Reza Aslan: Sam Harris and “New Atheists” aren’t new, aren’t even atheists (priests, Christ)
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What do you think about Reza Aslan's thoughts on "new atheists"?
He does not have thoughts. He has sound bites that make money. He has not had an original thought of his own, let alone a useful one, that I have yet been made aware of.
The problem is that you're thinking in a very religion-centric manner (the same is true for the other two that responded to me). That is, you're not taking into account other very important factors that influence human behavior (like economic conditions and nationality differences). And that is the key flaw with so-called "New Atheism" and much of the "atheist movement" -- they try blaming all of society's ills on one thing: religious beliefs. In doing so, they are -- ironically -- making religion appear to be a more powerful force in modern society than it actually is.
I think that you misunderstand militant, outspoken or 'New' Atheists. Getting rid of religion would not make the world a Utopia overnight. They, or we, understand the way evolution has made us and it is not pretty.
Sometimes religion can make efforts to make humans better people or improve their condition. Sometimes it gets used to make things worse.
True, guns do not kll people; people kill people. The great atrocity debate is, as I have said before, futile. The Bad debate really arises because apologists sometimes try to argue that we need religion, true or not because of the good it does. Cobblers. It does as much harm as good and a secular world could do the good things that religion does, maybe better and for better motives; because humanity needs it, not to gain converts or make religion look good.
The reason why religion must be countered and its influence on society disentangled is not so much because it is evil, though sometimes the way it is used and can lend itself to that use, often is, but because it is false.
If logical reasoning and scientifically validated evidence mean anything, religion, its gods or quasi -gods, Holy Books, claims and authority are false. And that is why its influence needs to be removed from society.
Maybe you should look into the history of militant atheism before making that self-identification.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
in the sense that I am not just saying so loudly (which would make me a New Atheist) but working to reduce the influence of religion on society.
What are you doing to reduce that influence that Sam Harris and all his "active atheists" are not doing?
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
While I am anti -theism in that I am arguing against theism as a logical and credible belief -position I am not anti -it in that I have some kind of grudge against it.
I think you demonstrably have a grudge against it, as these comments show:
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For me, the bottom line is this - the Bible is false. The religious claims based on the Bible are false. The Churches founded on the Bible are false. The doctrines, opinion, views, authority and influence of the churches, based on the Bible are false.
The falsity of all this has to be rolled back. I am not just talking about the attempts to shoehorn creationism into schools and university (1), deny the rights of gays, women or others on religious grounds, or put up gobsmacking imbeciles as presidential candidates because they believed that everything was made in six days, but the ongoing peddling of the contents of the Bible, New and Old T's as true.
People who want to believe it can if it makes them feel cozy, but it is high time that religion was reduced to the sort of social impotence (as well as in education and science) that astrology has. Almost none.
We have to do this; this is important. This matters.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
With religion, I am working to remove its influence on society. With anti -religion, one can be an anti -religious theist, and it seems that we have many here who are and in fact that leap in 'Nones' may be of that kind - not atheist or even agnostic, but non religious. They have a theist belief but are against organized religion.
The guy needs to do a bit more thinking and talking.
I think Reza has a lot of academic maturing to do, but he's thought and talked about this issue far more than you have.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
I hope he is open to it and is not just intent on bashing and discrediting atheism rather than understand it.
He's not bashing and discrediting atheism, he's criticizing a specific manifestation of it. Isn't it true that no ideology is above criticism? Casting that criticism as "bashing and discrediting" is just as naively rhetorical as what theists do to lash out against atheist criticism.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
(P.s ) I could not help notice the wagging about of the Soviet Union and Marxist China. They are nothing to do with atheism,
That's demonstrably false. They have much to do with atheism.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
new or Old and atheists, tending towards freedom of thought and non -dogmatism are as anti dogmatic totalitarian regimes as they are anti authoritarian and dogmatic religions.
I don't understand your syntax here, but I'm separating it from the first clause. Perhaps you could clarify what you mean.
If you think it doesn't matter if your beliefs are real and truthful, then sure, there's nothing wrong with religion, organized or not.
Why not believe in any old thing?
But as I've said before - what makes religion dangerous is its absolutism.
Almost all ideologies have absolutist adherents and potential.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
This is why there is always so much violence, persecution, prejudice, bigotry, and tyranny wrapped up in organized religion.
But that's demonstrably false. Those things are not "always" wrapped up in organized religion. This is a facile and reductive characterization that for some reason has gained a lot of traction within New Atheism. I would think there would be more critical thinking going on in that group.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
There simply isn't room enough on this planet for varying religions and their subsequent denominations to co-exist peacefully. Almost every major issue involving violence and bloodshed in the world today has religion at its core.
That's simply not true at all. Have you done no research whatsoever into culture, religion, and violence? Have you read Pape, Cavanaugh, Kruglanski, or Pedahzur?
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Originally Posted by Shirina
My God is better than your God. My prayers are more effective than your prayers. I'm going to heaven and you're not. Women should not be equal to men. Homosexuals should be denied their civil rights. Atheists are not US citizens and should be denied constitutional rights.
Religion, by its very nature, cannot compromise and sees itself (regardless of the religion) as superior.
That's a phenomenally ignorant mischaracterization of the nature of religion.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
By default, believers in the superior religion are also superior to those who do not believe. My religion has the right to dominate. My religion has the right to decide for all what is moral.
An incredibly silly rhetorical mischaracterization.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
The ramifications of organized religion on a societal or global level are not particularly good ones nor have they EVER been good ones.
The same can be said for organized atheism. Millions have died at the hands of those who insist atheism is superior and cannot be compromised, to borrow your juvenile description.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
Most of the bloodshed in our violent past had religion as the main catalyst.
A silly myth promoted by people who know very little about history. I doubt you could name a single war that had religion as the main catalyst.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
Much of this was because of the fear and phobias that religion naturally brings with it. God is angry. God is displeased. God is punishing us. But why? It's because of THOSE people over there. You know, the people who dress differently, speak in a strange accent, eat different foods, and above all, those who worship differently than we do. It's their fault. Thus we must do what God would want us to do. What followed has always been mass executions, false imprisonments, torture, witch burnings, cat killing, and even open warfare.
You still see it today - everything from hurricane Katrina to the Sandy Hook shootings to the Haitian earthquake have been blamed on God's anger.
By marginalized idiots that have been shouted down primarily by other religionists.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
It's the fault of the gays, the feminists, the atheists, the liberals, the intellectuals, the people who took God out of our schools! I can't even imagine the carnage that would have resulted if we still lived in a theocracy that had no qualms about stoning people to death.
And one could easily turn around and say they can't even imagine the carnage that would have resulted if Stalin's League of Militant Atheists, that had no qualms about murdering people in any manner of different ways, were still in power.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
On perhaps a more pertinent point, all of this belief in magical gods and adherence to superstition stunts our growth as a technological, well-informed society. Today we have the sum of human knowledge right at our fingertips and yet we still run to our ancient holy books for an explanation to life's origins or how the universe began. There are too many science-deniers, too many purveyors of junk science, too many people who are trying to trade knowledge for comfort.
Ironic that you assert that right as you trade knowledge for ideological comfort (and will no doubt vehemently defend your naive comfort against knowledge).
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Originally Posted by Shirina
Why yes, believing in a god might comfort you, but how much of reality are you throwing away with that belief? How much superstition and fear are you willing to accept just to feel good? In that way, religion is very much like a drug - to exist in a realm of fantasy to maintain a spiritual high.
And we keep passing this nonsense down to our children - so that, while the rest of the world is being taught evolution, American kids are being taught how humans were created fully formed out of dirt and a rib by a magical daddy-god. How are they going to compete in the global marketplace if employers are going to assume American = primitive and thus they hire the Japanese kid instead?
Organized religion goes well beyond having a harmless security blanket to huggle every night when the world seems like such an ugly place.
What we believe ... matters. Because we tend to act on our beliefs. We vote based on our beliefs. We teach our children what we believe. If our beliefs are false - or based on nothing but faith, we're going to quickly lose our place on the world stage.
Watch how vehemently you defend your false beliefs about religion and its nature.
Lots of presumptions there. Do you have any data to go along with those assumptions?
You're simply reworking the old chestnut that holds that in the absence of looming divine punishment, people will misbehave. Now, what would such a notion predict? Here's what it would predict: that behavior in less-religious places would be worse than in more-religious places. One measurable example of worse would be in violent crime. Let's have a look, shall we?
Q: Which of the four major regions of the United States has the highest rate of religiosity? (we can measure that by professed belief and church attendance)
A: The South
So tell me how failed reconstruction efforts after the Civil War play into these two factors. If you cannot, then you can't even pretend you understand what's going on in the South.
Maybe you should look into the history of militant atheism before making that self-identification.
Maybe I should. But a militant atheist is nevertheless a label that fits how I see myself. if I see the need to change it, I will.
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What are you doing to reduce that influence that Sam Harris and all his "active atheists" are not doing?
Why would I want to? I may not make their methods my own, but they are doing nothing I see a need to try to stop.
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I think you demonstrably have a grudge against it, as these comments show:
What I have is an ongoing grudge against faulty and irrational thought. Even when I do it myself.
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I think Reza has a lot of academic maturing to do, but he's thought and talked about this issue far more than you have.
Or so you assume. But an evident inability to think outside of a very restricted mental box means that he can think and talk for the rest of the century and I'll still understand it better than he does.
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He's not bashing and discrediting atheism, he's criticizing a specific manifestation of it. Isn't it true that no ideology is above criticism? Casting that criticism as "bashing and discrediting" is just as naively rhetorical as what theists do to lash out against atheist criticism.
In my book criticizing a specific manifestation of atheism is just finding something easy to attack as part of an attack on all of it. If it is a misconceived and unjustified attack, I call that bashing.
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That's demonstrably false. They have much to do with atheism.
That's incorrect. They are to do with dogmatism as much as the regime in Iran. That the political basis is atheistic rather than religious is not to laid at the door of atheism.
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I don't understand your syntax here, but I'm separating it from the first clause. Perhaps you could clarify what you mean.
Sure. "new or Old and atheists, tending towards freedom of thought and non -dogmatism, are as anti -dogmatic totalitarian regimes as they are anti - authoritarian and dogmatic religions." hyphens to make the meaning utterly clear.
If you still don't understand I suggest you read it again, slowly.
If you still don't understand, I suggest you switch off argument -finding mode and think about it.
If you still don't understand, I suggest you leave your brain in the Church foyer and order a new one.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-06-2014 at 09:39 AM..
So tell me how failed reconstruction efforts after the Civil War play into these two factors. If you cannot, then you can't even pretend you understand what's going on in the South.
Wouldn't it be for you to show how reconstruction efforts failed (never mind who was working hard to see that they failed) and how they are somehow an excuse (that seems to be what you mean) for the way the South turned out?
I'm aware of false correlation, but the sweep of religion at the end of the war and the ongoing racism seems more likely to be factor related to the high crime incidence than some supposed raw deal when the carpetbaggers went in.
Maybe I should. But a militant atheist is nevertheless a label that fits how I see myself. if I see the need to change it, I will.
It may fit how you see yourself, but when you represent yourself to people familiar with the history of the term, you misrepresent yourself in a way detrimental to your rhetorical goals.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
Why would I want to?
You distinguished yourself from his group by claiming that you were "working to reduce the influence of religion on society." He is too. Since you're both doing the same thing, how does that differentiate you from him? What is he doing that's different?
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
I may not make their methods my own, but they are doing nothing I see a need to try to stop.
I said nothing at all about trying to stop them, but he's done much, much more than you to reduce that influence. Really, you're the one just talking loudly.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
What I have is an ongoing grudge against faulty and irrational thought. Even when I do it myself.
Doesn't seem to be the case, since you defend your faulty and irrational logic all the time.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
Or so you assume.
I've read many more books by him, heard many more interviews, and am aware of many more public speaking engagements. What have you done besides bark at people on message boards?
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
But an evident inability to think outside of a very restricted mental box means that he can think and talk for the rest of the century and I'll still understand it better than he does.
Now you're the one doing the assuming. You don't even understand his points, much less what and how he thinks.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
In my book criticizing a specific manifestation of atheism is just finding something easy to attack as part of an attack on all of it. If it is a misconceived and unjustified attack, I call that bashing.
But isn't that exactly what you and other atheists do when you cherry pick fundamentalist nutbags to represent all religion?
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
That's incorrect. They are to do with dogmatism as much as the regime in Iran. That the political basis is atheistic rather than religious is not to laid at the door of atheism.
So when the League of Militant Atheists maps out an explicit strategy for destroying religion because it impedes the progress of a secular society, it's not about atheism? You've got a lot of history to catch up on.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
Sure. "new or Old and atheists, tending towards freedom of thought and non -dogmatism, are as anti -dogmatic totalitarian regimes as they are anti - authoritarian and dogmatic religions." hyphens to make the meaning utterly clear.
If you still don't understand I suggest you read it again, slowly.
If you still don't understand, I suggest you switch off argument -finding mode and think about it.
If you still don't understand, I suggest you leave your brain in the Church foyer and order a new one.[/quote]
No, you just need to learn more about syntax. When you say "they are anti -dogmatic totalitarian regimes" you are leaving it unclear whether you mean they are totalitarian regimes that are anti-dogmatic, or that they are "anti-dogmatic-totalitarian-regime." You don't pluralize "regimes" in that situation, since the plural form agrees in number with your subject, creating confusion. You also don't leave a space before the hyphen. Additionally, to be "anti-" all of that stuff is to be dogmatic, so you can't really also promote "non-dogmatism" and "freedom of thought."
Finally, I'm a linguist and a secular academic. Don't pretend to speak down to me about language or about dogmatism.
Wouldn't it be for you to show how reconstruction efforts failed (never mind who was working hard to see that they failed) and how they are somehow an excuse (that seems to be what you mean) for the way the South turned out?
I'm aware of false correlation, but the sweep of religion at the end of the war and the ongoing racism seems more likely to be factor related to the high crime incidence than some supposed raw deal when the carpetbaggers went in.
You might want to explain your position on this.
I'm still asking for you to explain the relationship. You don't get to just refuse to answer and then lob another misguided rhetorical question my way. Do you know how the failure of reconstruction is related to those dynamics in the South?
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