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Marriage of politics and religion is very common event throughout history.
Yes I agree. I tried very hard to make sure I was not merely blaming religions for those wars. Sometimes looking back it is hard to tell if religion drove the politics or politics the religion. In Canada the intertwining of politics and religion has shaped much of our culture and the constitution.
Dennis. Friggin. Prager. Makes Limbaugh look like a flaming liberal snowflake. Sure, we'll take his word for it.
"Atheism is already spiritually dead."
Since Atheism isn't spiritual I have no idea what G. Duvall is talking about.
Oh, I think it is very clear. And quoting Nietzsche, wasn't it? I wish they wouldn't, as I can never spell his name. As to Nietzsche, I argue that he raised a legitimate question in the face of the possibility of religion and God -belief vanishing - where would we get morality? This was even a serious question on the board when I arrived here in...as is spelled out with 22 bullet -marks on my brickwork...2006, and has been resolved: morality actually is, and always has been Human and religion has taken the credit for it. Religion is not needed for morality, but we do (it can be argued) need Something to replace it.
But leave that rabbit -hole for the time being and consider the intent behind the post. That. because it has no truck with religious Dogma, it means that atheism has no use for the morality that religion gave us. Thus all the accusations about atheist thought -nihilistic, amoral, suicidal, hopeless - seem an obvious conclusion.
But if morality, humanity, aspiration and all the Ode to Joy -stuff was never the creation or property of religion, but they grabbed it for their own purposes, then removing religion leaves all that, but without the control, indoctrination, irrationality and abuses that society has suffered from religion and is still doing.
Religion can of course remain (in suitable reservations with supplies from the Agent, paid for out of their taxes) for those who can't live without it or need it to save them from the gutter, drink or becoming a serial -killer (I don't mean like a Woke Dr Who) but it will have no more influence on society, Law, Politics, education or science than does astrology.
This is the vision, but I doubt that True Believers will like it better than their treasured view of atheism as a bunch of Bible -burning Orcs. The only people who burn Bibles are KJV - fundies.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-01-2020 at 05:51 PM..
Or the observation of a century of so called religious wars in Europe whether they were truly about religion or not. Were not many of the founding fathers diests? And some others Christians and wasn't there also the problems with different states having state religions that varied amonst states?
Are there books out there that explain the something more that those founding fathers believed?
I don't use those guys. Its to old. Real observations started after them and really didn't rolling till the 1960's.
Yes I agree. I tried very hard to make sure I was not merely blaming religions for those wars. Sometimes looking back it is hard to tell if religion drove the politics or politics the religion. In Canada the intertwining of politics and religion has shaped much of our culture and the constitution.
I'd say that was political, business interests, plain greed, e,t,c. was driving force behind the most of the wars.
Loved the Joke to start with but from then on it was plain that he had not thought it through correctly (I'm assuming that he is arguing his thinking as it was rather than the not unfamiliar retrospective justification of a religious Faith that was indoctrinated), and when coming up with an idea, had gone with that, rather than listening to alternative ideas (1).
Ok, at one time it might have seemed that one had either the intentions of evolution (survive, eat, reproduce) or one found Godfaith. We have moved on since then and perhaps he didn't hear the alternatives: humanity can provide more than evolution intended.
He can still listen and maybe revise his opinions, but I suspect that he will stick with those in the book, which have already got it so wrong that there is no point sitting through it all. Though of course, I'll be willing to discuss any particular argument from or relating to that book.
(1) what I think of as the 'Lee Strobel syndrome', though in that can it was a very good bet that it in no way reflected what a real enquiring atheist would do - ask only fundamentalist Christian views and ignore all other arguments.
no, you and I have totally different goals. Mine is only to describe what actually is happening. I have no other agenda. You have a reason to be here that is quite different than mine.
talking about religion being used as a motivator and religion as the cause are not the same thing.
Then don't "respond" to a post with something that is not related to that post. That's just common sense. Make your own separate post or even a new thread.
That's really all I need to read. I'm waiting for you to show some government that adopted atheism as an official state policy. Are you suggesting that Communist governments are automatically atheist? Some governments have seen churches as threats, but even as a literal definition, the secular government of the United States would qualify. Any non-theocratic government would.
I'm pretty sure I won't waste any time reading that book, based on the quotes you have posted.
I think we should let Mahayana live by his own rule. If, in another thread, a book or essay, or pamphlet, etc. is the basis of the thread, he shouldn't comment in the thread if he hasn't read the material in question. And in fact, nowhere here has he said that he actually read the book. Not saying he didn't , but he didn't say he did.
Not many more posts from me, until some posters who have read the book chime in.
As the author says:
Well, it is not really expected for you to 'chime' in with your own thoughts and ideas. You see things you don't like and you have to blame somebody, don't you?
I don't know one single atheist in real life or a single person who has pushed atheism in real life, and, yet I have known unhappiness, hatred, materialism...you name it and I have known it.
Marriage of politics and religion is very common event throughout history.
Hence the need for separation of church and state
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but from then on it was plain that he had not thought it through correctly (I'm assuming that he is arguing his thinking as it was rather than the not unfamiliar retrospective justification of a religious Faith that was indoctrinated), and when coming up with an idea, had gone with that, rather than listening to alternative ideas (1).
