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Should Michael Nugent and Atheist Ireland stop speaking for all atheists?
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Stealthfins wrote: »Atheism Ireland lol
I was talking them at one of their stands one Saturday afternoon, not one of them had an Irish accent.
I was not aware they were required to. But having said that it would be interesting to know who you ended up talking to. As I know the people who most often man those stands and they are as Irish as can be. Though it depends where the stand was I guess. As I know mostly those running the Dublin Stand. Not the ones around the country so much.0 -
Do only people with Irish accents qualify as Irish now? What is an Irish accent anyway?Stealthfins wrote: »Atheism Ireland lol
I was talking them at one of their stands one Saturday afternoon, not one of them had an Irish accent.0 -
silverharp wrote: »I remember reading this before on "New Atheism" and it seemed a bit prescriptive for me, as I understand New Atheism as simply Atheism with a voice. Curious what anyone else thinks?
Not really my cup of tea either. If you accept atheism at its simplest definition with no tacked on world view or other baggage, being an atheist actually says very little about a person. It does give you plenty of scope to explore any one or more of a wide range of personal philosophies and plump for one, many or none. I've dabbled with Taoism in the past and currently tend somewhat towards contextualism at present. Not much interest in those espousing an atheist philosophy, whatever that may or may not be.0 -
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »Except once again it was you doing this not me, with your petty linguistic pedantry that had nothing at all to do with the points I was making. And in fact my choice of the word was deliberate for reasons that appear to have gone over your head.
My criticism of your use of the word wasn't simply linguistic pedantry in an effort to point score, and I don't particularly care for your justifications for your use of the word either. The point of your paragraph didn't go over my head, and actually I agreed with the main thrust of your argument, but I could not excuse your use of that particular word when as I said I know you to be far more articulate than that, and you could have chosen a thousand other ways to express the same sentiment without using that word -One eyed Jack wrote: »melissa I have empathy for anyone with learning difficulties, but dyslexia is no excuse for poor spelling nowadays with modern technology. I was diagnosed with severe dyslexia at 7 years of age, it's one of the reasons why I absolutely despise the word 'retard' or calling someone 'retarded' being bandied about this site sometimes, because that's exactly how I was labelled by classmates.
My teachers were nothing short of incredible in school, and I made every effort to try and improve my writing, reading, verbal and comprehension skills. I was lucky enough to have been diagnosed early, unlike some of the posters here whom it seems were only discovered to be dyslexic later in their school years.
That was over 30 years ago, and nowadays teaching is nothing like it was back then. Nowadays teachers are much more aware of cognitive and learning difficulties (I was lucky my mother was my teacher at the time and could tell something wasn't right), and there are many more supports in place for children now than there were back then.
The problem as I see it nowadays isn't teachers, the problem is that far too much leeway and class time is given to students who don't want to learn, as opposed to students who learn differently from other students. It's easy accommodate students who learn differently, it's not so easy accommodate students who simply have no will to learn.
It was a constructive criticism, nothing more. Moving on -No, you compared them on the basis of both being organised, on which basis clubs would also be comparable to religions.
Atheism is not an ideology and thus is not comparable to religion. And by ideology I mean in the established definition of the word:
"The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, a group, a class, or a culture. A system of beliefs or theories, usually political, held by an individual or a group. "
Atheism doesn't have any beliefs nor does it have any theories. If your answer to the question "Do you believe in a God(s)?" is no, then you're an atheist. That's it. There are no other associated beliefs, or views required.
I don't see any reason why you would disregard the first sentence which explains an ideology and under which atheism would certainly qualify? It's an idea, the idea that there is or are no god or gods. I agree that there are no other associated beliefs or views required. Atheism Ireland though, as an organisation, shares a common ideology among it's members, and that's the criteria I used to compare it to the RCC, which as an organisation shares a common ideology among it's members.Well, no.
Atheism at its most basic level is a lack of belief in a god or gods. You can add additional qualifiers to say something more, like strong atheism, for example, which is a positive belief that there is no God. Rejecting theistic claims is not an anti-theism position. Any claim which does not meet its burden of proof ought to be rejected, that is just logic, its not anti-anything. Anti-theism is the specific positive belief that religion is dangerous and harmful and hurts individuals aswell as harming progress of society as a whole. Given the history of this country and its relationship with the Catholic Church and the impact of said church's actions on society, it's easy to see why the two might become confused.
Actually it's a strange one for me personally that you would now define atheism as a lack of belief, which is how I would have previously defined atheism, until it was you yourself corrected me and explained that atheism is an absence of belief. That certainly made more sense and is the definition I have used since then. Atheism doesn't reject theistic claims, however surely by definition - actively rejecting theistic claims is anti-theism? I don't equate atheism with anti-theism however, and I don't know too many atheists or non-religious people who are also anti-theist. Some of those who identify as non-religious have no beef with the RCC, they just don't particularly care for religion and they don't particularly care for atheism. They're indifferent to any atheist or theist ideologies.I would say that metaphor has been tortured rather than stretched. The B&W vs. colour analogy doesn't really hold up. For the comparison to be valid, both atheism and theism would both have to proffer ideas about life, the afterlife, God etc. and then a judgement could be made about the relative value, or colour of the views. However, atheism doens't proffer any such views and hence the comparison collapses.
FWIW, religion isn't all that colourful because it has nothing of real value to offer. All it does is offer ideas, explanations not grounded in reason or evidence. As Richard Feynman said: "I think it's much more interesting to not know than to have answers which might be wrong."
I disagree strongly with the idea that religion has nothing of real value to offer. I would say that was at best a very subjective opinion given that if religion actually had nothing to offer, humanity would have discarded it long ago. Religion may have nothing to offer to you personally, and I can understand that, but to many people, religion has quite a lot to offer.I didn't suggest atheism as being the correct answer to anything. I just pointed out that if you answer no to the question of belief in God then you're an atheist, that's it.
Indifference to religion/supernatural phenomena is ignosticism not atheism. A lot of atheists can be quite interested in religion and its impact on society.
It's not quite as simple as that though. If a person answers 'no' to the question of belief in God, nowadays with idividualism being what it is, they may also reject the identifier of atheist in favour of simply non-religious. I have no doubt that there are some atheists who are quite interested in religion and it's impact on society, but I would say there are many more non-religious people who care not for religion nor it's impact on society. This presents a challenge for Atheist Ireland in the way that it must make a case to the State for many people who care not for the organisation's existence.Yes, religion is an attempt for some to answer questions but what good are answers if there's no evidence to show whether the answer is right or not? And whose answer should we listen to? Throughout human history people have believed in approximately 2700 deities from various belief systems. They can't all be right. They can, of course, all be wrong. Withholding belief in exchange for evidence is, IMHO, the only sensible position.
I don't say this for the sake of being argumentative, but I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of telling people what they want to hear? It's actually rather more useful than the truth in many cases, and most people will take what they hear at face value because it sounds right to them and it gives them comfort -
Witholding belief in exchange for evidence is of course utterly rational and is of course the sensible position, but the default setting for most of humanity is that they'll believe anything you tell them if it's what they already want to hear. It's inherently dishonest of course, but then that's where the question again of morality rears it's head. Any reasonable person will tell you it's morally wrong to be dishonest, but then they'll make exceptions for that according to their individual morality. Nowadays even the phrase 'my truth' seems to be an excusable explanation for defiance of reality.With regard to your ideas about atheism, perhaps this might help explain things better:
Is there a transcript of that video available? I did watch it, but I found the speaker quite monotone and speaking too fast to be able to keep up with what he was saying while trying to watch the video at the same time. The video with portuguese subtitles doesn't appear on the linked page. I actually agreed with some of the points I did catch which among them were that atheism is the default position in human beings, but that seems to be a contentious opinion among those people who identify as atheist.0 -
Atheist Ireland not Atheist IrishStealthfins wrote: »Atheism Ireland lol
I was talking them at one of their stands one Saturday afternoon, not one of them had an Irish accent.0 -
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Hi antitheist1, and welcome to the forum! I appreciate your apology for your personalised tone, but don't worry, I've been addressed in far more hostile tones than that.
It would be more accurate to ask “Should Michael Nugent and Atheist Ireland start speaking for all atheists?” (because at present we don’t), and the answer to that question would of course be “No”.antitheist1 wrote: »Should Michael Nugent and Atheist Ireland stop speaking for all atheists?
It can be just that, and it can be more. There is no agreed definition of atheism, either among self-described theists or self-described atheists, or in dictionaries. The idea that the word atheism has only one meaning is itself one of many beliefs about the meaning of the word atheism.antitheist1 wrote: »My question is of course rhetorical. I am getting fed up of Micheal Nugent and atheist Ireland claiming to speaking for all atheists. He speaks with such authority about among all other things---what atheism is. Michael I just thought is was just not believing in God?
No, I didn’t. Please listen to it again.antitheist1 wrote: »Yet on Marian Finnucan you ascribed among other things a whole moral code to it.
I wouldn’t say that as an atheist one has to be wholly moral. I would say that as a human being, living in society, one should try to act ethically. Atheist Ireland promotes ethical secularism as well as atheism and reason.antitheist1 wrote: »Micheal if one want to be an atheist and a moral bastard who are you to tell one that actually one as an atheist has to be a wolly moralist.
I cannot stop doing something that I am not doing. It would be an absurd claim for me or anybody else to make. Depending on the circumstances, I speak either for myself or for the advocacy group Atheist Ireland.antitheist1 wrote: »Please Michael stop speaking for all atheists in Ireland and if future interviews please only claim to speak for atheists in your own organisation.
When speaking on behalf of Atheist Ireland, I give people credit for understanding that it is obvious that I do not speak for all atheists in Ireland without me having to specifically say that, just as spokespersons for the National Women’s Council of Ireland or the Children’s Rights Alliance or [insert advocacy group of choice] do not make such disclaimers whenever they are speaking.
That is what atheism means to you, but it is not what it means to everybody. Here’s what atheism means to me, over and above not believing in gods.antitheist1 wrote: »Atheism means not believing, the absence of belief, in god.
If you don’t believe that gods exist, it necessarily follows that you believe that we don’t get our understandings of reality or morality from revelations from gods. That’s not just a correlation. It necessarily follows from atheism. And those are two significant beliefs to hold in a world where most people believe the opposite.
You cannot identify a person’s specific moral code simply by knowing that they are an atheist, but equally you cannot say that you cannot tell anything about a person’s morality simply by knowing that they are an atheist. Just as theism is as much an assertion about the nature of morality as it is about the nature of reality, so too is atheism as much an assertion about the nature of morality as it is about the nature of reality.
Now, I am not saying that mine is the only valid meaning of atheism, but you seem to be saying that yours is. Please correct me if I am mistaken. Whatever our different beliefs about what the word means, I am happy to discuss the issue and tease out nuances and change my beliefs based on new evidence.
And in parallel to such interesting philosophical discussions, I will continue to actively campaign for an ethical secular Ireland, along with my inspirationally hardworking friends and colleagues in Atheist Ireland, and we will be doing so in the way all advocacy groups do, including assuming that listeners understand the basics of how advocacy groups work and who they speak for.0 -
I'm not sure how you have formed those opinions.antitheist1 wrote: »I have very little in common with the god dillusional, constant nit picking, religious bashing, obsessional science worshipping views of atheist Ireland.
Can you please share some examples of Atheist Ireland engaging in these four behaviours?0 -
This is a very interesting point, and more complex than it may seem.One eyed Jack wrote: »The point he should be countering is that people have no right to impose their morality upon other people,
In some circumstances we have not only a right, but a duty, to seek to impose our morality on others. For example, we must impose the morality of not murdering people onto people who wish to murder people.
So the statement should be qualified to "people have no right to impose some aspects of their morality upon other people."
Then even that qualified statement is itself a moral stance, about what rights people do and do not have, so can we impose on others the moral stance that they cannot impose aspects of their morality on us?
I think ultimately such a discussion should focus on the merits of our moral stances, in terms of rationality, harm, suffering, wellbeing, fairness, justice etc., and the question of which stands we should impose can follow from that.
I'm not sure what you mean by the morality of atheism. Do you mean that morality should not be based on revelations from supposed gods? If that is what you mean, then I agree, but Atheist Ireland is not trying to impose that on people. We are trying to persuade people of its merits.One eyed Jack wrote: »but then that wouldn't bode well for his organisation which seeks to impose the morality of atheism upon people, and in particular Irish people.
And we do not want the State to endorse this position. The State should remain neutral between theism and atheism with regard to people's beliefs about the supernatural or natural sources of their personal morality. The only way to equally protect everyone's freedom of religion or belief is for the State to be secular.0 -
The thing is, claims about which moral rules we are entitled to oppose, and which we are not, are themselves moral claims. And a claim to have a right to impose a particular moral rule on others can't be self-validating.Michael Nugent wrote: »This is a very interesting point, and more complex than it may seem.
In some circumstances we have not only a right, but a duty, to seek to impose our morality on others. For example, we must impose the morality of not murdering people onto people who wish to murder people.
So the statement should be qualified to "people have no right to impose some aspects of their morality upon other people."
Then even that qualified statement is itself a moral stance, about what rights people do and do not have, so can we impose on others the moral stance that they cannot impose aspects of their morality on us?
I think ultimately such a discussion should focus on the merits of our moral stances, in terms of rationality, harm, suffering, wellbeing, fairness, justice etc., and the question of which stands we should impose can follow from that.
Ultimately, in a democracy, I think any particular moral rule can be imposed only if there is a consensus to accept its imposition. The reason or reasons why there is a consensus actually don't matter. I think claims about whether the moral rule is god-derived or not are irrelevant; if people accept the rule and its imposition, it doesn't matter that some people accept the rule because god, and others accept it for other reasons.
Take a rule against murder, for example. Many theists would justify such a rule, and its imposition by law, by reference to a divine commandment. No atheist would accept that justification. But it would be madness to argue that, because the rule was god-derived (for at least some people who accept it as a rule) therefore the law should not impose it, and SFAIK no atheist does advance that argument.
Claims that the law should (e.g.) forbid gay marriage because god doesn't like it can be dismissed. But, equally, claims that the law should not (e.g.) restrict abortions because people offer religious justifications for restricting abortions can equally be dismissed. As the murder example illustrates, the fact that a particular moral proposition can be grounded in religious belief, and is so grounded for some, is not an argument for saying that it falls into the class of moral propositions which the law cannot enforce.
You could possibly make that argument for a moral proposition which could only be god-derived, but that's a very small class of moral propositions - an obligation to attend mass on Sunday, say, or a requirement to take a theistic oath. But it's obviously possible to have views about murder, gay marriage or abortion which are not inherently theistic, and any debate about whether they should be legally enforced or not really has to discount as irrelevant the question of whether, for any individual, a particular position is held on religious or non-religious grounds. It's the proposition itself that needs to be evaluated, not other people's reasons for holding it.0 -
One eyed Jack wrote: »My criticism of your use of the word wasn't simply linguistic pedantry in an effort to point score, and I don't particularly care for your justifications for your use of the word either.
There is nothing to "justify" least of all to you. You are not required to "excuse" my use of the word, especially since you clearly do not understand why I chose it, nor do you even care to ask it seems. So your criticism is neither constructive, relevant, or useful.
What is clear though is you are continuing to be haughty over my use of the word in a deflection from the fact you are not actually replying to the substance of anything I actually wrote. Mainly because you were called on a term which you can now neither support nor define. You invented this "atheist morality" and declared it was being imposed, and when called on these you can neither define the term, nor demonstrate anyone is imposing anything.
The reality is there is no "atheist morality" and there is post after post, in thread after thread, on this very forum replete with atheists informing others that aside from their lack of belief in god they feel no other connection or commonality with other atheists stemming from atheism. And adding a voice to the democratic masses is not in any way imposing anything on anyone. So both of your points are simply non-arguments. But rather than acknowledge or defend this, you choose instead to obsess over a single word. A word you clearly do not understand why I chose or even care to in your rant against it.0 -
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Peregrinus wrote: »Ultimately, in a democracy, I think any particular moral rule can be imposed only if there is a consensus to accept its imposition. The reason or reasons why there is a consensus actually don't matter.
I think the reasons entirely matter. For example, I've applied the above notion in the context of the burqa ban thread here and wonder whether it contradicts your other notions of justice, morality and fair play on that thread.
To come to a consensus we need to examine reasons in depth, where many of these reasons can be morally questionable, based around various kinds of bigotry and directly contradict one another. (e.g. is part of the popular reason behind the burka ban little more than right wing anti-Islamic sentiment?, is a large part of the anti-abortion sentiment no more than archaic Catholic dogma?).0 -
In your own words -nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »There is nothing to "justify" least of all to you.
Now, I'm moving on as I have no interest in further entertaining you.0 -
Thats essentially the same cop out you used before. So I can only repeat what I said before. If you ever manage to define the term you yourself introduced, this "morality of atheism" then by all means return and have another shot at it. But as I said there is nothing to justify in my choice of words, so I will not be offering a justification for them. If you ever want to ASK why I chose that word however, rather than rant about it, I am more than willing to explain it. Explain, not justify.
If you want to reply to the actual on topic content of my posts either however, by all means do.0 -
In a democracy, though, aren't we just stuck with that? You can vote for who you please; your reasons for voting for who you please may or may not pass muster with me as "good" reasons, but that doesn't in any way impair the validity of your vote. And all that actually affects me is who you vote for. If you vote for the candidate that I also favour, I really don't care that you voted for him for reasons that wouldn't appeal to me.I think the reasons entirely matter. For example, I've applied the above notion in the context of the burqa ban thread here and wonder whether it contradicts your other notions of justice, morality and fair play on that thread.
To come to a consensus we need to examine reasons in depth, where many of these reasons can be morally questionable, based around various kinds of bigotry and directly contradict one another. (e.g. is part of the popular reason behind the burka ban little more than right wing anti-Islamic sentiment?, is a large part of the anti-abortion sentiment no more than archaic Catholic dogma?).
And, as with support for candidates, so with support for policies and proposals. If I oppose the death penalty and explain my stance in religious terms, and you oppose the death penalty for different reasons, would you argue that my views should be discounted in the democratic process?
If you favour[/b] the death penalty, you might well seek to exclude my voice on those grounds (or any other) but obviously the validity of my voice can't depend on whether you agree with my views. Basically, I don't think you can exclude my views on the basis that you don't share the premises from which I proceed. The whole point of a pluralist democracy is that we don't have to proceed from the same moral/ethical starting points.
I think as a rhetorical device you might point out that my views on burqa are based on my racism, or that my views on abortion are based on my Catholicism. But what you are really doing there is to suggest that my claim that, say, a burqa ban will liberate women should be doubted, because in fact I have simply persuaded myself of that, or pretended to believe that. But if you think that a burqa ban will liberate women, and at the same time you think my advocacy of a burqa ban is driven by my racism, you'll still favour a burqa ban, won't you? And you won't be urging people to reject my views and refuse to implement them, even though you know them to be views driven by racism, will you?0 -
Michael Nugent wrote: »This is a very interesting point, and more complex than it may seem.
In some circumstances we have not only a right, but a duty, to seek to impose our morality on others. For example, we must impose the morality of not murdering people onto people who wish to murder people.
So the statement should be qualified to "people have no right to impose some aspects of their morality upon other people."
Then even that qualified statement is itself a moral stance, about what rights people do and do not have, so can we impose on others the moral stance that they cannot impose aspects of their morality on us?
I think ultimately such a discussion should focus on the merits of our moral stances, in terms of rationality, harm, suffering, wellbeing, fairness, justice etc., and the question of which stands we should impose can follow from that.
I'm not sure what you mean by the morality of atheism. Do you mean that morality should not be based on revelations from supposed gods? If that is what you mean, then I agree, but Atheist Ireland is not trying to impose that on people. We are trying to persuade people of its merits.
Yes Michael, that is precisely what I mean by the morality of atheism. Persuading people of the merits of anything IMO is an imposition upon them. Some people will try to be more persuasive than others, when I personally have long been an advocate of giving people the information on an issue, and letting them make a decision for themselves. I don't seek to impose my morality upon anyone.
If a person doesn't want to see the merits of someone else's particular moral stance, then that is surely their prerogative. Some people don't seem to understand that. When we vote on an issue, we are not asked how we came to our decision to vote either way, we are simply asked to vote.
When I discuss an issue such as euthanasia, I don't particularly want to know how someone came to the conclusion that it is immoral or otherwise, I only care about the argument they put forward to support their position, the benefit to society of euthanasia, or the detraction from society of euthanasia. I have a more utilitarian perspective upon which I make decisions upon issues that affect society, and I am not interested in people's personal morality or how or where or whom they derive their personal morality. That's their own business.And we do not want the State to endorse this position. The State should remain neutral between theism and atheism with regard to people's beliefs about the supernatural or natural sources of their personal morality. The only way to equally protect everyone's freedom of religion or belief is for the State to be secular.
This I agree with, and thank you for clearing that up.0 -
One eyed Jack wrote: »Persuading people of the merits of anything IMO is an imposition upon them.
Then you are merely operating under a very dilute definition of what constitutes an "imposition". A definition so labile that even things like Education are essentially an imposition of a sort. It is a wonder you can even conform to the rules at a pedestrian crossing without feeling someone is imposing things upon you.
At the end of the day I see morality not as a thing in and of itself, but as a process. Morality is the ongoing discourse we have together as a species on how best to live with each other and conduct our day to day affairs as a species.
So the expression of moral view points, and the attempts to educate others as to the merits of our moral view points, is not an imposition, but a necessary part of the ongoing process and I would deride NOT engaging in that as much as you appear to deride engaging in it. Morality is not isolated packets of opinion locked in brains which should never be imposed upon by the packets of others. It is an ongoing, iterative, learning process that we are all engaged in together as a species and we progress this by interpersonal and intergroup discourse, arguments about the merits and demerits of each position, and feedback from the results of implementing moral view points in that society.
This whole narrative of respect for the opinions and positions of others has of course got its merits but it has been taken to such PC extremes that I fear it can only.... dare I say..... retard the process of this quite necessary and useful ongoing discourse that is "morality".0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »In a democracy, though, aren't we just stuck with that? You can vote for who you please; your reasons for voting for who you please may or may not pass muster with me as "good" reasons, but that doesn't in any way impair the validity of your vote. And all that actually affects me is who you vote for. If you vote for the candidate that I also favour, I really don't care that you voted for him for reasons that wouldn't appeal to me.
In a democracy we often make strange bedfellows for sure. In a pluralist multicultural society we must also make regular comprises to our own personal preferences in order for that society to function with any harmony. These are often felt most keenly in migrant communities, even where they are in their second and third generations, where the expectation is they make the larger part of the move in terms of adopting local behaviour. Failure to do so will often end in bitterness, conflict and isolation.
One of the reasons I personally vote for many solutions is that those solutions can work, and I would favour pragmatism over dogmatism every time. While you can choose to stand on your principles, you may well also trip over them if you are dogmatic to the point of intransigence.0 -
One eyed Jack wrote: »I don't see any reason why you would disregard the first sentence which explains an ideology and under which atheism would certainly qualify? It's an idea, the idea that there is or are no god or gods. I agree that there are no other associated beliefs or views required. Atheism Ireland though, as an organisation, shares a common ideology among it's members, and that's the criteria I used to compare it to the RCC, which as an organisation shares a common ideology among it's members.
OK, a few things here.
Firstly, I didn't disregard the first sentence of the definition. It's just that the second sentence was a more concise definition in the context of this debate. Regardless, the first sentence also gives the lie to your argument. Atheism is not, according to the definition of ideology, "a body of ideas", so it still doesn't qualify as an ideology.
Secondly, you have shifted your argument from atheism being an ideology to being an idea. Yes atheism is an idea but its not an ideology. Like I said previously, if you're going to compare atheism and religion on the basis of both being ideas, then you've stretched out your comparative basis to the point that it is meaningless to the overall discussion.
Finally, so AI shares a common ideology among its members just like the RCC? No, the only thing that links the members of AI is that none of them believe in God. As far as positive beliefs go, you can't say that they have anything else in common. The same does not apply to the RCC where the members are going to have a multitude of positive beliefs in common. However, if you're going to compare AI and the RCC on the basis that all their members share at least one common characteristic then so do all free associations, sports clubs, masons, social groups, volunteer organisations etc. In fact, any other club or society you mention (e.g. Freemasons) is likely to have much more in common with the RCC than AI does.One eyed Jack wrote: »Actually it's a strange one for me personally that you would now define atheism as a lack of belief, which is how I would have previously defined atheism, until it was you yourself corrected me and explained that atheism is an absence of belief. That certainly made more sense and is the definition I have used since then. Atheism doesn't reject theistic claims, however surely by definition - actively rejecting theistic claims is anti-theism? I don't equate atheism with anti-theism however, and I don't know too many atheists or non-religious people who are also anti-theist. Some of those who identify as non-religious have no beef with the RCC, they just don't particularly care for religion and they don't particularly care for atheism. They're indifferent to any atheist or theist ideologies.
OK, I don't see that there is a major difference between absence of belief and lack of belief. As qualiasoup explains in the video, I lack belief in gods, they just don't feature among the things I believe in.
With regard to atheism, anti-theism and the rejection of theistic claims, atheism is the null hypothesis, the position before proof. Let's say that we were to set up an experiment to test whether coffee causes cancer. The hypothesis that we are trying to test is that "coffee can be shown to significantly increase cancer risk". However in running our experiment we are also testing the null hypothesis that "coffee cannot be shown to significantly increase cancer risk". To reject the null hypothesis our evidence must be sufficient to demonstrate the hypothesis beyond the effect of random chance or other error. So it is with atheism. For every theistic claim that "god X exists", the null hypothesis is that "god X does not exist". This is not a belief, it is the position before proof. In order to reject the null hypothesis the person claiming that "god X exists" must demonstrate sufficient evidence. So atheism inherently rejects theistic claims until said claim can be demonstrated with reason and evidence. This is not anti-theism which, as I explained already, is a specific belief in the harmful nature of religion.One eyed Jack wrote: »I disagree strongly with the idea that religion has nothing of real value to offer. I would say that was at best a very subjective opinion given that if religion actually had nothing to offer, humanity would have discarded it long ago. Religion may have nothing to offer to you personally, and I can understand that, but to many people, religion has quite a lot to offer.
To individual humans religion has a lot to offer. It offers spirituality, peace, a sense of community, the semblance of explanatory power and a nice easy comforting story to believe. To humanity as a whole though, religion has nothing to offer, it is an aporia, a road to nowhere. It cannot help us to find out more about the universe we live in or about ourselves and how we got here. Yes, there's a subjective aspect to this but that is because, as I've explained in other posts, I'm interested in whether a given religion and the claims it makes is true or not. To borrow a quote from Richard Feynman again:
"If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it."
I'm not interested in how comforting or how neat the religious story is or what kind of spiritual peace it might offer, I'm interested in whether it's true or not.One eyed Jack wrote: »It's not quite as simple as that though. If a person answers 'no' to the question of belief in God, nowadays with idividualism being what it is, they may also reject the identifier of atheist in favour of simply non-religious.
True although a person who is non-religious may not identify as atheist for a number of reasons. The most common one I've come across is people who are non-religious identifying as agnostic because they see it as a middleground between theism and atheism. Moreover, a lot of these people see atheism as the positive belief that there is no god. Then you have people who reject the term atheist because of the high profile "New Atheists" who seem to come across to a lot of people as acerbic and mean-spirited.One eyed Jack wrote: »I have no doubt that there are some atheists who are quite interested in religion and it's impact on society, but I would say there are many more non-religious people who care not for religion nor it's impact on society. This presents a challenge for Atheist Ireland in the way that it must make a case to the State for many people who care not for the organisation's existence.
Except that the number of people who care or not for AI's existence is irrelevant to AI's cause, such as it is. To quote Jean-Luc Picard:
"With the first link the chain is forged, the first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged by it."
AI works to end discrimination by the State against people with no religion, whether that's public office, blasphemy laws, employment or education. Whether it's one person who's affected or 100,000 matters not and neither do the number of people who care or not for AI's existence.One eyed Jack wrote: »I don't say this for the sake of being argumentative, but I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of telling people what they want to hear? It's actually rather more useful than the truth in many cases, and most people will take what they hear at face value because it sounds right to them and it gives them comfort -
I'm familiar with the idea, but I don't agree with it. I'm more of a rip the band-aid off kinda guy. The truth, whatever it may be, is always more valuable.One eyed Jack wrote: »Is there a transcript of that video available?
I'm not aware of one but qualia might have one if you ask nicely on his channel.0 -
Finally, so AI shares a common ideology among its members just like the RCC? No, the only thing that links the members of AI is that none of them believe in God. As far as positive beliefs go, you can't say that they have anything else in common.
While I agree with the rest of your post, I'm not so sure about the above. From the AI constitution;AI wrote:1. Mission Statement
1. Atheist Ireland aims to build a rational, ethical and secular society free from superstition and supernaturalism.
2. Aims
2.1. To promote atheism and reason over superstition and supernaturalism.
2.2. To promote an ethical and secular Ireland where the state does not support or fund or give special treatment to any religion.
3. Membership
3.1. Any person or who agrees with the mission and aims can be a member.
I would certainly consider the aims idealogical, and the requirement of a member to agree with those aims clearly indicates a level of shared ideology.0 -
Finally, so AI shares a common ideology among its members just like the RCC? No, the only thing that links the members of AI is that none of them believe in God.While I agree with the rest of your post, I'm not so sure about the above. From the AI constitution;
I would certainly consider the aims idealogical, and the requirement of a member to agree with those aims clearly indicates a level of shared ideology.
This one was actually explained to me by Michael a while back, is that anyone is welcome to join AI regardless of their faith (that's why I was careful not to suggest that all members of AI are atheist, I don't know that they are), and they aren't required to agree to all the aims. I think it was further clarified by Michael in this thread, that when AI refers to 'society', it refers to the State funded institutions within that society as opposed to all members of that society, so for example I could still identify as Roman Catholic, while supporting AI's aims for a secular society.
One of the reasons why I suggested earlier that Michael could be approached to do an AMA is because it would increase the profile of AI in Irish society - the more people become aware of their existence, the more support they may get. I think atheism has a bit of a reputation problem given the veracity of the proponents of the new atheism movement, but I've always found Michael easy to listen to, and I think people would be much more amenable to that approach rather than as oldrnwiser pointed out, the acerbic approach used by proponents such as Dawkins and Harris, which come across as derisory more than any attempt at fostering understanding through reasonable discussion.
The 'pulling off the bandage' approach, while useful, well, I wouldn't expect any thanks for it
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One eyed Jack wrote: »I think atheism has a bit of a reputation problem given the veracity of the proponents of the new atheism movement
Not sure what you mean here, veracity=truthfulness so are you suggesting a lack of truthfulness or did you mean something else.Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.
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Hotblack Desiato wrote: »Not sure what you mean here, veracity=truthfulness so are you suggesting a lack of truthfulness or did you mean something else.
Sorry, no, what I just meant by that was their extraordinary amount of effort they go to getting into "existence of god" debates and so on, almost as though winning the debate and proving the other person wrong, matters more than encouraging understanding among people, some of whom are atheist, and some of whom aren't.
I don't particularly see why they get into these 'debates' if it isn't all just for show? Why do they not literally just say to people "Yeah you can all go home now, there is no god". Why do they have to go about arguing that there isn't any supernatural deity of any sort and what do they actually get from it?
It simply comes off to me at least, like they're as adamant about their truth as the people who they deride, who are just as adamant about their truth. Opposite sides of the same coin, when like I said earlier - many people I know who identify as atheist or non-religious, don't have any particular beef against religion.
I just think people like Dawkins and Harris do atheism no favours, in much the same way as there are many, many people, who do theism no favours. The difference is of course that obviously theism is more dominant in society than atheism, and so atheism has an uphill battle for acceptance in society, not helped by people who are so acerbic in how they put their ideas across to people.0 -
Do they? Hitchens said that that which is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. There is no 'debate' to that
I have heard Dawkins debate religion all right but religion is a social construct and very much open to criticism whether any god exists or not. Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.
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One eyed Jack wrote: »Sorry, no, what I just meant by that was their extraordinary amount of effort they go to getting into "existence of god" debates and so on
Well a lot of the time there is no effort at all. They are specifically invited to do so. Sam Harris, one of the ones you mentioned for example, is actually a very very nervous public speaker despite making it look so effortless. He has described the emotional and physical knots he gets tied into in the days running up to an appearance. Especially appearances in front of, or along side, people he considers heros or peers.
If you actually read his first book "Letter To a Christian Nation" it was a reaction to the horror of 9/11 and it propelled him into being a target for people to invite into such debates and speeches. And if you actually read it there is very little in it about the debate of whether there is a god or not. In fact the word atheism, atheist or any other derivatives of it do not appear even once in the text.
As for WHY they still engage in the debates, Harris and Hitchens, the people you mention, both explain it nicely if you bothered to read their work or follow some of those debates. Harris for example espouses the position often that Beliefs actually matter. They have real world implications and effects and we owe it to ourselves as a species to explore Idea Space individually AND together.
Hitchens, like I do, believed strongly that if our species is to survive our differences in opinions and world views that the sole tool we have at our disposal is discourse. And he believed there was no greater nor more important discussion to have that an exploration of the roots of the reason we exist here in this universe, our place in the universe and the moral and ethical implications that has.
The alternative is of course that such people simply shut up and say nothing.... and my how the theists would love that and how they would rush to pile praise on your rhetoric that would support that. But that wins us nothing and brings us nothing. We will ONLY move forward by having these debates and discussions and explorations and as such we need gifted orators to be the public face of this and stimulate that discussion. Dawkins himself has said he engages in such debates and discussions not to win them or have them, but to stimulate discussion in others and cause "consciousness raising" by having people engage with that themselves.
One of Harris' recent blog posts, audio option so it might suit you if you are not into reading much, was about the recent disastrous conversation he had with Noam Chomsky. In it he goes into great detail about why he still found utility in that discussion, and why he engages with such discussions, and the benefits he finds in having them. Perhaps it will enlighten some of the questions you have expressed here? And like hitchens he signs off the post with "Conversation is our only hope" which matches my own view precisely.
And to close, since this is a thread about Micheal Nugent, the question of why these people get up and discuss these things, and why those discussions are a lot deeper and more relevant than your painting of it is "Why do they not literally just say to people "Yeah you can all go home now, there is no god"..... we can refer to a reply Nugent himself gave to the ever present question of "What do atheists even talk about at an atheist conference, is it not just there is no god so lets all go home" which he gave at the AAI conference in Dublin in his speech on "Arrogant Atheists and Not collecting Stamps". This should also help answer your question of "Why do they have to go about arguing that there isn't any supernatural deity of any sort and what do they actually get from it?"One eyed Jack wrote: »It simply comes off to me at least, like they're as adamant about their truth as the people who they deride
Actually the sentiment you express here has been addressed quite concisely before too.One eyed Jack wrote: »I just think people like Dawkins and Harris do atheism no favours
I disagree. In recent years there has been a large increase in the % of people identifying as atheist, especially in places like the US. Now while I am sure the words of the "new" atheists have converted some people away from religion, or pushed some people off the fence into atheism........ I am under no illusions that these increases are due to such conversions.
Rather I think that such people putting a public face on atheism, and making known and popular the common counter arguments and fallacy corrections against theism....... they are showing people that were ALREADY atheist that it is ok to be one. That one can come out of the closet, acknowledge it, and stop paying silent lip service to it.
While people like Dennett are providing support structures such as the "Clergy Project" to hand hold the pastors and clergy of the world in coming out as atheist and they have been over whelmed by the response. The quantity of people working in the clergy and religious circuit who have themselves lost their faith.... but have continued on anyway for fear of recrimination or simply because they do not know what else to do with their life or career.... has far outweighed their expectations when they set up the project.
So they are doing such things a LOT of favors by publicly representing it, showing people it is ok, saying "We are here and that is ok" and stimulating and having the kind of public discourse that people have wanted to have but could not or would not. And people like Nugent are not only giving Atheists in Ireland a voice, even when they may not speak for all atheists, not just here in Ireland but on the panels and discussion boards of things as diverse as Human Rights conventions in Poland and before the UN.0 -
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »The quantity of people working in the clergy and religious circuit who have themselves lost their faith....
Number of people [/stannis]
good post.Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.
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Hotblack Desiato wrote: »Number of people [/stannis]
good post.
It was the usual scripted response I've come to expect really that had very little to do with addressing the content of my post, and more to do with articulating the same morose, monotonous waffle over and over again. Your own post, short and all as it was, was far more on point -Hotblack Desiato wrote: »Do they? Hitchens said that that which is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. There is no 'debate' to that I have heard Dawkins debate religion all right but religion is a social construct and very much open to criticism whether any god exists or not.
I can't disagree with any of that.0 -
Ah the usual snide dig that lashes out without actually responding to an ounce of the content. The laughable comedy value of which is eroded almost entirely by the predictability. But by all means attempt to regale how my post was not "on point" and was not a direct response to the things you wrote.0
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Michael Nugent wrote: »This is a very interesting point, and more complex than it may seem.
In some circumstances we have not only a right, but a duty, to seek to impose our morality on others. For example, we must impose the morality of not murdering people onto people who wish to murder people.
So the statement should be qualified to "people have no right to impose some aspects of their morality upon other people."
Then even that qualified statement is itself a moral stance, about what rights people do and do not have, so can we impose on others the moral stance that they cannot impose aspects of their morality on us?
I think ultimately such a discussion should focus on the merits of our moral stances, in terms of rationality, harm, suffering, wellbeing, fairness, justice etc., and the question of which stands we should impose can follow from that.
I'm not sure what you mean by the morality of atheism. Do you mean that morality should not be based on revelations from supposed gods? If that is what you mean, then I agree, but Atheist Ireland is not trying to impose that on people. We are trying to persuade people of its merits.
And we do not want the State to endorse this position. The State should remain neutral between theism and atheism with regard to people's beliefs about the supernatural or natural sources of their personal morality. The only way to equally protect everyone's freedom of religion or belief is for the State to be secular.
We've actually got a set of shared civic morals known as the legal system which are and always have been something quite different to religious beliefs.
They're mostly based on a sense of fairness and on fundamental human rights that are derived largely from concepts of natural law.
They've also changed and evolved dramatically over the years. For example, the evolution of equality law, notably women's rights, the decriminalisation and acceptance of homosexuality, evolving and growing children's rights, notions of freedom of expression.
We even moved from a situation where the state was allows to kill people to a situation where that was voted out of existence and is now considered socially and morally unacceptable.
Few if any of those developments could be described as anything other than an evolution of Irish secular morals. They were certainly not religious and in several cases were strongly resisted by people who have religious outlooks on these things.
It demonstrates clearly that Ireland and most developed democracies are quite capable of holding very strong, shared sets of values that are matters of a national moral outlook that is based on a common sense of human rights and justice and not on a 3rd party religious code.
We are quite capable of thinking about things, parsing things and coming up with very solid principles upon which to build a country without the need to reference anything other than a sense of empathy, fairness, justice and human rights.
That's pretty much how all of modern Western Europe works as well as all developed countries.
Oddly enough the places you see most human rights abuse (with notable huge exceptions : China) are often theocratic States.
The common denominator in running a progressive society seems to be open, participatory, engaged democracy.
I honestly think there's a lot of evidence that humans have a very good sense of morality regardless of their religious outlook. We share a sense of common decency and we can see right from wrong. It's mostly based on empathy and it's something we all have. It's clearly part of our instincts and the basic systems that allow us to function as a highly social species and that have allowed us to be the most successful mammals on the planet.
When you give the power the people, you're tapping into that wealth of instinct of empathy and justice and there are enough of us there with enough brains thinking about things to put and keep society on the right track.
When you get an authoritarian regime, deep corruption or a dictatorship things tend to go horribly wrong, almost without any exceptions.
The other thing I find quite interesting is how we're actually in default settings mostly very nice and very empathetic.
It always seems to take something - trauma, brainwashing, abuse, brutality etc to cause someone to override those instincts.
For example, in wars the leadership always has to "dehumanise" the enemy. Otherwise, when we actually know each other, we basically won't fight.
We also have a massive in built respect for life to the point that we almost all will go out of our way to rescue someone in danger and go to huge lengths to do so.
Time and time again, people risk their own lives to save someone. People will even go to huge lengths to rescue other species, never mind other people!
That's not religion, it's empathy, it's in built collective responsibility, it's something to do with being a social mammal that is deeply part of our brains and that has helped us survive all these millennia.0 -
I mentioned the fact that nobody on the AI stand had an Irish accent.
Most people know what an Irish accent is.
I don't need to explain it really.
There was nothing wrong with their display or what they were representing.
Nice friendly guy's actually.0 -
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Stealthfins wrote: »Most people know what an Irish accent is.
Ah begorrah, sure ardn't ya talkin an awful load of ol' shoite there. Bud. :rolleyes:0
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