Famous atheists

[Saturos]

This is incredible. The thread was so blatantly stupid and it's gone...nice...ish...places.

I like science, and I also like art, and a lot of other things, but I do not like religion, except as something to study, and be interested in, but not to follow, or heed.

I believe some of that can be attributed to my efforts. It seems I've had the forum "midas touch" lately. Seriously, I'm on a roll!

 

[Ennui]

If everything you touch turns to gold you tend to die relatively quickly though, so maybe that's not a good thing D:

I believe your dragon shirt is responsible.

 

[Eejit]

Why on earth not? Symmetry, assymetry, abstraction, contrast - all scientific concepts. The fact is, art is symbolism that affects our psychology. The scientific method can be applied to art because art is based on these fundamentals.

I already said why I think that.

One of the main parts of scientific method is making things repeatable for anyone who follows the stated method.
I believe that art is the opposite.

What I'm saying is that even if daVinci wrote notes on how to, say, paint the Mona Lisa as he went along nobody would be able to reproduce it exactly. With scientific method reproduceability is paramount.

I never said athiests were more intelligent. I said they were more moral. And Ravoili's video proves my point.

I responded to that already. (I realise now I mistook Tolstoy for Trotsky somehow, ignore that please )

Yes Freidrich Nietzsche was so very moral.
Also, Walt Disney, Marquis de Sade, Tolstoy, Marx, Napoleon

I could also add Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc. if you like.

Quote wars, brought to you by Eejit.

 

[Jintor]

It would be more correct to say that Hitler and Stalin (dunno about the rest) were not immoral because they were atheist, but rather, they were immoral people who happened to be atheist.

/EDIT And of course, this leads nowhere. Religion/non-religion doesn't immediately identify you as moral or immoral, because in every single case it is up to the mother-****ing individual to decide if they want to pat the dog or, possibly, rape it.

 

[Saturos]

It would be more correct to say that Hitler and Stalin (dunno about the rest) were not immoral because they were atheist, but rather, they were immoral people who happened to be atheist.

/EDIT And of course, this leads nowhere. Religion/non-religion doesn't immediately identify you as moral or immoral, because in every single case it is up to the mother-****ing individual to decide if they want to pat the dog or, possibly, rape it.

I'll have to agree with Jintor here. If some religious fanatic is guilty of murder, best to point the finger at themselves than claiming it to be the work of God, or some religious ceremony. Way to discredit Christians homicidal maniac. :hmph:

Likewise, atheist scientists who are criticized for being immoral don't get the appreciation they deserve for their accomplishments sometimes imo, especially those who study stem cell research to find cures for dieseases. I don't see what the big deal most other christians have with this tbh.

If everything you touch turns to gold you tend to die relatively quickly though, so maybe that's not a good thing D:

I believe your dragon shirt is responsible.

At least the forums would be blinging out with gold, like they do now thanks to me.

...and yes, my dragon shirt eats forums like these for breakfast.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I'll have to agree with Jintor here. If some religious fanatic is guilty of murder, best to point the finger at themselves than claiming it to be the work of God, or some religious ceremony. Way to discredit Christians homicidal maniac.

No. If a religious person kills for religious reasons, or they use religion as a justification and a pretext for their crimes, you must blame the ideas as well as the man. The same goes for if atheism is a motivating factor or a justification.

The latter, of course, happens a lot less, because atheism is not a big structure like a religion is and, on its own, is hard to justify anything with.

 

[Saturos]

No. If a religious person kills for religious reasons, or they use religion as a justification and a pretext for their crimes, you must blame the ideas as well as the man. The same goes for if atheism is a motivating factor or a justification.

The latter, of course, happens a lot less, because atheism is not a big structure like a religion is and, on its own, is hard to justify anything with.

But that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the believers or atheists. :hmph: Maniacs twist ideas to suit their own agendas, much like the extremist muslims do. (here we go again!...) Real muslims aren't hostile. The terrorists twisted the Islamic doctrine to suit their own agenda.

 

[Jintor]

Agreed with Sulkdodds; Saturos missed my point. Should've clarified more.

/EDIT Saturos, to illustrate: say my religion has as part of its core texts that all unbelievers should be killed. If somebody who is a believer in that religion goes out and follows that command, then is not the command at the very least partially at fault?

 

[Saturos]

Agreed with Sulkdodds; Saturos missed my point. Should've clarified more.

/EDIT Saturos, to illustrate: say my religion has as part of its core texts that all unbelievers should be killed. If somebody who is a believer in that religion goes out and follows that command, then is not the command at the very least partially at fault?

That is true Jintor, but not all religious doctrines are like, "your going to hell infidel! Die!" . That said, I don't agree with ousting people from existence just because their beliefs are slighty different than mine. I don't like it though when others attack me and piss on my lawn for what I believe. (not you guys, but in general) So, if I were judgemental to others, that would make me a hypocrite, which I am not.

 

[Druckles]

/EDIT Saturos, to illustrate: say my religion has as part of its core texts that all unbelievers should be killed. If somebody who is a believer in that religion goes out and follows that command, then is not the command at the very least partially at fault?

Yes, but if the text says "All unbelievers should be cleansed." then the situation is a lot more complex. You could blame the script for the words and being translatable into a hostile sense, but then why, when you can also translate it into a perfectly reasonable "splashing with water"? In such a case you should blame the person for misinterpreting the text.

And when something like the Islamic scriptures say "Do not kill." before it talks about unbelievers, there is absolutely no reason to blame the command.

Edit: Hmm... rather intriguing how this thread has a less anti-religious sense to it than normal.

 

[Absinthe]

An idea can be held accountable for one's actions just as much as a person. And why would this not be the case?

Is racism just an idea that can be justified either way? Is the belief - the instructed belief, mind you - that Jews are subhuman untouchable? If belief is the progenitor of action, and if it instills or promotes ideas and behaviors that we would find morally unacceptable, then I don't see the reason for this apologetic distinction. If a man commits a crime because of his religious beliefs and can cite the explicit passage from which his inspiration was born, I would think it prudent to take a critical look at his faith instead of just sweeping it to safety with platitudes. While the ultimate responsibility does fall on the individual in question, it would be negligent to dismiss the major (and sometimes profound) role God played.

This doesn't just apply to anything of course. If a school gunman shot up his classroom because his favorite color is blue, he'd be insane. Trying to hold the color blue accountable for a shooting spree would obviously be a massive waste of everybody's time. It cannot be held accountable as there is no way it could have possibly communicated anything to lead to such a tragedy. Likewise, trying to pin Stalin's domestic frag count on atheism is equally as pointless. Until atheism starts handing out directives and moral claims, telling people that killing millions is cool and trendy, good luck trying to explain how a mere absence of belief - in a space entity nonetheless - leads directly to murder. The oft-recycled argument that he lacked the moral framework that comes with religion is not only dubious, but misses the point. Supposing that were the case, his dictatorial impulses still had to originate from himself.

But when an idea tells you that certain people don't deserve to live, that they don't deserve freedom and respect, or that they're evil because of petty harmless differences in their sexual orientation or religious persuasion, then that shield from criticism vanishes. It doesn't "depend on what you do with it". It's unequivocally garbage that has no place in a modern, civilized society. We would condemn the Nazi ideology the same way, even if it was exerting no physical manifestation at the moment. We wouldn't have to wait for Auschwitz to fire up again before we can say "Gee, these guys are really abusing this whole anti-semitism idea". While the parallel to religious beliefs can be somewhat fuzzied because of varied translations and interpretations of faiths, it does not exonerate religion in its entirety and the point is no less salient. The difference between "kill" and "cleanse" in regards to unbelievers may be significant, but it's a stupid ****ing statement regardless of which word you use.

And god belief is not to be underestimated. It's disconcertingly common for people to brush off extremists and fundamentalists as being crazy, psychologically/emotionally malformed, or opportunistic. Violence in the name of one's God is attributed to religious hijacking instead of religion itself, as if these people always wanted to unleash evil across the world, but were just looking for a convenient excuse. While this can be true, and it's no secret that many extremists prey on and recruit the disheveled and angry, I think most people simply don't understand how powerful God can be in somebody's life. People across the globe are told from the beginning of their lives that there is an all-powerful, omnipresent being that governs their existence. This deity, or even father as some may call it, takes a particular interest in human affairs and wants things done about in a certain way. Not only that, but your failure to appease it results in torment. You also have to keep in mind that its laws are above mankind's, and that his orders overrule our legal systems and moral standards.

Throw in a little ambiguous reading that can provide more than enough celestial justification for violence and intolerance, and it should come as absolutely no surprise that some people actually buy into this shit. Not just loonies, but otherwise normal people.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Absinthe worded it rather better than I would have.

I will not subscribe to this bullshit automatic response that people doing bad things in the name of certain ideologies are always just one-bad-apples; it's a 'no true scotsman' fallacy in the most dangerous sense.

A critical look at any ideological structure, including a religion, will help to understand what is good and bad, just and unjust, about it - or, less ethically, more neutrally, what its effects in the real world will be; since all ideas are actions, and actions all ideas, one must not flinch from such enquiry. Thus I throw out the true scotsman. I refuse to insult anybody by not holding their beliefs to the same level of scrutiny and examination I try to subject all beliefs and ideas to.

EDIT: Some pansy-assed motherfucker is going to reply to this and go "waaaa, religion's personal, you can't blanket-criticse people." Fuck that shit! They must share in some aspects of the mother-faith. If it's so fucking personal to people then they can't possibly be religious - unless they subscribe to the religion, which is a manifold superstructure composed of many different versions and creeds, all of which are in the public realm and subject to public fucking scrutiny, for good or ill. I'm talking about criticism, not condemnation, not persecution, not sledgehammer application of some pseudoscientific code or using 'religious' as a label to brand people. Criticism, which in the looser sense of the word means enquiry, examination, consideration. Religions are conventional. They are made of convention. They are ideas. They can be blamed. They can be criticised. They can be taken apart. They can be good or bad or interesting or boring or useful or useless but just as you can't pretend they are be alls and ends alls for action and use them as a label to brand people with then neither can you elevate them to a realm where you can't talk about them because that's a total fucking cop-out so if you're thinking about replying here with a variant of "you can't say nothing general about religions because for some reason they are unaccountable to humans" then it had better be bloody good or else you might want to save yourself the time and ETHERISE IT IN YOUR FUCKING BONGHOLE. Fuck!

 

[Eejit]

It would be more correct to say that Hitler and Stalin (dunno about the rest) were not immoral because they were atheist, but rather, they were immoral people who happened to be atheist.

I wasn't saying they were more immoral. I was merely contradicting Piggy's statement that they were more moral by providing a few famous examples of immoral atheists.

You can get moral and immoral individuals from either group very easily.

 

[Druckles]

But might you say that someone is more immoral for blaming their immorality on someone/thing, such as the bible, else?

 

[99.vikram]

But might you say that someone is more immoral for blaming their immorality on someone/thing, such as the bible, else?

Using religion as a crutch isn't actually immoral though.

But from the anecdotal evidence I have, any person will become an atheist if he scrutinizes his own faith for long enough.

 

[Ennui]

I love it when Absinthe rolls in and says exactly what I wanted to say except with fifty-seven times more eloquence and clarity.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Except...drugs aren't an ideological structure. Is it really comparable?

Besides, when people argue that drugs don't harm people, they usually do that based on the actual effects of the drug. They don't tend to claim that the drug's effects are disassociated from the person's actions. It's "heroin doesn't make you crazy" not "heroin makes you crazy but it is your own fault."

 

[Sulkdodds]

When you're basing both on the fact that they influence one mentally and therefore their physical actions, then it would only make sense to say they are comparable. Same with a lot of things, like video games for example, a parent could blame a video game for influencing a child to kill someone. Can't completely absolve it, sure, but can you really completely blame it when in reality it's primarily the idiot's perception?

Of course you can't completely determine volition either way - volition, after all, is a very unstable concept. It's really pretty useless to try and work out whether any of us have a choice in anything, and we just have to go with a kind of best-guess model. As you say, you can't be too totalising in either direction.

But you are drawing a very crude comparison. Yes, drugs and religions have an effect on people's mentality. But one's an acute chemical-temporary effect by an inanimate substance, and the other is a moral code. When was the last time you heard of someone taking a drug that was created and made by humans with the intent of ordering the world and making it a better place - a drug that itself constituted an entire worldview, conceptual framework and set of moral guidelines that explicitly ordered its followers to take certain actions and responses?

The comparison is valid at a very vague level, but beyond that, it becomes absurd.

I don't really want to get into the issue of how far people on drugs can be blamed for their actions as it's a foggy issue and not the debate. Legally, they are held responsible for taking the drugs in the first place which they knew would have an effect.

 

[Pesmerga]

So... how 'bout those atheists...

 

[Absinthe]

What doesn't make any sense to me is how there is some sort of double standard when it comes to religion and drugs.
When one blames religion when it "influences" one to do "unethical actions" it is valid to blame the religion.
But when one blames a substance for "influencing" one to do "unethical actions" it is invalid to blame the substance?

Point is you can?t completely absolve one or the other in a situation, but at the same time you can?t completely blame one or the other.

Is weed telepathically compelling you to smoke it? If not, your comparison is invalid.

 

[MJ12]

Is weed telepathically compelling you to smoke it? If not, your comparison is invalid.

Well god isn't either if there's not valid proof he exists.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I think his point was that weed can't speak or write, so the only way it could tell you to do stuff would be bizarro telepathy.

 

[Absinthe]

Well god isn't either if there's not valid proof he exists.

Here's the problem.

Some people do believe God is communicating to them. Or if not them, then somebody else. Case in point: the Pope. You don't actually have to personally hear God. You have to keep faith regardless.

But it would be rude to consider that insane, wouldn't it?

 

[Ennui]

Wait, weed doesn't tell you guys to do things? I thought it told everyone... but maybe I'm special.

It tells me to feed... to feast...

 

[Sulkdodds]

That's some serious munchies.

I'll send you a crumpet in the post.

 

[Pesmerga]

/me intercepts the crumpet

 

[Ennui]

It's not even a problem, for I have cup noodles.