are you an atheist?

Your mental rigor and strength are admirable, but they are not qualities that are widely shared by billions of other human beings. I would argue that they are the privilege of relatively small populations of humans with the leisure and freedom and psychological and physical health to think as you do.

The interviewer, giving this guy an ego blow job, poolside at the Four Seasons. No wonder the right hates this guy so much.

i had the impression that people were more matter-of-fact about death when it was pretty much constantly happening around them, and that the sort of deep, personal solace one would find in religion is a modern, urban phenomenon (as opposed to a community ritual where you'd have things get depersonalized to the point where you'd pay people to grieve publicly)

I really dig the strawman in the very first sentence of his interview. The bus driver who let's Jesus drive. And the responding question, "Does any halfway literate modern person still imagine that there is a large person with a beard who lives in the sky and is watching us?"

The answer to this question is yes, btw.

I don't like his use of "accident" to describe why Christianity and Islam are so widespread today. It all seemed very practical.

By embracing Imperialism and hunting down heretics? Pretty sure the believers of ancient Grecian and Roman gods spilled a lot of blood before they 'cancelled their subscriptions' as he so flippantly puts it.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, June 3, 2012 2:31 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you think the Roman/Greek polytheism declined because of imperialism and hunting down heretics? I'm not sure I follow your point here. That persecution might have fueled the intensity of belief that allowed Christianity to expand, but Roman paganism was already on shaky legs before that; not enough people really believed all of that Mt. Olympus hokum.

I really dig the strawman in the very first sentence of his interview. The bus driver who let's Jesus drive. And the responding question, "Does any halfway literate modern person still imagine that there is a large person with a beard who lives in the sky and is watching us?"
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, June 3, 2012 2:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

neither is a strawman in the context of their discussion, imo. Especially since the answer to the question is "yes."

I'm pretty sure Christianity wouldn't be around if the Romans hadn't taken it up officially and spread it around the Empire. Arguably the end of the Empire came when they forced it too much on pagans.

The bus driver and the bearded sky-god are just easy targets, cherry-picked cartoons of religious devotion. The context of the discussion is set from the start: cartoon religious fanatics are stupid.

The thing about Roman/Grecian dieties, he just seems to be isolating religion from political history here for his own convenience. Only later to join them back together when you can blame them for wars and oppression. It's one of the main things atheist writers do that make me rmde.

Harris isn't trying to mock religious people there, he's just making the point that beliefs have consequences and are thus worthy of study.

The bearded man thing is fairly mild when it comes to "cartoons of religious devotion." There are highly intelligent people who believe Noah's Ark is a literally true story, for example. I found that whole passage strange though; why would you use that argument on an atheist?

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/the-functions-of-faith.html

When atheists try to make substitutes for religion, they often do pretty well on acceptance, and on collecting specific self-control mechanisms. But they find it hard to substitutes for the high-status ally, the added comfort and self-control this allows, and the rituals this makes more powerful. Yes, if there isn’t a God, and you don’t believe in him, you win points for having more true beliefs. But you may well lose in your ability to get things done that you want done. There is simply no general guarantee that humans will get more done when they believe more truths.

really need to find a superbeing that i can believe is protecting and helping me so i can git r done

i call him Colonel Sanders

Belief is very important to atheists.

not all of us i don't think

Just as it would be silly to deny that a belief in an afterlife can be psychologically comforting for people who are dealing with the death of a loved one or facing death themselves, it would be similarly foolish to overlook the possible benefits of a belief in god. The fact that an untruth can be beneficial in some aspects doesn't convert it into a truth, or render it harmless in all other aspects, but if you insist on claiming that a belief in god does nothing but harm, then you are displaying a type of willful blindness, aka prejudice.

For hundreds of millions of people a belief in god provides a mental framework that fits their needs better than any of the alternatives. Iow, it is adaptive. Mordy's quote is saying exactly that and nothing more.

I don't think anyone is denying that there are psychological comforts to religion. That's probably it's biggest asset, and a key to its enduring popularity.

I'd say the benefits are more than just psychological reassurance, and I'm a pretty convinced atheist / skeptical agnostic. Big social and cultural goods have come directly from religion, from architecture to charity. It's not all installing shame and fiddling with kids.

Oh well if you're talking about all-time, religion is hugely important to the organising of society as well as a cultural inspiration.

I think those roles - in the positive sense, at least - are somewhat diminished these days. Psychological reassurance is still very important.

I think religion is pretty awesome in a lot of ways on an individual level, and more often than not I find myself actively wishing that I was a (liberal, non-dogmatic) religious person. But I can't be, because I just don't think/feel/believe/whatever that there is any sort of supernatural anything. It's weird to me when believers try to act like it's this choice I've made in defiance of everything in order to be "right". I honestly think I'd probably be a happier person if I could be religious, but I didn't pick a team here, it's just how I see the world.

otm. i miss being young and having that kind of comfort (though I don't miss the fear of damnation). I'm just not capable of it anymore. And I'm glad I'm not, all in all.

en eye see kay, try Buddhism on for size. It is much easier to eliminate the supernatural from it and still have many excellent traditions to choose from (e.g. Zen). Just be aware that the Zen idea of 'nature' may look 'supernatural' to you, until you get what they're driving at (via satori).

Can you say more about the Zen idea of nature, Aimless? I'm interested.

Afaics, a zen buddhist's idea of nature is completely compatible with that of particle physics, except for the particles maybe. (joeks)

It is hard to be clear about this stuff in words and talking around it just makes most people dizzy. Zen seeks a direct experience of nature and meditation is a sort of training for this, although satori is always possible to everyone at all times, with or without meditation. A good portal into this stuff is the Tao Teh Ching.

fwiw, this is my bag and is on a totally different wavelength from supernatural explanations of divinity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism#Judaism

the next section also that discusses gnosticism (where my gnostics at???)

Fuck the demiurge. Hail Sophia.

Psychological benefits of a religious person thinking they know The Truth about reality and psychological benefits of an atheist thinking they know The Truth about reality.

I think there's something in a more mystical approach to spirituality that sort of bridges the gap. However, it's a pretty abstract bridge.

Robin Hanson isn't suggesting that the benefits of being religious are from thinking you know The Truth about reality. His example is that by wanting to associate w/ the highest status friend (GOD) you can change your behavior to more closely represent what you want (by thinking, I guess, GOD would really love me more if I did X, Y, Z). If you're an atheist you also think you know The Truth about reality but that truth is that there is no higher status friend to motivate you.

You could say that some metaphysic ideal or ethical system compels your behavior, but it's hard to place them outside yourself in a tangible way bc they're more idk intellectual.

i follow the bro code

imo (& iirc) the 'higher status friend' as motivating factor doesn't even compete with the 'omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent judgemental supervisor'- losing belief in this dude did nothing for my grades let me tell u

There's plenty of religious people that don't have that kind of reductive concept of God. It sounds less like a spiritual truth and more like a self-esteem or ego problem.

Religion doesn't really have that great a hold on how people behave, though they will say otherwise, oftentimes very loudly. Catholics and Baptists seem to have similar ethical systems, so do Christians and Atheists. Stealing is bad, killing is bad, don't lie, etc. are all lessons that everyone who grows up in modern society pretty much believes in, no matter what they label themselves as.

Many years ago I knew an English academic called D@n H3dl3y, who was a Victorianist (at least that’s what his PhD was in), and he was the biggest bag of contradictions, and one of the most fascinating conversationalists, I ever met. You used to see him walking around the town with his iPod (he was the first person I knew with one, must’ve been back in 2002) very audibly blasting Public Enemy. He left academia to go to London and work in advertising because he decided he wanted to make lots of money, which somehow seemed both at odds with his personality and utterly inline with it.

Anyway, amongst his weirdest foibles, and biggest contradictions, was his religious life. D@n was a practicising Catholic, yet professed to not really believe in God on any kind of spiritual level (as I recall; the conversation was a decade ago, long, involved, and very confusing for me and Billy, who were on the other side of it, questioning D@n about his beliefs).

I’m pretty sure he hadn’t been raised a Catholic, at least not in any devout, fire-and-brimstone, confession-once-a-week way. His Catholicism was, as far as we could understand from his very long, very strange explanation, a pragmatic decision based on the fact that he thought people as individuals and society as a whole functioned better when it was galvanised by religious belief of some kind. With this belief in mind (but, seemingly, no love for, of even sense of, God in his soul), he decided on Catholicism, which seemed to fit in the centre of some venn diagram of morality, convenience, amusement, spectacle, routine and ritual. And so he wore a crucifix around his neck, went to church once a week, and assumed the role of God-fearing disciple, all the while not actually believing in God. Billy and I, both convinced, sceptical atheists, found this absolutely fascinating.

i'm not knocking the supervisory god, i'd love one tbh. he p much *is* the irish catholic god, tho, and in living memory religion (and the apparatus of same) very much dictated how people behaved here.

<I>If you're an atheist you also think you know The Truth about reality but that truth is that there is no higher status friend to motivate you.</I>

That's why we all worship Richard Dawkins and Bertrand Russell duh

couldn't figure out if this would be best here or in the vice thread but this is the one of the two i had bookmarked:

http://www.vice.com/read/hey-atheists-just-shut-up-please

Said it many times around here but my personal position isn't that we need more atheism, necessarily, but a deeper more reflective thinking about religion. In just a pragmatic sense, "attacking" religious beliefs plays into fundamentalism's essential logic.

Looking forward in this thread to being a dick about people being dicks about people being dicks about religion.

and anyone who does think they know, whether they be a christian fundie or militant atheist, irritates the snot out of me.

haha You must be my husband. This is one of the very few things we fight about. This is one of'em. I am a radical atheist. That said, I could care less what others think. So what is our fight about? The fact I take a radical stance. He says there's no way you can that.

deeper more reflective thinking about religion
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61FzRzoLjrL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

I heard about Alain de Botton and his School of Life (a secular church alternative in London) via the APR program On Being
The SoL's Secular Sermons are worth perusing.

The David Bodanis sermon on the Ten Commandments is interesting less for the subject than a glimpse at what may be the most highly-strung person on the planet.

we need a companion thread to this one called are you a believer?

after I saw her face, yes

we need a companion thread to this one called are you a believer?

― Mordy, Monday, September 24, 2012 9:12 AM (34 minutes ago)

I'd follow that with interest, and wouldn't troll it.

Reddit Atheism isn’t about philosophy or even adult conversation;

shocking

Reddit is too popular to not be drowned out by assholes.

But then he says this:

...unless you end up making a career out of “debating” religious people, a la Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. (By the way, what is more arrogant than assuming someone can be reasoned into abandoning their faith?)

Does this mean that even in the context of adult debate it's arrogant to assume that a person's beliefs are receptive to reasons? That's actually the opposite of arrogance. It's attributing rationality and open-mindedness to your opponent.

it's making a category mistake about what "faith" is

i'm an atheist, but i don't blame people for being religious. the fact that we're inevitably going to fall into non-existence in a handful of decades is still a little freaky. reddit-style richard dawkins atheists never seem to brush on things like that, or say like "we're going to be atoms one day - yeah!" which really means jack shit imo since you can't perceive squat when you don't exist.

from this standpoint, on a personal level it doesn't matter what anyone believes, and being evangelical on one end or the other is utterly pointless. socially, people are going to do fucked up shit whether through religion or not since religion in that sense is just a means to an end, and it's not like the end's gonna change by switching up the tools.

I speak of a subtype of militant atheists who I’ll call the “Reddit Atheists.” These are the folks who have, ironically, adopted the attitudes of hardcore evangelicals who try to convert strangers on subway platforms

I bet there's a nontrivial difference between these two groups of people that even the writer can figure out if given ample time. I'll start the clock.

As an atheist, my only real opposition to religion and spiritual belief existing at all is I feel that the human race collectively would be more open to the search for new information, and ignorance without religious ideology wouldn't have a reason to slow that down.