NationStates

Alvecia wrote:

Satuga wrote:
don't really get it tbh.

One nonsensical non-sequitur deserves another

I knew you were trying to refute their point but I just never seen that used before lol

Marxist Germany wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Explain to me how humans had religion before they invented religion. Explain to me how the first humans were somehow born believing in god without anyone ever explaining the idea to them or them inventing the idea themselves.

Because God created Adam and Eve.

Both of whom were atheists. They knew God personally, he hung out with them, they probably had regular chats about the weather he'd been creating. They didn't believe in God any more than I believe in the computer I'm typing on. God's existence was not a matter of faith for them the way it is for modern theists.


Also they never existed and God isn't real.

I don't think it's the job of atheism to make the world a better place. Also, even if you could prove a correlation between belief in deities and positive social outcomes, they still don't exist.

Nimzonia wrote:I don't think it's the job of atheism to make the world a better place. Also, even if you could prove a correlation between belief in deities and positive social outcomes, they still don't exist.

True, but if one could prove a correlation -- or even a causation -- that belief in deities causes negative social outcomes, and at that, incredibly awful social outcomes, then it might require some force (atheism, for example) to overcome said negative social outcomes. At such a point, it might become atheism's job to stop the awful social outcomes that religion might create in such a scenario.

Ifreann wrote:

Marxist Germany wrote:Because God created Adam and Eve.

Both of whom were atheists. They knew God personally, he hung out with them, they probably had regular chats about the weather he'd been creating. They didn't believe in God any more than I believe in the computer I'm typing on. God's existence was not a matter of faith for them the way it is for modern theists.


Also they never existed and God isn't real.

That's actually a philosophically tangled debate. Could you really be considered an atheist if you personally know God? Well, you'd 100% know it's real, but on the other hand it wouldn't be a matter of faith, it'd be fact.

Suffice to say there's a lot of really interesting reading out there on the subject.

Leninist Haven wrote:

Nimzonia wrote:I don't think it's the job of atheism to make the world a better place. Also, even if you could prove a correlation between belief in deities and positive social outcomes, they still don't exist.

True, but if one could prove a correlation -- or even a causation -- that belief in deities causes negative social outcomes, and at that, incredibly awful social outcomes, then it might require some force (atheism, for example) to overcome said negative social outcomes. At such a point, it might become atheism's job to stop the awful social outcomes that religion might create in such a scenario.

And we have multiple examples of the latter. For example, the prevalence of religious belief generally correlates with sexual aliments like HIV and teen pregnancy, mostly because the world's major religions have a problem with teaching sex ed at school (assuming they aren't out and out encouraging bad social trends like saying that condoms are a sin- looking at you catholic church).

So yes, advocating atheism is an attempt at trying to make the world a better place.

Alvecia wrote:I would say the finger should be pointed at secularism rather than atheism. The latter being something of a subset of the former.

Secularism I would say has definitely made the world a better place.

Agreed. We must promote secularism among other liberal values such as freedom and democracy. China is arguably NOT secular in any way. Xi Jinping Thought is the only acceptable faith bar none. One is expected to worship Xi as one would worship Yahweh. The Chinese Communist Party is the modern-day successor to the Roman Catholic Church of the Dark Ages.

It's just that the purveyors of Chinese state socialism identify as atheists as they commit their human rights abuses and atrocities. It not only gives both atheists and Chinese people around the world a really bad reputation, but it also convinces me that, despite the rise of secularism in the West and the prosperity of atheistic countries such as Sweden compared to more devoutly religious, socially backward countries such as Pakistan and Uganda, atheists are neither inherently more or less moral than religious people.

Atheism is not an ideology or belief system in any way. It is simply a passive lack of belief in a deity of any sort. It has no bearing on human morality in and of itself. It's like having blue eyes vs. brown eyes.

Of course it has, though when I'm saying that, I mean that secularism has done its work. I myself am an atheist, though truly I just don't give a shit about religion as a whole. Like, "okay, you exist, so what?" that type of idea. With that mindset, just remove religion from the equation and boom, just humans doing human things without being willed to a fake higher power.

While I'm against religion myself, I would like to point out that atheism (or secularism, as well) is far from a magical solution to everything. The problems listed in the OP (human greed, selfishness, bigotry and ideological extremism) are not inherently tied to religion and are part of the human nature. As such, it is reflected in the religions that humanity has built, but eliminating religion will not eliminate them. It's frankly impossible.

Society is better when blind faith in an intolerant deity is eliminated. The only reason society has become so shit is because either people started believing in the invisible deity no one has actually seen, or they believe in something as unscientific like anti vax/the anti GMO movement, or the flat earth

Honestly a large portion of morale's came from religion, however now that we have a far more functional society I don't really think it's religions job to be that morale giver anymore. It's society as a whole's job to do that, to teach children the rights and wrongs. Religion should be for mostly closure and hope now, rather than the morale enforcer its been for centuries.
Also it should be moderate like everything less we have another Jones-town.

Chan Island wrote:

Leninist Haven wrote:True, but if one could prove a correlation -- or even a causation -- that belief in deities causes negative social outcomes, and at that, incredibly awful social outcomes, then it might require some force (atheism, for example) to overcome said negative social outcomes. At such a point, it might become atheism's job to stop the awful social outcomes that religion might create in such a scenario.

And we have multiple examples of the latter. For example, the prevalence of religious belief generally correlates with sexual aliments like HIV and teen pregnancy, mostly because the world's major religions have a problem with teaching sex ed at school (assuming they aren't out and out encouraging bad social trends like saying that condoms are a sin- looking at you catholic church).

So yes, advocating atheism is an attempt at trying to make the world a better place.

The worst thing about abstinence only education is the fundamentalist dinosaurs who push it won't be the ones affected by its consequences. It'll be the teens who didn't learn how to use protection because their elders are scared of human sexuality, and it's all because of an ancient scroll from the desert

Chan Island wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Both of whom were atheists. They knew God personally, he hung out with them, they probably had regular chats about the weather he'd been creating. They didn't believe in God any more than I believe in the computer I'm typing on. God's existence was not a matter of faith for them the way it is for modern theists.


Also they never existed and God isn't real.

That's actually a philosophically tangled debate. Could you really be considered an atheist if you personally know God? Well, you'd 100% know it's real, but on the other hand it wouldn't be a matter of faith, it'd be fact.

Suffice to say there's a lot of really interesting reading out there on the subject.

You could think you were just going insane. Our brains lie to us all the time.

Marxist Germany wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Explain to me how humans had religion before they invented religion. Explain to me how the first humans were somehow born believing in god without anyone ever explaining the idea to them or them inventing the idea themselves.

Because God created Adam and Eve.

And how do you know this happened and isn't a fairy tale?

Consider this ladies and gentlemen. If I go door to door warning everyone of an impending alien invasion, everyone will think I'm crazy, but if I go door to door warning people of hellfire and damnation for unbelievers, at least 30% of people will believe what I say is completely true.

Apparently biological entities from another planet invading ours is harder to believe than an almighty creator of the universe is.

Marxist Germany wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Explain to me how humans had religion before they invented religion. Explain to me how the first humans were somehow born believing in god without anyone ever explaining the idea to them or them inventing the idea themselves.

Because God created Adam and Eve.

That was 6000 years ago. Plenty of humans existed before then.

Alvecia wrote:

Chan Island wrote:
That's actually a philosophically tangled debate. Could you really be considered an atheist if you personally know God? Well, you'd 100% know it's real, but on the other hand it wouldn't be a matter of faith, it'd be fact.

Suffice to say there's a lot of really interesting reading out there on the subject.

You could think you were just going insane. Our brains lie to us all the time.

And then there's one of the architects of the Anabaptist uprising in Munster back in 1648 (also my favourite Dan Carlin episode ever....) was this crazy man who would have arguments with 'God' right in front of people. He was allegedly a hell of a person to meet.

Chan Island wrote:

Alvecia wrote:You could think you were just going insane. Our brains lie to us all the time.

And then there's one of the architects of the Anabaptist uprising in Munster back in 1648 (also my favourite Dan Carlin episode ever....) was this crazy man who would have arguments with 'God' right in front of people. He was allegedly a hell of a person to meet.

Tbf, if I suddenly started seeing god, I'd have a lot of choice words for him as well.

Alvecia wrote:

Chan Island wrote:
And then there's one of the architects of the Anabaptist uprising in Munster back in 1648 (also my favourite Dan Carlin episode ever....) was this crazy man who would have arguments with 'God' right in front of people. He was allegedly a hell of a person to meet.

Tbf, if I suddenly started seeing god, I'd have a lot of choice words for him as well.

At one point he was mid conversation with someone, suddenly started chatting 'God' behind him, then turned around and announced that God had just told him to kill the other person.

I'd have some choice words at a command like that to be very sure.

Satuga wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Explain to me how humans had religion before they invented religion. Explain to me how the first humans were somehow born believing in god without anyone ever explaining the idea to them or them inventing the idea themselves.

It's hard to say considering we have no history of way back then. However we do have some evidence of possible superstitious acts performed during those times, specifically trepanning.

So do you think that humans have some kind of belief in the spiritual power of trepanning written into our DNA? Or do you think that first people didn't believe in that and then at some point someone invented it and told people about it?

So to say they were atheist or not is way more difficult.

No, it's not. There's simply no other possibility. We cannot have started off believing in gods before anyone developed the concept of a god.

However using the evidence that every civilization formed has created their own form of religion

Not true.

it is at the very least logical to say humans are superstitious by nature.

Superstition isn't the same as theism. Humans being superstitious by nature, even if we accept that to be true, does not mean that all humans for all of time have always believed in some god or gods from the first moment of their consciousness until some of them later learned to be atheists. That's just nonsensical. The only sensible explanation is that humans are born atheists, then learn about some god or gods and thereafter may believe. Which necessarily means that there must have been a time, however brief, before we invented gods. It doesn't matter that we don't know the name of the first god ever conceived of, there must have been one, and that god can only have been conceived of by a human, so humans must have come first and gods after.

Chan Island wrote:

Alvecia wrote:Tbf, if I suddenly started seeing god, I'd have a lot of choice words for him as well.

At one point he was mid conversation with someone, suddenly started chatting 'God' behind him, then turned around and announced that God had just told him to kill the other person.

I'd have some choice words at a command like that to be very sure.

When the angel and devil on your shoulder are not only visible, but also the same person.

Did Banana make the world a better place ? When conscience and science merge, the world becomes a good place

Satuga wrote:Honestly a large portion of morale's came from religion, however now that we have a far more functional society I don't really think it's religions job to be that morale giver anymore. It's society as a whole's job to do that, to teach children the rights and wrongs. Religion should be for mostly closure and hope now, rather than the morale enforcer its been for centuries.
Also it should be moderate like everything less we have another Jones-town.

Religion should ideally be relegated to history as an intangible cultural artifact, yet celebrated in much the same way that Greeks, Italians and Scandinavians celebrate their pantheons of old without actually worshipping Thor or Zeus or sincerely believing in the old religions. This has already kind of happened with Christmas and Easter. It's a real pity most Egyptians don't bother with Amun-Ra these days. We can marvel at Abbasid-era architecture without actually worshipping Allah and idolizing Mohammed. A prosperous, democratic, secular Middle East would be nice. As for China, the ancient civilization fuses elements from animistic ancestor worship, Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism in a sort of syncretistic mix, such that there is no clear dividing line between religion and culture like there is in the West, and the one blends seamlessly into the other.

Once we render religion subordinate to culture and national identity, people will have something exceedingly rich and colorful to rally behind and be proud of without the religious aspect of their culture holding them back in practice. The solution is to replace theocracy with secularism, and not so much blind faith with atheism. The latter is a bonus, but it's by no means a requirement. Replace religion but fail to implement secularism and establish liberal, democratic institutions to fill the void, and we run the risk of replacing one authoritarian ideology with yet another equally totalitarian ideology that calls itself atheist.

Chan Island wrote:

Leninist Haven wrote:True, but if one could prove a correlation -- or even a causation -- that belief in deities causes negative social outcomes, and at that, incredibly awful social outcomes, then it might require some force (atheism, for example) to overcome said negative social outcomes. At such a point, it might become atheism's job to stop the awful social outcomes that religion might create in such a scenario.

And we have multiple examples of the latter. For example, the prevalence of religious belief generally correlates with sexual aliments like HIV and teen pregnancy, mostly because the world's major religions have a problem with teaching sex ed at school (assuming they aren't out and out encouraging bad social trends like saying that condoms are a sin- looking at you catholic church).

So yes, advocating atheism is an attempt at trying to make the world a better place.

Not really. It's taking advantage of a competing ideologies weaknesses to promulgate ones own.

There are other Faith's that don't give a shit about the traditional Christian baggage when it comes to sex.

The Emerald Legion wrote:

Chan Island wrote:
And we have multiple examples of the latter. For example, the prevalence of religious belief generally correlates with sexual aliments like HIV and teen pregnancy, mostly because the world's major religions have a problem with teaching sex ed at school (assuming they aren't out and out encouraging bad social trends like saying that condoms are a sin- looking at you catholic church).

So yes, advocating atheism is an attempt at trying to make the world a better place.

Not really. It's taking advantage of a competing ideologies weaknesses to promulgate ones own.

There are other Faith's that don't give a shit about the traditional Christian baggage when it comes to sex.

Like buddhism, but you notice most atheists aren't offended by Buddhists because Buddhists don't condemn you to eternal hellfire for literally everything

True atheism may be difficult or impossible to prove, but I think agnosticism is an ultimately true belief, and that is that we don't know if God exists. we have no evidence of the gods of the world's religions, and while we can't definitely disprove they exist, a lot of evidence suggests that, and in the end its up to the religious believer to prove his God is real. It isn't up to an atheist or agnostic to prove he isn't