ILX Religiosity and Spirituality and Agnosticity and Atheicity Poll

Sorry some of those seem to have gotten cut off. I think it's basically clear what I was getting at with each option though. I forgot to put an "other" button.

I'm so Athiest I pee secularism

U.P. Freely

kevin shields is god

but yeah i believe in a god, just no affiliation. /end tragic teenage cliche

i just can't come to grips that our whole world was founded by swirling helium. i mean, i believe that it WAS - but i think there's gotta be an entity behind the whole thing. not even a man. something like that futurama god that was just a blinking galaxy. that wuz cool.

Yeah, I probably should have put in something more reflective of a deist or a "god is the universe" kind of view. I sort of unfairly collapsed both that and new ageyness into "spiritual but not religious"

are we talking about Terry Jones on any thread?

thank god no

kevin shieldsarsene is god

I am a hardcore atheist. I don't want to go anywhere near a house of worship unless it's for my cousin's wedding. but I have found value in a religious or spiritual tradition that I did not grow up in.

is actually the weird but true answer for me. i dig and kinda envy how great religion can be, i just cant do it myself.

not bitching about that not being a poll answer btw

shame buddhism or supporting arsenal don't count as a proper religion - atheist and f that noise.

jewish agnostic

Atheist, and teaching biology to college freshmen for six semesters made me never want to talk about religion again in my life.

hahaha abbott your new sn = <3 <3 <3

*shrugs*theist

agnostic i guess? maybe "other"? but i do play capn save-a-religion on the internet

justen, what tradition(s) did you find value in?

That is great, Abbott.

As for me, relaxed agnostic.

Yeah I don't really want this to be about what you 'think' about religion in the abstract so much as how you view its role in your own life (xpost)

Atheist.

Some houses of worship are interesting/beautiful and I like to go near them to admire them though.

indifferent to the existence of god, hostile to the existence of churches

Atheist, and teaching biology to college freshmen for six semesters made me never want to talk about religion again in my life.

You ran into a nest of Young And Rock Solid In Their Belief Christians too?

As for me, atheist since childhood. (I made the mistake of telling some junior high classmates that I didn't believe in God. One of them told a teacher, sure that I was breaking some law by being so, and was surprised when I wasn't called into the principal's office and/or arrested.)

Nontheist, At least until Great Cthulhu rises from the watery depths.

it'd be interesting i guess to discuss when you became an atheist/agnostic - my mother and her family are all pretty religious i guess (polish catholics) but i really lost interest/faith in whatever i was being taught at a pretty young age, around 12 or so. she was pretty cool i guess to let me skip out on confirmation, but i think she'd be shocked (or hurt?), even now, to find out i don't believe in god, or whatever

i guess i guess i guess

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

I was raised catholic and went to church (almost) every Sunday growing up. Went to catholic HS and figured out sometime around then that I didn't believe any of it. I wasn't lucky enough to skip confirmation but I had a crush on the kid I sat next to in confirmation class and got some good presents so that wasn't too bad. My parents weren't thrilled at first when I told them I was an atheist but they don't ever mention it at all anymore and neither do I.

There isn't a choice for those of us who actively participate in a faith, or do go to a place of worship every week (or at least try to - the Christian sabbath being a Sunday morning can be a real pain in the ass, though I guess it's kind a circular cause/effect that people go out on a Saturday). Probably go for the fifth choice?

i don't know

I'm pretty militantly agnostic, in that I believe nobody actually knows anything and I think it's arrogant to presume that you do.

There isn't a choice for those of us who actively participate in a faith, or do go to a place of worship every week (or at least try to - the Christian sabbath being a Sunday morning can be a real pain in the ass, though I guess it's kind a circular cause/effect that people go out on a Saturday). Probably go for the fifth choice?

― textbook blows on the head (dowd), Thursday, September 9, 2010 12:48 AM Bookmark

Yeah, the fifth choice would probably be the best. I didn't mean to exclude people from that choice who participate every week so much as to include those who didn't but were basically committedly religious.

Re Hurtings question of what traditions i dig/envy in religion: lots of stuff i guess - in the dig/admire category, it is a legit force of good in the world obv, i mean soup kitchens and house building and food distribution in crisis areas and all that stuff i guess. as a full on atheist, i get infuriated by the peeps in my camp that diminish that because its based on some sort of eventual eternal reward. so fucking what? and yeah there are certainly charitable non-religious organizations but the harsh truth is that they lag far behind the actual person to person level achievements that religion pulls off on the regular.

as far as envy - i think any atheist that can claim that they are glad not to have the haven of eternal reward/afterlife/whatever waiting in the wings during tough times or the death of a loved one is denying the reality of those moments. its not an awesome or comforting worldview, and as a dude that has never had that feeling of superiority that a lot of half-assed atheism flaunts, id be happy to believe, i just kinda dont/cant.

oh and to whoever was curious about the origin of when we became whatever we are, i was raised atheist with an ancestral irish catholic dollop on the top.

hardcore atheist, raised by 1 agnostic and 1 buddhist. would kill for a little bit of faith in my life, tbh

Agnostic, raised Catholic but just found that too oppressive/ridiculous. But I often wish I was a believer because I think, wow, so many people really ARE, why am I not built like that? But any time I go to churches, I find myself looking around at people, wondering if they are really sincere about their belief/prayer (yes, I realize this is incredibly rude).

At the same time, I do sometimes pray, just in an "are you there, God, it's me, Sara" kind of way. Especially if someone asks for prayers, I feel like it's rude to refuse, but I often warn them that the prayers of agnostics might be useless or even worse.

I do like churches, at least ones that don't seem like warehouses full of evangelical Jesus-as-self-esteem jerks. I'm kind of down with the do-goodiness of the Catholics when they aren't oppressing women and gay people and covering up pedophilia.

I voted for the second one, but wasn't really sure that was quite right.

atheist/antitheist/misotheist

I am atheist/agnostic but I was raised in a religious tradition and I like to maintain at least some contact with that
I am atheist/agnostic but I have found value in a religious or spiritual tradition that I did not grow up in.

both of these.

Atheist who is only hardcore about it in terms of my own life choices - strikes me religion is frequently one of the lesser stupidities/superstitions in most people's lives, and you'd be better off getting irate about magical thinking in general?

I fuck with the Tao tho

i just straight up worship the devil at this point

Where is:

I am atheist/agnostic BECAUSE I was raised in a religious tradition, and I don't want to go anywhere near a house of worship unless it's for my cousin's wedding.

(nb not strictly true; i like going into churches or cathedrals to potter around like a tourist, and they're frequently great musical venues, but unless it's, like, proper choral evensong or something i can appreciate on an aesthetic level, fuck actually going to services. unless i'm back home for xmas in which case it's pretty jokes.)

i used to be a hardcore atheist - but now i'm more of an agnostic, but it's less about "not knowing" and more about "not caring" whether there's a god or not. Because i don't really experience things in a religious or spiritual way, but that's purely an issue of semantics, probably.

Like some people pray, and other people medidate, and i just sit around or go for a walk and reflect on things, or have a dream about things i've been anxious about or not knowing what to do about, and it'll put things in perspective. But I don't see it as any sort of spiritual practice.

This is probably because my parents never made me go to church as a kid, except on vacation - for historical or architectural value. The only other time i went to church was the occasional school choir concert. Churches with shitty acoustics are sad things. Churches with good acoustics are great to sing in, and some of the music is amazing, and really exhilarating to sing with others.

Little from pot 1, little from pot 3. Have no faith, but having being raised Irish catholic and (more relevantly) coming from a cliché-confirming huuuge extended family of Irish catholics, I attend the necessary christening/marriage/funeral ceremonies more than a few times each year. Skip out on anything beyond that though, from memorial masses and any actual praying onwards.

Aunts pray for my soul, which, though I don't believe it's worth anything, is nice.

I am atheist/agnostic but I have found value in a religious or spiritual tradition that I did not grow up in.

This. I was a hardcore atheist growing up but I've since decided that there is so much more joy and wonder in contemplating the mysteries of certain spiritual practices ALONGSIDE the cosmic mysteries of scientific discovery than in Dawkins' dull dogmatism.

xp - like my first memory of religion as a thing was at this lady's house where i'd go for daycare after kindergarten. She was quite religious, and there was a Young Person's Bible that was basically easy reader style bible stories with hanna barbera-esque illustrations - and rather than take a nap at "naptime" - because i'd never be tired - I read this Young Person's Bible. I didn't really grasp that we were supposed to believe the stories. I thought it was kinda like Greek Mythology, which i was also a fan of at the time, where the stories are historically relevant but it's not something you're supposed to believe is true anymore.

The mysteries of spiritual practices are another testament to the fecundity of the human brain imo but yeah I wouldn't wanna just dismiss all that great music and architecture.

I am sure tho that societies reach a point where big R Religion is a negative drag on our possibilities as a species and we've long reached that point.

i think the fact that at least one of the disciples looked like Freddy from Scooby Doo also made me think they were just made up.

what are these other spiritual practices that people weren't raised with but that they're drawn to?

I am sure tho that societies reach a point where big R Religion is a negative drag on our possibilities as a species and we've long reached that point.

Oh for sure. If it isn't too trite, I tend to hang with the religious practices (and they do exist WITHIN say Christianity, Islam etc) which encourage broad-mindedness, goodwill to all and spiritual connection, rather than awed suppression and hateful control.

xpost

That box is awkward for me because I'm interested in "Eastern philosophy" qua philosophy but not at all interested in its use as religious practice which seems to me how it is mostly actually used in the real world.

"I am agnostic, and I haven't reached any conclusions about the role of religion in my life."

this is not what agnosticism means to a lot of people who consider themselves agnostic (myself included).

I am a hardcore atheist

No Cuddlestein Mountain in the afterlife for me :(

I find these poll options really awkward (and not just because none of the options really adequately describe my spirituality) - first, too many of the atheist or agnostic options really seem to overlap with one another. Second, there's no option for religious people who don't fall into a vague "easter and christmas specials" or "I'm just a new age" hippie - as if it's inconceivable that people could have a religion and be serious about it.

My first reaction was that this was merely a "what kind of atheist are you?" question since the entire varied experience of the world's religions is so easily dismissed. But my second reaction is that the atheist/agnostic questions are almost as bad.

Like this is a poll for people who don't really believe anything, and want to grade out how little they believe, rather than actually describing anyone's actual spiritual experiences.

I dunno. Some interesting points raised in the discussion portion, but really - Vague Poll Is Vague.

there's no option for religious people who don't fall into a vague "easter and christmas specials" or "I'm just a new age" hippie - as if it's inconceivable that people could have a religion and be serious about it

THIS. I thought that as well

I guess I'm the opposite from many of you in that I was raised as a radical atheist (i.e. one of my primary schools - I had lots because my Dad was in the RAF - recited the Lord's Prayer every morning, and I had to stand outside with a Jehovah's Witness girl) then changed around 13-14. I guess the early adolescent existential crisis can push people either way. That was just a straight belief in God, though; I didn't become a Christian proper until last year.

I do, however retain the belief in absolute separation of Church and State that I was raised with, and would very much like to see a disestablishment in Britain (actually, I think establishment is bad for churches, as well as an imposition on citizen's who are not members of that church. An established church finds itself complicit in the crimes of the State, such as under fascism, and the State can find itself complicit in the crimes of the church, as in recent child abuse scandals).

Made sure my minister matched my liberal Christianity before I got baptised. I was very lucky as she is pro-gay, pro-choice, and represents a strand of the Church of Scotland which denies the existence of hell, and takes a Universalist view of salvation. I would reckon that most people I see on a daily basis are unaware of my faith, because I have no real interest in preaching to people - I can get enough of that from the political side of life.

generic theist

kate otm

I'm an atheist who finds some houses of worship quite interesting and atmospheric.

I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore atheist either, as I concede that there is a possibility that there is a god, I just think it's extremely unlikely. This position is stronger than agnosticism, however.

I never fully understand what people mean when they describe themselves as spiritual. I suspect it may be a bit of a cop-out term.

And yeah, the poll options don't begin to cover the range of attitudes to religion people could have.

Had to go with hardcore athiest although it's probably a bit more hardcore than I actually am, I don't mind looking around churches in a historical context, and yes obv I go to weddings and stuff.

And there's a bit of option 4 too - I mean there are plenty of good things in various religious texts, most obvious example being all that love thy neighbour stuff.

I wasn't raised in a religious house, although my mum recently became a born-again-ish Christian. Seems to make her happy so I can't really knock it. They don't seem particularly fundamentalist or anything. Although that whole speaking in tongues thing is a bit weird.

"Spiritual", I think, refers to "free spirits" - people who can't be tied down by long-term romantic relationships. Or at least there's probably some overlap.

kkvgz - i think it's related to yoga and pilates

Some time over the last few years I completely lost the ability to spell. Must be divine punishment.

I assumed spirituality related to tequila but that's posts v. much in character I guess.

^^ i am quite spiritual in that regard, NV

wouldn't even be worth polling ILXors on that front I guess

Um, no.

I know it's a bit like pissing in the wind, on ILX, trying to explain complicated concepts in a reasonable manner when others are just busy trying to have LOLs (even if this is at the expense of things that other people hold to be rather important.)

Spirituality is this idea that one has, well, emotional needs and experiences which are related to one's (metaphorical or literal) spirit (or some people use the term soul, though that has many uncomfortable associations with organised religion.) These emotions are often described as being awe, wonder, a kind of love and joy which speaks of connectedness, to other people, to a community, to the earth or cosmos as a whole. Some people experience this as being attached or related to a deity, some do not.

It is related to Religion, in that Religion is an organised structure to deal with, explain or share spiritual experiences. But it is not the same thing as Religion. It's kind of like "the concept of Justice" vs. "The Legal System" (especially valid in that legal systems vary greatly from culture to culture.)

People can still maintain their ability to need or experience these spiritual emotions, while accepting that most Religions are fundamentally flawed in the way that many large scale human endeavors are flawed by human failings. That's usually what people mean when they say they are "spiritual but not religious."

Dude, I wasn't even talking about you. Honestly just trying to have a lol.

I'm trying to think of what would be more valid poll options for me, but the thing is, I'm probably interested in different aspects. Like, for me, the options would be:

-I am an atheist, religions are wrong or misguided and I see no point in indulging them
-I am an atheist, personally, but I accept that the spiritual or religious experience may be useful to others
-I believe in some form of spirituality, religion or deism and those who do not are missing something vitally important
-I believe in some form of spirituality, religion or deism but accept that this experience may not be useful to others
-I do not know (or care) enough to decide either way, but I accept the other people do have certainty
-I do not know (or care) enough to decide either way, and I wish people would shut up about it

(OK, maybe that last one needs some work)

Partly this is a measure of belief/non belief, but it is also a measure of how people see their views as the *only* right one, or simply one among many possibilities. Which is what I am convinced is the most important dynamic.

James Hillman makes good arreligious use of the word "soul".

I do wish there were another term that didn't have the silly new age associations of "spirit" or the medieval associations of "soul" or weird psychological associations of "psyche" but still managed to convey the same concept. I suppose it's impossible because it is such a heavily imbued concept to start with - and how at odds it is with the current vogue for strict Materialism that has dominated thinking for the past century or so.

Like I said if you're not aware of James Hillman's work - he's some kind of Post Jungian I guess - he makes interesting play with "soul", "spirit" and "psyche" and manages to work in an area where they are not straight metaphors, not religious but not strictly material either. He can come across a bit New Age-y maybe at times but I get a sense of real rigorous thinking under his wordplay.

Yeah, I googled him after posting that, as I wasn't familiar with him (though I am generally interested in Jung and post-Jungians) so I will check him out, sounds interesting.

FWIW, the person who expresses most of what I think about these subjects is the philosopher Mary Midgley. She seems to tread a balanced line.

-I am an atheist, religions are wrong or misguided and I see no point in indulging them
-I am an atheist, personally, but I accept that the spiritual or religious experience may be useful to others

see even this is too binary. I'm definitely down with the first one, but not quite so arrogant or hubristic as to deny the second. organised religion might suck imo but that doesn't mean i'm completely blind to the benefits it might have for individual communities or people. and likewise as a diehard materialist i might think that spirituality is just a psychological phenomenon, but it's a real and potentially useful phenomenon nonetheless.

Yeah I am mainly interested in a Materialist Spirituality I think.

said material should be approx 80 proof imo

I think that would make you fall into the second of the categories, then, on account of the whole "it's a real and potentially useful phenomenon nonetheless" thing.

Maybe I should start another poll, but I dunno, I don't think ILX needs two religion polls at once.

I have just recently read the book "The Authoritarians" and I'm really interested in exploring a lot of these concepts of "authoritarian" and "dogmatic" and "fundamental" personality types that were discussed in the book. ACtually I should check if there was an ILX thread about that book.

x-post to Ledge

personal poll option for me would be i am an atheist but don't care about religion as long as it doesn't impinge either my daily life or the state i'm a citizen of in a detrimental way etc etc

As they say, sarahel, "beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy" ;-)

I am a materialist, but I'm obviously capable of deriving awe, serenity, joy and wonder from art, nature or even just seeing friends or whatever (as is everyone on the planet who is halfway functional). I don't think it necessary to describe these feelings as 'spiritual', I'm just into stuff. The word definitely has new-agey connotations for me, rightly or no.

I'm not trying to have a snipe though, I appreciate these terms are ill-defined, and any rational attempts to engage with them are welcome.

I don't think it necessary to describe these feelings as 'spiritual',

See, to me, this is the kind of necessary point of reclaiming the word "spiritual" from the woo-pedlers and the nutjobs? (i.e. people who have something to sell, or people who have some power to gain, to take the emotional content off those epithets.) That it is simply a definition. This is what the word means, these experiences. The error is in saying that the "spiritual" emotional or psychological or whatever experiences are solely the province of organised religion or new age hippies.

But, I do recognise that words can become irredeemably tainted. I just think it's a shame.

Fair point. I have no attachment to the word so am happy to discard it.

Also for me it implies that there are things going on beyond the physical realm of chemical reactions in my brain, which I don't think is the case.

When I have those 'spiritual' feelings, that is.

^ with chap on all of this.

See, I'm agnostic when it comes to Materialism. I simply don't know if this is the case or not, and I don't think it's within our current state of knowledge (about the state of consciousness, the actual workings of the brain, etc.) to really be able to definitively say.

I honestly don't have the data available to say if there is a "something else" or not. I've read a lot of the "consciousness is mysterious, quantum mechanics is mysterious, they must be related" type writing on the subject and I'm not convinced. But I do, as Mary Midgley has often written, think that strict Materialism is a clumsy simplification that takes into account a whole host of preconceptions, some of which rely on pretty shaky philosophical ground themselves. (I do not feel confident enough, though, to encapsulate her whole argument.)

depends on how you want to define strict Materialism but I wd have it in the ballpark of "we can only reasonably claim that what can be measured exists" and I find counter-claims a lot more difficult to rationalise

See I find it entirely satisfying an explanation that a system as complicated as the brain can lead to weird side effects like consciousness. There could be 'something else', but there doesn't need to be, IMO.

Like I've alluded to, I fully admit all my feelings on these matters are entirely suppositions, but suppositions based on a lifetime of thought and observation. I could be wrong, I suspect I'm not.

i'm not entirely immune to the 'consciousness is pretty fucking weird and not at all like anything material' line of argument myself. but i think it's possible to have those doubts without opening the door to the idea of a soul or spirit, or anything typically supernatural.

clapton is beelzebub

willing to believe in the devil, but not god tbh

while I'm an athiest (used to be agnostic), I'm a lot less 'hard line' about it than I was when I was younger. I was very combative about religion when I was just turning 21 and enjoyed flinging it in people's faces.

Now I'm much more content letting those who partake in religion partake it in peacefully, only interjecting if they bother to intrude on my own beliefs or act like complete and utter dicks about their own beliefs. And in the circle of people I keep close to me, there are few if any people who do the latter.

Obviously the world and America has given me much reason to dislike or despise religion, but essentially I was never meant for religion. I questioned God to my mom when I was 8 or 9 years old -- it didn't make sense to me. The concept of being subservient never stood well with me, and when I was in youth group growing up, some of the people around me flat out scared me. There were no freethinkers - original thoughts would die of loneliness in their heads. I didn't want to become that way.

With that being said, I have always had a lot of interest in studying religion in general -- just not following one.

i dig and kinda envy how great religion can be, i just cant do it myself.

^^

i was brought up atheist, had a religious phase from about age 9 to 14, then returned to atheism, and i appreciate that experience for the stuff it taught me about the western tradition, more than anything else. religion seems useful to people! i appreciate that! but, you know, i just don't know how to believe in god, and i'm not all that good at being part of a ~community~.

it's funny, i supposed i'm just very unreflective, but it never crosses my mind to wonder about why or how I feel e.g. unbearable delight at something beautiful, whether that's purposeful or a fluke of the chemical reactions in my brain or something else -- the whys and hows seem entirely unimportant to me.

Hardcore and would never go to a cousin's wedding.

bcs of the religions or bcs of the cousins?

Religious weddings do make me feel a little uncomfortable, there's always some bullshit about being incapable of love unless you accept God in the service.

If there's hardcore surely it shd be at the stag?

daraghmac, both!

yeah feel u there jeff.

there's always some bullshit about being incapable of love unless you accept God in the service.

jeez. don't think we have that. i mean, yeah damned to burn forever and sorry about that what can you do, etc, but not denying the capability of love or anything that i recall

raised a catholic. used to go to church most sundays, unless i was playing football. last time i went to church was for my mum's funeral. don't believe any of it anymore, and don't think i ever really did truly believe any of it.

Haha, at the one I'm thinking of it was couched in very non-combative CofE language, but that was definitely the meaning. (xpost to Darragh)

Are there any Jewish ILXors reading who are atheist/agnostic but still at least semi-observant? My housemate's like that and has difficulty putting it into words why she is. It's something she genuinely wants to do, doesn't seem to be just for her folks' benefit or whatever. I don't know anyone who was raised a xtian who falls into this category.

I can't speak for Mrs V but she's a Catholic who still regularly attends church but doesn't have a strong sense of God afaik

Yeah, I was gonna say, there are probably a number of Catholics like that too. I had a room-mate who was an agnostic Jew. She would still light Hannuakah candels and sing prayers and make latkes. I totally respected her need to find value in latkes.

I'd like a religion that makes lattes.

but would you give your life to the lattes?

Ok, I would have to be secret atheist in the latte cathedral.

"it's funny, this guy shows up without fail every week for the service, but as soon as the lattes are dispensed he's nowhere to be found....."

I'd like a religion that makes lattes.

I'd def. go religious for that. Perhaps even become whatever their equivalent of a nun is.

Well, off you go to join the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, and you can have all the sweet, milky coffee your heart desires!

It is interesting, the people who abandon the faith side, but keep the ritual side, because it gets at that notion that religion is an expression of human culture, not the sole cause of it. The expression of one's culture, one's background, remains significant, even after the philosophical defining signifier has gone. (There might be a correlary in the debates last week about people who remain faithful to class culture or labels, even after the class signifiers have gone.) People just like feeling connected to their roots, to who they are and where they come from. (That might also be considered a "spiritual" need in the non-religious sense of the word.)

i voted "I am atheist/agnostic but I was raised in a religious tradition and I like to maintain at least some contact with that"

i was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, which doesn't particularly demand acceptance of a higher power, and i've found i still get something out of the occasional church service/sermon without having to make any hard decisions about that sort of thing

it gets at that notion that religion is an expression of human culture, not the sole cause of it.

I think this is probably a good summation.

I wasn't raised with any church (my parents married in an Episcopal/Anglican church my dad's parents kind of treated like a social club, surprise) and after doing a tour of all my friends' religions over the course of a school year when I was 11, I went full-on atheist. Maybe my grandmother's funeral being hijacked by Jehovah's Witnesses had something to do with it too, was more like an infomercial for JWs than a memorial for a dead person TBH (until then I didn't know that when my mom and her sibs were kids, they spent 5-10 years as JWs because said grandmother was a loony). That doesn't mean I'm not fascinated by religions themselves - my high school had a great comparative religions course and I've always been interested in myth, so good fit.

Having gone to a school with lots of Jewish people, I have lots of 'lapsed Jewish' friends who've married out, etc - but I find I am taking one of these to Golders Green next week to seek out hamentaschen.

I ended up voting "spiritual but not religious" and tried to just cut off the supercillious dismissive end of that option, but it's not a perfect fit.

Because I am still, obviously, very interested in religion, and do not think it should be abolished, mainly because of its cultural importance (in both senses of the word: 1) as belonging to a group of people and 2) it seems to inspire some really interesting art) as well as its providing a framework for allowing people to keep a "spiritual" (in my definition, as stated above) element in their lives.

I was obviously raised Christian - my mum is a priest, my dad is a hardcore atheist, I was presented both sides of the story and taught to make up mine own mind. I was intensely religious as a child, went through a period of being intensely *anti*-Christian in my rebellious late teens and early 20s, but it's like a question that will never leave me alone. Spent most of my 20s and early 30s being officially "agnostic" - while still being really interested in and learning about *all* religions - but the recent culture wars have actually tipped me into the theist camp. I think that the right to *Freedom* of Religion (or indeed, freedom not to have one) is something worth fighting for. And that means fighting for the right of people to *have* one if they have that kind of a personality bent.

I am probably some kind of vague Deist (the vagueness comes from the constant need to examine and ask questions, not from lack of having thought about it) - on account of the deep-level order and symmetry of nature and maths (insert quips about anthropic principles and "goldilocks universe" here). I *choose* to call that deep level order and symmetry "god" (and my appreciation of it "spiritual") - even knowing the whole host of negative associations with that word, *because* I want to reinforce the importance and primacy of that idea. So when people start talking dismissively about "the supernatural" WRT spirituality, I just want to laugh because there's nothing *more* natural than my particular god-concept.

But then again, this might just be lapsed Episcopalianism coming out in me, that I want to keep hold of a lot of those lovely cultural traditions that I was raised in, even after I've left the Church. (I have recently been re-reading the books of Madeleine L'Engle that I loved as a child, and was rather startled to discover the seam of theology running through them - and really wondering if my philosophy is related to hers *because* I read these books so heavily as a child, or because we were both so steeped in the liberal Episcopalian tradition that we both absorbed similar ideas - and/both, probably.)

Voted the first option -- "I am a hardcore atheist. I don't want to go anywhere near a house of worship unless it's for my cousin's wedding." -- but it's not like I get in people's shit about it. My family know I'm an atheist (it's on my lol Facebook page), but:

- My mother and her family are mainline Protestants, and a few seem to have become born-agains late in life.
- My mother-in-law and her husband are evangelicals; in fact, he's an ordained minister in their denomination.
- My father is a secular Jew, but recently started investigating meditation and other Eastern spiritual practices after battling throat cancer.

So, frankly, when family members start up with the god talk, I mostly just keep my damned mouth shut. I will say that, particularly regarding my in-laws, my observation is that their religion as practiced seems to actually bring them nothing but misery. They are in some dire personal and financial straits, and seem to be waiting for Jebus to bail them out without doing anything on their own, then are confused when nothing gets better. And they are in those straits because he quit a perfectly good job as a project manager at an architectural firm to become a minister, eventually sinking all their savings into purchasing a storefront church which dealt primarily with drug addicts. Who really don't tithe quite enough to support a full-time minister.

Anywho, believe what you want to believe -- it makes no nevermind either to me or to what is/isn't true.

Seems to be a bit of a backlash on against Category 1 Atheism

nope, just aginst being in people's faces about it tbh

It spills over

i used to think i didn't really have a problem with people being 'religious', until a close friend of mine told me he was thinking of becoming a priest. i said i was happy for him and that i'd support him, but inside i was a bit, i don't know, confused. i think he's gone off the idea now though.

well tbh i'd kinda consider it strange for anyone my age to consider priesthood, and one of my mates? i'd find it hard to visualise, really.

Not exactly a respectable profession these days

well no, aside from all that tbh

Just had to skip Have a Talk with God on Songs in the Key of Life 'cause seriously that's the kind of cognitive dissonance i just can't comprehend. 'The one who never lets you down'? Whatevs.

I'm trying to remember the age at which my mum announced that she had decided she was going to become a priest. I think it was after 40 but before 50. Do you reckon that's strange?

(I think, for her, mind you, it was 1) the whole struggle of trying to do that rigourous a study while raising a young family - I can remember her starting at Cambridge in the 70s but having to give up and 2) waiting for the idea to come around to general acceptance of a woman being a priest at all, let alone a middle aged one with two children.)

I do think that age provides a perspective from which religious or spiritual matters may look different, or have a different level of importance. So it doesn't really surprise me when people come to (or leave) religions in middle age, or later.

xp my first thought was "shit. no sex, no drink, no fun". then quickly said out loud "oh wow that's great!" bizarre moment.

I was brought up extremely religious....I literally spent my childhood in the synagogue, either through these youth clubs, sunday school/cheder or prayers itself. Of course, I broke off as I got older, but I can't deny what an impact Judaism and Jewish culture has had on the way I see the world. You cannot forget who you are.

I think my actual reaction was "oh shit, does that mean we have to have the fucking bishop round for dinner even more, now?"

However it was an excuse to get the good sherry out.

Yeah, becoming a Catholic priest means you're (supposed to) give up on, uh, some stuff you might otherwise be getting up to. Silly organisation.

xp my first thought was "shit. no sex, no drink, no fun". then quickly said out loud "oh wow that's great!" bizarre moment.

― The referee was perfect (Chris)

had the same reaction to my best friend getting engaged a month or two ago. seriously.

-I am an atheist, religions are wrong or misguided and I see no point in indulging them
-I am an atheist, personally, but I accept that the spiritual or religious experience may be useful to others

see even this is too binary. I'm definitely down with the first one, but not quite so arrogant or hubristic as to deny the second. organised religion might suck imo but that doesn't mean i'm completely blind to the benefits it might have for individual communities or people. and likewise as a diehard materialist i might think that spirituality is just a psychological phenomenon, but it's a real and potentially useful phenomenon nonetheless.

this is a really good post and kind of gets at my feelings. it's funny to read that a lot of you find your atheism mellowed out over time b/c i find mine getting stronger--i have really been hating on some religion in the past couple years. but totally feeling the "not so arrogant" concept when it comes to individual experiences of religion and spirituality.

I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore atheist either, as I concede that there is a possibility that there is a god, I just think it's extremely unlikely. This position is stronger than agnosticism, however.

I don't get why this is stronger than agnosticism - at least by my definition. I don't think of myself as an atheist because I think it's just as presumptuous to claim to know that god doesn't exist as it is to claim that one does.

I'm totally with you though on the "spirituality" thing having connotations of outside influence rather than simply having your brain chemicals tweaked in a particular way.

I was raised Catholic and do love old churches, but for history and not any spiritual reasons. I spent a day at the Vatican this summer and it totally blew my mind, in a way that was probably the opposite of what they intended - it made me think about how much untoward shit was done in the name of god over the centuries and how ridiculously opulent and excessive it all was.

I was telling my still sort of Catholic mom about it and she told me how she stopped giving money to the church at collection time right when all the big child abuse scandals were happening, and now she donates time to help people locally to ensure that none of her money goes to Rome which really made me happy.

I am atheist/agnostic but I was raised in a religious tradition and I like to maintain at least some contact with that
I am atheist/agnostic but I have found value in a religious or spiritual tradition that I did not grow up in.

I chant Hare Krsna on japa beads and keep deities of Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai - I don't believe, but I enjoy the act of worship and the concepts that the process succeeds in keeping at the front of the mind (service, humility, all good things people do think about without worship but for me it is helpful). I also pray the Rosary but that is the tradition I was raised in. For a while there I did nightly offerings to the deities. freaked the guests right out tbh

You were making burnt offerings of vegetables?

"The altar is stained with tomato juice!"

bloody mary?

ha copied in the wrong part - I was answering sarahel's q :

what are these other spiritual practices that people weren't raised with but that they're drawn to?

the process succeeds in keeping at the front of the mind

without ever being able to do this myself, can totally see the benefits and get behind the concept

You were making burnt offerings of vegetables?

lol no there is a whole processing for converting prepared food into prasadam and it extends to the cooking process - more here if you're interested.

ah cool I totally know what I'm serving my houseguests tomorrow evening

people actually come to your house?

Might not be people

would say 'are lured' tbh - it's amazing what an interest in amateur medicine can lead you to

Now you're scaring me

lj are u claiming to be a doctor in bars cos thats not cool man

serve him with an ASBO

Yeah, take off that white coat and go home LJ

You cannot forget who you are.

Ditto. The Evangelicals scarred my worldview for life. Am misquoting someone here but... I don't believe I could live as if there IS no god, I just haven't found a god I can stand to believe in.

gr8080 and I actually grew up in the same denomination but I think his experience of it was possibly less...prescriptive than mine?

Also I took religious very very seriously, like I believed that what you think and what you do in secret is no secret to God and is therefore under just as much scrutiny/pressure as your public life. There IS no private life in Protestant Xtianity, really. Unless yr like a Methodist or sumthin. (joeks)

how about "I am a hardcore atheist and I don't think people who believe in magical faeries, demon goblins, virgin-birthed superheros or talking snakes should be allowed to hold public office or operate heavy machinery"?

I don't believe I could live as if there IS no god

I just do not understand this, so I suppose that makes me a bit of a hardcore atheist

I'm a mixture of options 3 and 6 and don't see them as mutually exclusive at all

also the ocean at night is teh awesome

also Kate OTM throughout here

Are there any Jewish ILXors reading who are atheist/agnostic but still at least semi-observant?

I'm kinda like this...? Although I don't consider myself an atheist at all, I also find the Old Testament conception of God to be mostly lolz. I have loads of respect for various Jewish traditions and schools of thought tho (it's a BIG tent) and definitely consider myself Jewish, if not particularly observant.

shanah tovah btw

basically imho God is totally inscrutable/unknowable/ungraspable by the human intellect, except in the most tangential and random ways (thus my affinity for the "poetry of the ocean at night"). There's plenty of room for this POV in Judaism.

basically imho God is totally inscrutable/unknowable/ungraspable by the human intellect, except in the most tangential and random ways (thus my affinity for the "deep symmetry of nature and mathematics").

^^^^^^^^Yeah, totally, this is a really good way of putting it (edited for my particular understanding/experience though I can see lots of things fitting in that slot.)

Because I am still, obviously, very interested in religion, and do not think it should be abolished, mainly because of its cultural importance (in both senses of the word: 1) as belonging to a group of people and 2) it seems to inspire some really interesting art) as well as its providing a framework for allowing people to keep a "spiritual" (in my definition, as stated above) element in their lives.

I think it's interesting how many people on this thread give some variation on this answer, which is sort of a detached, objective kind of answer. I guess I was more curious about what kind of personal connection and/or revulsion people feel. I mean I say the same kind of thing about religion all the time, but those sentiments never got me into a synagogue. What did get me into synagogue last night for the first time in a while was more of a combination of family, tradition, curiosity, perhaps a certain sense of something I lost from my childhood.

Like it's funny how we tend to say "Yes, I see the value of religion in people's lives" as though we're talking about other people but not ourselves. Fine for them, no thanks for me.

xpost and I should add that my skin crawled for about the first 30 minutes I was in synagogue before I settled down and sort of started to enjoy certain things about it. And I still really hated certain things about it (the zombie-like responsive readings that are actually kind of creepy but you don't realize it, the obligatory appeal to support Israel, the feeling that some people were mostly there to be seen [this was a high-end manhattan synagogue that I wound up at through a friend of my mother in law])

The main reason that I phrased it in third person is because I am generally thinking of very direct experience of people like my mother and her congregation.

I'm also perfectly happy to say "I see the value of religion and spirituality in my own life" however I am NOT willing to discuss that value on a messageboard where people generally like to play other people's experiences for cheap LOLs any further than the vague terms in which I have already discussed it.

I mean, sorry to continuously post, but what do we really mean when we say we see the value in other people's lives? Are we just accepting a kind of stalemate with religion because it won't go away? Are we sincere?

however I am NOT willing to discuss that value on a messageboard where people generally like to play other people's experiences for cheap LOLs any further than the vague terms in which I have already discussed it.

i can understand this

I guess I was more curious about what kind of personal connection and/or revulsion people feel.

i refer you back to my first answer then (atheist/antitheist/misotheist).

I mean, sorry to continuously post, but what do we really mean when we say we see the value in other people's lives? Are we just accepting a kind of stalemate with religion because it won't go away? Are we sincere?

― Ground Zero Mostel (Hurting 2), Thursday, September 9, 2010 4:01 PM (2 minutes ago)

I couldn't be more sincere. maybe thanks to never converting to atheism, i have no need to spread my view at all - i will take a thousand screaming fundies over a spreading the gospel atheist any day (well not politically, but if i had to be stuck in a room with one of them)

i actually get very angry about some of the indignant atheism out there, i think it is just as loathesome as any other group out to force their views on the unwilling. not being clear here because i get so pissed off when i think about it.

Although I don't consider myself an atheist at all, I also find the Old Testament conception of God to be mostly lolz.

I was looking at the torahs in the ark with those torah crown thingies and thinking about how we enshrine this book and it's so fucking WEIRD, like have you actually read what's in there guys?

like, i remember when being an atheist was just something that people thought was odd or unfamiliar or sure maybe a little unnerving, but not an instant albatross of "intolerant pushy dick" around your neck, and i miss those days. i tend to call myself agnostic if the subject comes up in polite acquaintance conversations because i think the connotations of atheism have gotten really vile. which sucks a lot when you think about it.

xpost

i never felt a personal connection with god even when i thought i was a proper god-fearing catholic.

I find these poll options really awkward (and not just because none of the options really adequately describe my spirituality) - first, too many of the atheist or agnostic options really seem to overlap with one another. Second, there's no option for religious people who don't fall into a vague "easter and christmas specials" or "I'm just a new age" hippie - as if it's inconceivable that people could have a religion and be serious about it.

My first reaction was that this was merely a "what kind of atheist are you?" question since the entire varied experience of the world's religions is so easily dismissed. But my second reaction is that the atheist/agnostic questions are almost as bad.

Like this is a poll for people who don't really believe anything, and want to grade out how little they believe, rather than actually describing anyone's actual spiritual experiences.

I dunno. Some interesting points raised in the discussion portion, but really - Vague Poll Is Vague.

― cymose corymb (Karen D. Tregaskin), Thursday, September 9, 2010 5:33 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

What about the fifth option?

I was looking at the torahs in the ark with those torah crown thingies and thinking about how we enshrine this book and it's so fucking WEIRD, like have you actually read what's in there guys?

I love casually perusing the torah (and the new testament, and the nag hammadi too) - so much bizarre stuff in there. always really thought provoking, even if its just from a historical perspective.

R. Crumb's Book of Genesis has been well-thumbed through at my house over the last year

I mean, sorry to continuously post, but what do we really mean when we say we see the value in other people's lives? Are we just accepting a kind of stalemate with religion because it won't go away? Are we sincere?

No, I mean, I genuinely see the difference between my mother as she was in the first half of her life, and the way that she is, now, so much better, has so much more meaning and purpose and clarity and compassion and every positive thing possible, and that she accomplished this without going on mind-melting drugs or becoming a zombie - that religion has made her life better in every possible way.

And I see the things that she does in her congregation and her community, whether it's sitting up all night with the parents who have just lost their only son in a car accident, or organising her congregation to push for the local government to install a more expensive but more envinromentally sound power source at the local hospital, or just rallying the community together to play "cow bingo" to raise the funds to keep the church hall open so, like, people have a *place* to get married and have baptisms and generally just come together and be together as a community. I have respect for the fact that although loads and loads of American religious people are pushing the easy, fundamentalist answers in order to placate their flocks or raise their congregations, that my mother is sitting down and teaching a more intellectual and difficult, but more *tolerant* and conscious and conscience-based version of Christianity. I have respect for her for being one of the few priests in her worldwide church who is *trying* to get people to take a look at the *real* issues affecting the world today - and trying to say things like "what does it MATTER if people are gay? why are we tearing our church apart over this? Why are we IGNORING things like the overpopulation of the earth and the squandering of the earth's resources, because these are the things that we, as Christians, should be trying to deal with" and I really hope that she manages to get her small motion about birth control and the necessity of population control as an environmental issue, and one of the *real* solutions to global poverty, etc. etc. in front of her nationwide church because I do actually believe that this stuff could make a tiny difference.

Because it's obvious from a number of people on this thread that a lot of atheists simply cannot even *grasp* the idea of not being an atheist, and think that somehow, if you can just feed enough *facts* to a religion person, they will stop being religious, and just wake up and become a sensible atheist, like them. When the truth is, that being religious or spiritual is much more something like an issue of *personality* and the response to fundamentalist religion is not *no* religion, but a more humane and compassionate take on religion.

Sorry for the near rant, your mileage may vary, etc. I will probably regret this.

Karen, to be clear I certainly understand what you are talking about, as my father is clergy.

i think this needs to be a double poll with inner and outer life split out.

so, you have your own beliefs ranging from "i know there there is nothing beyond matter, period" to "i am intensely devoted to (the) god(head)" or whatever. and then you have your outer attitudes ranging from "i express my contempt for religious thinking constantly" to "i am actively part of the life of a faith tradition & community". obviously they are related, but that's where people are getting stuck, as i read the thread responses.

I chose the first option, but really I'm not that hostile toward religions and places of worship. I'm more of an atheist with a "live and let live" outlook towards people with other views. The only time I feel hostile towards religions is when they have a direct consequence either on my life on other folks who don't want to take part in them. For example, religion feeding into politics puts me off.

i don't rly fit any of these categories. im atheist but i think churches etc can be nice. and i'd be an idiot to deny that most of the intellectual traditions i 'like' have some relationship with religion.

I might add, clergy that says things like "What is the purpose of kosher meat when we are buying from processors that exploit their workers?" or "Remember what Jews experienced in a new country before you tell people where to build their mosque" (xpost)

relaxed agnostic/cultural Catholic

I wasn't born with a sense of smell and I eventually started to feel that however I am constructed spiritually is similar – just born without whatever part of a person that connects to spirituality/religious thinking/feeling. Which is why I don't worry about being an "intolerant pushy dick"* – why am I going to begrudge another person experiences I can't have? Like I'm not going to go perfume shopping w/my sister or call her stupid and ignorant for doing it, but I'm going to feel pretty depressed and shitty if I go along with her and pretend I'm enjoying myself. So it's fine for others but I'll just leave it alone.

* Plus I try pretty hard, consciously, all the time, not to be this in all walks of my life.

See, I can be awed by nature and mathematics and all that stuff without thinking it has anything whatsoever to do with whatever it is people think they're talking about when they say the word "god."

Because it's obvious from a number of people on this thread that a lot of atheists simply cannot even *grasp* the idea of not being an atheist

????

I think this is far more true in the opposite direction. What's the first things out of most peoples' mouths when they find out someone is an atheist? "How can you live without believing in God? How can life possibly have any meaning? How do you decide what's right and wrong?" Etc., etc., etc.

for my own part, this is best answer:

I am atheist/agnostic but I was raised in a religious tradition and I like to maintain at least some contact with that

but for "like to maintain etc" the answer should be "i know the tradition has affected how i think and how millions around me are thinking"

while we're at it, i find i do have a kneejerk dislike of ppl with the "spiritual but not religious" self-identification. i think there's enough information from the centuries of science and philosophy and religion to make up your damn mind. religions basically ask you to make up your mind, and i feel like i had some kind of intellectual duty to take them up on the offer. is jesus christ the son of god, the risen lord, the embodied eternal word, savior of the world? at 15 i basically said, you know what, no, i really doubt it.

Sorry, Hurting, I didn't mean to seem like I was ranting, but you seemed to want a more personal explanation, with specifics, rather than more vague mumblings that could be seen as prevericating. Like, there's nothing stalemate-y about what I think about religion. I think, like all human endeavours, it can do great harm, but it can, also, used correctly, do great good.

If there were a Quaker meeting house within walking distance of my house, I would totally go every week, because I experimented with going to one on Brixton Hill for a few weeks, and it was totally awesome, as far as religious experiences go (even though I would miss the high mass and smells and bells of my childhood, the philosophy of Quakers is much closer to what *I* feel than Episcopalianism, which often gets messy due to trying to balance too many conflicting communities) but hey, I'm lazy and really like to sleep in on Sunday mornings.

I think this is far more true in the opposite direction. What's the first things out of most peoples' mouths when they find out someone is an atheist? "How can you live without believing in God? How can life possibly have any meaning? How do you decide what's right and wrong?" Etc., etc., etc.

I think both sides get this, to be honest. I get a lot of "OMG, I *SO* thought you were a strict materialist atheist, you know, *normal*, like me, it's a bit weird that you're interested in religion, to be honest" from most of my liberal mates, so... I think everyone just notices more when it's against them.

Because it's obvious from a number of people on this thread that a lot of atheists simply cannot even *grasp* the idea of not being an atheist, and think that somehow, if you can just feed enough *facts* to a religion person, they will stop being religious, and just wake up and become a sensible atheist, like them.

I totally fall into this - carefully substituting "agnostic" for "atheist" re: myself - but I'm not pushy about it, nor do I attempt to feed anyone any facts pushing my point of view.

I just can't get the idea of believing, without any proof, in some sort of deity or the complete absence of one, much less applying rules to your diet, dress, behavior, and political opinions based on this concept. To me it just seems most logical to withhold opinion because there is no way of ever knowing.

I am atheist/agnostic but I was raised in a religious tradition and I like to maintain at least some contact with that

I thought this was an excellently-phrased poll option which really summed up how I felt, and it was a pleasure to be able to vote for something like this, rather than a flat 'I am an athiest' or 'I am an agnostic' as the only two non-believing choices, as I might have expected!

The diet, dress, behavior, and political opinions thing, to me, really is one of those "cultural" things dressed up as spirituality, as far as I'm concerned. And people will alter their behaviour on all kinds of cultural affiliations and philosophies, not just religious ones. So... eh.

I think this is far more true in the opposite direction. What's the first things out of most peoples' mouths when they find out someone is an atheist? "How can you live without believing in God? How can life possibly have any meaning? How do you decide what's right and wrong?" Etc., etc., etc.

My favorite example of this was in a college Lit class where we were discussing how a book we had just read was written by an atheist, one of my classmates asked "does that mean her characters didn't experience love?"

At my core, I'm an atheist. I don't believe God exists. I have no proof one way or the other, merely conviction. Because of the proof angle, I describe myself as an agnostic. Growing up, my parents stopped attending church when I was 7 because the minister they liked moved away and the new one said some very questionable things in his first few sermons that they found grossly offensive to their social liberalism. I basically grew up not having any real exposure to church outside of the occasional visit to the church they grew up in when we trekked back to Akron during the summer. When my oldest brother died while I was in high school, I pretty much decided then and there that God either didn't exist or didn't give two shits about humanity and therefore might as well not exist.

From September through May of every year, I sing as a member of a professional church choir for a UU church; I've been singing in church choirs ever since I went to college in 1991 aside from a 2-year hiatus after I graduated. Sacred choral music is astonishing, particularly when influenced by the classical tradition (ie, praise songs can go eat a diseased pubis). The inspiration people have claimed at the hands of the divine, whether through direct rapturous experience or indirect, more human "oh shit I have to have music for this year's Christmas service, let me write a ridiculously awesome cantata for my pocket orchestra" reasons have done more to make me think that God may exist than any amount of discussion or study.

It's a complicated question to answer well.

I really do wish that some of you had read or would comment on that Authoritarians book that I posted this morning and just sank to the bottom, because some of these issues are kind of discussed in it...

I should probably make time to read things that aren't pulpy SF/fantasy novels but, um... I haven't, so I can't comment on that book. Sorry.

That was an x-post so it wasn't directed at you, specifically, Dan, BTW.

I made a note of it, Kate, and I will -- I was also v v into the series of essays by Sara Robinson (starting here on authoritarianism and how to reach out to its adherents.

It all seemed like obvious common sense to me, but then I used to assume that the James Dobson-esque/ruled by the men at the top/win every battle of wills method of social organization was normal.

That's interesting, she's talking about the book by John Dean - who is mentioned in Altemayer's book - who she then goes on to mention as having done the research. But... yeah.

Everything I feel about religion is summed up in the Andrew W.K. song, "I Will Find God."

I heart Kate's mom btw, she sounds awesome

anybody here listen to the Gospel Gangstaz

I'm with those who are unsatisfied with the options. As a philosopher, I do not feel I can be anything other than agnostic, as there are simply no falsifiability criteria in discussions of spirituality. However, this same fact means that any such discussion about whether or not spiritual beliefs are 'real' or 'true' are completely pointless, and thus I err towards the atheist side in any debate.

There is of course the discussion about community and comfort as an aside, but this too is a stalemate - there are many people damaged and abused by religion, and there are many people aided and given solace by it. I would prefer to think that society could provide those things of value without resorting to religion, however.

Probably going with 'hardcore atheist', though not happily.

I would prefer to think that society could provide those things of value without resorting to religion, however.

well, historically it never has before, so what does that tell you

Thanks, Shakey. Thing is, I have had a tempestuous relationship with my mum, and for large periods of her life, she was not awesome. It's weird to me (and one of the other things that tipped me from agnosticism towards theism of some kind when I was younger) to see that the prime mover and facilitator of that shift to awesomeness *was* her religion (and also probably the process of her getting several university degrees - but again, religion was the motivation there, as she only went back to University to get into Seminary.)

So yeah, I think my mum - and her take on religion - are doubly awesome.

There is of course the discussion about community and comfort as an aside, but this too is a stalemate - there are many people damaged and abused by religion, and there are many people aided and given solace by it. I would prefer to think that society could provide those things of value without resorting to religion, however.

See, for me I would prefer to think that religion could provide aid and solace without damaging and abusing people, but even that simplification ignores the possibility that the people doing the abusing don't overlap with the people providing comfort.

well, historically it never has before, so what does that tell you

Very little, as such a statement is woefully inaccurate.

I'm a fan of big tent atheism -- there was some three-prong test to see if you were a 'real' Christian, and I feel if you fail any of those parts as applied to your professed religion, you're really one of us, dawg. (Talking to you, Obama and Charles Schulz RIP)

See, for me I would prefer to think that religion could provide aid and solace without damaging and abusing people, but even that simplification ignores the possibility that the people doing the abusing don't overlap with the people providing comfort.

I see little point in the fully religious aspects of religion, and so the only thing I can give them is the fact that they sometimes do good things. So if those religious people did good things without needing a nebulous God figure, it would seem all the more sensible to me. But I guess this would involve something happening that is unlikely to ever occur.

part of me wonders if i would be as jaded towards religion if I hadn't spent my formative years going to a fundamentalist church which one day in youth group decided to show us a propaganda vid attacking Mormonism and implying that they were a satanist religion.

I do doubt that that same group would be partaking in the Quran burnings, but I know darn well they'd be saying "while I don't agree with the BURNINGS ,per seee....."

Very little, as such a statement is woefully inaccurate.

? where in the historical record is this non-religious society you speak of

xp Well all religions whose members don't accept Jesus as their personal savior during a born-again experience are technically Satanist, since they're doing the devil's work by misleading good folk into something other than "real Christianity."

They didn't really have to bother showing us videos after we learned that good.

yea I realize that, but I mean outside of that, the video tried to correlate the roots of the name Mormon to correspond to that of a demon named Mormo.

Also same youth group director asked us to be "closed minded" to these other groups

I didn't speak of one at all - that is some extrapolation you've got going on there. Really, you thought my accusation of inaccuracy meant 'there has been such a society that has been both entirely benevolent and entirely without religion'? There has never been a society that has been entirely benevolent. What I in fact meant was that there have always been, and continue to be, benevolent portions of society/acts within that society that are driven by motives that are unrelated to any religiosity.

xposts to Shakey

They also taught me that the Bible was true due to the following logic:

Good people could not have written the Bible because they'd be lying, and thus not "good" people
Bad people could not have written the Bible because they'd be condemning themselves.
Therefore, the Bible is a divine work.

(I'm not even making this up).

err by "written" I mean "invented"

My Sunday School teachers used to make the joke that SOME people are so open-minded, their brains were falling out!

"Open-minded" was code for "unChristian", btw.

I mean across the board.

Crikey, my Sunday School teachers used to tell me things like "it's a very poor faith that cannot withstand questioning and examination."

^^^^ would have liked that

I'm with the fundies on this one -- if you indulge in skepticism, maybe you're not really religious.

skepticism over a religion that comes from a book written by several men who seem to have different accounts of how things went down? y'don't say!

xp nah that's ridic

I'm with the fundies on this one -- if you indulge in skepticism, maybe you're not really religious.

um.... no

But, you know, I also went to "A Christian School" where A Priest would come in four days a week and walk us through all the contradictions in the Bible and explain the different layers of how it was written and who edited it and why it's like that, and then shrug and say "well, clearly God *inspired* these ignorant humans, but he didn't always make them poets."

I'm with the fundies on this one -- if you indulge in skepticism, maybe you're not really religious.

How on earth would *you* know? Who are you to tell people that their experience religion is or isn't "authentic"?

To me, that's worse than being a Fundamentalist. You should *know* better. Shame on you.

(Oh my god I just channelled my Sunday School teacher with that "shame on you")

xxpost that's a double edged sword anyway, cuz if someone states they unequivocally believe everything that the Bible said and take everything as gospel and therefore have no questions, they get lampooned for being brainwashed.

What I in fact meant was that there have always been, and continue to be, benevolent portions of society/acts within that society that are driven by motives that are unrelated to any religiosity.

nice people who are not religious are one thing. an institution providing for the common good is quite another, and historically I can't really think of very many that were NOT, on some level, either guided by or explicitly an extension of a religious institution.

xp

Well I mean they did laud the spiritual tradition of "wrestling with God" as Jacob wrestled with the angel (blah blah) but it was kind of assumed that you would do your questioning from inside the pre-set strictures of Faith, and that no matter the outcome, you would submit to God's will on the matter and not choose your own leanings.

How you were supposed to know God's will on the matter, it was never quite explained. Better to err, then, on the side of caution and become more conservative over time.

I'm with the fundies on this one -- if you indulge in skepticism, maybe you're not really religious.

this is bullshit, and pretty antithetical to Xtianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and (I'm sure) many others

there are simply no falsifiability criteria in discussions of spirituality

i think this is simply false tbh - if spiritual equals supernatural. religions, amongst other spiritual enterprises, make claims about the world, which can be tested. and i think the only thing that can survive such testing is a deism so vague and drained of content as to be virutally worthless.

"hardcore atheist" is kind of offensive. As if not believing in god makes you some kind of obnoxious extremist. Would you label all christians as "hardcore anti-Zeusists"?

xxpost Agreed. there's a big difference between "I'm not so sure that Random Bible Book Verses 2-3 happened exactly as described" and "y'know I'm not sure that this Jesus feller was real".

xp i don't think that was the intent of the phrasing?

(But, our Priests also didn't just shrug and go "ah well" - we also talked about capital-M Myth and we read Joseph Campbell and Robert Graves and talked about how to find the symbolism behind the stories.)

the only thing that can survive such testing is a deism so vague and drained of content as to be virutally worthless.

Go talk to my mum about whether what's survived her testing and whether that's worthless or not. No, really.

And for lots of people spirituality != "supernatural" - that's a conceptual leap where not everybody goes there.

xxpost that's a double edged sword anyway, cuz if someone states they unequivocally believe everything that the Bible said and take everything as gospel and therefore have no questions, they get lampooned for being brainwashed.

The problem with the Bible being a full-stop divine article is twofold:

- It was written by humans, who by definition are not divine and are therefore fallible, ergo the possibility exists that mistakes may have been written into it.

- Even if the document is somehow pure, it is read by humans, who by definition are not divine and therefore fallible, ergo the possibility exists that mistakes may have been made when interpreting it.

Go talk to my mum about whether what's survived her testing and whether that's worthless or not. No, really.

expand, pls?

By the way everyone, "agnostic" does not mean undecided FFS! You can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. But if you have just never really thought about this stuff and don't care one way or another that doesn't just make you an agnostic.

OK, this is where I gotta get off the thread because to me, it's fine and good when people talk about what *their* experiences of belief or non-belief. But when people start to draw moral conclusions about the belief or non-belief of others different from their own, that's when it gets on pretty shakey ground and I don't really find that constructive at all.

I did already expand on my mother's experiences. Several posts upthread.

And for lots of people spirituality != "supernatural" - that's a conceptual leap where not everybody goes there.

Yeah I know, I did cover that way above. But lots of people here are pleading agnosticism because you can't say one way or the other. I think you can. (But I don't want to start that all up, we've done it a million times before.)

anyways, I live my life without religion, and I'm not really spiritual, although I enjoy things like nature. but I still live with a code of morals that involve respecting other people and their rights. it always got annoying to me when friends of mine would say things like "so and so doesn't believe in God, I mean, how can you be moral without believing in God? You have no reason to be moral".

No, I have no reason to be immoral.

note these are not *current* friends

to quote myself, an hour ago

while we're at it, i find i do have a kneejerk dislike of ppl with the "spiritual but not religious" self-identification. i think there's enough information from the centuries of science and philosophy and religion to make up your damn mind. religions basically ask you to make up your mind, and i feel like i had some kind of intellectual duty to take them up on the offer. is jesus christ the son of god, the risen lord, the embodied eternal word, savior of the world? at 15 i basically said, you know what, no, i really doubt it.

you aren't asked just to believe that a guy called jesus of nazareth existed, there's, uh, a little more to it.

i can't really object when christians of one kind or another say, e.g., mormons are doomed to the pit. i mean, it's a normative statement about what mormonism claims to be true. did jesus appear, after the resurrection, in north america, to give a final testament? will we exist on another planet after death as gods (do i have that right?)? mormonism says yes. nobody else does!

If you are part of any tradition of questioning, I feel you are of my flock. Whether you do that within a religious framework doesn't matter to me, and I feel if atheism is to gain any currency, it shouldn't matter to atheists either.

I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore atheist either, as I concede that there is a possibility that there is a god, I just think it's extremely unlikely. This position is stronger than agnosticism, however.

"there is a possibility that there is a god, I just think it's extremely unlikely" means you're an atheist. This position isn't "stronger" than agnosticism. It says nothing about the gnosis at all!

I don't think of myself as an atheist because I think it's just as presumptuous to claim to know that god doesn't exist as it is to claim that one does.

That's agnosticism. But it doesn't say anything about whether you actually believe or not. So in addition to being agnostic, you're either an atheist or a theist.

any 'religionist' has the right to remake the religion for themselves. Nearly all the ones who say they don't do this.

I just think it's really *rude* not to mention presumptuous to *tell* other people what you think they believe, or to assign your labels to them.

"so and so doesn't believe in God, I mean, how can you be moral without believing in God? You have no reason to be moral".

No, I have no reason to be immoral.

― Bo Jackson Cruise Control (San Te), Thursday, September 9, 2010 1:42 PM Bookmark

I thought of what I thought was kind of a nice counterargument to this the other day:

When people ask you "If you don't believe in God, what reason do you have to be moral?" they're really making morality a higher value than God - lack of morality is more disturbing than lack of faith in itself. Therefore they're really belying the idea that morality can't exist without God, because they feel some independent concern about morality.

nice people who are not religious are one thing. an institution providing for the common good is quite another, and historically I can't really think of very many that were NOT, on some level, either guided by or explicitly an extension of a religious institution.

Well, I think this is also untrue, but as I am not a history buff I will not argue it further. However, as you were asking me what this tells me, the answer is still very little. Society progresses. There are now shitloads of institutions that do good that have no religious affiliation. Many that may have started with religious roots have lost them. Many have started as purely humanist organisations. This tells me that it is entirely possible for other portions of society to take over the community aspects of religious life.

there are simply no falsifiability criteria in discussions of spirituality

i think this is simply false tbh - if spiritual equals supernatural. religions, amongst other spiritual enterprises, make claims about the world, which can be tested. and i think the only thing that can survive such testing is a deism so vague and drained of content as to be virutally worthless.

Well, there are some claims that can be tested, but the majority of the time when shown to be false, the goalposts are either moved or ignored. It breaks down frequently into fundamentalism or 'god is what you believe him to be'. The former don't care about proofs, the latter cannot be falsified.

when people start to draw moral conclusions about the belief or non-belief of others different from their own, that's when it gets on pretty shakey ground and I don't really find that constructive at all.

I don't think anyone was talking about morality of belief, rather rationality of belief without proof. The non-rational does not have to be morally lacking.

I just think it's really *rude* not to mention presumptuous to *tell* other people what you think they believe, or to assign your labels to them.

Um. Is it also presumptuous to tell someone that by your perception, they appear to have brown hair? Cos that's pretty much where this is at right now. Everyone reaches SOME conclusion about images/ideas/etc that are presented to them.

This thread will end well

I know this is o_0 material around here, but I really don't think that big-R Rationality is all it's cracked up to be. And I certainly don't want to make a religion of it. I have a rational side to my head and an emotive side to my head for a reason - to keep my *humanity* in balance.

And no, Laurel, this isn't about "YOU HAVE BROWN HAIR" it's much closer to the arguments the other day of "You have been to University, therefore, you are NOT working class" "um, actually, I self identify as working class for this reason and that reason, what right have you to tell me I'm not?"

Oh I must have missed that ball of fun re class divisions.

well re: the class discussion in the Pulp thread, i don't think the argument was "you went to U, therefore not working class" it was "you make more than the median income now, therefore not working class"

I get that some people might feel bad to be thought of as essentially atheists in the same way that they don't want to be baptized posthumously by another religion, but I think a lot of that has to do with the stigma of being labeled atheist, and really the only way to defuse that is to apply the term as broadly as possible, which is going to require an initial bit of proselytizing rudeness.

Kate, I kind of agree with you about big-r Rationality sometimes. But religion doesn't have the claim on emotive experience, and it makes some enormous ontological claims at the same time that simply aren't necessary.

nice people who are not religious are one thing. an institution providing for the common good is quite another, and historically I can't really think of very many that were NOT, on some level, either guided by or explicitly an extension of a religious institution.

Yes, religious societies have tended to create religious institutions. What's your point? What a shock that the 2% of the people in the world who are atheists haven't had as big of an impact on history.

well re: the class discussion in the Pulp thread, i don't think the argument was "you went to U, therefore not working class" it was "you make more than the median income now, therefore not working class"

Well, that's a UK / US class appellation division I don't think we'll ever resolve.

Also, Philip, the reason I don't want to be called an "atheist" is that being an "atheist" requires that I be "a - theist" - without god. I have a pretty clear god concept which I have wrestled with and balanced rationality and emotion over, and there is no way that you can re-assign me into your Broad Church no matter how widely you define "atheism".

You do NOT have the right to tell me what I believe, any more than fundamentalist Christians do.

I think the closest I've ever come to what I understand people to be referring to when they refer to "spiritual" experiences are a) scuba diving and b) some rock concerts.

Kate, I kind of agree with you about big-r Rationality sometimes. But religion doesn't have the claim on emotive experience, and it makes some enormous ontological claims at the same time that simply aren't necessary.

^^^ this

If you want to find another word, and divide the world into "truth-seekers" vs. "those who are happy to accept whatever beliefs they are born into without questioning" then I'm happy to be a part of that flock.

But Atheist? Never. That's not what that word means. I reject it.

Religion != Spirituality. Spirituality != Religion.

If anyone takes away any message from this thread, of anything I have been saying, please let it be this.

Please can we stop using these terms as if they are synonymous, because they are not.

It's like saying "Justice" and "The Court System" are the same thing. They are related, but they are not the same.

For the love of fuck, I need to stay off this thread, because I hate repeating myself so much. :-(

i've always like this freud quote

There are a few men from whom their contemporaries do not withhold admiration, although their greatness rests on attributes and achievements which are completely foreign to the aims and ideals of the multitude... One of these exceptional few calls himself my friend in his letters to me. I had sent him my small book that treats religion as an illusion and he answered that he entirely agreed with my judgement upon religion, but that he was sorry I had not properly appreciated the true source of religious sentiments. This, he says, consists in a particular feeling which he himself is never without, which he finds confirmed by many others, and which he may suppose is present in millions of people. It is a feeling which he would like to call a sensation of 'eternity', a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded - as it were, 'oceanic'. This feeling, he adds, is a purely subjective fact, not an article of faith; it brings with it no assurance of personal immortality, but it is the source of religious energy which is seized upon by various Churches and religious systems, directed by them into particular channels, and doubtless also exhausted by them. One may, he thinks, rightly call oneself religious on the grounds of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one rejects every belief and every illusion.

The views expressed by the friend [Romain Rolland] whom I so much honour, and who himself once praised the magic of illusion in a poem, caused me no small difficulty. I cannot discover this oceanic feeling in myself.

I just think it's really *rude* not to mention presumptuous to *tell* other people what you think they believe

Definitely.

or to assign your labels to them.

Well, I don't think any of us created these labels. And words mean something, right? It's definitely frustrating to be labeled against your will. I don't think atheism needs a label, and it's definitely not an "ism." It just seems like common sense to me. But having been thus labeled, it becomes doubly frustrating when people twist the term to pervert its meaning or run from it like it's some kind of mark of shame.

Of course labels for the religious are a whole other complicated ball of wax (who is really a christian and who isn't).

"Spirituality" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

"Love" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

"Creativity" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

"Intelligence" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

Most of our *really important* words fall in this category. This does not render them meaningless.

Mind=blown.

I need to re-evaluate my whole life now.

I have respect for the fact that although loads and loads of American religious people are pushing the easy, fundamentalist answers in order to placate their flocks or raise their congregations, that my mother is sitting down and teaching a more intellectual and difficult, but more *tolerant* and conscious and conscience-based version of Christianity.

uh since you said this upthread i dont think you can take a total high ground on other people making suppositions about the beliefs of others tbf

"Justice" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

We recognise that the Court System is supposed to embody and carry out Justice, but we also recognise that when it goes wrong, that the Court System has created a "miscarriage of Justice" but that does not mean that we completely negate that there is such a thing as Justice.

I really feel a very similar thing about Religion and Spirituality. That yes, Religion frequently goes very very wrong. But that does not invalidate that "oceanic feeling" (though obviously there are people who have never felt it, like there are obviously people who have never felt, for example, "being in love".)

and im not trying to like call you out or establish an "im right yer wrong", more getting at the idea that people tend to think they arent viewing other peeps religious/spiritual views through a lens, but 99% of the time its kinda inevitable. doesnt mean the discussion isnt worth having tho. xpost

uh since you said this upthread i dont think you can take a total high ground on other people making suppositions about the beliefs of others tbf

I did not, you notice, *label* them and tell them that they WERE NOT CHRISTIAN the way that some people on this thread are trying to tell me that I MUST BE ATHEIST because I've done a bit of questioning. Do you understand the difference?

I'm not trying to be all "don't tell me what to think" but seriously, labelling and shouting at someone "YOU ARE AN ATHEIST, ADMIT IT!" really doesn't win anyone over, in fact, it drives people in the opposite direction. It's a really misguided tactic.

Instead of telling people what they are, or what they think, it's a much better idea to try and identify the common ground *and* the differences between the two points of view to see if/where they can align. That is the way that you can actually bring about any kind of change.

I don't think it is possible to be a literal "without god" atheist and therefore I feel you shouldn't be disqualified simply for having any kind of faith. The term becomes more useful and less stigmatized when applied to people who practice skepticism, which is a totally normal behavior and something that ought to be a social norm.

Obviously people will be resistant to this new world order, so I am preparing a series of comic booklets, tracts if you will, that will cultivate the idea that you are all secret atheists through amusing stories, mostly involving truckers.

I did not, you notice, *label* them and tell them that they WERE NOT CHRISTIAN the way that some people on this thread are trying to tell me that I MUST BE ATHEIST because I've done a bit of questioning.

Only one person said that, and in not in reference to you, I don't think. But yeah, I think the idea of 'tests' to see if you are 'really atheist' when you think you're not, uh, that idea is incredibly stupid.

well phil as a hardcore atheist fuck your new definition tbqh

yeah but i think lots of people that identify as fundamentalists would be equivalently offended by someone describing their religious views as "easy" or a means towards placation or growing the church coffers. again, not gunning for a fight, but every worldview seems to carry its biases and intolerences, and one doesnt really outweigh another imo xxxpost

xpost i'm more of a milquetoast atheist

http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/real_stuff/ReadingLevelByReligion.png

lol is that from okcupid

This isn't a question of "offending" so can we please take that word off the table, because it's about self definitions vs. being defined by others.

Yes, OK, I recognise that my description of Fundamentalism was itself lazy and probably pretty offensive to some of the Christians I grew up with. Fair enough. But being not-lazy, part of my problem with that way of thinking is the ease with which they hurl "NOT CHRISTIAN!" at people who don't believe the same as they do. It's an ugly way of acting, to un-name someone. (To use L'Engle's term.) I just do not understand why Skeptics, again and again, seem to imitate the most unpleasant aspects of that which they claim to be fighting against.

I've tried to explain this on here before I think but I identify as atheist not agnostic not because I'm certain that there is no "God" - I don't believe there is, in any intelligent design/unmoved mover sense, but hey never rule anything out as a possibility - but because I am certain that none of the great monotheistical religions have a correct conception of "God", and anyway I'd reject each of those versions even if you could prove to me that one of them was true.

And a lot of this revolves around great religions has being hugely contested sites of struggle but I wonder at what distance from the "centre" it's rational to insist that you belong to a church - like, how many unCatholic beliefs can you hold and still call yourself a Catholic?

self-described loosely Presbyterian drunk

this is not contributing to this discussion but i had to post this hilarious rapture image somewhere:

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l8gjawvReL1qzbqf4o1_500.png

Everyone going to heaven and that guy's taking the moment to scope out a crafty upskirt.

Glad that anatomically unlikely blonde up front did a few hits of E before getting Raptured.

elmo that is wonderful

"I'd reject each of those versions even if you could prove to me that one of them was true."
Does not compute... Error Error... *smoking gears*

You have converted me. I am now a born-again Snatchist.

I don't think it is possible to be a literal "without god" atheist

WTF?

yeah that's a strange one tbh

I assume the sentiment behind that is that religion so thoroughly permeates human culture that it is impossible to live your life without internalizing some aspect of their teachings, because most if not all human societies drastically intermingle their religious codes and their moral codes?

well basically I don't think it's possible as a human being to purge yourself of superstitious thought because that just seems to be the way our brains operate, so an unseen mover is always going to be there lurking in your cognition.

I wish there were something between the first two. I'm agnostic but I have reached conclusions about the place of religion in my life, plus I'm only agnostic about the existence of God/gods in a very broad sense (I'm convinced Christianity is false and that the all powerful/all good God of classical theism doesn't exist). I'm functionally an atheist: I'm agnostic but I'm not searching and the possibility that there is a god or gods doesn't normally figure into my decision making.

(at a very quick glance over the thread I guess I'm kind of like Noodle Vague)

I decided to go with the first choice.

it's not like i've done extensive reading on this, but lately i'm really stuck on the idea of capital-I Ideas as "animal spirits" that have a life of their own, have their own conflicts, and "use" people to enact those conflicts. i guess you could call this "ideology".

we think that people, as individuals, have ideas, and some of those ideas they hold in common with other people. i wonder if it's backwards; i sometimes think that its ideas that "have" people, masses of people, sometimes in common with other ideas. religious systems are sets of ideas, overlapping with and contesting with other sets, and carrying people with them through history.

this probably comes from some ted talk i watched once or something.

well basically I don't think it's possible as a human being to purge yourself of superstitious thought because that just seems to be the way our brains operate, so an unseen mover is always going to be there lurking in your cognition.

I still don't see what that has to do with god. Atheism means that you don't believe in any gods. I personally don't believe that any gods exist, therefore I'm an atheist. My brain still may or may not be drawn to certain superstitious thoughts (I'm not really convinced that that's scientifically true, but whatever) but that doesn't have anything to do with a god. You're saying that since our brain chemistry is an "unseen mover" we have to call it god?

i mean that heuristics that form the basis of cognition commit you to believing in magic on some level -- it's a shortcut -- you'd be forever examining causal chains otherwise. Purely rational thought is computationally expensive. Whether you personify the source of this magic as a bearded dude or an amorphous cloud is a cosmetic detail.

It's basically "there's no atheists in foxholes" but everywhere is a foxhole, which is why I feel a commitment to skepticism ought to be the defining characteristic, not degrees of belief or non-belief.

so there's literally no in between from behaving like a computer to believeing in magic

huh.

well... computers are binary, so it makes some amount of sense until you realize that it's totally wrong

*please wait while darraghmac computes the most rational answer out of all possible combinations*

most of the advanced tasks we set computers to do rely on hand-waving heuristics, too, so it's not like they're off the hook either.

do androids dream of theistic sheeple

no offense but yer argument kinda seems a little like saying that since we haven't gotten this whole metaphysics thing nailed down and solved we cant deny the existence of god really which i do not agree with at all

i mean the intrusion of unanswerables into our daily life does not presuppose magic as long as you accept the limits of human understanding and deny absolutism

ok that was imprecise.

i think that part of this is the assumption that since we have "failed" thus far in the epistemological project to explain the nature of knowledge and metaphysical attempts to describe reality, we have to turn to an unknowable force, consciously or otherwise. but the problem there is to say that force is pre se spiritual or magical or religious or whatever. peeps upthread according that magic to brain chemicals are finding an equally valid source for that sort of stuff, and one that is rooted in internal biology, not any external force or power.

but what you are missing is that internal biology is actually magic

well mine certainly is

I mean, I am convinced that if you chopped off my head a rabbit would spring out of my neck, depending on how you define "rabbit"

i have no problem with that theory

Whether you personify the source of this magic as a bearded dude or an amorphous cloud is a cosmetic detail.

So you're just dealing with atheism by redefining god. I have to go with Dawkins on this one and define god as an omniscient being who created the universe and everything in it, listens to our prayers and actively intervenes in the world, etc. rather than some vague "the energy within all of us man" kind of spirituality. Because that's what at least the top two religions are claiming. But I guess this gets into that Dawkins thread where Shakey was claiming that most religious people don't in fact believe in that sort of god.

hahahahahahahaha you bastard, I was seconds away from changing my screenname to "rabbit (n): a fountain of blood"

well tbh where i stand with dawkins is in the 'god of the gaps' problem, which is kind of related to the 'magic' question. if you leave 'god' (or what have you) as being the king of the realm of everything we don't know yet, well, we're finding out stuff pretty fast.

god is dead

and no one cares
if there is a Hell
I'll see you there

Ok cool let's do drinks!

You can intellectually ascribe this feeling to whatever you want after the fact but I don't think there's much of a phenomenological difference between hardcore Xians and captial-A Athiests when watching David Blaine do a card trick, at least for the initial 30-80ms or however long it takes to go "Whoa"
It's pure god-reflex and no amount of conditioning or realization that Blaine is a hacky magician can obliterate it.
Basically, knowing how magnets work doesn't prevent the "Magnets, how do they work" moments that constitute your day. We're all juggaloes, now.

Jeez, talk about a god of the gaps. "my god is the god of that moment when a juggalo's mind is temporarily thrown into confusion by a shitty magic trick."

ha!

But I guess this gets into that Dawkins thread where Shakey was claiming that most religious people don't in fact believe in that sort of god.

ah now there was a "fun" thread... whatever happened to A. Nairn anyway

It is much more sensible to come to an intimate understanding of your mind's wayward tendencies, and to appreciate your inescapable weakness and ignorance, than to feed an unwarranted belief that, because your (intermittent) rationality has declared god and ghosts to be imaginary, therefore you have achieved some kind of ascendency over your own foolishness. That's just another trap fools happily fall into.

Meditation is one good way to figure out what a hapless fool you are and will always be.

ugh atheistic proselytizing is just the worst

eh as bad as any other type of proselytizing really?

we need more fresh-faced kids in collared shirts bicycling in 103 degree weather. clearly we're at a disadvantage.

nah i actually hate it more. lots of religions have a bent on spreading the gospel, but atheists that decide to go pound sand about it are basically heeding the inner need to be right, smart, and assholes xpost

i have never encountered a proselytizing atheist. i've encountered very very few proselytizing christians of any kind, too, but i usually cross the street if see mormons.

more simply, religious peeps want to convert me so i can go to heaven, atheist peeps want to convert people so they can give each other high fives

xpost wow goole yer college experience was v v different than mine

hmm maybe. though maybe they just think religion's a problem! (most self-identified atheists on this thread don't appear to be dawking though, which is ood)

i do think religion is a problem, but going out to "convert" the religious is equally problematic

but jjj u mad if you think religious ppl aren't self-interested in your conversion

well yeah some of them certainly are, and obv if it is one of the teachings of whatever, they are earning their own reward, but if we get into the role of self-interest in altruistic acts were going to need to pony up to buy ilx a bigger server so

the only college experience i can think of like this was a poetry class. someone wrote a bad poem that ref'd adam and eve and i suggested that like the modernists maybe the writer could play around with the text of genesis. and a very radical person in the class spat out "UGH why does everything have to be about the BIBLE". and i was like, adam and eve?

in general Jews are not interested in converting anybody FYI (we're "chosen" not "converted" dontchaknow)

What if god was one of us?

i'd imagine that proselytizing atheists are also trying to improve your future happiness in the same way as Christians

i think maybe college in the early 90's was just a time of great dumbness and darkness tbh wrt militant atheism and all sorts of stuff

eh idk about that sarahel - what real unhappiness arises because of someone having faith really?

(please to not pull the suicide bomber/victim of spousal abuse hitler card anyone thx)

maybe it depended on where you went to college and what you studied? atheism/religion wasn't the most salient topic of militantism where i was

i think a lot of unhappiness could arise from feeling trapped in/beholden to a faith

MOD GOD CENSORSHIP

well, presumably the militant atheist thinks that those with faith are delusional, like people who thought the earth was flat, or women who think their abusive boyfriends are just "misunderstood"

i think the evangelical impulse is pretty common in people - esp. in America - whether it's religion, or atheism, or OMG BACON etc

^ good point

the most grating thing about pushy atheists is the posture that their belief is based on PURE REASON despite their willingness to push logical fallacies in service of argument. like, i hope occam's razor slices you when you shove it up your ass, jerk!

levels of religiosity and poverty, global

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/0904OPEDBLOW_600sub.jpg

no country is simultaneously as rich and as religious as the US.

what real unhappiness arises because of someone having faith really?

Uh, the thing I referenced upthread?

My in-laws are in some dire personal and financial straits, and seem to be waiting for Jebus to bail them out without doing anything on their own, then are confused when nothing gets better. And they are in those straits because he quit a perfectly good job as a project manager at an architectural firm to become a minister, eventually sinking all their savings into purchasing a storefront church which dealt primarily with drug addicts. Who really don't tithe quite enough to support a full-time minister.

Or maybe you've heard this thing where, like, people let their kids ACTUALLY FUCKING DIE because they don't treat them for illnesses and just pray?

and maybe this is how i view it coming from a family where one's religious beliefs/spirituality/whatever was a private personal thing, and growing up in a town where the majority of people had much more conservative beliefs than my family, but my parents didn't want to rock the boat or act like jerks, so they'd just say things like, "Oh, how nice for you!" or "That is very inspiring." but "Oh, what a shame, I really have a lot of work to do, I can't attend."

ugh atheistic proselytizing is just the worst

― tangelo amour (elmo argonaut), Thursday, September 9, 2010 4:40 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
eh as bad as any other type of proselytizing really?

― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, September 9, 2010 4:42 PM (18 minutes ago)

yeah what d said, in-yr-face atheists obviously suck but they probably get more than their due shit from non-militant atheists who are embarassed by them

xp yeah goole that chart was used as an op-ed in the NYT this weekend, thought it was pretty cool

where would a pushy atheist invite you for services? a TMBG concert?

they'd probably send you copious links to TED talks or something

jj's university

fwiw i happen to think that materialist rationality and spooky magical thinking can easily coexist in the same mind, like if i find $5 in a book about elephants i can happily think "hey, thanks ganesha" without deluding myself that an elephant god put that money there for me to find

i dunno - i mean when people proselytize about things - anything - there are basically a few reactions you can have:

1. i totally agree with you - oh, here's some new evidence to bolster my already strong beliefs - cool!
2. i totally agree with you, but it's kinda old news
3. hmm, interesting, tell me more!
4. i have mixed feelings, and i really don't want to go there
5. please stop

like last night i was reading some issue of XLR8R at a friend's house - and one of the interviews had this chick talking about her life-changing experiences at a Vipassanna meditation retreat - and a couple of my friends a few years back had done this, and had similar life-changing experiences, and "suggested" that I do this meditation retreat - but it was one of those things that, for me, was very much a "Please stop" moment.

Elephant gods would be too busy using their omnipotence to procure copious buns imo. xp

i have more pls stop moments relating to belief in the metaphysical parts of catholicism than any other single subject bar rafa benitez i think

Vipassanna meditation retreats & Joanna Newsom are kinda of equal proselytizing prevalence in my life in terms of "Please Stop!" moments

my one major problem with atheism per se is that it doesn't offer any sort of alternative to the many other good things that religion can offer -- wisdom, values, community, etc. and if the only virtue of atheism is "being right" it's small comfort against creeping nihilism.

(n.b. i'm not talking about 'humanism' or anything here, just atheism per se)

my one major problem with atheism per se is that it doesn't offer any sort of alternative to the many other good things that religion can offer -- wisdom, values, community, etc.

Those things are provided by people not gods. Therefore we can easily carry on providing wisdom, values and community in the absence of god.

lol don't make me get all banaka on you. being right ought to be comfort enough, even though it isn't...

"atheistic proselytizing" = when religious people talk about religion, stfu, we don't want to hear what you have to say even though we brought it up.

my one major problem with atheism per se is that it doesn't offer any sort of alternative to the many other good things that religion can offer -- wisdom, values, community,

cmon elmo seriously?

god put all those things into each of us?

yeah i'm not a theology major but that strikes me as really simple and wrong

you'll notice that i didn't say "god" -- i said & meant "religion"! xpost

well yeah, fair enough

but i mean, that stuff isn't there for atheists? i mean, pretty sure i got some of that stuff tbh

free juice and cookies at the komsomol meetings, seems nice enough

Why should atheism preclude you from being engaged with a religious institution on any level that matters? I don't think open atheism will ever gain a credible foothold in the US until you allow for it to include church-going ones.

i'm really confused by that philip. a church of atheists, or atheists involving themselves in existing (or new!) religions?

There's a line in Julia Sweeney's conversion story where she keeps pressing her priest until he finally takes her aside and goes, "Juilia, the Bible is basically a bunch of stories."
I'm just saying that the priest ought to be allowed to say this openly, and not just in secret people who are fretting over their faith during family crises.

pretty sure priests say that oenly all the time, but i don;t see the jump to atheists having to join churches. why?

You know, I might spot you "community," although I think that's less a function of religion per se than of churches and sects, but I question whether "religion" -- again, religion per se, just like atheism per se -- provides "values" and "wisdom." The values provided by religion are as often negative -- or, at least, negatively impactful on actual people -- as they are positive. And wisdom? What wisdom, specifically, is provided by "religion" per se?

I am atheist/agnostic but I have found value in a religious or spiritual tradition that I did not grow up in.
- going with this over option 1, but I don't really think of Zen as being religious or spiritual

There are a lot of ways to say 'the Bible is basically a bunch of stories', and a lot of them don't involve being an atheist.

I think one way in which there can be church-going atheists is if you are new to a religious area, and want to get to know the community, it doesn't seem unreasonable to go help out at a church. I think one or two ilx0rs have stories of doing similar?

There are tons of church-going atheists at Unitarian Universalist churches, folks.

Phil D otm

xp to emily- or a soup kitchen, sports centre, etc. i get that you're saying it's a possibility, but i don't think it's what philip is saying- he seems (and apologies if not) it's a pity atheists don't get to go to church to experience community and wisdom

Also it's a bit rich to be all "where have you ever created communities?" to a segment of the population that is still only 2% worldwide.

ya true in civ we'd still be in wagons

i now regret not taking more time and including "not allowing your child medical attention" in my pulling the hitler card list. the other thing you site about dude sacrificing money so that he can spread the faith is maybe a little more real, but still v v uncommon. what im saying is that for the garden variety believer, i dont see how convincing them of atheism is going to save them from unhappiness as a general rule - most religious peeps find great comfort in their religion as i understand it throughout their lives, the last thing they need is me trying to save them from their supposed ignorance.

"There are a lot of ways to say 'the Bible is basically a bunch of stories', and a lot of them don't involve being an atheist."
What would be the practical difference? I feel like there'd be no beef between an atheist and any Christian who starts from that POV.

I don't think the pity is that they can't go (in fact I think a lot of them do go), it's that they can't go openly, and serve as
a moderating influence.

! on what/whom?

jj, that's fine, and like I said upthread, I don't much care what people personally believe as opposed to what they do, and I mostly just keep my mouth shut when family or friends talk turn to god, even though I'm still not sure exactly why I should. I don't try to convince anyone of anything, but they all sure spend a lot of time trying to save my heathen soul.

lol, I am kind of giggling at the "why don't more atheists go to church?" questions because CLEARLY you folks don't know enough professional choristers

also Phil N you are kind of insane

The practical difference would be that one believes in God and the other one doesn't. To take examples, I could easily imagine a beef between an atheist who says the Bible is a bunch of stories meaning that it is all fiction and should be treated as on a par with the last Steven King novel, and a Christian who says the Bible is a bunch of stories meaning it is a guide written by spiritual leaders full of allegories that help one to live ones life.

(Also, haha, Hi Dere, I completely forgot about members of my family who go to church to sing. Though I don't think they are atheists, more lapsed protestant agnostics.)

re: who would it moderate --
On people who don't think the Bible is just a bunch of stories, basically.
I feel like a lot of the culture war is being lost against them (e.g. global warming, science teaching, stem cells, gay marriage, etc...)
and it would be helpful for decent, church-going folks, going, every now and then,
"hold on, there, fellas. remember, the bible is just a bunch of stories."
and then there'd be murmors and scattered shouts of "the deacon's right!"

and then they have an orgy

*I* only go to church to sing. Which makes it extremely disappointing when I'm somewhere with a disappointing hymnal full of thin, reedy, modern arrangements that strip out the harmonies to make it easier for the amateur pianists in someone's PRAISE CHORUS to follow along.

Although tbh when the parts I know don't fit, I just sing them louder.

lol, I am kind of giggling at the "why don't more atheists go to church?" questions because CLEARLY you folks don't know enough professional choristers

my dads an atheist & played the organ in the local church for 20+ years. guy just likes playing the organ. i sometimes used to go along with him as a kid & sit next to him, help pulling out the stops. it was fun!

*I* only go to church to sing. Which makes it extremely disappointing when I'm somewhere with a disappointing hymnal full of thin, reedy, modern arrangements that strip out the harmonies to make it easier for the amateur pianists in someone's PRAISE CHORUS to follow along.

Although tbh when the parts I know don't fit, I just sing them louder.

haha I do the same thing

also I make up descants for praise songs (note: I am a bass/baritone)

descant praise

my one major problem with atheism per se is that it doesn't offer any sort of alternative to the many other good things that religion can offer -- wisdom, values, community, etc. and if the only virtue of atheism is "being right" it's small comfort against creeping nihilism.

ffs if you want to know why some atheists might be uncomfortably shrill it's because they get told that this is how they feel

this is not contributing to this discussion but i had to post this hilarious rapture image YT link somewhere

btw I'll cop to being mostly a nihilist but it doesn't mean I'm not capable of awe and wonder and I'll those other "spiritual" things

"I could easily imagine a beef between an atheist who says the Bible is a bunch of stories meaning that it is all fiction and should be treated as on a par with the last Steven King novel, and a Christian who says the Bible is a bunch of stories meaning it is a guide written by spiritual leaders full of allegories that help one to live ones life."

Stuff like this, though, doesn't feel like an interfaith beef. I mean, I don't feel the Bible is bereft of life lessons, so I could theoretically have the same beef with this godless dude tag-teaming with my new Xian buddy, also because I like Stephen King.

Oh God (ha), did I spell Stephen King wrong? Sorry, I've been quite careless with my post editing today.

But anyway, surely it isn't an interfaith beef, because atheists by definition don't have faith. Also, there are many gradations between my two examples, those two were merely illustrations to prove that there IS a practical difference in attitude.

I get there would be a kind of 'tude divide between atheists who have no use for the church and those who
do voluntarily attend, but I can't imagine atheists that do attend going to hear scary stories, unless it's
some hellhouse kind of thing.
also, i spelled it wrong, too! but i felt compelled by an unseen presence to change it.

cad, the point i want to make is that atheism doesn't really have a cultural traditions parallel to religious culture. and i said 'atheism' -- i'm not trying to describe any particular atheist as lacking wisdom, values, or a sense of community. but it seems to me that an atheist those things have to be found outside of atheism -- or if you crib these things from a religion, in spite of it.

just -- i think of atheism as negating the existence of god and by extension, religion. that void gets filled somehow, and it'd be nice to see atheists advocating humanism / an ethical life / whatever rather than see certain atheists shitting on ppl's beliefs and giving y'all a reputation.

agree with all of that--i think most reasonable atheists do advocate an ethical life! but i don't think it's a failing of atheism not to provide those things (why would it want to) and disagree that it doesn't have virtues beyond "being right."

i disagree completely tbh. the assumption that these behaviours/instincts somehow come from religion as opposed to religion being perhaps the prevalent way of celebrating these existing and natural behaviours- that seems backwards to me.

Okay CAD now I'm kind of confused, partially because I'm not sure which things you mean by "those things" and therefore it seems contradictory to be okay with atheism not providing the values I'm thinking of yet still argue it has virtues beyond "being right".

I mean, you look at religions and most of them have a moral code baked directly into them. If you are granting that atheism does not have an inherent moral code, what are its actual virtues?

xp: that feels like a tomayto/tomahto objection but I can't put my finger on exactly why

yep. esp considering that said behaviours are actually pretty much across the board beneficial in an evolutionary sense xpost

hi dere jj just splained why it isn't and btw tomato is just pronounced tomato fyi also

those things being the things elmo mentioned originally.

i think it's a virtue of atheism that i wake up every day knowing (to the extent i can) that no supernatural force is acting on my life. i think it's a virtue knowing that if i want to change something in my life, i can do it without something like prayer.

I'm atheist, but I will stan for the King James bible as a) a work of literature b) a work of literacy in the sense that it opened up reading to those outside the 'privileged' class because you had scripture in English and other vernacular languages all of a sudden and that, like Greek myth or whatnot, there are recurring tropes that people are expected to know as canon (lol) in literature and the other arts, as well as popular culture.

However, I have this thing where I think forms of Christianity which use what I call 'Bibles for slow readers' are full of people who are generally not very bright.

BTW my atheism has always been underpinned by a very specific moral code: that I don't need some notional supreme being thing to reinforce my idea of the difference between right and wrong/good and evil because any intelligent person should be able to work out that hurting other living things or telling lies are shitty things to do.

Atheism cannot have an inherent moral code, because it is not a belief system. It is an absence of belief in God. But the reason why religions have moral codes at their core is because they are created by people. Atheists are people. Therefore they are just as equipped as the religious to provide morality etc.

suzy otm about another virtue of atheism

I think my argument is that it doesn't particularly matter where they came from; they got baked into the social construct we call religion and, barring some massive cataclysm that drastically reshapes humanity, they are going to stay there, so arguing that those behaviors are totally independent from religion is kind of akin to arguing that black and white are not actually colors; yes, in strict terms you are correct, but it is not a practical distinction to make.

so yes I did basically concede the point, you're welcome

Just because there's no deity involved, that doesn't mean atheism isn't a belief system. Non-belief is also a belief of sorts /ouroborous

also suzy's virtue is pretty easy to classify as "being right", to go back to elmo's original argument

I think my argument is that it doesn't particularly matter where they came from; they got baked into the social construct we call religion and, barring some massive cataclysm that drastically reshapes humanity

I think maybe the Enlightenment provided for a means (in Western culture obvs) of ascertaining morals and ethics and values that were independent of, and in some cases contrary to, religious values and ethics. Like, they ran on a parallel track and could be derived independently and practiced independently.

if atheists had awesome embroidered robes and geodesic temples and rites and folklore and shit i would be all over in a heartbeat.

The Enlightenment also brought us non-Latin Bibles, yo.

A few years ago someone used the gambit of 'you should thank God blah blah blah' on me and I pointed out that whenever people use the G-word on me it has more to do with what they want emotionally from me than what is actually necessary - also a bit like blaming your own fart on the dog.

jeez hi dere i think it's a pretty big distinction to make when someone (or a lot of people? i dunno) claims atheists somehow are at a disadvantage in their ability to relate to those behaviours

re: robes and domes, wouldn't you prefer we take over catholicism? we'd get a whole city.

Just because there's no deity involved, that doesn't mean atheism isn't a belief system. Non-belief is also a belief of sorts /ouroborous

Only when you make it so. It certainly isn't analogous to a religion. Perhaps for someone like Dawkins, or people who identify as 'Humanist' in a certain way. But certainly not for me.

atheism isn't a 'belief' as i'd understand it. in fact just whatever emily says i'll go with itt tbh

"Bibles for slow readers" is like the best thing I've seen all day btw.

I'm not sure skepticism operates on a physical level the same way that belief does. I think you have to on some level hold the belief in order to be skeptical of it. Someone with neuro-bio help me out here.

i think you have to on some level be cold to be hot

I think you have to on some level hold the belief in order to be skeptical of it.

Not true. You have to be able to consider it, which would include viewing it from both (or, if you want to reject binaries, multiple) sides. This is not the same as 'holding the belief', which would mean believing it. But of course, the only reason why I consider this particular belief, which is entirely unimportant to me, is because society asks me to make a decision. Really, I would've been much happier had it not been a question at all.

jeez hi dere i think it's a pretty big distinction to make when someone (or a lot of people? i dunno) claims atheists somehow are at a disadvantage in their ability to relate to those behaviours

This is where I assert that you are conflating atheism with humanism.

don't think so, am merely reacting to what was said upthread re: what atheists as misisng out on, tbh

'are missing'

what i mean is that whatever neural construct is formed to model/consider the belief is on a physical basis equivalent to having that belief, and the act of skepticism is one of dismissal, where this construct is inhibited, not one where a new 'non-belief" construct is formed.

this solves the ouroborous problem, which requires an equivalency between belief and non-belief, though it requires you to accept an equivalency between belief and consideration, at least on a neurological level.

i'm pretty sure i misspelled ouroubroous.

whatever neural construct is formed to model/consider the belief is on a physical basis equivalent to having that belief

although this sounds impressive, it's really quite mad

ie visualisation for appreciation/valuation != belief on a physical nor any other level, and i can't think for a second how you'd claim it

but it seems to me that an atheist those things have to be found outside of atheism

Well sure. Atheism is sort of a non-thing. It's like you're saying that baldness doesn't come with a hat included so bald people have to look outside of their baldness to find a way to cover their head. Of course. Baldness just means that you have no hair. It doesn't mean that you have no hair but you're also part of some organized community that provides free hats. I think.

fwiw i never said that atheists are missing out on anything; i said atheism doesn't provide much

i might be conflating the studies where people imagining themselves making free throws activated the same parts of the brain as people actually training, and both groups improving by about the same amount. that and something about mirror neurons.

fwiw i never said that atheists are missing out on anything; i said atheism doesn't provide much

seems i'm picking you up wrong in any number of small ways, elmo, but can you pls explain what the sentiment was, in context of 'here's what religion provides, and atheism doesn't'

what i mean is that whatever neural construct is formed to model/consider the belief is on a physical basis equivalent to having that belief, and the act of skepticism is one of dismissal, where this construct is inhibited, not one where a new 'non-belief" construct is formed.

Conversely, if a believer has doubts or questions about his faith, does his brain instantly go into a state of non-belief that mimics the brain function of an atheist?

not even that- if a believer considers non-belief as a concept their brain function is therefore atheistic

fwiw i never said that atheists are missing out on anything; i said atheism doesn't provide much

It doesn't "provide" anything. It's not supposed to! Atheism doesn't make the kinds of claims or promises that religion makes, which is why I don't think it's really an "ism."

i think if you considered non-belief as a concept, it'd be more like you believed there is such a thing as non-belief, rather than non-believing.
it would have to be something more along the lines like, "what would it be like to live like a heathen athiest? could I go skiing in the summer?"

Also, all of the talk about skepticism and considering various beliefs presupposes that you're coming from a religious point of view. This is what the people who claim that atheism is a religion or belief system are missing. You don't have to do anything to be an atheist. It doesn't take any deep thought or painful transformations if you haven't already been indoctrinated into a religious mindset. It's just the default state of being.

xpost-- I'm not sure what you're saying there.

hmm think we're getting to the root of something here. atheists can conceive of stuff without automatically believing they exist.

i'm pretty sure most people can tbh, but you have me worried

I think saying "religion" provides all these things that "atheism" doesn't is conflating an awful lot of things, where "religion" is being used as specific shorthand for "monotheism." Religion encompasses everything from Christianity to animism to wicca to Buddhism to Scientology. I just feel like someone is skipping an awful lot of steps, here.

I think the things that bother me about these arguments is the tendency for atheists to argue in an (essentially) ad hominim way - i.e. 'theists think I'm going to hell/ believe that you pray and illnesses are cured/ hate homosexuals or some other group' - and think that this is a refutation of the idea of theism. I think that a lot of the new atheists argue like this - the couple of times I've met Dawkins I always felt that he was arguing against an imaginary, right-wing, american fundamentalist standing next to me - the fact that I possessed none of the characteristics he was criticising seemed to be beside the point.

The other problem is the tendency for theists to try to make the argument a fight for the fundamental claim to be human; suggesting that morality, community, values etc. are exclusively religious qualities is frankly insulting to pretty much everyone.

On a side note, I came to my theism through radical skepticism - sort of a move through Descartes, reaching a dead end, ideas about subjectivity, Wittgenstein, and then moving through Kierkegaard to my own ideas about God and self. This was over a period of about 15 years of introspection, however, and the idea that my faith is 'blind' seems kind of odd to me. I'm also aware that my faith is incapable of communication between people (placing me in the 'mystic' camp, I guess) so I'm really not that interested in trying.

Also, I'm a (fairly hard left) socialist (my faith informs my political beliefs, but my political beliefs do not rely on my faith), and, frankly, I find myself much more concerned by poverty levels, preventable disease, the need for democratization of our socio-economic system, climate change etc. than whether or not one guy gets pissed off by someone preaching in the streets, or another gets pissed off because someone thinks that Christ and God are eternally coexistent rather than Christ being begotten of God. I'll pick the crude Left vs. Right dividing line over the time-wasting theist vs anti-theist dichotomy.

Actually, don't know how much sense that makes...

makes perfect sense

the couple of times I've met Dawkins I always felt that he was arguing against an imaginary, right-wing, american fundamentalist standing next to me

yeha totally. so frustrating to see him chase down these easy and unrewarding paths time after time

aware that my faith is incapable of communication between people (placing me in the 'mystic' camp, I guess)

Squarely. Not such a bad place to be, and one that generally proves a bafflement to the standard issue atheist.

I find myself much more concerned by poverty levels, preventable disease, the need for democratization of our socio-economic system, climate change etc.

Most of which are exacerbated by the actions of various churches around the world.

yeah hm -- ok maybe put it this way: when i say "wisdom" in this context i mean aphorisms and edifying teachings that are built into a religious culture. same thing with values: i mean scripture like "love thy neighbor as thyself" and the beatitudes and such. by community I mean congregations and networks of ppl who can rely and help each other according to those values. all good things that religion, at its best, provides -- it's the nature of the religion.

i DON'T mean to suggest that an atheist is incapable of wisdom etc, NOR that any of those things have their root in religion. atheism doesn't have traditions -- so those things come from elsewhere. AND of course lots of religious people find those things elsewhere, too, it should be said.

l-r dmac, elmo

http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/MH/Scans/A_Heart.jpg

:D

wk, yeah lots of churches are fucked up. Which says nothing about the validity of a belief in god. See a few posts back about the prevelance of ad hominem in atheistic debating techniques.

can't decide if 'sandard issue atheist' is ad hominem or not tbh.

i wish there were still pythagoreans around, wkiw

xp i find it difficult to separate the two when having this discussion tbh

Wouldn't go so far as to say it says NOTHING about the validity of belief in god. Certainly it says that "belief in god" is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for acting like a decent human being.

I mean at a certain point you have to get out of the rarefied air of theory and theology and discuss religion as actually manifested in human behavior, right?

yeah i guess when the full spectrum of human behavior is present among believers and nonbelievers i'm like "so what does this actually do?"

xp only if you didn't score a sweet gig in the vatican somewhere tbh

Most of which are exacerbated by the actions of various churches around the world.

Sure. But I tend to be of the opinion that the the form of the relationship is capitalism shaping churches, rather than churches altering the drive of capitalism (after all, if the machinations of such navel-gazing institutions as churches has any serious impact on economic structure then capitalism would have died out a long time ago. But churches, while occupying a peculiar relation to production, are as much controlled by these forces as any other institution, and any dogma finding itself incompatible with capitalism would be sidelined or eliminated. Though depending on your political views that may not apply)

I'd be shocked if the members of these awful churches would concede that the bible was just a bunch of stories, actually.

xp

In the same way that fundamentalism has a recognizable profile built around acceptance of the Bible as the inerrant word of god, the standard profile of atheism, when espoused as a philosophy, is also recognizable and Dawkins provides a fairly good example.

It may be that the actual "standard issue atheist", as determined by sheer numbers, is simply someone who has a profound disinterest in anything remotely like religion, thinks of it rarely, if at all, and could not say more than five sentences on the subject without resorting to repetition.

Neither the Dawkins-type of militant, engaged, anti-religious atheist, nor the unengaged, apathetic atheist is likely to have much interest in or understanding of mysticism. The Dawkins type has almost nothing to say on the matter, other than to dismiss it as a chemical abberation in the brain.

all of your atheists are pretty unpleasant on the subject of religion in general tbh

So, now that we've moved from "spirituality" to "mysticism," can someone explain exactly just a) what these two things are, and b) what the difference is between them? And what their interaction with "religion" is? Because we've got an awful lot of nonspecific terms being tossed about here in the process of deriding us poor, lonely, intellectual incurious and unwise atheists, who are yet somehow also disproportionately powerful and angry-making.

Certainly it says that "belief in god" is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for acting like a decent human being.

Fully agreed. A "belief in god" is a cipher, upon which almost any image may be cast by the believer. I, myself, do not believe in god, but rather in compassion and spiritual enlightenment. God, whatever it may or may not be, is of little interest to me. Clearly, if god exists, he's doing fine all on his own. My worship of god is as unnecessary as my fear of god.

wk, yeah lots of churches are fucked up. Which says nothing about the validity of a belief in god.

I didn't say that it did, and I have a hard time believing that's what Dawkins was saying to dowd. Atheists don't believe in god because they see no reasonable evidence that god exists. They might also condemn various religious institutions for their actions, but that's not why they don't believe in god. It's just that the conversation tends to end up there when the religious say "all genocides are the result of atheism, and religion is nothing but a force for good in the world, etc".

fwiw there may be some overlap in that one can use the actions of the religious as evidence for the nonexistence of god.

the conversation tends to end up there when the religious say "all genocides are the result of atheism, and religion is nothing but a force for good in the world, etc".

I understand how this works. Seen many thousand times on the internet. You were refuting the argument you anticipated, rather than the arguments that were made. I'm pretty sure the absolute goodness of religion or evil of atheism has not been claimed by anyone in this thread.

God knows, I do this, too.

There was a recent? book out by a convert where the dude basically couldn't reconcile an omnipotent, interventionist God with the suffering he saw in the world, so his backsliding was doctrinally based, rather than pure evidence.

I have a hard time believing that's what Dawkins was saying to dowd

Oh, it wasn't. They were just general kind of chats, the kind you have after lectures - this was late 90s, he wasn't quite the boogeyman he is now. He just seemed to be arguing against strawmen, possibly because he's not a philosopher by trade - retreading the ontological argument etc.

As for mysticism, generally it refers to a claim of direct knowledge or experience of the divine. Fairly influential in Christianity - John of the Cross or St Theresa for example. Anyway, it usually includes a kind of self-justification, an internal necessity of truth, and it is usually considered beyond communication (as in trying to explain 'yellow' to a blind man). If you want to be cynical, this is all very convenient, and the similarity between accounts of 'godhead' and experiences during siezures has not gone without notice.

xp

There are probably many excellent definitions of mysticism out there, but i can't be arsed to hunt them down. I would contend that mysticism is based on personal experience which the believer comprehends as numinous. It is directly experienced, not derived from any philosophy, and by nature uncommunicable.

Mystical traditions tend to center around accumulating empirical techniques that increase the chance that the seeker will reproduce the same or similar numinous experiences. They also specialize in gnomic sayings, since the experience cannot be explained or transmitted, but only hinted at.

The major religions all have mystical offshoots, which are only barely respectable, since the mystics often deride the mainstream as misguided, polluted and ineffectual.

You were refuting the argument you anticipated, rather than the arguments that were made.

Nonsense. I was responding to a specific point made by dowd.

I mean, the general thrust of this thread is that anyone who doesn't believe that gods exist is a "hardcore atheist", as stated in the poll wording. The consensus seems to be that Richard Dawkins is the representative of this entire group of people, labeled by you as "standard issue atheists". Or rather I guess you gave us a choice where atheists can either be "militant" or "unengaged and apathetic."

So apparently these people aren't supposed to point out real world examples of religion's wrongdoing, because that bothers people like dowd, as seen in the Dawkins anecdote. But then dowd goes on to say that "frankly, I find myself much more concerned by poverty levels, preventable disease, the need for democratization of our socio-economic system, climate change etc. than whether or not one guy gets pissed off by someone preaching in the streets". So an atheist can't voice his concern about the actions of the church as they relate to those issues, because it offends the faithful, who are too busy worrying about those same problems, and anyway, it's not my church, I'm a good christian, etc.

Sorry, I think I must have been expressing myself badly last night (which is highly likely, I was kind of drunk). My point about real world concerns was not that this was the domain of religion, but rather that the debate between theists and atheists is a distraction from real problems. And yes, religious groups are part of this problem, and have a lot to answer for in these areas, and should be held to account whenever possible. And there are plenty of strong or hard-line atheists who are a powerful force for good in the world, and have a positive and inspiring vision for a world without religion which is to be applauded. I just happen to think that they're wrong about God, which is no big deal really, is it?

I guess all I was feebly trying to express is that atheism/theism is an argument about a philosophical position, and shouldn't be used as the defining category for mankind, as many people (especially religious people, splitting the world into a war between the faithful and the unfaithful). Criticism of the actions of religions is a necessary part of any struggle for a better world (as is criticising the actions of governments, aid programs, commercial companies etc.) and I would never expect someone to hold their tongue for fear of causing offense. But historical and political examples of religious malpractice are clearly not arguments against the existence of gods.

So, to (try to) clarify - I'm not anti-atheist; I think it's unfortunate that Dawkins has (perhaps against his will) become the spokesman for atheism, mostly because I think he's not very good as it; and I'm sorry if I was confused about what I was trying to say.

Pretty much the least of my worries is 'offending the faithful' but my atheism is underpinned by being reasonably well-informed about other people's belief systems. My reply to offended parties, probably since I was about 11, has always been along the lines of 'I am quite sure your imaginary friend can take a bit of disinterested criticism, see also turning of the other cheek.'

I have more fights on whether I'm right or wrong with my mom, who believes in God but not in any form of organized religion (because denominations are all about making a fast buck), and most of the scientists I've known identify as agnostic - my best friend's dad (major scientist) was always saying that 'not knowing' was the only rational choice for anyone who worked proving things or not for a living.

Nunez was all downhill after the juggaloes comment, which was both perfect and wrong in the way that Jesus was both God and man.

xp that's a philosophical not a scientific opinion tho, and easily arguable.

My own thoughts on this are difficult to put into a message board post, but I do think that God vs. organized religion is the wrong argument, and "God exists" vs. "God does not exist" is also the wrong argument -- probably the more wrong one. Most of this thread seems to hang on the assumption that God is one thing, no matter how incorporeal or widely dispersed. Monotheism has messed with us hard for 6000 years. God didn't used to be like this.

God was awesome until he signed to major label

The Jews totally sold him out.

Most of this thread seems to hang on the assumption that God is one thing, no matter how incorporeal or widely dispersed

most of the world seems to hang on this assumption?

I KNOW

It frustrates me

I voted for "poetry of the ocean at night, man" and thanks for the mockery.

(from the thread starter, I mean)

God is what is beyond you, I believe by definition. Trying to form a concept of something that you can't possibly form a concept of is a useful exercise. Every religion knows this, and is built from that idea. Something you can almost wrap your head around, but simply cannot -- that's where there's God. I don't mean a "God of the gaps" argument -- it's not about intelligence or knowledge. Philosophers and theologians have been running against the same edges of the same kinds of brains for thousands of years, but they have all agreed that there is something that they can't quite get at. But that's just it -- God is a lesson, not a being. He's a lesson so big that he probably deserves a name all by himself, but let's be careful how we talk about him, because if you're not careful, before you know it there's a man in the sky that you can ask for favors. Monotheism brought God one un-useful step closer to being more like ourselves -- if God made us in his image, then we have a more concrete concept of what he is, and that's a jack that we can crank until we're nearly at his level. This defeats the purpose of his being there altogether, and misses the point. God has no ego, he has no identity, he's as inconceivable as the idea of Nothingness. Nothingness is not empty space; it's nothing. God is not a thing; it's God.

Dowd is the most consistently OTM person here.

Dowd's been making sense all along to me, and Aimless's piece on mysticism was very interesting to read (apart from his hating atheists :))

Kenan, I have no grasp of your concept of what God is or may be. That's not a criticism or anything though.

I have no grasp of your concept of what God is or may be

Exactly what I just said.

I mean that sentence, which you just said, is also what I just said.

omg we have a church hi 5

Let's burn a Koran to celebrate

xp God rotisserie

Am doubtful of yr notion that personification is a later development of our idea of god, and not the earliest idea of all.

You may be right. There's no way to know for certain, I don't think.

It seems to me that a pagan world view disperses the concept of evil more efficiently, though. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" "Because they pissed off the wrong deity."

It makes sense that the oldest One God is also a very cranky one.

Part of what is frustrating about the new fundamentalism in the US is their assumption that this is what Christians have always been like. It's probably impossible for us to understand how, say, 10th century Christians understood their faith (finally got around to reading Veyne's 'Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths', which was awesome, though mostly for it's questions rather than it's answers).

I believe in the book of Job, I think. The world is wonderful, and then it's awful, and it all seems meaningless much of the time, but if you ask God why, his answer is going to be, "You don't get to ask that question, little one." God seems like a bit of an egotist as he explains to Job that he made everything, and Job is very small by comparison, but that's not what the writer is getting at. Imagine Job as a stand-in for all the writer's questions, and God as a stand-in not for a supreme supernatural being but instead for everything the writer is awed and cowed by, and God's speech makes perfect sense. "You do not get to ask."

Thik you're confusing 'Book of Job' with 'ILX FAQ' there

Shh! I'm trying to be all deep and shit.

I love Job - and it's interesting in that it has pretty much always (from early Judaism through the Church fathers on up) been considered an allegory, and Job not a historical figure. It's only recently that biblical literalism got a hold of some groups that this changed.

xp yeah sorry, that was a good post. Think underrated aerosmith and others have stanned hard for 'Book of Job' before too.

iirc the acceptance of the creation story in Genesis as literal started with Martin Luther, and remains primarily a feature of protestantism?

boy that guy really liked to stir it up huh

tho not having entered a discussion on theology with a priest since i was maybe 11, i couldn't give you an irish catholic perspective for certain- but i think that if asked officially they have to declare as literalists as well so not sure about it being 'mainly protestant'

I've kind of lost track of what is happening in this thread any more (I now understand that the things I was objecting to in Phil N's posts are basically some wacky misreading of atheism that not even the atheists on this thread agree with.)

Dowd has been talking a lot of sense, especially:

the debate between theists and atheists is a distraction from real problems.

Yeah, this has been my experience again and again, that it tends to divide people (who might otherwise work together on solving those problems).

I think it's quite easy for Atheists to fall into the trap of saying "religion is the cause of 90% of the world's problems!" when actually it's something more like "humanity is the cause of 90% of the world's problems" and "90% of the world's humans are the cause of the world's religions." B and C may be true, but that doesn't mean that A follows.

(And this is probably the atheist equivalent of the "how can you be moral without god?" fallacy.)

xp Martin Luther presented the creation story as being literal because he didn't think the unwashed masses understood the concept of allegory. Or, even more cynically, he understood that "it's just a story" was no way to start a revolution.

I think most Atheists are less interested in making religion a big issue as they are in saying 'religion isn't really relevant, can we please not bring it up in this context' tbph. Which is what Dowd was saying too I think, and is probably compatible enough with the 'my spirituality is a personal phenomenon' people as well.

It's weird to me that people are seemingly still continuing to insist that current christians don't *ever* stand up and say "it's a bunch of stories and allegories and Myths" given that was basically my entire education in christian schools all down the line.

Like, is Episcopalianism that weird and unusual a sect?

xp

yeah there's also (re: luther) the idea that a lot of luther's (protestism in general's?) power and authority came from bringing the bible directly to the people without church intervention- which would have made it in his interest to authenticate as much as possible the information therein i suppose.

Precisely.

Yay Protestantism, imo

"You're all individuals!"

"Yes. We are all individuals!"

Darragh, I think that religion is pretty darn relevant in a thread about people's religious (or not) experiences and beliefs. Why is it that that atheists feel they have to vent about how it's brought up in inappropriate settings, in a place where it is highly appropriate?

(This is not just about this thread, it's about every religion thread I've ever been on, across every forum I've been on, on the internet.)

Again, this is where us reasonable theists start to feel really impinged on, and start to get negative views of atheists, who come across as wanting no discussion of religious topics, ever, anywhere.

But anyway, I have to actually do some work this morning.

Oh for the love of Christ.

eh i was broadly sketching what atheists outlook on religion was in the real world, not commenting on the discussion of religion in a thread about religion, if you see what i mean.

but if it's not clear after i don't know how many posts to this thread, i'm not against "discussion of religious topics, ever, anywhere"

and i think most atheists (as i do) still find it a fascinating topic, you can't seperate it from any aspect of human history. and even to hear those with faith/belief discuss it like in this thread is a fascinating read imo.

I think it's quite easy for Atheists to fall into the trap of saying "religion is the cause of 90% of the world's problems!" when actually it's something more like "humanity is the cause of 90% of the world's problems" and "90% of the world's humans are the cause of the world's religions." B and C may be true, but that doesn't mean that A follows.

Amen.

After several of my friends and I saw that Bill Maher movie, the discussion was not so much about theology as about what percentage stuffed with fluff Bill Maher was.

(Consensus: pretty high.)

he's fucking nuts, he doesn't believe in germ theory

That's overstating a little bit, but he has said things about vaccines that are way Hollywood, imo.

BM: I don't believe in vaccinaiton either. That's a... well, that's a... what? That's another theory that I think is flawed, that we go by the Louis Pasteur theory, even though Louis Pasteur renounced it on his own deathbed and said that Beauchamp(s) was right: it's not the invading germs, it's the terrain. It's not the mosquitoes, it's the swamp that they are breeding in.

...

BM: You're in denial, about I think is a key fact, which is it is the at... people get sick because of an aggregate toxicity, because their body has so much poison in it, from the air, the water...

i think he may have rescinded somewhat under pressure. still nuts though.

Again with someone saying "Something is terribly wrong with the world, and I have decided what it is."

But let's not go there again.

it's violent video games imo

and those harlots in music videos

i do understand if (reasonable) religious people feel a bit put out with the prickliness of a large segment of the atheist population. but you have to expect some degree of backlash. atheists have been (and still are imo) treated like pariahs by, like, practically everybody who's not one.

Depends what circles you move in, I guess.

true

Religious people generally don't have to suffer responses like 'oh, you ARE NOT' and similar when they define their beliefs, and if that makes me a bit spiky, fine.

Religious people generally don't have to suffer responses like 'oh, you ARE NOT' and similar when they define their beliefs

Not sure about that. Actual Christians seem a bit thin on the ground here for instance.

suzy mega-otm

That's never happened to me, as far as I can remember

As someone who is usually the lone "theist sort of person" in a friend group of liberal atheist skeptics I can actually definitively state that Suzy *not* OTM.

kate mega-otm

admittedly my bible belt environs prob shades the way i see this issue

We're an irreligious lot this side of the pond

Just as my "snarky London media types" environs probably shades mine.

It is a "lone X in a group of Y" problem, not related to being X or being Y.

but wouldn't you say that "snarky London media types" is a relatively recent development?

Not, really, no. I mean, you have to remember that my priest mum was the first non-atheist in her Britishes (atheist, freethinker Scottishes) family for about 200 years or so.

interesting!

It's my impression that "being an atheist" has been kind of common currency within the London intelligensia type for at least 50 years, probably at least a century - Britain has, by design, since a couple of bloody civil wars, been a lot less for making-an-issue of religion (or lack thereof) than the states, but my history isn't good enough to state this with any real conviction, but it's certainly the case in bohemia and academia and has been for some time.

but wouldn't you say that "snarky London media types" is a relatively recent development?

It's not just "snarky London media types" who are irreligious in the UK! I don't think I know anyone who is esp. religious - including my mother!

(i mean really. i hope that didn't read as sarcastic)

xpost

Yeah, it's funny - I mean, pretty recently I've had the experience of making a friend who is definitely arty-intellectual type but not Londoner or snarky media type - who actually said to me "OMG, I had actually forgotten there *were* people who weren't atheists" in a way that read - I couldn't tell if she was being snarky or not, but it was definitely like... ::step back::

Kate, I'm talking about conversations with Normal People, not media people. Am completely on the money WRT my own life experiences, which I am not really interested in having judged valid or otherwise - they happen, they are what they are.

Hahahahaha Tom, just because it's never happened to you doesn't mean you won't someday enjoy the spectacle of someone less educated than you who claims to be a Christian (or, worse, that America is a Christian nation) trying to 'explain' why you're misguided or Christian, really. Evangelicals of the Benny Hinn variety also use the term 'downcast' to describe people who are not into Jebus - I love it when not terribly bright people spend time feeling sorry for me for my godlessness, generally after they've sent $39.95 to Robert Schuller or someone.

Having a self-confessed believer like Tony Blair as Prime Minister was considered weird in the UK. No idea who the last openly religious PM we had before that? Possibly in the 19th century.

i do understand if (reasonable) religious people feel a bit put out with the prickliness of a large segment of the atheist population.

i dunno about it being a 'large segment of' really.

unless you'd contend that reasonable religious people by % is somehow higher than reasonable atheist people by %, which I don't know how you'd measure.

Cake or death?

admitting atheism where i am was essentially tantamount to saying "i eat babies" until prob the last 30 years or so. and still like o_O

i do understand if (reasonable) religious people feel a bit put out with the prickliness of a large segment of the atheist population lots of vocal atheists

I don't generally hand out the pricklies unless someone of faith says something really dumb or emotional-blackmaily to me about my lack of faith. My favourite response is generally 'according to your religion it's blasphemy to use God as an inducement like that. Am I worth BLASPHEMY?'

i've not been harassed recently for my atheism, but then again I don't actively advertise it either. I will say in my life I've been persecuted more by religious sects than I've ever done persecuting.

I think that much of Britain is so far the other way that pretty much admitting anything beyond "yeah, I go to Church on Christmas/Easter, for the kids, really, you understand, but I'm not *overtly* religious" is viewed on with - not so much suspicion, but some kind of "tall poppies" in reverse thing. We don't really want to be seen as too much, too emotional, extraordinary in any way, it's viewed with the same mistrust as showing off, really.

I find that it's much easier to tell white-ish lies and nod and smile than to actually engage casual acquaintances in religious conversation. I've rarely had anyone get pushy about the topic, if ever. Among friends, it's still kind of a non-issue. On the scale of intimate things that friends talk about, there are usually more interesting things than our ill-defined, non-standard religious beliefs. I have religious conversations with my very closest friends and ILX. And that's it. Apart from that, nobody asks and I don't tell.

Yes, considered all a bit "American" or "European/Catholic" (xp)

I suppose it can come up awkwardly in the office sometimes. "So, do you have any plans for Easter?" This is where I would tell a really vague lie. "I'm going to wear a suit, I think."

i don't think 'any plans for easter?' is necessarily a leading question on religion, but tthat's maybe because we get a long weekend, so 'any plans for easter' is just basically 'are you doing anything with these bonus three days hurrah'

It could be a trap, though.

Is "Eating chocolate" considered an acceptable response?

xpost yea "any plans for easter?" isn't quite the same as "so how do you plan on worshipping our Lord this weekend? That is unless you're a disgusting savage who won't be doing that..."

we get a long weekend

We do?

http://www.unscrewingtheinscrutable.com/images/atheisttrap.jpg

Easter isn't a federal holiday here. There's no long weekend and if you have a job where yr scheduled to work on Easter Sunday, for instance, yr employer doesn't have to ask for volunteers and/or pay extra. Have always found that confusing, considering...America.

Yeah, it's really hard for me (admittedly as a Britisher) to imagine anyone asking "what are you doing for Easter?" and it not being followed by the casual terms of "are you going anywhere nice?" as would be asked of any other bank holiday weekend.

(Lone exception being my mum, who will go into great detail about some amazing new surplice she's ordered from the South African Orphans Association Of Making Glittery Things For Priests For Charity and fussing about how much bread and wine to consecrate because her church will be filled with people who just come for Easter and don't actually come up and receive communion, and she doesn't want to have to end up drinking the remains of the wine herself because you can't throw it away once it's been blessed, but she doesn't drink, so half a chalice of wine will have her waltzing down the aisles and unable to remember the blessing and she's afraid she'll be all "Go in peace to love and serve the owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful sea green boat... wah-hey!" which would be the talk of the Episcopalian community for years to come, etc. etc. etc.)

Obviously the response would be tailored to the coworker. People I work with every day, tell them about dinner plans. The receptionist on a floor you don't work on, be vague.

However, because I feel the need to be vague about my religiosity does not fill me with the righteous desire to stand up for atheist's rights or anything. I just want to not be bothered.

LOOOOOOL Kate, I did not know that the priest had to drink the leftover wine due to consecration issues. Could she not use it in a pasta sauce later?

Good lord, no!

We're Episcopalian, we believe in Consubstantiation!

The fundamental "substance" of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of the bread and wine, which remain present. Thou shalt not make a pasta sauce of The Lord! Fie!

Did the Lord not say, "Keep tossing this pasta with my blood in remembrance of me, maybe with a little olive oil and parm"?

you kind of implied yr mum was a deist upthread? is that not true, or is she just buying into the ceremony without the beliefs?

I don't share anything with coworkers. If they ask me how the lunch I just ate tasted, I say "what lunch" and deny ever having eaten.

*I'm* a deist. I don't know what my mum actually believes with regards to the substance of the sacrament. I'm just quoting the stuff I was taught in Sunday School with the consubstantiation stuff, which was a way of keeping both high church ex catholics and raving Protestants from killing each other over theology during the infancy of the Anglican church.

We do?

― kenan, Friday, September 10, 2010 2:43 PM

sorry, 'we' do

Actually, I should really ask my mum to bring over my old high school religion textbooks, because we had a really good one on Anglican theology which I'd like to re-read, because this stuff obviously interests me. Or indeed, if she found any better ones at Yale.

Easter isn't a federal holiday here.

Which, it weirds me out that in spite of this, "Good Friday" is one of the days on which the US securities markets are closed.

Part of what is frustrating about the new fundamentalism in the US is their assumption that this is what Christians have always been like. It's probably impossible for us to understand how, say, 10th century Christians understood their faith (finally got around to reading Veyne's 'Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths', which was awesome, though mostly for it's questions rather than it's answers).

It's not surprising, then, that they also think that Islamic fundamentalism is what Islam was always about rather than an odd 20th Century offshoot.

Like I said earlier, I live in the Bible Belt, work mostly for low-income blacks and Latinos, and draw fundamentalists like flies. At least at work I can tell them that my agency forbids me to talk about religion (not true, but they don't know any different).

xp THAT is a very interesting point.

omg we have a church hi 5

I'm all for starting the ILTMI Church of St. Deeper. Should we start it in Illinois or Florida?

Let's just say it's a state of mind that we carry around with us. And tell no one about.

Darn, I was looking forward to seeing what the steeple looked like.

would look like, I should say.

These are some mighty temporal concerns for this particular thread.

don't know why, as proposer, the church wouldn't be based in connaught tbh

The US/UK divide is pretty weird. I've never met a "prickly atheist" in my entire life. It seems to me that the vast majority of atheists in the U.S. don't talk about it, or call themselves "agnostic" because they think that sounds better. Polling seems to support this. From wikipedia: "A 2008 Gallup poll showed that a smaller 6% of the US population believed that no god or universal spirit exists. The most recent ARIS report, released March 9, 2009,...1.6% explicitly describe themselves as atheist or agnostic, double the previous 2001 ARIS survey figure." So apparently less than a third of atheists in the U.S. even realize that they're atheists.

Sorry, I think I must have been expressing myself badly last night (which is highly likely, I was kind of drunk). My point about real world concerns was not that this was the domain of religion, but rather that the debate between theists and atheists is a distraction from real problems. And yes, religious groups are part of this problem, and have a lot to answer for in these areas, and should be held to account whenever possible.

I think I see the problem here. The "extreme, hardcore, obnoxious, whatever" atheists are not debating the existence of god. They're debating the value of religion. In my opinion, religion is the primary problem in the world, and dismissing that by simply saying "eh, I don't have time for that. I'm worried about real problems." is not a valid argument. And talking about the problems of religion is not an ad hominem argument against the existence of god because, again, we're not debating the existence of god.

The US is still very much a frontier country in spirit, even now, and frontiers tend to hold on to old habits longer. Also, we're an enormous country and new attitudes take a long time to filter out to the hinterlands (yes, even now).

The US doesn't have a monarchy or very good universal health care or other institutions that would support a secular society as well as other advanced countries, so I think we're stuck with religious institutions providing those things, and places with even less than that are stuck more, but I don't really see this as a problem provided they don't derive their authority and mandate from scripture.

I've never met a "prickly atheist" in my entire life.

In my opinion, religion is the primary problem in the world, and dismissing that by simply saying "eh, I don't have time for that. I'm worried about real problems." is not a valid argument.

yeah you're about as far up your own asshole as you can get

And you're not judgmental at ALL.

who said i wasn't?

saying "religion is the primary problem in the world" is just deluded lala-land bullshit, sorry.

The real problem of the world is... people.

I'll grant you it's a leap of faith to:
1) speculate that people would be less likely to be shitty to each other if they were not able to justify this shittiness as divinely inspired, and
2) that it's possible to remove this justification as a global behavior

but I think these are experiments worth trying.

http://oregonmag.com/Jihad_ElmoPuppet.jpg

Anyone who has dealt with children realizes that justifications can always be invented for any action, and the lack of "divine inspiration" as an invocation to fall back on would not be even a blip on the path to some other rationalization.

I dunno -- it seems like the parents who pull the "because I said so" and the kids who keep asking "why"

aimless, obviously there's a lot of truth to that, but i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do with it. when i see some of the disgusting acts that have been perpetrated in the name of religion i have a hard time sitting back and saying "oh well, would have happened anyway"

how would you guys characterize the jenny mcarthy vaccination thing? I'd characterize it as religious even though as far as I can tell there isn't any overt church doctrine involved.

it's religious in the same way pyramid schemes are

let's get rid of religion and start murdering each other for the sake of science instead. progress!

I'd characterize it as religious even though as far as I can tell there isn't any overt church doctrine involved.

That doesn't make a lick of sense. If you mean zealotry, say zealotry, but quit using words wrong.

ugh, I promised myself I wouldn't post on this thread other than my 12-word manifesto up top. Dang it!

would you accept superstitious? "jenny mcarthy hates vaccinations with a superstitious fervor" doesn't flow as well.

you can be a zealot about a logical cause, imo, but the anti-vaccination crowd jump through hoops to avoid logic

Accuracy is more important than flow imho.

I don't feel she's a zealot, though, cause it's really normal to be concerned about your kid.

hey no you know what's better? let's start killing people off in foreign lands for control of natural resources and financial self-interest! it sure beats that evil religion stuff!

'Religious fervour' isn't the same as 'religious'. The former is a clear metaphor ingrained in the English language. The latter, while its meaning can be debated, isn't a metaphor but rather an attribution of fact.

(Thus: words. You're using them wrong.)

what is McCarthy's religion, BTW?

scientologist right?

"being concerned about your kid" and "believing a non-scientific explanation to crazed extents to explain a condition your child has" are different things, imo

oh. um.. maybe I take it back that the church had nothing to do with the vaccination thing.

Is it ok to characterize it as religious now, now that scientology is involved in a murky way? I'm not sure what's different about it. Also complicating this is Scientology's quasi-status as religion.

How's Scientology involved? McCarthy isn't scientologist afaik. They have some weird stances on autism, but none on vaccination that I know of.

Zeal for a cause, blind adherence to something you hold as an article of faith, and the desire to eliminate all opponents who refuse to be converted to your way of thinking are, sadly, not confined to religious zeal, religious faith or religious conversion. They are universals in human nature.

mh i'm pretty sure she is or at least has "dabbled"

ok i guess actually the connection is that jim carrey is DEF into it