The Soviet Union, The People's Republic of China, modern Cuba. I yearn for the day these utopias of humanitarianism and peace become the mold for all the world's nations! Atheism works!
I think so and his name was Fredrich Hegel, a philosopher with immense
influence on 19th and 20th century thought and history. Hegel’s main idea
was known as the dialectical method,in which an idea(thesis) was in conflict with it’s opposite(antithesis) and the two are finally reconciled
by a third which subsumed both(antithesis). Hegel’s idea is not “written in stone”, like the laws of physics,it’s philosophy!! The thing is Marc,it seems(much to the dismay of mankind often) to work out most of the time. I personally can’t think of many instances where it does not. That’s just what happens with “absolutism and “black and white utopianism”. You often get your solutions,you just get a whole host of new and quite often worse, or atleast equally lousy, problems to accompany the solutions. Kinda defeats the whole purpose.Society needs evolutions,refinements not revolutions.
Anyone in their right mind is aware of the horrors of the states you mentioned. Certainly these states made life miserable for the religious.
But your POTENTIAL a-priori reasoning here is really inexcusable. Please
tell me you are saying FORCE-FED Atheism=“evil” regimes and not strict seperation of Church and State=“evil"regimes. Force fed(by governments or anyone) beliefs of any kind are antithetical to human freedom. Are you implying here that the USA/Occidental world is attempting to force Atheism upon those who would not have it? If not,you could have fooled me. Marc, any sane secularist and that includes any ethical atheists would NEVER impose their beliefs. We have no problem with creationism being taught in certain classes. It’s just that creationism belongs in religion/philosophy class and SCIENCE belongs in SCIENCE class. Creationism/intelligent design IS NOT SCIENCE,never has been.It IS NOT based on sufficient evidence despite what the fundie “scientists” would have people believe!!! That DOES NOT MEAN it is wholly invalid,it’s like the existence of the Loc Ness Monster.Not enough evidence is currently availiable to prove it. Even if there was enough to entirely dismiss it out of hand,most of us would still allow it to be taught in specific classes and let people who choose to believe it, do so.
I have not even mentioned the horrors perpetrated by states where religious forces either dominate, or atleast are directly/indirectly involved
in, and/or condone the horrors. Shall I really list them? They go back to the dawn of civilization. This fully includes christianty,not just Islam or some Mayan Priest sacrificing people to Queztalcoatl!!! Ever here of the Crusades?.The persecution of “witches”,cathars,etc…ad infinitum.Is it modern atrocities commited under the auspices of the christian church you want?
The holocaust is a pretty good example and just one (albeit probably the best one). Yes I know many of the Nazi big-wigs were anti-christian “pagans” with weird beliefs in things like horbiger"s “world ice theory” and Atlantis and other things that would give an evangelical christian a run for his money in a, “who is more loony contest”?The thing is,many nazis WERE devout christians who willingly carried out the atrocites. Not to mention the “good woolly flock” in Europe,many of whom hated the jews, often because of their christian-inspired “blood libel"ideas and similiar idiocies and enthusiastically supported and often even aided the nazi genocide.
How many other modern examples do you want?Even ones in our own country. Keep in mind one thing Marc,it is only the force-feeding of ANY ideology most level-headed people object to. I am perfectly ok with laws being based on common-sense morality. In other words,if someone is engaging in a behavior that
harms no one else then it’s legal.Now I realize the definition of “harm” is subjective. A good example is abortion, even though i’m agnostic, I have mixed feelings about it. I think like automobile accidents, it’s a necessary evil. Would you wish to ban all automobiles entirely because they
kill people? I think it’s the same thing with abortion. What we should be
doing is everything possible to make abortion(and automobile fatalities) as RARE as possible. “Evil” exists Marc and breeds in the flesh of all living things,try to get rid of it entirely, and it will turn around and bite you in the
behind harder than it did the first time.That’s sort of what Hegel meant. What really were the Atheistic “super states” trying to create? A society that was free of what they deemed “evil”(capitalism,religion,etc…) All they suceeded in doing is creating a monstrous godzilla from a relatively mild though, definetly problemic komodo dragon!!!What happens if Jerry Farwell’s wishes come to pass in America,I shudder to think of the consequences. What would happen in his attempt to rid the nation of “evil”?(homosexuality,stem-cell research,“paganism”,atheism,abortion,etc…).What would suddendly be justified in Jesus’ name and legislated? Please marc tell me you are not
comparing the “secular agenda"in the western democracies to that of Uncle Joe,Mao and the beard!!!!
I actually agree with a lot of what you have to say, so let me explain where I was coming from in my sarcastic outburst.
I heard Mr. Harris say on Bill O’Reilly that “religious dogma” such as “culture of life” and “err on the side of life” needs to be kept out of the ethics debate. It seems to (and correct me if I’m wrong) at least insinuate that one must be willing to govern himself like a secularist to have a say on how his nation is run. I disagree with this. I am a Christian, and if I were a doctor, lawyer, or office holder, I am going to govern myself like a Christian would.
There is debate over what that means, so let me make myself clear. If the law says abortion is legal, and I am charged with upholding the law, then I allow abortions to happen within the guidelines of the law. However, since I believe that life begins at conception, if I am in a position to make laws, I try to make laws restricting abortions. If the country as a whole thinks I am worng, they can put other lawmakers in place to stop me. That’s okay, because that’s why we have the system we do.
As far as strict separation of church and state goes, that is a farce. The 1st amendment restricts Congress from establishing a state religion and from passing laws prohiting the free exercise of it. No where does the law prohibit religious people or even organized religion from participating in the public square. If it did, every single one of the founding fathers should have been thrown in jail.
Marc with all due respect, I cannot continue this debate. The truth is,I have found that debating christians is simply a horrifyingly strenous exercise in futility. It is akin to the most remote species trying to communicate with one another. It’s like “christians are from mars and secularists are from venus”. I can tell you right now I feel as though all the blood has been sucked from my brain and a wave of utter exhaustion has come over me. I would hardly be a worthy debate partner in my current state. To be fair,i’m sure many christians feel this way when debating secularists. We are just on opposite sides of the universe. I really feel like I need to go to hospital so I must stop. My health may be at stake. You can think I’m coping-out or being melodramatic. I can’t change any of your beliefs including that one. Nor would I even want to.
The price of doing so may be my very life. Trust me nothing personal,just try to imagine how you would feel trying to teach a rooster differential equations or a blind man what colors are like. I am not comparing you to a rooster or a blind man. Hell for all I know, your intellect may surpass mine by light years. All i’m saying is we are one infinitely incompatible wavelengths and never the twain shall meet. No hard feelings I hope and best of luck to you in all your endeavors.
Landulf, when someone shines the “light” of truth, you run away. I think what is happening with you is an insecurity about your convictions. You are afraid to converse, no doubt.
Quite the contrary, I don’t think you’re copping out. I think you’re being honest about the situation. The fact that we can’t convince each other of our point of view is part of my over-all point. Since there will never be a mass shift to one worldview or the other, quickly or gradually, then all points of view should have a place in the ethics debate. You don’t have to come over to my side, but according to Mr. Harris, I don’t have the right to my side. That scares me a little bit, because he and those of his mind set might be smart enough to make that happen.
Look, it’s a phrase with no ethical value. “Culture of life” says nothing about what is good/better/right and what is bad/worse/wrong. It’s one of those black and white world views brought to us by religious madness, “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” is another good example of the good vs. evil religous dogma brought in by religious simpletons to confuse the moral landscape. These people, wallowing is their bleak, uncomplicated stupidity imagine that “life” is good and “death” is bad, so they think they are making a moral evaluation by choosing life over death without any regard to all of the other considerations that make ethical evaluation a difficult and complex matter. If only it was that easy? “Let’s just always choose life and we will always be right” is the apparent moral conclusion of a complete idiot. People whose brain cells are dysfunctioning at that level should not be in charge of taking out the garbage, much less running a whole country. If you can only connect two dots every time you try and visualize the nature of a problem that consists of dozens or even hundreds of dots, perhaps someone should remove you from the discussion for your own benefit, but most certainly for the benefit of the larger conversation and all of those involved in it. Some of you religious nuts are making sheep seem like geniuses.
I think you are mixing things up. Any government, be it aethist or religious, that dictates belief or non belief is not free.
There are several operating theocracies in the world too, that arent doing so well. Historically, the world has had MANY experiments with Theocracy.
This is why now, after learning all our lessons, we try to keep all beliefs out of politics, and allow everyone the freedom to believe what they want.
However, in order to do this, the state itself has to be impartial, meaning that it has to be secular. This doesnt mean the state promotes aethism or religion, it does neither.
The problem comes from morality and ethics vs the rights of individuals.
If my religion says I can sacrafice a goat every full moon, and your religion says goats are sacred, its up to the impartial government to protect your goats from my monthly sacrafice. But can the government forbid me to sacrafice goats because YOU think they are sacred?
PS. for the literalists, no actual goats were harmed in the making of this post.
[quote author=“Marcwithac”]
As far as strict separation of church and state goes, that is a farce. The 1st amendment restricts Congress from establishing a state religion and from passing laws prohiting the free exercise of it. No where does the law prohibit religious people or even organized religion from participating in the public square. If it did, every single one of the founding fathers should have been thrown in jail.
As far as I know, nobody is objecting to religious people participating in the public square. They can stand up in any public forum and proclaim their religious beliefs, invoke God’s name, offer prayers to Him/Her, etc. What they cannot do is use taxpayer dollars and/or assets to erect monuments to their Gods or force the rest of us to recite their mindless babble.
Religious institutions are free to participate in the public square if they are willing to forego their tax exempt status. The constitution correctly protects the rest of us from having to subsidize their misguided religiously motivated political activities.
I cannot understand why the religious right is so hell bent on forcing their religious symbols into the public square at taxpayer expense. Why is it not sufficient that they are free to erect their symbols, worship in whatever way they want, advocate for political causes, etc. using their private resources? Why do they insist on attempting to make the rest of us subsidize their ridiculous mythology and crazy political agenda?
We would all save a lot of time, energy, frustration, money, wear and tear if the religious right would just exercise their constitutional freedom of religion and leave the rest of us and our tax dollars alone.
I cannot understand why the religious right is so hell bent on forcing their religious symbols into the public square at taxpayer expense. Why is it not sufficient that they are free to erect their symbols, worship in whatever way they want, advocate for political causes, etc. using their private resources? Why do they insist on attempting to make the rest of us subsidize their ridiculous mythology and crazy political agenda?
We would all save a lot of time, energy, frustration, money, wear and tear if the religious right would just exercise their constitutional freedom of religion and leave the rest of us and our tax dollars alone.
Having read lots of your posts and traded a few ideas with you, I find to hard to belive that you are saying this.
The answer, of course lies in evangelisim - the mission of the religious to convert you to their way of thinking. They are on what they consider a mission and obligation to shed the light of god on you even to the point of death should you refuse They will endeavor to overpower your free thinking just as all tyrants do since they will not tolerate any opposition to their views. Their objective is to control the government and thereby control you. It is not reasonable to expect to be left alone by them. It has always been so and is now. Think about history and you will see that it is so.
The Soviet Union provided education and social mobility (“affirmative action”) to millions of people who under the Tsars would have stayed ignorant and tied to the soil. It also did the heavy lifting in the war against Nazi Germany, at enormous sacrifice, though you wouldn’t know that from Hollywood’s versions of the conflict. Stalin murdered an appalling number of his fellow Soviet citizens, but it’s fallen down the memory hole that many of them, the old Bolsheviks, had blood on their hands anyway.
The People’s Republic of China,
Wal-Mart’s workshop, in other words.
modern Cuba.
Cuba has carved a niche for itself in conducting biotech research into cures for tropical diseases. Its leaders, unlike the CEO’s of Western pharmaceutical companies, have decided that the lives of poor nonwhite people without prescription drug coverage might just have value.
I yearn for the day these utopias of humanitarianism and peace become the mold for all the world’s nations! Atheism works!
What about much of Western Europe? The Euros enjoy a high quality of life and suffer from far few social pathologies than the people in the Jesus-loving Red States in the U.S., yet they are also considerably less religious. I don’t think that’s coincidental.
Skeptic magazine published a study in a recent issue which demonstrated that the propensity to believe in pseudoscience
was substantially higher among non-science majors than science majors.
It is safe to say the less educated one is overall,the greater their tendancy will be to believe in pseudoscience.I think we here would agree(most of us anyway) that Judeo-christian beliefs fall firmly into what can be classified as “pseudoscience”.Therefore from a christian’s perspective,education especially scientific education is a black evil that
leads to the fiery pit. The obvious solution is to see to it that people are
as poorly educated as possible thus saving countless souls from satanically inspired teachings that will lead them to hell.This way everyone wins. Just think,no more doctors (especially those nasty abortion providers) researchers or any people of science. No one will know how to operate and maintain all the equipment neccessary to spread the gospel message around the globe via electronic media.
The infant mortality rate and deaths from all causes would skyrocket,so much for the “culture of life” but hey,a small price to be paid for all the souls saved. This way christians could outshine Mcdonald’s and place a sign at their churches reading “over 6 billion served”. Just imagine the endless possibilities,even Stalin’s russia could’nt compare with this dream
civilization!!! Now I know many christians say they have no desire to ban science and education,but come on guys,look at the EVIDENCE,whoops!!! I forgot how much you christers hate evidence. Really though you might not want to ignore these facts. Doing so could imperil your eternal salvation, because JC won’t be happy if you allow millions of souls to educate themselves. If you need examples,you need not look any further than Saudi Arabia,Iran etc….now THERE are some countries that prove theocracy is FAR BETTER than a state governed by Militant Atheistic priciples like Castro’s cuba or the people’s republic. As a matter of fact,they are even a little better than those godless european nations like the scandanavian countries. That is why so many people choose to stay in Saudi Arabia and the other Muslim dominated countries rather than go to Europe. Muslims are very rare in Europe. More examples can be found throughought history. Imperial Japan,Nazi Germany,the Holy Roman Empire,The mayas,the list is endlesss!!! All these examples PROVE once and for all that a society based on ANYKIND of irrational beliefs is ALWAYS infinetly superior to those based on FORCE-FED atheism and even those pesky western democracies, who insist on strict seperation of church and state.So bring it on!!! Theocracy works!!!!
I would also argue that although places like the Soviet Union and especially the current PRC were significantly influenced by the worldview of the west.That worldview was atleast somewhat inspired by the Judeo-christian ethic.
Part of that ethic entails anthromorphism. The judeo-christian ethic places
man squarely at the center of the universe. Therefore, it diminishes the status of;and more importantly, the rights of all other living things.China has one of the worst enviromental policies in the world. One has to wonder whether or not this would be the case if the Judeo-christian ethic
never existed to inform the industrial/free-market west. It seems the atheistic “super-states” simply allowed a residual western ethic to slip through the cracks. Pre-Judeo-christian man for the most part, seemed to have much more reverence and respect for nature. All this leads me to believe that the Judeo-christian idea has atleast equalled Nazism in terms of the overall negativity it has wrought on this planet. I think the even the nazis would have had saner enviromental policies, as many were “pagans” or “occultists” who greatly identified with nature and the land.So the legacy of this idea is clear enough to me. Now it appears too late to extricate it whether or not Judeo-christians eventually disappear from the earth.So much thanks to Abraham and all the rest.
No where does the law prohibit religious people or even organized religion from participating in the public square. If it did, every single one of the founding fathers should have been thrown in jail.
I hope that you are not trying to assert that the founding founding fathers can be counted amoung the religious or that somehow they were Christians and therefore represent some view or faith that you may share with them. If so I can present lengthy evident to the contrary.
I cannot understand why the religious right is so hell bent on forcing their religious symbols into the public square at taxpayer expense. Why is it not sufficient that they are free to erect their symbols, worship in whatever way they want, advocate for political causes, etc. using their private resources? Why do they insist on attempting to make the rest of us subsidize their ridiculous mythology and crazy political agenda?
We would all save a lot of time, energy, frustration, money, wear and tear if the religious right would just exercise their constitutional freedom of religion and leave the rest of us and our tax dollars alone.
Having read lots of your posts and traded a few ideas with you, I find to hard to belive that you are saying this.
The answer, of course lies in evangelisim - the mission of the religious to convert you to their way of thinking. .
Of course, I knew the answer to my question…....However, I was hoping that one of the crazy fundies on this forum would try to explain it. Looks like none of them have the guts to try!
I really “enjoy” evangelists! I get great pleasure from the act of throwing them off of my front porch which I have raised to a new art form.
I really “enjoy” evangelists! I get great pleasure from the act of throwing them off of my front porch which I have raised to a new art form.
Keep up the good work. Artistic development is a virtue indeed. I have my own tactic. I listen patiently to their pitch and the first time they say the word “god” I ask - of which god do you speak? The confounded look is worth a million and is a real “smile” or sometimes a good guffaw.
