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My own experience (meaning this is anecdotal and nothing I can back up with references) is that atheists are disproportionately liberal first, libertarian second. I know very few moderates or neo-conservatives (which is what most politicians Americans consider "conservative" are) who are atheists.
The common ground for liberals and libertarians is their desire to keep church separate from state. Again, my experience as a liberal whose dating history and social circles have a fair number of libertarians. Seems to me I really only part ways with them with respect to government involvement in regulating commerce and things like gun ownership. I've yet to meet a libertarian who didn't gnash his or her teeth when listening to some politician talk about God, or become incensed at religious people brandishing bibles outside of abortion clinics.
Liberal tends to value state, and devalue church. Conservative, is actually the opposite. If they could, churches (and corporations like Pepsi) would run policy not a centralized government. I'm generally conservative, though my position is odd because I'm into churches being a part of civil rights (especially LGBT), to which other people have told me "no such thing."
I don't know. It's all relative. I live in a very liberal college town and the UU church here is wrestling with how to differentiate itself and get its liberal ethos noticed in a town where, according to them, "even the Baptists are liberal". ...
Yeah, y'see this is why I regard the whole Humanist churches thing askance. When you get an effort of maximizing the missionary effort to get bums onto seats (and the Bums are best left to the Christians who have much better soup kitchens) I suspect that atheism has (as Gandalf said) left the path of wisdom.
Liberal tends to value state, and devalue church. Conservative, is actually the opposite. If they could, churches (and corporations like Pepsi) would run policy not a centralized government. I'm generally conservative, though my position is odd because I'm into churches being a part of civil rights (especially LGBT), to which other people have told me "no such thing."
You are simply making an exception to standard conservative dogma in those areas where it gores your own ox. When you are tired of being a second class citizen in the conservative world you will inevitably be driven in to the much more open arms of liberal, egalitarian thinkers, unless you're so attached to some aspect of conservative dogma that you can't let go of it.
This is not a criticism; everyone has to do whatever works to get them through their days.
I don't think the liberal / conservative scale is exclusively or even primarily concerned with state vs church or even state vs personal or family concerns. The suspicion afforded by conservatives to "big government" is not so much about an objection to state control per se, because conservatives are selectively interventionist in individual liberty when it suits them (forbidding abortion or even birth control, blue laws, restriction of gay rights, etc) but averse when it presents problems (the state collecting taxes from churches, or consistently and logically applying any given freedom to The Other as well as themselves, e.g., allowing Muslims to build mosques or gays to be married).
Current trends in US conservatism are even trending away from a knee-jerk aversion to things like state aid. We're starting to have conversations about a universal guaranteed income, even. It is just that conservatives use a different rationale to arrive at the same programs as liberals, just maybe a little watered down and/or late to the party at times.
It is hard to define conservatism in a way that doesn't end up being a leaky abstraction, to my mind, other than this: conservatism is at heart about change. It used to be about mindful, deliberate, cautious change as opposed to change for change's sake. It used to be about honoring heritage, tradition and the "tried and true" and letting new ideas mature enough to seem like they could be a new standard of "tried and true" before adopting them (gradually and carefully). These days, though, it has become about circling the wagons and never changing anything, about a mindless attachment to non-existent "good old days" when everything was supposedly wonderful.
Similarly liberalism is also about change, but about embracing it. At the dogmatic end of things, it's got an "anything goes", utopian flavor to it that ignores the lessons of history and this is probably what conservatives most loathe about it. More moderate and careful liberals do exist however, who are capable of understanding that even a completely open and egalitarian society can only absorb so much change at once, that there can be unintended consequences if change is not looked at holistically, and that change must be built upon the foundation of the tried and true.
What about the financial aspect of it?
Wouldn't you think that Christians would be the more liberal ("give a man a fish----give him both shirts) than conservatives (teach a man to fish...pull up by your own boot straps)
Christians are supposed to be less interested in material things and conservatives bashed for being greedy wealth accumulators.
How does this square with Christians being Conservatives?
Yeah, y'see this is why I regard the whole Humanist churches thing askance. When you get an effort of maximizing the missionary effort to get bums onto seats (and the Bums are best left to the Christians who have much better soup kitchens) I suspect that atheism has (as Gandalf said) left the path of wisdom.
If humanist or even atheist "churches" are organic developments that resonate enough for people to be attracted to them via social media and word-of-mouth, they apparently meet some kind of social need. I don't see that anyone needs to market them beyond announcing their existence; if you have to do that, it's probably not that compelling and will be a self-limiting phenomenon. If it develops a dogma-based litmus test for inclusion / exclusion from the group, or what you refer to as "missionary effort" (I assume you mean in the sense of proselytizing, not simple marketing), I am very much not in favor of it either. But if it is just a way for like minded people to hobnob in whatever way suits them, including soup kitchens, more power to them.
I guess what I'm saying is that if, e.g., atheism is about nothing more than disbelief in any deities as we say, and atheists can be literally into or not into anything else at all ... then why can't they choose to run a soup kitchen? I am sure many atheists volunteer at other people's soup kitchens anyway; if the local area truly needs another one, then go for it. Just because it's often or even usually theists who do such things doesn't mean that there are theist cooties all over the concept.
Even theist-sponsored programs in the US can be run with zero proselytization involved. A great example locally is the weekday daily piping-hot delicious meal served to street people and working poor by the local Episcopals. Now I seriously don't think that the society ladies at that church want a street person in the pew next to them on Sunday, but they might like to salve their class conscience by bestowing largesse on the down-and-out. And so it is. I happened to see this facility in action the other day. It is a class act, very respectful and zero recruitment going on. The announcements were about free community events, all secular, that people might be interested in going to. There were job postings on the bulletin board. There was even a guy playing jazz guitar to serenade them. It could have been any midrange restaurant. The only theist aspect was a brief prayer before the meal. I'm fine with something like that.
Another example in the US is Catholic Charities, which provides all kinds of valuable social services which according to people I've talked to over the years never brings up the topic of religion, unless someone explicitly wants "spiritual" guidance. This organization is often an integral part of the social safety net for people with mental health and substance abuse issues and can plug "holes" in the net left by government.
I see no reason to cede such activities to the theists as if it's distasteful for freethinkers to do such things. We're just used to theist organizations being a channel of such activities and sentiments, and in fact, you can argue that it contributes to the specious notion that if it were not for theists the world would devolve into chaos. I say, unbelievers can do such things and do them well and arguably better than theists. We are not uncompassionate or uncharitable people by nature. We DO have a tendency, though, to reject anything out of hand that makes us seem like the theism that many of us left, and that is unfortunate, because not everything about what we left is pointless / useless or can only be done by theists.
You reason well, as usual, and missionary activity doesn't need to be about dogma but more the same as getting people into the local dramatic society production (if the Local UT church put on '50 shades..' as a staged production, that'd empty the megachurches). And I get the De Botton idea of adopting the benefits of religion without the trappings.
It's just that I promised Glndrule that I wouldn't get into trying to remove all religious words from the dictionary and I do not want to have a sort of Star chamber rubber stamping social activities as 'secular: approved' /Too churchy: banned'. We have got too much fallout from Stalin already.
I fully agree that a secular society can provide all that religion can, including soup -kitchens (1)except faith -based delusions, and that we can leave to religion and they are very welcome. But my alarm bells are going off at the idea of a brick box (with lancet windows?? ) and a guy in a funny hat ascending a pulpit to lead the unfaithful in a non -prayer.
(1) though I think that your local atheist club (Knock three times and say the password) should have beer, Pizza and strippers (both sexes, ladies) since believers accuse us of wanting to lead a sinful life even if we don't...
(1) though I think that your local atheist club (Knock three times and say the password) should have beer, Pizza and strippers (both sexes, ladies) since believers accuse us of wanting to lead a sinful life even if we don't...
Your ideas of immoral debauchery are pretty mild, Arq
Your ideas of immoral debauchery are pretty mild, Arq
The strippers, if not maybe the beer, and definitely not the 'za, would be enough to get fundamentalist knickers in a twist. But you're right, it's pretty tame. I think we need wife swapping in the back room, plus a Satanic altar front and center on which ritual child sacrifice is performed to really meet the expectations of many stereotypers.
Atheism is an inherently free thinking and progressive philosophy. Conservatism, much like religion, stands implacably opposed to progress and favours big institutions. Why should it be a surprise that the vast majority of atheists also support free thinking and progressive politics?
Why should anti-theists not be insulting about conservatism? If you're an atheist, then you've probably insulted someone's faith. Why should your beliefs be immune from criticism?
If humanist or even atheist "churches" are organic developments that resonate enough for people to be attracted to them via social media and word-of-mouth, they apparently meet some kind of social need. I don't see that anyone needs to market them beyond announcing their existence; if you have to do that, it's probably not that compelling and will be a self-limiting phenomenon. If it develops a dogma-based litmus test for inclusion / exclusion from the group, or what you refer to as "missionary effort" (I assume you mean in the sense of proselytizing, not simple marketing), I am very much not in favor of it either. But if it is just a way for like minded people to hobnob in whatever way suits them, including soup kitchens, more power to them.
Interesting and valid points but something's missing; any speculation as to why so many citizens are in need of charity. Can I suggest before anyone objects to wandering off topic that such questions are central to a discussion such as this, not a diversion into economic theory.
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this is why I regard the whole Humanist churches thing askance. When you get an effort of maximizing the missionary effort to get bums onto seats (and the Bums are best left to the Christians who have much better soup kitchens) I suspect that atheism has (as Gandalf said) left the path of wisdom.
) and a guy in a funny hat ascending a pulpit to lead the unfaithful in a non -prayer.
