Theists and atheists( P.S.)

kowalskil · Apr 6, 2011

Theists and Atheists (P.S.)

I still do not know what can be done to eliminate endless futile conflicts between theists and atheists. But comments collected at several websites prompted me to compose a short on-line paper at:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/theo_sci.html

It can probably be used to initiate an interesting discussion here. Please share this link with those who might be interested.

Ludwik Kowalski
Professor Emeritus
Montclair State University, USA
.
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kowalskil · Apr 6, 2011

kowalskil said:
Theists and Atheists (P.S.)

I still do not know what can be done to eliminate endless futile conflicts between theists and atheists. But comments collected at several websites prompted me to compose a short on-line paper at:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/theo_sci.html

It can probably be used to initiate an interesting discussion here. Please share this link with those who might be interested.

Ludwik Kowalski
Professor Emeritus
Montclair State University, USA
.
.

A better draft of my essay has just been posted. The link is

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6007379#post6007379

Why is it posted on the Science forum and on the religion forum? Because the topic belongs to both. Some comments on my initial post addressed topics I tried to avoid. They were very interesting and important. But dealing with only one aspect of this topic--two different worlds and and two different methodologies of validation--is already a big challenge. Note that I am avoiding the world religion; it covers much more than theism.

Thanks again,

Ludwik
.
.

veinglory · Apr 6, 2011

...or you could post it here.

zornhau · Apr 7, 2011

Peace

People who purport to keep pink unicorns should stop demanding grazing rights on other people's land, stop asking everybody to keep the noise down because it's foaling season, stop telling the gay couple next door to split up, because even the thought of m/m or f/f/ action makes the pink unicorns run amok...

Seriously, if atheists are at war with theists, it is out of self defence. Just look at what happens on our forum.

fireluxlou · Apr 7, 2011

There's a war? Maybe disagreements but humans love to debate.

veinglory · Apr 7, 2011

I don't feel like I am at war with anyone. Compared to inter-faith conflict, being an atheist is a walk in the park.

Maxx · Apr 7, 2011

veinglory said:
I don't feel like I am at war with anyone. Compared to inter-faith conflict, being an atheist is a walk in the park.

So true. What actual conflict does an atheist have with anyone? You can accept emotional nature of any religious affirmation whatsoever with the same sympathetic interest.

Max Vaehling · Apr 7, 2011

I have conflict. Every time I want to sleep in after a night shift and those darn theists ring their church bells!

Apart from that, I don't care what people believe as long as they don't expect everybody else to respect their beliefs and act according to them. Sadly, it's often a package deal.

So, not at war with believers, but some believers' insistence on how you can't be a complete human being without faith did radicalize my nonbelieving quite a bit over the years.

zornhau · Apr 7, 2011

Usually the conflict arises when they try to insert themselves into your child's school, or claim some special privilege - e.g. when theists objected to the Jerry Springer the Musical case, or going back a few years, Mary Whitehouse's Viewers and Listener's Association working hard to censor UK TV, but with a covert Christian agenda.

Then there's the imposing view on others. Try and get an abortion in the states these days...

Look at what happens on this board, run interference with tired rhetorical plays - do you remember somebody tried the watch analogy?

So, I think they are at war with us, albeit in a low grade niggling sort of way.

veinglory · Apr 7, 2011

Well, and only a small part of "they" IMHO, although they may claim to represent a silent majority.

Chris P · Apr 7, 2011

I don't know what to say about this. I have never kept it a secret where I go on Sunday mornings, but I don't make it a point to broadcast it either. I think it's oversimplifying things to say it's a war of Deists versus Atheists, when it's more likely Crackpots (of either side) versus Respectful Adherents (of either side).

Some atheists as frothy mouthed as some fundamentalists. On another board, someone asked if any of the regulars were openly religious. I decided not to respond because I didn't want to spend the next 30 minutes proving to everyone I was still cool despite my beliefs. I'll discuss what I believe with anyone, as long as the discussion is respectful, and I have found some atheists incapable of being respectful towards believers. The conflict can arise from either side.

veinglory · Apr 7, 2011

True dat.

fireluxlou · Apr 7, 2011

So true. I go with the motto "I'll believe what I want too, and you do the same for yourself".

I don't see the benefit one would get if one attempted to force their religious beliefs on others. I don't see a benefit at all and why would you want too? It makes no sense to me.

Live and Let Live.

zornhau · Apr 9, 2011

Unfortunately, you don't represent anything like the majority of theists who make themselves publically active. For example, I don't notice a Christian "Not in my name" organisation devoted to disavowing the attempt of the right to hijack the name "Christian".

veinglory · Apr 9, 2011

Um, please remember out friend the guideline abut disparaging large diverse belief groups. The large majority of people on this earth are theists, making the extremists statistically pretty insignificant as a proportion of that group. Nor can i say that i think the major American atheist activist groups represent my outlook on non-belief. Most fo them strike me as pretty insufferable and irrelevant to me.

zornhau · Apr 10, 2011

My bad. That should have read:

Unfortunately, you don't represent anything like the majority of those theists who make themselves publicly active. For example, I don't notice a Christian "Not in my name" organisation devoted to disavowing the attempt of the right to hijack the name "Christian".

And the attempt of the Right to appropriate the term "Christian" is well documented in The Political Brain.

Ultimately, though, it's about incompatible idea complexes competing for brain space - memes. How can there not be an ongoing cultural war?

ConChron · Apr 10, 2011

kowalskil said:
I still do not know what can be done to eliminate endless futile conflicts between theists and atheists.

People need to agree to disagree and stop being childish about it. Many of the conflicts stems from immaturity. IMO. No one have the right to force others to agree or live according to their own beliefs. If you believe in gods, noodles or not should not matter socially, it's a private matter.
It's a very simple solution but so hard for some people to "get".

veinglory · Apr 10, 2011

I don't think that every time there are mutually incomparable memes it should be characterized as "war". These things can just exist in balance in their own niches like real genes do.

AVbd · Apr 12, 2011

kowalskil said:
Mathematics is like theology; it starts with axioms (initially accepted truths) and uses logical derivation to justify consecutive claims.

I read up to about here and then stopped. Mathematics doesn't assert its axioms to be unarguably true. Nor does it expect anyone to accept them on faith. Nor is it used to impose anything on anyone else. Nor do its axioms contradict one another within the same system. And I doubt the average theist is really drawing logical conclusions based on their initial assumptions.

Anyway, I apologize if I mischaracterized anything in your paper, since I didn't read it. I just disagreed with the initial rhetoric, so I didn't bother to read further.

ConChron said:
People need to agree to disagree and stop being childish about it. Many of the conflicts stems from immaturity. IMO. No one have the right to force others to agree or live according to their own beliefs. If you believe in gods, noodles or not should not matter socially, it's a private matter.

Many religions are very much not private matters, and in fact dominate (or try to dominate) entire countries. That's not something you ‘agree to disagree’ on, in my opinion. Personally, I think that while much ‘debate’ over religions can devolve into childishness, people should still voice disagreement. If you don't voice your disagreement over things, nothing ever changes — not for you, if you're wrong, and not for others, if you're right. And what's the point to that? So long as arguments stay arguments and don't become violent or petty, they force people to examine their own beliefs and potentially try to seek something closer to the truth, rather than just taking the comfortable path of intellectual sloth.

zornhau · Apr 15, 2011

What AVbd said.

Religion and atheism can often lead to different moral political stances.

In addition, many religious people feel a religious imperative to convert or exclude atheists - I speak as one who at 6 was made to play Herod in the class Nativity play, and who is aware of attempts by local clerics to insert themselves into my child's state school.

So, I see a sort of cold war as an emergent property of these two facts.

That said, I have several deeply religious friends. If it is a war, there is no reason why it can't be conducted with chivalry and politeness.

kowalskil · Apr 21, 2011

AVbd said:
I read up to about here and then stopped. Mathematics doesn't assert its axioms to be unarguably true. Nor does it expect anyone to accept them on faith. Nor is it used to impose anything on anyone else. Nor do its axioms contradict one another within the same system. And I doubt the average theist is really drawing logical conclusions based on their initial assumptions.

A mathematician deals with consequences of assumptions, not with them being true or not true. "If I accept this then that or that follows." But empirical (pre-mathematical) aspects of assumption should not be ignored.

Anyway, I apologize if I mischaracterized anything in your paper, since I didn't read it. I just disagreed with the initial rhetoric, so I didn't bother to read further.

Many religions are very much not private matters, and in fact dominate (or try to dominate) entire countries. That's not something you ‘agree to disagree’ on, in my opinion. Personally, I think that while much ‘debate’ over religions can devolve into childishness, people should still voice disagreement. If you don't voice your disagreement over things, nothing ever changes — not for you, if you're wrong, and not for others, if you're right. And what's the point to that? So long as arguments stay arguments and don't become violent or petty, they force people to examine their own beliefs and potentially try to seek something closer to the truth, rather than just taking the comfortable path of intellectual sloth.

Perhaps I did not make it clear. I am not against all debates; I am about futile debates. Other debates are indeed instruments of learning. Futile debates are those in which methods of refutation are not used properly.

Ludwik Kowalski
.

benbradley · Apr 21, 2011

veinglory said:
I don't feel like I am at war with anyone. Compared to inter-faith conflict, being an atheist is a walk in the park.

Yes, but I think most atheists are walking under the radar. "On the Internet (and elsewhere), nobody knows you're an atheist." As a persecuted minority only when I "come out" about it, I can relate to what LGBTs go through.

AVbd said:
I read up to about here and then stopped. Mathematics doesn't assert its axioms to be unarguably true. Nor does it expect anyone to accept them on faith. Nor is it used to impose anything on anyone else. Nor do its axioms contradict one another within the same system. And I doubt the average theist is really drawing logical conclusions based on their initial assumptions.

I read this and had a sudden deja vu - I've seen "this" thread before, in the Comparative Religious Philosophy Discussion forum:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204258

The OP has essentially started the same thread in two (or more?) forums, which is frowned upon on AW (and many other boards), as (I hope I remember this right) it splits the discussion of a single topic among several threads, and those interested have to read all the threads to keep up on what's being said.

The mods apparently didn't catch it, else there would only be one thread on this. Perhaps a thread merge is imminent.

I didn't post this, but I remember wanting to mention non-Euclidean geometry as an example, with the point that starting with different axioms results in different rules, which are sometimes useful.

Mac H. · Apr 21, 2011

kowalskil said:
I still do not know what can be done to eliminate endless futile conflicts between theists and atheists.

What futile conflicts?

Discussions? Talks? There are people who have changed their mind in both directions - so to characterise those discussions as 'futile' seems a bit bizarre.

Why don't you look at a simpler system first - just theists. Look at the methods that they are using to avoid endless futile conflicts .. and then see if those methods can be expanded to include other groups.

If, in fact, even among theists there is 'endless futile conflicts' then you have demonstrated that the original question was misleading - unless you are pointing out that adding atheists to the conversation will assist in reducing conflicts between theists?

That's an interesting thought.

Mac

ConChron · Apr 23, 2011

AVbd said:
Many religions are very much not private matters, and in fact dominate (or try to dominate) entire countries. That's not something you ‘agree to disagree’ on, in my opinion.

The topic was "endless futile conflicts between theists and atheists".

What is the point of discussion when it leads nowhere? People can shout "I'm right and you are wrong" in all eternity and it will not make a change since the conflict/discussion is futile (per definition above). There has to come a time when people see the idiocy in it all and agree to disagree. It's not how it is today but it is how it should be. Doing the same non-functioning thing over and over will not make a change.

That's also what I pointed to in my post, how it should be in my opinion, not how it is. I know that religion is not a private matter, it's painfully obvious, but that does not change my opinion that it should be a private matter. My belief or non-belief should have just as little importance to people in society as the socks in my sock drawer. Once religion carries the same importance socially as my socks, there will be no need for immature, childish futile arguments. Or that's what I hope for.

Arguing ad nauseum in a futile discussion will not change what impact religion has on society.

The Unseen Moon · Jul 14, 2011

People need to just learn to respect other people's beliefs and stop it with the "what must be true for me must be true for everybody else and if not must be made to be true" crap.

That's what's ruining America today. All anybody wants to do is be offended and yell and scream at each other and control how each other express themselves.

Sigh.

Theists and atheists( P.S.)

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