuse are perpetrated only by theists. However, female genital mutilation (FGM) occurs almost exclusively in Muslim communities. The other types of abuses creep in once vulnerable individuals have been primed to accept, unquestioningly, ‘truths’ passed down by authority figures – the male (husband/father) being second only to God himself, with wives and children expected to be subservient to his rule. It is not difficult to appreciate how child sexual abuse scandals, such as the one that has riddled the Catholic Church, are left to go unchecked for decades. Atheists and fellow theists ought to intervene whenever and wherever such an abuse takes place – whether it be perpetrated by an atheist or by a theist. I notice, Villain, that you criticise the style of my comments and not their content. What's up with that?

In order to make any such comment on death you would first need to have died which, since you are typing, we can safely assume that you have not. Please can you stop with the inappropriate comments. TAR, Loving life and accepting the inevitability of eventual death are not mutually exclusive. Death itself (non-existence of the living person) is clearly not a part of life, but the process of death (perhaps the part that we ought to worry about most, since the unconsciousness to follow is no more objectionable than the unconsciousness from which we sprang) is a part of life. I am not in any way condoning premature death or suicide - merely an acceptance that one day we are going to die. It is, of course, sensible to do all that one can to stay alive but - once the certainty of death in the foreseeable future becomes undeniable - there is nothing that one can do to alleviate the fact, what one can do is to control the psychological and emotional response to the event. Tri

Well, it probably did read like a manifesto, I am a humanist and heavily invested in these questions. I maintain though, that my comments addressed the assertions put forth by other members (s1eep, if I remember correctly) that becoming involved in discussions on the existence or otherwise of God, and other theological questions, renders atheists automatically 'religious'. If you cannot be bothered to invest the energy to tell me which part of my comments you deem to be factually incorrect, and which parts you deem to be inappropriately emotional, then I am afraid I cannot be bothered to invest the energy in responding to your accusations any longer. Good day.

Yes, the above video is about facing one's own death rather than someone else's. My hypothesis is that, if the person who is dying learns to be emotionally okay with (that is, to accept) their own death, then their loved ones' grief will be tempered by an acknowledgement that their dying loved one has reached a state of neutral acceptance. I think it is always more difficult for the loved ones to accept the death of another, if that other rather than accepting the inevitability of death, is clearly emotionally distraught at the thought of death. For example, a couple of years ago my maternal aunty's previous partner and biological father of my cousin (who, for reasons that I will not go into, had no further contact with our family than weekend visits with his son) died in his mid-50s of pancreatic cancer. Even on his deathbed, he was proclaiming to his son, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" I appreciate that he had clearly not accepted death, even up until the point at which he passed away, but I do not think that it was helpful for his son to hear his own Dad saying these things. I think it would have been preferable for my cousin's father to instead learn to accept death and, if this proved difficult, to at least conceal some degree of his thoughts from his son. Our whole society seems to be preoccupied with the preservation of life and youth (for the most part, the age of sexual reproduction). This is quite understandable as, I think we would all agree that, although life can sometimes be fraught with difficulties, it is also marvellous. However, it seems naive and neglectful to ignore the one event that is such a significant event in life as death, and to treat it as some obscure event that happens to those unlucky ones who are forced to leave the perpetually 'youthful' society. It obviously is not an anomaly: it affects every single one of us, as the great leveller, and since we all have it in common and may feel alone at the time of death, I think it would be helpful to lift the unspoken ban on talking about death openly. Then perhaps people will not feel so isolated, alone and afraid when they are facing death.

Villain, how was that soapboxing? I was addressing the question, as raised in the thread, regarding the reasons why atheists take part in the discussion with respect to the existence or otherwise of God. One member suggests that, since atheists become involved in the discussion, they are not passively lacking belief in God but are actively believing in the lack of a God, and therefore are religious. My response above outlines the reasons why atheists become involved in the discussion - namely because theists hijack all spheres of public life, it is impossible not to become involved. The thread was long, which is why I did not choose to quote and reply to individual snippets of the discussion, but rather read through and to make a mental summary of the key points - and to reply to the summary as a whole. If there is anything in there which you think is factually incorrect and is merely an emotional soliloquy, then please let me know, as I have no qualms about defending my arguments and their relevance to the thread. Tri

I know that this is what they currently do, the OP asks that we imagine an alternative, for the future. If it were possible to ensure that every participating nation reduces its defence budget to the same degree as fellow participating nations, such that no one nation is left with a 'defensive' disadvantage, then the playing field would remain equal and the nations could focus on improving health innovation without having to worry about their defence capabilities in comparison with their neighbours. It would potentially also reduce the risk of unnecessary War (think, Iraq) because nation leaders would begin to recognise the expense of military intervention and so (hopefully) would intervene only when the human cost of maintaining peace renders intervention imperative (think, WWII).

I know that you are being tongue-in-cheek but, in all seriousness, the administration of drugs - including alcohol - is unfortunately not a long-term solution. In fact, alcohol may make one even more depressed (once the initial senselessness passes) and has, as you will know, detrimental effects on health. Something along the lines of this Buddhist approach is what I was envisaging instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-03sWBmfLBs "People, long before they die, they are dead, out of fear of death"

Well, yes, but I don't think the Angel of Death, or rather Nature, is likely to heed the appropriateness or otherwise of death. The facts remain the same - my question is, is it possible or wise to alter the response to those events, so as to reduce the suffering of all involved?

Moontanman, Thanks, that term as coined originally by Bionicdance in 2011, is quite useful. Apistevist. I notice that it does not yet feature in the dictionary, but that is only a matter of time and of who revises the next version of the dictionary - with sufficient usage, the term may well be incorporated. So, please count me among your number: if it requires blind faith in order to believe in it, then I'm not interested in believing in it. However, I suspect that your new term is not immune from allegations of religiosity. s1eep would probably have it that apistevists are 'religious' about faith - because they deny faith, they are taking a stance on the matter, and are to be considered religious for all reaching the same conclusion! There's no reasoning with fruities. Tridimity, Apistevist.

layman77, I stopped reading through the thread at page 3 so I apologise in advance if I largely restate the positions of other members. I think the main misconception is that atheists are viewed as a homogenous group of God-denying Science-worshippers. Firstly, not all atheists take an interest in Science or generally agree with the scientific perspective. There will be a large degree of overlap between the presence of atheistic belief and an intellectual assent with the scientific perspective. This is merely symptomatic of the fact that large numbers of people have reached the same conclusions because they have used the same thought processes to reach those conclusions - namely, reasoning, rationality and an evidence-based approach. Theists, of course, favour a faith-based approach. For this reason, the general population will tend to divide itself quite markedly, to polarise, into those who support an evidence-based approach (on the whole, atheists) versus a faith-based approach (theists). Of course, all atheists lack belief in God but - as Phi has highlighted at the beginning of the debate - that is not equivalent to belief in the lack of a God. Atheism is not an active position - it is a default label placed on those who lack belief in God. All babies are born atheists - do you think that they too are conspiring in some kind of atheistic religion? Atheism is as much a religion as is non-belief in leprechauns. The primary difference between these two types of disbelief, is that atheists must constantly be reminded of, and re-state, their position because: i. Theists attempt to force their religion onto others ii. Religious types often attempt to control the thoughts and behaviours of people in multiple speheres of their lives: sexual behaviour, marriage and relationships, money matters, anything concerning any kind of morality. Atheists must re-state their positions so as to stave off conversion. More importantly, atheists must reclaim from theists the spheres of public life that theists have historically taken for granted, including matters of morality, finance, sexual behaviour, marriage and relationships. Being (for the most part) tolerant folk, atheists are happy to grant theists the freedom to choose and practise their religion, so long as they keep themselves to themselves as far as these practises and opinions are concerned. When religious types begin attempting to dominate the women and children in other groups and (more commonly) their own group - religion becomes a problem. Adults (assuming that they have not been indoctrinated beyond all repair since childhood) have the freedom to choose their own religion based on their preferred methods of gleaning truth. Children are not so fortunate, especially if the familial and community pressures are strong to conform and to forego any questioning. When theists begin dominating their wives and children by maiming them (FGM) or by threatening or carrying out sexual, physical, psychological or emotional abuse - or when they initiate wars in the name of religion - or when they persecute non-believers (Inquisition) or homosexuals - you can guarantee that atheists will intervene. Damn right we will. Because humans belong to humanity not to a particular nation or religion.

The incidence of rape is high in Uganda, so actually a lot of the time it is men making this decision and not women. I do not think that the women concerned or their children ought to be punished for the actions of criminals. Improving access to education and to sexual health advice and resources, including contraception, would be more beneficial. Danny Dorling, in Population 10 Billion, outlines the point that increasing access to education and healthcare may well reduce the birth rate in what are currently developing nations - as, once parents recognise that their children have a high probability of surviving to reproductive maturity, they are less likely to have further children as 'insurance' against death of their previous children. I think that your overall idea of diverting 10% of the defence budget to medical research is a splendid idea. However, it would require a means of checking that none of the participating nations simply increase their defence budget to the pre-intervention level (or higher). Otherwise certain countries might suffer a loss of defensive capacity that may be recognised and exploited by other nations. On the whole, more peace and more Medicine, yes please!

TAR, What I meant is, when a person dies, that person's loved ones are not likely to kill themselves as a result - so at least the person who is dying can rest safe in the knowledge that their death will have no immediate impact on the physical existence of their loved ones. Tri

They are self-reflective because they relate to the relative generosity or selfishness of the individual - not of others. It is possible to be happy and to be (at least, partly) dependent on others - but this statement would need to be nuanced to reflect the fact that individuals are not happy 100% of the time or unhappy 100% of the time. In reality, nobody is entirely independent of everybody else in society. I will agree with you though, in that people are more likely to develop a sustainable happiness if they learn to judge themself according to their own standards - i.e. not being at the mercy of the jurisdiction of others.

It's a matter of privacy for the innocents. Do we really want the authorities to have unlimited access to our personal lives: what we had for lunch, who we fancy, what we are doing at the weekend, that embarrassing mistake we made recently, what we are planning to buy for our nephew for Christmas. These details may seem trivial, and in a sense they are, but they are still private and - it seems to me - if we cannot live day-to-day safe in the knowledge that the capability for such mass surveillance is not likely to be exercised inappropriately, then that substantially impacts upon quality of life. If there is not one bit of your life that you can call your own, then what is the point in living?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HD4HChwG3Q Paul Merton <3

An interesting TED talk related to the actions of the NSA, presented by Mikko Hypponen: http://www.ted.com/talks/mikko_hypponen_how_the_nsa_betrayed_the_world_s_trust_time_to_act.html

Positive characteristics, in my book, would include for example: generosity and kindness towards others that is balanced with a recognition and heeding of one's own needs. I.e. being neither selfish nor self-sacrificing to the point of detriment to oneself or others. I may have misinterpreted your meaning here - what did you mean exactly?

So long as the person has some positive characteristic(s) on which to self-reflect, then yes, I suspect that self-esteem and self-love would be possible without self-delusion. I agree with you in that an individual may only reach a state of bona fide self-esteem and self-love by independent self-reflection. Any other short-term substitute (e.g. the reward mechanisms induced by consumption of food, alcohol, drugs, sexual gratification, vanity, etc) is just that - a substitute. The former has solid foundations and so will tend to be lasting unless the person's character or moral framework against which they judge themself changes. The latter is prone to extreme volatility, dependent on the availability of external stimuli.

Well, this is true - we do not want to wind up in a situation in which people begin treating the deceased with disrespect. I just don't think that it is helpful that our societies treat the individual and their friends and family members as if it is the end of their world. Stoicism is probably closer to the mark.