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Aswad -> RE: Why Atheism Scares People (5/28/2012 5:40:13 AM)
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ORIGINAL: vincentML
I think you missed the point of my criticism. I inserted it too slyly perhaps.
Wouldn't be the first time. [:D]
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In the end, God wrecked Job’s world simply because He could.
That's certainly a possible reading.
Job stands in cool spot, happy. Shit sees fan, asks permission to hit it. God grants permission. Shit hits fan, predictably disperses downwind. Job bemoans smell, remains in the cool spot. Eventually scowls at fan. God asks if Job has any idea what a fan is, what it does, and how to build or service one. Job pleads ignorance of the details of the fan, notes affection for the cool spot and utters one of the most ambiguous phrases in the Bible. God gives Job a good rinse. Both move on. Shit giggles, lauds the circus factor of fans. Job skedaddles from the cool spot in general direction of fan, eyes lit with curiosity and picks up a screwdriver. God hides wry smile.
That's another possible reading, one among many.
My previous point seems largely reaffirmed: we invented our own notions of good, and impose them on what we're able to, namely our own perceptions. To posit that God is constrained by our own notions of good seems to me patently absurd. It stands to reason that what we call good neither predated us, nor will it outlive us. We don't even have a universal idea of what good is. To conform to it would be a profoundly schizophrenic state. What we can, however, posit without contradiction in the theology, is that God originated good and thus is the source of good in a sense; this then under the assumption that God indeed was the Creator. Which would also make 'him' the source of evil, unless you want to posit a polarized duality. Which again seems absurd, as those are our ideas.
One of the various superimposed morals of this story (to the extent we choose to call it that; more apt might be mystery or catalyst) would, to me, appear to be that whatever ideas we have, they do not define the world, bur rather merely describe our perception of it. Job is at first unaware of the world, but learns this as the 'mystery of suffering' initiates him into a wakeful state, thus seeding him with a question, whose fruits are discovery, of course. That's a pretty conventional reading.
I get the distinct impression that most objections to religion deal with the Jobs of the world and their failure to heed the call to reflection that lies at the heart of many key stories in the religion they adhere to but don't follow, again much like Job started out. If churches would stop discouraging people from following the blatantly obvious breadcrumb trails, maybe enough people would start following their religions in a way that might eventually put an end to the legitimacy of some of the common complaints by realizing actual progress. Like taking priests raping altar boys seriously and actually dealing with that. After all, most of the trails end up in places a properly inclined person will end up visiting on their own, anyway. The rapist priests and WBC demonstrate that breadcrumbs aren't enough to get the point across to everyone. Ironically, they also demonstrate the power in some of the most basic and obvious concepts in there. Like social cohesion, which is useful if it's not abused. Trust an organization to turn their only merits into demerits.
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The criticism posited by theodicy is aimed at those who promulgate their belief in a Perfect God to whom we owe a debt of good works or acceptance of grace. This alleged debt wrapped in the form of morality and obedience with the threat of eternal damnation has immediate impact on our politics.
I can't see myself repaying such a debt. The best I can do is live in the "image" in which we are supposedly cast. That image is revealed through a look in the mirror, if we are indeed cast in an image, not in scripture. It merely provides commentary and catalytic stories in this regard. If God has something else in mind than for me to use my reason with scripture relegated to the position of inspiration, I'm afraid he'll have to tell me in a clearer way than collections of old scrolls in languages which went extinct, taken down from oral traditions with proven redactions to the content by people of questionable motives.
And as regards legislation, I have values that are not derived from the Bible, though my reading of it doesn't find them incompatible, either. I'm fairly certain most Christians have values from other sources, indeed that most derive the bulk of their values from other sources, such as cultural traditions and legacies within their communities (e.g. Somali circumcision of young girls). The hardliners, as far as I can tell, tend to place values contrary to the Bible in the front seat. For instance, it's not exactly trivial to support an idea that their input on welfare is of religious origin. I think we can agree on the example, at least.
Returning to my own values, some of them are probably contrary to yours, many are probably contrary to the mainstream culture of your origin, and most of them are contrary to the prevailing values in my own country and its present day culture. I fail to see how the fact that most of these conflicts derive from other sources than the Bible should make them more legitimate or valid than the conflicts that do derive from there (or are mirrored there). It is fairly uncontroversial that we form our values based on several sources, and even secular dogma is rife with conflicts. For instance, the ideals of Marxism, and the realities of Communism, are in conflict with those of Objectivism, and the three are all secular in nature. Indeed, it seems untenable for an adherent of one to happily coexist with an adherent of the other. Depending on reading, it may be outright impossible for them to even peacefully coexist.
If you're right about atheism, then the Bible is exclusively the work of man, and there can be no difference between it and e.g. Marx' work with regard to its nature: a work wherein a set of ideas are set forth that shape the views of some who are exposed to those ideas. I would think that the common complaint that Christianity (or one's personal idea of it) is passed along to children (along with the rest of one's value legacy, traditions and some skills) pales in comparison to the established fact that socialists in my country early on realized that their best bet for a "bloodless revolution" would be to get heavily into education to shape the children at an early age (indeed, our government has all but outlawed private schools, and are aiming to actually outlaw them, while the law currently does state all schools must imprint the official set of values and views on children).
The former is unavoidable with one's own children in a nuclear family, as that's how they cease to be blank slates and something they are hardwired to do. It does arguably have an element of intent, and many wish to impose their views on others and their children, though it's becoming increasingly common to realize the importance of free choice. The aforementioned socialists, however, make a strictly intentional choice to impart a doctrine before the faculties for critical reasoning are mature, founded on a firm understanding of the influence this will have on development, with the children of others as the primary target. It thus seems wholly inappropriate to single out religions on this point.
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It allows State Legislatures to tell women what they can or cannot do with their bodies or prohibits the marriages of LGBT people.
Abortion isn't actually condemned in the Bible. It's been pretty explicit about condemning things with broad brush strokes, vivid colors and animated discussions of when you should do what unto others. I would be inclined to assume something like abortion would bring out the bolder strokes if they intended it to be as religious hardliners today insist. The Skeptic's Annotated even points out a passage that deals with burning a pregnant woman. Those two facts in combination at the very least raise some reasonable doubt about the supposed immorality of abortion. Indeed, there is more latent condemnation in it from the arguments you made earlier, positing natural disasters that end lives not yet lived as proof against the conventional theological notion of God as good (which I'll reiterate I don't buy, in the sense that I don't think good as a human term is applicable). I believe you had some negative things to say about intentionally ending unlived lives, though it may have been for the sake of argument, rather than a consistency issue.
As a disclosure of bias for context, I support women's right to self-determination over their bodies.
This includes, but is not limited to, cutting the unborn off from the body it is dependent on. If done early, death follows from that. It could be argued that she has no claim to the foetus after rejecting it, and that a late abortion could be met with attempts by medical staff to treat it like any other premature baby, but that is immaterial to the question of abortion itself- the child has no inherent claim to the health and vitality of the parent(s) in my view. If people want to campaign against the right to abortions, they can start there, by offering to pay for the healthcare of late terminations and adopting those children. That would be in line with the practices of early Christians who took upon themselves the risk of crucifixion to adopt children that had been set out to die from exposure, and I frankly don't see it happening again any time soon. Money where the mouth is, then we can talk. That's my take on the religious antichoice crowd.
Regarding LGBT rights, I agree that many religions make the wrong choice. I've outlined my theological basis for supporting LGBT rights in other threads, and won't bore you further by repeating those arguments. The bottom line is we agree with the influence being unpalatable. I'm going to put forth, however, that I have seen as much- if not more- opposition to it here from people that have no religion driving their issues with LGBT rights. I would tend to think a lot of this stems from culture and latent homosexuality, the latter being a known factor in many of those who are aggressively opposed to it (projecting an internal conflict or uncertainty).
The most common branch of Christianity where I live has LGBT ministers. Similarly, the Christian Party supported same sex marriage, as well as the nomination of a married gay man to the position of Minister of Finance. Their key figures have been clear that it is both necessary and desireable to adapt to changing norms. This indicates a difference of attitude to the effect that a peaceful coexistence is based on mutual respect for the right to self-determination (they're not enthusiastic about it, they just don't think it's appropriate to impose their beliefs through politics). To borrow a phrase the right wingers here are fond of, religious or not: "[...] your right to swing your fist ends at my nose." It should sound familiar.
Again, I'm failing to see where your beef is with religion itself. Seems to me your beef is with some groups in your population that claim to be religious and may or may not be. Put quite simply: if they decided to chuck religion out the window tomorrow, do you think they would develop a different take on LGBT rights in a shorter span of time than it will take the rest of us to put those rights into law? Or even before the effects of legalizing it on the visibility of LGBTs causes them to become more accepting (or more insular)?
More importantly, I'm failing to see where religion constitutes an illegitimate origin of the unpalatable attitudes and opinions in question.
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To my mind the formulation (belief) in this ultimate Authority doesn’t meet the tests of observed reality. That Authority is flawed and so are the claims of those who speak in the name of that flawed Authority. The States who impose their religious morality in the form of Laws that constrain their citizens have replaced the Crown in a false feudal lineage.
I could say the same of certain laws that constrain me and stem from a flawed secular authority. I don't peg secularism as a Bad Thing™ just because some people I find distasteful for the laws they pass happen to be secular, and it strikes me as odd that you would peg religion as bad when some people you find distasteful for such reasons happen to be religious. That's the kind of problematic misplaced inference that legitimizes irrational and destructive attitudes. Being skeptical based on your experiences seems kosher enough, but I think you're taking it a bit further than that. If I've misunderstood, I apologize in advance.
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No different than the old Sunday blue laws which prohibited alcohol sales on the Sabbath.
We have a law that keeps stores closed on Sundays and one that restricts sale of alcohol on Saturdays. Both of these laws are fronted by the secular Labor Party, which is the socialist derivative of the communism movement. The former law is due to input from the labor movement, who want to avoid people having to work on the weekends, and in particular want to ensure there's at least one day off per week in more or less every profession. You can stay open if the store has less than a certain amount of floorspace, since politicians like to be able to refuel their cars on Sundays too. The other law is due to their ideas on how it influences alcohol consumption patterns and the overall net good of society as a result (the collectivism is strong with them, so this is unlikely to ever change).
Again, it seems wholly inappropriate to single out religion, and likely that the correct attribution would be a subculture that simply hasn't had a good name coined for it yet, hence defaulting to calling it by a visible feature. Like someone in a white neighbourhood pegging gang problems on the visible skin color when it's really the affiliation with problematic gangs that is the cause of the attribution that ends up leaking because it's incorrectly pegged. With regard to skin color, that leakage is called racism, and generally frowned upon because it's well understood to be a sloppy attribution and unproductive at best. At some point, we will have a catchy name for it with regard to religious discrimination as well.
To reiterate, if I'm misinterpreting you, I apologize for that.
I also hope you'll forgive the hasty editing.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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