ILX Religiosity and Spirituality and Agnosticity and Atheicity Poll

Good point about secularism. I am 90% in favour of secularism within public life. (The 10% hesitation is discomfort with taking secularism so far that it extends to precluding *any* display of personal belief, such as bans on wearing religious jewelry or the veil etc.) I'm much more OK with secularism than I am with atheism.

that "small group" comprises about 90% of the religious people I've ever met.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that, because my huge and equally varied experience has clearly been very different and lead me to different conclusions.

Sure, religious experience can be artificially induced by stimulating parts of the brain. And also by certain drugs. You can probably do the same for ANY human emotion. The existence and effects of the common drug ecstasy is proof that lots of what we think of as love - both the eros and the agape - is just a chemical reaction in the brain.

Does that really mean that you want to throw out the intense experiences of love, of bonding, of community, of romantic and sexual love with your partner, of familial love of your children, the love and companionship of your close friends - and the huge amounts of the human experience that goes with it - because *love* can be replicated in a laboratory?

if you want to throw out "the spiritual experience" based on the fact that it's just a brain reaction, you better be prepared to throw out a huge amount of what it means to be human with it. And I'm just not prepared to throw out love, music, art, literature, philosophy etc. just yet. Sorry. I don't want to live in that world.

I'm suddenly reminded of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor saying that atheists are "Not fully human".

Now who's projecting? That is not what I said. Please stop directing your jibes at the straw man standing behind my right shoulder.

I've never had the emotional experience of being romantically loved by someone who loved me. That might make me an atheist of love. I admit that it's an emotional experience I haven't had, and have no knowledge of.

But what it *doesn't* mean is that I go around calling people who have had that experience deluded fools, or dismissing the meaningful experiences of their lives as "supernatural bollocks" because I've never had this love-experience. To do so would be arrogant, patronising and downright insulting, and that's not the kind of person I want to be - nor congratulate myself for being.

Does that really mean that you want to throw out the intense experiences of love, of bonding, of community, of romantic and sexual love with your partner, of familial love of your children, the love and companionship of your close friends - and the huge amounts of the human experience that goes with it - because *love* can be replicated in a laboratory?

Of course not, but I also don't form churches to worship it, or write rule books sanctioning the only way in which it is to be correctly experienced, nor suggest that those who experience it otherwise will meet with some sort of punishment, nor attempt to force my culture to operate in accordance with my experience of it. Or kill people over it.

if you want to throw out "the spiritual experience" based on the fact that it's just a brain reaction, you better be prepared to throw out a huge amount of what it means to be human with it. And I'm just not prepared to throw out love, music, art, literature, philosophy etc. just yet.

I smell a category error here, but I'm not prepared to argue with you about it and be met with another barrage of strawmen and leading questions.

or dismissing the meaningful experiences of their lives as "supernatural bollocks" because I've never had this love-experience.

If "religious experience" is, indeed, something that occurs in the brain and is not a reference to or apprehension of anything external, than attributing a supernatural origin or meaning to it is, in fact, bollocks. As much so as suggesting that my experience of "love" with my wife is a result of being shot by Cupid's arrow.

Anyway, I refuse to waste my Saturday on this.

― Karen D. Tregaskin, Saturday, September 18, 2010 12:22 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Good idea! These pointless conflicts about religion or politics only end in frustration for everyone.

If "religious experience" is, indeed, something that occurs in the brain and is not a reference to or apprehension of anything external, than attributing a supernatural origin or meaning to it is, in fact, bollocks

No, because granting the legitimacy of the experiments connecting "religious experience" with human-induced stimuli (and such work deserves skepticism), it doesn't follow that this experience doesn't have a supernatural origin as well. Religious believers, from saints to shamans, have maintained for ages that we can instigate conditions which promote such experiences.

No, because granting the legitimacy of the experiments connecting "religious experience" with human-induced stimuli (and such work deserves skepticism), it doesn't follow that this experience doesn't have a supernatural origin as well.

I'll stick with Occam's Razor on this one.

Good idea! These pointless conflicts about religion or politics only end in frustration for everyone.

Pointless conflicts don't always end in frustration, but the slow descent into ad hominem bullshit does.

You all have the right to your beliefs, I have the right to mine. I can explain rationally and politely until I'm blue in the face, you can counter until you are blue in the face, but as many straw men and category errors and leading questions and incorrect assumptions as you see in my beliefs, I see in your assumptions. We're going round in circles and that only leads people to be more hostile to one another, no matter what their actual set of beliefs are.

Really really wish there could be a "no atheists allowed in the room" style thread, though, where people who did want to discuss this stuff without the "supernatural bollocks" style name-calling could do so in peace.

Know it ain't gonna happen on this board, though, with stats like those at the top of the thread, but those stats are actually an explanation of why it doesn't work.

There's a whole board tbf. I'm sure on the mods of The Church wd be happy to enforce a thread like that? I get yr frustration and I hope I haven't been needlessly inflammatory but I think you shd see if the thread you propose is doable rather than being pessimistic before the fact. Mean that sincerely.

"on the mods" = "one of the mods of"

No area of human endeavor or belief is safe from materialism.

Really warming up to this Banaka fellow :)

ILE needed its own Geir.

Atheists are humorless bastards who believe in a soulless, black and white, mechanistic universe = they like the simple black text on white background layout of ILX.

ILX has been so dominated by ... people who are amusical or even tone deaf

So true about ILM, but I don't quite see what it has to do with religion.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

What I find most personally concerning about these results is the high degree of *certainty* that people seem to express. ... The arrogance doesn't come from the belief, it comes from the certainty that one believes one's own belief is the only *possible* one.

I'm honestly surprised that there were not more *agnostics* because that, to me, is the most intellectually *defensible* position, but the way the poll is phrased makes it difficult to pick out tolerant agnostics on the borderline cases.

I don't think this conflict you're talking about between atheism and agnosticism really exists. I'm certain there is no god. But at the same time I think a real answer is probably fundamentally unknowable. There could be a race of invisible gnomes that live in a dimension that humans can't perceive. But probably not. So I'm going to carry on under the assumption that they don't exist.

I agree with Karen that these aren't very good poll options.

imo the best part of atheism is that you don't have to even address the god question, not going around asserting that there's a definite answer.

imo the best part of athiesm is listening to rock music, having a same-sex partner, and redistributing wealth.

OK, this is where the terminology really gets in the way because I tend to think of "not even addressing the god question" is on the agnostic spectrum, rather than being strict atheism. Atheism = "there is definitely no god at all" while Agnosticism = "I don't know if there is a god" or "This is an unanswerable question" or "This is not something that humans are even capable of finding out the answer to."

A theism = etymologically "without god"
A gnosis = etymologically "without knowledge"

When I get back from holiday, I am definitely going to do a different poll with less slanted questions that clearly define what is meant without the emotive and/or confusing terminology.

Ahh see this is where I would be at cross purposes with you. If pushed I would describe myself as an atheist because I don't know or care if there is a God and live my life as if there is no God. I guess under your spectrum this would be agnostic rather than atheist.

I think that's a bit pendatic though. Even Dawkins technically considers himself an agnostic (he has seven levels of agnosticism or something like that), but for ease he'll refer to himself as an athiest and has no issue if people call him as such. I'm the same. I can't prove that there's no god or spiritual realm but I'm as certain as I can be. xpost

"the worst behaviour by most religious people in Scotland is generally over football."
setting aside its legal and cultural status, why wouldn't you consider football in every functional respect a religion?
there are a lot of sports that seem to qualify, so much so that there is sometimes literal meshing with church and sports life,
but other sports, like golf or tennis don't (maybe because the emphasis is on the individual? but football has its stars as well, so that can't be the whole answer.)

re: agnostic/atheist -- didn't agnostic used to be a catchall term for atheists? i get the feeling 'atheist' came into vogue by opposing parties wanting to emphasize the 'otherness' of this POV, because agnostic sounds too reasonable on one hand and conciliatory on the other.

football is secular religion.

No area of human endeavor or belief is safe from materialism.

I would disagree. The "strong" materialism pov that developed out of Newtonian physics and came to a peak in the early 20th century hypothesized that the universe could eventually be reduced to a mechanistic description of cause-and-effect, provided one could make fine enough measurements. Many materialists even thought this project was nearing completion.

No top physicist today would subscribe to that pov. We now have a probablistic model of the universe that is not about to be replaced any time soon by a deterministic one. Within the confines of a probablistic universe, almost any belief can find a tiny sliver of probability to reside in.

"football is secular religion."

american football isn't, heyo!
but even without explicit church involvement in world football, isn't it rife with superstition and communion with the divine?

Like Karen, I too wish I could frequent an environment where my assumptions about the world were never rudely challenged. The difference is that she has one, in real life, called "church."

I can explain rationally and politely until I'm blue in the face,

But I thought your beliefs couldn't be explained rationally?

Atheism = "there is definitely no god at all" while Agnosticism = "I don't know if there is a god"

Wrong.

or "This is an unanswerable question. This is not something that humans are even capable of finding out the answer to."

Closer. Atheism = I don't believe in any gods. Agnosticism = I don't believe that existence or non-existence of god is fundamentally knowable by humans. Agnostic Atheist = we can't really know if there's a god or not, but I don't personally believe in any (for whatever reason). Agnostic Theist = I have faith that there is a god but there can never be any proof because god is fundamentally unknowable.

re: agnostic/atheist -- didn't agnostic used to be a catchall term for atheists? i get the feeling 'atheist' came into vogue by opposing parties wanting to emphasize the 'otherness' of this POV, because agnostic sounds too reasonable on one hand and conciliatory on the other.

Other way around. "The first individuals to identify themselves as "atheist" appeared in the 18th century." "Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word agnostic in 1869." The term atheism is so demonized that people started calling themselves agnostics because it was a seemingly kinder, gentler term that seems to imply "gee I don't really know, I'm undecided" even though that's not what it means.

guys, just walked into my building's lobby and heard a guy telling an old lady, "we need to shoot all the athiests in this country, and that's it."

And maybe atheists sometimes try to tell religious people what they believe or stereotype and categorize religious beliefs in an overly simplistic way but the same thing happens with these terms atheist and agnostic. But at least religion is a vague assortment of millions of different ideas and beliefs and the best we can hope to do is make generalizations and talk about particular beliefs. There's no excuse for misrepresenting atheism since it's a relatively simple and clearly defined idea compared to the vast spectrum of religions. It's not like there are different dogmas and shades of interpretation. It's just a simple descriptor really.

Thinking back on this whole, "Oh, only a small group of religious people really believe in 'God' as an actual person or entity" it strikes me as nonsense of the first order, and a real attempt to evade some tough truths. It's tantamount to saying that mainstream Christianity now rejects the concepts of Jesus-as-God, the Trinity and the redemption from sin that took place in the crucifixion. If that's the case, then bravo for Christianity! But I don't believe for a millisecond that it is the case.

Fair point, but there's a distinction between what people think and what the guy at the front says. If you actually asked every Christian whether they believe that's literally true, and gave them anonymity and time to reflect, I'd expect you'd get a vast range of response.

'there is a wide spectrum of belief. I know that within that spectrum, there is a *group* of people who believe that god is a literal object or person, but that small group is nowhere near representative of the entire spectrum of belief.'

It's precisely this reason that I feel atheists ought to open their tent to include everyone outside of that small group, because that, to me, represents the worldview divisions more accurately and confers upon atheism the normative status I suspect it actually has (I don't think ilxor poll results are so far out of whack with the general populace as one might suspect). If you want to call it secularism instead of atheism, that's fine, but I feel that widening the goalposts of atheism is still a worthy goal, in that in identifying with it, you also identify with a tradition of doubt (which you can find comfortable root within many aspects of church history, and I suspect that modern atheism owes some intellectual debt to early atheists who operated within the church), and this doubt would act as a moderating presence against the abuses of religion most effectively if it were inside rather than outside the gates.

Yeah, if someone is criticizing the idea of god as an omniscient being who exists somewhere and intervenes into the lives of humans, they're talking about an idea that's pretty widespread throughout world religions. Of course we all understand that there are people who have a different conception of god, but we're not necessarily talking about them. And I don't see why a criticism of the other conception of god should be offensive to people who thing god is just represents the oneness of the universe or something. But if you say that atheists are people who are arrogantly certain that god doesn't exist that's just a flat out misuse of language.

Wrong.

wk, you have such a pretty way with words.

Not only are your definitons extremely similar to Karen's, but you were unable to provide us with definitions that you are willing to endorse as correct, making your answer "wrong", too. So, why are you parading around preening yourself, as if you were "right" instead of a tiny bit less wrong, at the margins?

My guess: it's because you are an ass.

"The first individuals to identify themselves as "atheist" appeared in the 18th century." "Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word agnostic in 1869." The term atheism is so demonized that people started calling themselves agnostics because it was a seemingly kinder, gentler term that seems to imply "gee I don't really know, I'm undecided" even though that's not what it means.

That's interesting! Was there an inverse thing happening from the 1950s-1970s? Like I'll watch old movies and there's a secular weirdo in it (played by Ronald Reagan?) and he'll say, "I'm an agnostic" and everyone nods their heads like "oh he's one of them."

Please don't bring secularism into this.it's a beautiful concept that's only going to tarnished by pulling it into somebody else's crossfire. Kind of like how 'liberal' has been ruined by three decades of name-calling.

atheists ought to open their tent

I don't see why. Atheism isn't a movement, it's just a description of a conclusion some people have reached. I'm bemused by the recent militancy about it - nobody's being coerced into religion, why the dickishness about trying to prove them wrong? Not in the UK anyway, maybe things are different in the US but I don't imagine to a massive extent. No doubt Dawkins et al save their best efforts for their campaign in Saudi.

Not only are your definitons extremely similar to Karen's, but you were unable to provide us with definitions that you are willing to endorse as correct,

I did give what I thought were correct definitions. Can you show me where I went wrong? Or can you just call me an ass? You don't see the distinction between "Atheism = "there is definitely no god at all" and "Atheism = I don't believe in any gods"? It seems like a pretty major one to me. An infant doesn't believe in any gods but doesn't think "there is definitely no god at all."

There seems to be an awful lot of agreement going on in this thread, with the arguments centering around misunderstandings of each other's positions and definitions.

Very few people arguing for a monotheistic God, and very few people arguing the 'strict atheist' position that it is completely impossible that there could be nothing outside of our current knowledge that could be conceived of as some kind of spiritual power.

setting aside its legal and cultural status, why wouldn't you consider football in every functional respect a religion?

Yeah, football is kinda like a religion/replacement for, I guess. It is the most important thing to many people. You go every week never missing a game, A result on a Saturday can affect the mood of your entire week. Star players can be worshipped.

But that wasn't what I was talking about in my original post obviously.

I sort of agree about football, though not any of those specific points - it's more about belonging to a tribe and having your worldview filtered in a particular way. But then that's only in a tiny way - it's not really any different from having a particular job, or living in a particular place.

Very few people arguing for a monotheistic God, and very few people arguing the 'strict atheist' position that it is completely impossible that there could be nothing outside of our current knowledge that could be conceived of as some kind of spiritual power

But extremely few atheists would ever say something like "it is completely impossible that there could be (something) outside of our current knowledge that could be conceived of as some kind of spiritual power" while a slight majority of the people in the world believe in one of the monotheistic gods. I don't know why we should be focused on people's beliefs within this thread rather than within the world as a whole.

wk, I certainly may call you an ass, of the debating club variety, to be more exact. Believe it or not, what works best to score points in a debating club tends to fail in discussions of a less formalized and less competitive nature.

A definite dogmatic "Wrong." (I note the dramatics implied by the period) works fine at a debater's lecturn before an audience, but just makes you look like an ass in the context of ILE. Quibbles about the beliefs of babies won't do you much good here, although I acknowledge your fine debating club skills. They say a word to the wise is sufficient. please prove yourself to be among the wise.

Wrong.

(clutches at chest, heart level, and staggers away)

Football is no more a religion than knitting or keeping bees or any other pastime. It's easy to think of it as such due to coming together of various folk with a singular focal point for their being there, but no more than saying that going to Coldplay gigs or whatevs is a form of religion.

Could you please, for just one moment, stop putting up your straw men and listen to what I have said, repeatedly on this thread:

Like Karen, I too wish I could frequent an environment where my assumptions about the world were never rudely challenged. The difference is that she has one, in real life, called "church."

1) I do not currently belong to a church. I'm pretty sure I've said that several times on this thread.

2) When I did belong to a church, as I stated repeatedly upthread, we challenged our assumptions, questioned our faith, learned about other faiths (including a history of agnosticism and atheism) every god damn day of our lives.

Please stop drawing conclusions about my life that are the diametric opposite of everything I have repeated stated about my own experiences on this thread.

Your piss-poor reading comprehension is a really bad advertisement for your world view. That's simply an observation, but it can function as an ad hominem if you want to take it as one.

I think the philosophical niceties of the argument are pretty stale these days. In the absence of any Descartes style a priori proof or disproof of God, and with everyone starting from very different bases, I don't see any possibility of progress there. Even a question like 'does God intervene in the world' is going to mean something very different to a Berkeley-an idealist and an empirical materialist. I think the social implications are of much more interest really - I mean the vague, wishy-washy 'why can't we all get along' questions. And I don't see an answer for that in terms of religion that doesn't also address it in terms of race, nationality, class etc. Maybe Banaka can help us out with those...

Karen, imo you've done an admirable job of stating and defending your own views on this subject.

At this point, you have become a target to a few, simply on the basis of your still being present, engaged, and prominent by virtue of your participation. This makes you about the only target to snipe at, for anyone inclined to do so. My advice is, don't take it personally, because those who are using you as a whipping post are viewing you impersonally, as the symbol of a position they wish to deride. The urge to do so is overriding their ability to respect you as a fellow human.

You and I know you are a person. The internet does tend to obscure this fact in the minds of some people.