Why atheists care about religion.

[cleanhippie]

I saw this posted this morning on FB and decided to bring it here for discussion. Each entry has detailed explanations, this is only an abbreviated version. The last entry seemed to be where the main discussion would be here on DU. Kindly read more at the link.

Atheists care about religion because religion is not some innocuous or mostly-benevolent force in society. Quite the contrary. Religion infringes upon the daily lives of all citizens, whether or not they believe. Churches are tax-exempt, yet they typically consume disproportionally more of public-funded resources. Time has clearly shown religion to be a significant factor in war, murder, suppression of scientific progress and humanitarian aid, and oppression of women, minorities and others with different beliefs.

- Religion is "in our face"

- Religious beliefs shape political decisions in spite of scientific consensus

- Atheists are actively discriminated against

- Religion imposes its own arbitrary moral values in the form of laws restricting peoples' freedom

- Atheists are forced to subsidize religion

- Religion curtails freedom of speech and freedom of expression

- Religion is actively and aggressively promoting war, conflict, oppression and prejudice

- Religion stifles progress in all areas of science and society

What about moderate/liberal theists/theism?

Contrary to what most may believe, moderate theists are the most destructive. This is because they provide the cover (as well as the breeding ground) for the fundamentalists. They are the major force that will not allow open and honest debate on theism to exist in the public mainstream media. There are many great documentaries on science and theology that will never air in the United States because theists, even moderate and liberal ones, would not tolerate such discussion. This is because theism really doesn't have much of a legitimate, rational leg to stand on. The very fact that theists would rather not have their beliefs critiqued further underlines the reality that their beliefs are most likely not rational and that theists are most likely unable to defend them in an open forum.


http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Why_atheists_care_about_religion

[no_hypocrisy]

1. And religious beliefs become legislation with discrimination, persecution, and prosecution against

nonbelievers.

If religious beliefs were limited to homes, churches, and religious social groups, I'd have no problem with them. It's when those beliefs are put into public policy (including laws that indirectly promote a religious belief through government and its franchises), and I have to follow the law or be punished, they've gone too far.

[cleanhippie]

2. I think you hit directly upon the shared sentiment of most non-believers.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Agreed.

[oilpro2]

3. Interesting and insightful perspective!

"moderate theists are the most destructive. This is because they provide the cover (as well as the breeding ground) for the fundamentalists."

I doubt moderate theists would agree, but interesting, for sure.

[cleanhippie]

6. I have no doubt that they strongly disagree...

But that in no way negates the reality if the situation.

[oilpro2]

11. Seems like we have had moderate theists as Presidents for a long time, who

continue to finish their speeches with "God bless America", a clear dog-whistle cue to any believer that it's okay to believe whatever you want, and they are not going to challenge it, indeed they all "bless" such beliefs.

Quite true, moderate Christians, by their very reasonableness, give legitimacy to any and all believers to believe whatever they want, and by that legitimacy, they give any and all extremists license to just go on promulgating whatever lunacy the extremists wish to promulgate under the guise of "religious freedom", and with the full blessings of an entire nation, a nation NOT founded upon any such religious beliefs.

[dmallind]

13. I'm not sure *I* agree

Yes clearly less fundy believers act as a shield for nuttery by immediately getting poutraged every time religion's special exemption from criticism or even questioning is raised, either gently or otherwise. But that makes them either complicit or unwitting enablers rather than destructive themselves. They are nothing more than the spouses who do not charge batterers or call the police on drunkards. Yes that enabling reduces the effectiveness of resistance, but I don't think it even exacerbates harm per se, let alone causes it.

[LeftishBrit]

4. I disagree with this - not because I'm religious which I'm not

But because I don't agree that 'moderate theists are the most destructive'. Nor do they necessarily refuse to allow 'open and honest debates on theism'. In the UK, there are plenty of debates on the topic. If there aren't in the USA - I think that this is not so much a matter of it being forbidden by 'moderate theists', as perhaps that Americans find it more important than British people that citizens should share values. I have seen the argument that America depends on 'a shared system of values' even from quite liberal people; in the UK, only decidedly right-wing people argue this (beyond the need for a respect for democracy and the rule of law). The UK suffers from rabid anti-immigrant bigotry and general xenophobia, but not so much IMO from bigotry about ideas - this may be based on the tradition of tolerating eccentricity, and finding 'crankiness' amusing rather than threatening.

In any case, even if religion is everything that the author says it is, there is no way of getting rid of it, without clamping down on free speech and democracy. In a way, the author's argument against 'moderate theists' reminds me of Prohibition and the drug wars and campaigns against sexual 'immorality': trying to stop people from being religious isn't going to work any more than trying to stop them from having sex or drinking alcohol.

What is more constructive IMO is to insist on equal rights for all: atheists must not be treated as outsiders to society, or as political dangers; nor must members of religious minorities; nor must any group or individual that happens to differ from the majority in some way.

[cbayer]

7. Well done and I agree.

I think the atheist/agnostic/non-believer movement is gaining some ground. I also think that the first step toward equal rights and recognition is *coming out*, and that seems to be happening much more.

[Starboard Tack]

8. +100. Right on.

[mr blur]

9. Have to disagree here,

I do think that moderates are a real problem. Because their very "reasonableness" makes it legitimate to believe in the supernatural, the irrational and the adsurd then the only difference between them and the extremists is a matter of degree. Once you accord respect to the belief that a god exists then where do you draw the line labelled "The extremists begin here"? Is it fine to be divorced from reality as long as you don't bomb abortion clinics?

You're right, of course, there's no way of getting rid of it - nor would we have the right to do so.

[trotsky]

10. All we can do is educate, and encourage critical thinking about all beliefs.

If we can do those two things, I think the rest will follow.

You are right though, the moderate believers provide the shield that fundamentalists need. The shield of "Religious beliefs are special and you mustn't criticize them or else you are attacking."

[LeftishBrit]

12. Problem is though...

that it is legitimate - that is, legally and morally legitimate, not necessarily factually correct - to believe what you want. Even things that don't seem well-founded on evidence. I know people who do not have religious beliefs, but who believe in a variety of superstitions, or who half-believe in soap opera worlds, or live in a world of role-playing games. Being 'divorced from (some aspects of) reality (some of the time)' is part of the normal state of existence. Many people would say that I live in an ivory-tower, am a woolly academic, am at the same time too interested in children's fiction, etc.

I think it is in most situations fine to believe what you want so long as you don't demand that others must share your beliefs - that is the point where I draw the line.

No, I don't consider all beliefs equally valid, any more than I consider all food equally healthy, or all music equally good; but one cannot regulate others' beliefs, or eating habits, or musical tastes.

[dmallind]

14. I'm in between here.

I don't think the idea, let alone the need, is to regulate others' beliefs. However in the US there is both implicit and explicit protection from even publicly saying religious beliefs are open to question, or god forbid, wrong. To ask questions about why religions are the way they are; to seek evidence or inductive support even; to point out absurdities and inherent contradictions. These are seen as wrong, as rude, as bigoted. You see this here on the site. How much worse it is among a less progressive and less educated population. None but the most extreme atheists would even seek to regulate religion, but we all I suspect want it to be less axiomatic and more open to debate in public.

Religious beliefs can indeed be legitimate. But pointing out the failings and loopholes in those beliefs is just as legitimate. But here they are not treated even in the same species of legitimacy. A Stephen Fry or Ricky Gervais would not be a media icon here to a mass audience - demands for their firings would be non-stop and irresistible for a broadcast media company who employed people who answered "of course not" to the question "is there a god?". They wouldn't even get away with allowing the question to be asked on such a show.

All your other examples allow individual taste - but that taste can be questioned, shown to be erroneous, and even ridiculed. In US mass media we are barely allowed to do the first, let alone the other two.

[LTX]

18. I think you are overstating your case.

Questioning of religious beliefs is a professional periodical and book-publishing pastime for a great many science writers, and there is no effort to censor those writings. Recent atheist rallies may be scorned by the religious (just as religious rallies are scorned by atheists), but they are nonetheless being held and are reasonably well attended. Blogs and forums discussing atheism abound, and this thread alone is a minor testament to the ability of atheists on this site to assert their views without censorship (or even criticism - thus far).

It seems at times that atheists are adopting the rather unseemly persecution stance that the overtly religious have so effectively employed, perhaps because the status of victim is itself (oddly) so revered in our society.

[dmallind]

21. So my repeated refernces to mass media were skimmed over or.........?

And we have a BIT more reason to claim pariah status than the religious.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/edgell/home/Strib%20Atheist%20Faith%20and%20Values.html

[LTX]

27. You are, of course, free to feel persecuted.

I would not try to deny you that pleasure.

[eqfan592]

34. Pretty easy to feel that way when it's a fact.

And speaking for myself, I feel absolutely no pleasure in knowing so many of my countrymen and women would almost rather have a rapist around than an atheist like me.

[mr blur]

16. Of course. "Legitimate" was a poor choice of words.

It is, as you say, "legally and morally legitimate...to believe what you want."

[LTX]

15. Is any consideration of the questions surrounding the immaterial or incorporeal

considered irrational in your view?

[dmallind]

17. You didn't ask me, and there is no standard "atheist answer" but I'd say

It's perfectly fine, quite fun too, to consider the supernatural or even divine. It's perfectly fine even to hope that such things exist.

Where it becomes irrrational - to me - is in thinking you can say ANYTHING about the nature or desires or commandments of such a putative entity for which there is, by definition, no test, no evidence, no contingency with the real world.

And as for imposing your guesses as to its desires or commandments on the rest of us - that's beyond irrational and into the disorder level IMO.

[eqfan592]

19. I think you and I are pretty much on exactly the same page here.

What you just wrote here is exactly how I feel as well.

[LTX]

20. Except I didn't ask about the supernatural or divine. I asked about the immaterial or incorporeal.

It seems to me that those are the very things that give rise to supernatural and divine "explanations" (for lack of a better word), precisely because science has been unable to address them satisfactorily.

[dmallind]

23. Define something that is immaterial or incorporeal, relevant to religion

and NOT supernatural or divine.

[LTX]

25. Can you point me to the mathematics particle?

Or the alphabet particle? Or the Ishmael particle? These are each "real" in the sense that they are useful constructs, but the have no materiality. And these are each of a piece with the immateriality of conscious (or self) awareness. It seems to me that the profound question of what our conscious self is in the first instance gives rise to, or is foundational to, religious beliefs. Those questions are asked by most people at varying times in their lives, and are very relevant to religion. Religion, it seems to me, persists partly because science has not been a source of satisfactory answers to these foundational questions.

[oilpro2]

24. "because science has been unable to address them satisfactorily"...

NOR HAS RELIGIOUS belief..!!!

BUT, (according to your logic), therefore, RELIGION and belief in the supernatural should take over and make the laws, decide who gets preference, rule the people, tell folks what they should and should NOT do?

[LTX]

26. Except that religious belief indisputably persists. And rather widely at that.

It has some capacity to fill the void left by scientific inquiry (as does philosophy), or, it seems to me, it would not be as widely persistent as it is. And I don't think a suggestion of mass stupidity or delusion is a real answer.

As for the remainder of your post, I said no such thing.

[oilpro2]

28. So what does your logic say? "it has SOME capacity"?

To fill what void? Philosophy and science requires that truths be proven, (religion: not so much, not at all, really) or they are left up to the individual, not the state to proclaim.

If you don't think a suggestion of ignorance "mass stupidity" can apply to the questions we cannot answer, why are you insisting that religion, rather than the unanswered questions of both science AND religion deserve different than equal status in a governing body that favors religion over science in any settling of the dipute, in any preference one over the other?

If BOTH science and religion have a "void to fill", why is religion offered a preference over science's admitted void of answers? Let me hear your argument for one over the other, then tell me which gets preference today in the USA.

[LTX]

29. I've made no argument about governmental preference (or whatever else it is you seem fixated on).

I am interested here in the assertion in the O/P that "moderate" theists are the "most dangerous" because they are enablers of religion. I find that view untenable. It seems to me that moderate theists are the ones exploring the intersection of science and religion, and have a rather realistic view of the limits of both science and religion. It may well turn out that scientific inquiry will eventually answer questions relating to both the self and the source of the human drive to either explain, or at least impose, a reason for being. But thus far, science has approached those issues as merely an agglomeration of evolving synaptic detonations. Most people find that unsatisfactory. Hence religion (and philosophy), in my view.

[oilpro2]

33. So when Obama, or Bush, or Clinton, or Bush, or Reagan or Carter said...

"God bless America", you are asserting that NO PREFERENCE existed?

I never heard any of those guys say, "science and logic gives advantage and long life to America"... did you?

If you want to put your head in the sand and ignore the last few decades of American history, or the struggle that moderates enable by not standing in the way of the Birchers, the Birthers, the Creationists, the Intelligent Design folks, the anti-abortion folks, the Catholic no contraceptives to women folks, the anti-gay folks, ALL OF THAT BASED UPON UNPROVABLE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, fine... but don't piss on my jeans and tell me it's raining when your arrogantly proclaim...(as you just did)

""moderate" theists are the "most dangerous" because they are enablers of religion. I find that view untenable. It seems to me that moderate theists are the ones exploring the intersection of science and religion, and have a rather realistic view of the limits of both science and religion."

By proclaiming that this is the reality you live in, I guess you never turned on a television with cable access in the last 20 years, never bothered to hear a speech on the House or Senate floor, never read an article in the New York Times religion section, just closed your eyes and put your fingers in your ears for the last 30 years or so, because reality is: those "moderate" people keep giving millions and millions a year, and keep enabling the kind of free speech that shuts down the rights of women, gays, people of color, people who decide Christianity is no better than any other religion, those "moderate" people enable and bless all that, and don't mind their President saying "Gog Bless America!"

[LTX]

35. Let me repeat. I've made no argument at all about governmental preference.

Where in any of my posts do I talk about what any politician has to say about religion? You've got a fixation on the issue, so you take what manifestly does not exist anywhere in any of my posts and declare out of thin air that I am "asserting" that politicians like Obama, Bush, Reagan and Carter (why stop there, by the way?) are expressing no preference for religion over science when they say "God bless America."

Since you indulging in pure fabrication, the least you could do is make it imaginative. You could as easily say that I am "asserting" that a manual for the propagation of catastrophism written by a secret governmental cabal of supernaturalists under the sway of Velikovsky requires all President's to get a tattoo of Saturn on their big toe.

For the sake of closure, I will concede that all moderate theists are exactly identical, are evil to their very core, are busy gathering money as we speak solely for the purpose of hunting you down and cutting out your larynx, and that I am actually a recluse who has never turned on a TV and am therefore the very embodiment of ignorance. I believe this is what you are seeking, and I do hope this provides you satisfaction.

[trotsky]

31. Yeah, people want to believe an answer that makes them feel good.

Go figure.

[oilpro2]

22. That's a very cool answer. When someone's imagined deity goes over into

requiring other people to live by it, or making some government laws based upon it, telling fellow humans how they ought to live their life when they're not harming another actual flesh-and-blood human being's life once born, well, then it's no longer "guesses or desires or commandments", it's a tyranny by theocracy.

[rug]

30. That last point is unmitigated drivel.

"There are many great documentaries on science and theology that will never air in the United States because theists, even moderate and liberal ones, would not tolerate such discussion."

To claim persecution with evidence is one thing. To claim persecution without evidence is pathetic.

[robertch]

32. Scientology Documentary Banned

10. http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2007/10/the-blasphemy-c.html" target="_blank">The Profit

A film about a con man who starts a religion in order to become rich. It is banned in the US because of a lawsuit taken out against it by The Church of Scientology - despite the filmmaker’s claims it is not based on the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard. Scientologists said the film was made to influence the jury in the case of Lisa McPherson who died while in the care of the Church of Scientology in Florida.

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