Usually, when someone starts a post, "Are you saying...," what follows is something altogether different from what the person said. You, on the other hand, have done just the opposite. You practically quoted what I said, and then asked me if I said it. Weird.
Is Atheism trendy?
- Thread starter Vault313
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Usually, when someone starts a post, "Are you saying...," what follows is something altogether different from what the person said. You, on the other hand, have done just the opposite. You practically quoted what I said, and then asked me if I said it. Weird.
Doppelgänger
New
Vault313
New
I can accept that to some extent. However, the real meat of my question was wether those in western cultures feel pressure to identify as atheist/agnostic. Especially if you belong to or identify with certain ideologies such as American liberalism or perhaps academia (not that I am saying atheism is exclusive to these groups, nor am I saying that all within these groups are, in fact, atheist). Perhaps this question is unanswerable without extensive research, and even then you'll likely have reporting errors.
It was just something that seems to be coming up more and more in pop culture.
Let me give a bit of background as to where this question came from. In perusing articles on The Huffington Post (a rather American left leaning publication) I saw a link to an article about Julianne Moore coming out as atheist, specifically, her citing her mother's sudden death from septicemia as the catalyst in her conversion from belief to non-belief in a god.
The barrage of comments after this were almost overwhelmingly pro-atheist, and the amount of ridicule I saw toward those who confessed a belief in a god was disconcerting. Now, I know this is anecdotal and cannot be extrapolated out to society as a whole, but it made me wonder if in an increasingly scientifically minded (I'd actually say worshipping here) society, what pressures are there for one to conform to this view, lest one be tagged as "true-believer" which, again, is generally a derogatory that can be interpreted as "moron".
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Vault313
New
Perhaps trendy isn't the right word, but the situation makes me think of how in the past, various religions at some point were the root of the, then, dominant world view.
Granted, a lot of this stemmed from more of a requirement that you practice said religion, lest you lose your life, but in a more "enlightened" society, instead of torture and death, we use social pressure and shaming tactics to bring about the desired social change. Probably the most powerful concept behaviorism gave us was the ease with which people can be manipulated into certain beliefs or behaviors, often without them even knowing it. Societal pressure to conformity has always been a part of human societies, but the dawn of behaviorism and the concept of the "biological robot" took it to a whole new level, especially with the advent of literally, in your face, 24/7 mass media.
So humans may just be doing what humans do. Engaging in the popular groupthink belief du jour, lest you be left out in the cold with the rest of the proletariat.
I can't speak for the rest of Western civilization, but here in the US, it is exactly the opposite. This is largely a Christian society, and in much of the country fundamentalist Christianity is rampant. Atheists are a small minority, and as polls have shown, are widely despised. The pressure here is to believe in God.
As I said, atheists have become more outspoken.
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Vault313
New
I live in the US, Texas to be precise, so I know all too well about that. I would say it depends on your location. There's a lot of Christianity here, but I don't see a whole lot of fundamentalism. I think fundamentalism in religion is overblown. Just as you said with atheism, it's a small but very vocal group, by no means a majority. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, and all that.
However, I think secularism is definitely growing, which is better than religiosity IMHO, but I am also of the mind of live and let live, as long as A) you have come to your beliefs of your own volition and B) you do no harm.
My concern is that especially in science, academia and the liberal left, there is immense pressure to disavow not just a deity, but any spirituality at all.
It's the same concerns I have had with religious fundamentalism. But I think fundamentalism is on the decline, while atheism is on the rise.
Either way you slice it, any group that demands the abondonment of freedom of individuality (ie. You are a biological robot or conversely, you are nothing without God, the church, etc) and the right to one's own belief system without ridicule is one to be weary of.
billw
New
I am not at all suggesting that they should considered synonymous--I'm looking to elucidate the difference. I asked a question--if you are an atheist but not a materialist, do you believe a) consciousness is primary to reality and b) there may be higher forms of consciousness than what we humans experience in normal waking states? I think it may be the definition of "God" that is the source of confusion.
Cheers,
Bill
Arouet
Member
Well, the way I see it, both atheism and theism are not belief systems. They describe a single position: that of the belief, or lack thereof, in at least one deity. Materialism is a philosophy. A set of beliefs about how the universe operates.
Where the confusion lies, I think, is that atheism is one of the beliefs included in the set of beliefs that make up materialism.
So all materialists will be atheists, but not all atheists will be materialists.
I think there are many varieties. And you are right that it somewhat depends on one's definition of deity for some of them. Not to mention one's definition of materialism. I've posted before that there are borderline cases. But also don't forget the people who have not thought about it any further than lacking a belief in god, or others who don't have any firm opinion on what "ism" they believe.
Dominic Bunnell
New
In general I think atheism is still cool. It's associated with other cool isms like anarchism, marxism, postmodernism, and existentialism, and it's seen as being very rebellious and anti-establishment. Even the one right-wing ism that's associated with atheism, namely libertarianism, is fairly cool.
However, the New Atheism is much less cool. This movement is dominated by Western white guys who are ignorant of philosophy, theology and other cultures. Not very cool.
However, the New Atheism is much less cool. This movement is dominated by Western white guys who are ignorant of philosophy, theology and other cultures. Not very cool.
S
Sciborg_S_Patel
Tallis is an immaterialist atheist. I'll try to find that essay that explained why he was an atheist. I think it had to do with the fact that there were so many contradictory ideas about God, with little reason to choose any of them.
Dominic Bunnell
New
Yeah, he thinks the concept of God is incoherent.
billw
New
Analytical philosophers, like William Lane Craig formulate descent arguments for higher intelligence in nature.
Cheers,
Bill
Vault313
New
interesting. I can see how one can be an atheist without being a materialist. However, is it possible to believe consciousness is primary and/or survives death but have no sense of spirituality?
Also, perhaps the tendency to believe in deities stems from the fact that most human civilizations form societies in which there is a hierarchy, since most people are used to having authority figures (it's bred into us from the time we are born) from parents, to teachers, to bosses, to politicians. It's only natural we would assume any afterlife would also have some sort of authority. Natural, but not necessarily logical.
S
Sciborg_S_Patel
I don't think Tallis believes in an afterlife though.
But what are deities? Or, for that matter a Deity? The former would just be spirits with some dominion over certain aspects of reality, the latter some kind of metaphysical lynchpin who at minimum brought reality into being.
Arouet
Member
Sure - but that goes beyond mere "theism".
Bertha Huse
New
What is "deity"? One of the biggest questions in theology. The basis for a good deal of religion, and what differentiates religions from one another. Is there one deity or many? Does deity sit outside reality, or is reality? Is deity the ultimate cause, or the ultimate destination? Is Deity perfect, all done and finished, or is Deity not perfect, still becoming? Is there a deity?
Are we asking the right questions? Can we ask the right questions?? Suppose we are fish in a pond and have the intellectual capacity of fish. Could we imagine what is beyond our pond? Would we be able to imagine other ponds? Could we imagine other planets? Other types of beings?? Perhaps our human intellect is much like fish, any attempts we make to imagine something outside the pond, will likely fall short of the actual reality.
What I find alarming in the Neo-Atheist movement is they make the claim theirs is not even a belief system! I have even come across some atheists who insist science has proven there is no God. And yet, heck, here in our human pond of ours, we don't even have an inkling what gravity actually is (we know what it does, but not what it is). We have no idea what a good percent of the universe is made up of given dark matter. We still don't know how an act of observation creates the collapse of a wave into elementary particles. And no-one, not even Stephen Hawkings - perhaps one of the bigger fish in the pond, has been able to explain how something comes from nothing, how the laws of physics, laws of reality, consciousness, the universe itself came into being - or even exists in the first place!
The red flag with the Neo-Atheist movement for me has been their willingness to censor and ridicule others who do not hold their beliefs. And then you have guy like Sam Harris, condemning publicly all Muslims, arguing the Muslim religion is among the worst religions of all. As if his Atheistic secularism leads to some kind of saintly activity in human history: can we say Pol Pot? Can we say Joseph Stalin? Can we say the last two world wars were not caused by religious believers?
The danger is non-tolerance and militancy. The danger is radicalism and the willingness to deceive, to break the rules, to ignore facts, just to promote your creed over someone elses.
My Best,
Bertha
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Sciborg_S_Patel
I definitely think it's probably we simply can't know if there is or isn't a God, at least if "knowing" is in the sense of how we know the boiling point of water. Even if a being could come back to life post execution, that could just be a mutant power or some such.
Of course, there is a different kind of knowing, though I'd also argue that inner gnosis needs secularism so people can walk their own paths toward this possibility of God.
The materialist, pseudoskeptical cults have to claim their certainty, otherwise they can't utilize shaming tactics and in-group selection. As the cognitive scientist Hoffman notes in Dismissing God, there's no way for science to say anything definitive about God one way or the other.
Actually I think WWII arguably had some religious influence? At least some religious notions were used by the German and Japanese forces to galvanize their people?
What's interesting about the varied pseudoskeptic cults is how little
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Bertha Huse
New
Yes but Jesus, Sam Harris's publicized rant against Muslims, adding more fuel to the ongoing fire of hate. I found despicable and misguided.
My Best,
Bertha
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Sciborg_S_Patel
True, that's part of the narcissism of the materialist cults. They are largely about their personal vendettas against religions, or they've been seduced by the same belief in easy answers to complex cultural issues that plagues their fundamentalist theistic counterparts on the other side of the mirror.
Bertha Huse
New
Actually a good deal of Darwinian ideology underpinned Hitler's philosophy. Ben Stein makes a good argument for this in his documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed:
The early eugenics practiced by the Nazis against the disabled and retarded is well documented. The belief that the world needed to rid itself of inferior humans etc, led to the extermination of Jews.
My Best,
Bertha