are you an atheist?

let's see Mao and Stalin were both atheists whose core ideologies were little more than self-aggrandizing justifications for the concentration of absolute power within their own hands, which resulted in entire populations being starved, imprisoned, tortured, murdered etc. don't really see anything Abrahamic there.

also capitalism /= "Invisible Hand"

Sounds like the God of Abraham to me...

re: JHWH being an atheist -- was "thou shalt have no gods but me" an expression of "there aren't any gods but me, so you're just wasting your time" or "there are other gods but I don't want you hanging with them. I'm literally a jealous god"

you are lol why am I bothering

I'm more familiar with Abrahamic religions so that is what I use as a basis for comparison, not that other religions don't count.

Perhaps a familiarity with other religions might modify your opinions concerning the nature of all religions, many of which you seem not to know much about. And once you start discovering exceptions to your absolutes, they begin to look far less absolute and far more contingent.

i can't believe u guys did this whole clusterfuck w/out me! :(

we all realize by now that Philip is trolling, right

i would like to participate tho

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Painting_of_David_Hume.jpg

I've met irl people who thought and spoke as philip has been, and they were quite earnest in their opinions. they were also somewhat limited in their knowlege base concerning religion, but then, most religious people are, too.

did they post on reddit?

i'm lolling but not trolling -- what knowledge about aspects of other religions would you think would dissuade me from viewing mao/stalin etc... as religious figures without similarly discounting abrahamic religions as not being bona fide religions either?

I dunno Mao and Stalin were like actual corporeal humans and JHWH not so much kinda a big difference there

i'm lolling too

Where to begin? You have such a narrow grounding that trying to sum up all you do not seem to know and would benefit from knowing is much too daunting a task to even venture on. Let me just recommend that you put a few more mental qualifiers into your opinions, pending further investigation.

For starters, try reading Varieties of Religious Experience, Wm. James.

i think i see philip's point tho, and i'd like to extend it. religion encompasses not just historical figures like mao/stalin but also non-historical figures like a baker in Kiev and a farmer in Tibet. not just non-historical figures, but verbs too - ways of doing things. praying is religion. eating is religion. breathing is religion. man is religion. the religion of religion is religion. without religion there would be no war bc war is religion. home is religion. peace is religion. find comfort is the abolition of religion, deliver your soul onto the void, the absence of everything, the ultimate and final religion.

(religion.)

it's true Mao and Stalin are old-testament types but c'mon, little corporeal pal called Jesus?

What is the argument again? That religion is the reason for every irrational act by a human ever?

Jesus is not in the OT dude

srsly speaking tho, what's your argument here? that 'religion' rather than referring to an oft agreed set of common (tho frequently not shared) principles + practices + rituals, actually refers to any system or ideology where you believe in something that exists in a communal context and above the experience of the subjective individual? so like is art religion? or aesthetics? are all political systems religion or just ones you don't like? etc.

lol mordy

"Where to begin?"
You can begin at the part that disqualifies certain problematic movements as religious, the part that instead of broadening one's definition of religion, narrows it.

Jesus is not in the OT dude

― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier),

Whoa whoa whoa there pardner lots of Christians would argue with you about that.

"Jesus is not in the OT dude"
i'm just sayin even though Jesus and Maolin aren't exactly roommates, they're in the same zipcode.

i think you're actually pointing to something important, tho maybe unintentionally. you are starting from a humesian (real word?) definition of religion by which all of these dissimilar things - Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, smaller religious cults, polytheistic practices, etc - are all 'religions.' Obv in 2012 we understand that Hume's simplistic construction doesn't really work. It's convenient sometimes to talk about religion as a shared human practice, but the truth is that 'religious' practices differ so much as to be incompatible. You're just exposing this deficiency in Hume's mechanism by showing how really anything could be included in this category. The truth is that to speak about religion at all, though, as shared practices, is problematic.

Although it is true that mao and stalin compelled adoration, they never inspired any actual worship.

Like Hume believes all humans start as polytheists, but soon realize that they need to concentrate on a particular God to make shit work. They make that God more and more impressive (henotheism) until he's so impressive that he's the only god (monotheism). This is obv nonsense tho. Not all religions or cultures follow this pattern and monotheism isn't an indicator of more advanced intellectual activity than polytheism is. Your whole Communism subplot is just making that inadequacy explicit.

re: adoration/worship distinction -- what is it? Also, is that problematic for sects that venerate but do not worship their founders?

It's not problematic bc all conventionally understood religions share similar worship practices but the things you mentioned don't. It's problematic bc all conventionally understood religions don't share practices either.

"hey not only is religion religion but all forms of gov't, all lines of thought, and fundamental parts of humans' emotional lives such as greed/pride/terror are all religion! Once we abolish all those things, we can finally have our sardine & dog collar utopia!"

I can see how activities at the edges (like pro sports) are problematic, but mass movements that resemble accepted religions as much as wraps do burritos... like I get why people don't want to call a wrap a burrito, but if it's a bread-y wrap enveloping some meaty filling...

Tbf, if you're not coming from a religious pov, Judaism, Hinduism and Stalinism can all seem like slavish devotion to otherworldly powers (however much Mr Jughashvili might protest the contrary) revealed by means of sacred text and held together by rituals. If you don't look at any of them as particualrly reliable, their faults tend to make them resemble each other.

http://www.wordnik.com/images/about/humptydumpty_words.png

The comparisons utility only go so far, however.

Wait is The Beatles a religion? If they are I have to stop liking them or hand in my atheist card. ;_;

One of the best reasons imho is to debunk the notion that religion alone is the cause of humanity's more annoying habits.

I dunno about Beatles but ICP are definitely worrisome.

ILX over the years has made me realize that my hardened atheistic stance wasn't really tenable but it has also made me realize how indifferent I usually am to metaphysics in general. Someone asked me the other day if I was an atheist or an agnostic and I replied, "Yes."

^ So you're an agnostic atheist?

pretty sad that posting about atheism on an internet forum devoted to atheism is what passes for being "militant" these days.

i get the sense atheism is incompatible with evangelism, hence the preponderance of atheists in religions that don't recruit.

i mean how do you hook someone in? "Have you heard the non-news about the Lord? Come to our group where uh... we can play atheist backgammon."

i've met a number of atheists in my life who have tried to proselytize to me. they're not good at it, but they try.

what was their draw, though? atheist tupperware?

i guess they offer the good feeling of being smarter than most other humans. if you already feel that way tho, there is admittedly not much there for the discriminating consumer.

that's literally all they offered you? smugness? not even a darwin fish bumper sticker?

that's all they offered me. i mean, what else do atheists have? the truth? ha.

atheists really need to develop an enticing cuisine.
christian bbq - YUM
buddhist thai brunch - YUM
secular humanist clam bake - YUK

You hurt delicious clam bake's feelings. ;__;

why does it have to be a clam bake? was elvis presley some kind-of spiritual father of secular humanism?