The Folly of Atheism

Here's where, even as an atheist, I disagree to an extent. Any positive can be rephrased as a negative and vice versa. There is nothing inherently special about positive claims, logically speaking. Anyone who puts forward a claim, whether positive or negative (again, partially because the two are interchangeable), has a burden of proof. When a theist says that their god exists, they have a burden of proof. When a strong/positive atheist says that no god exists, they have a burden of proof. Many strong/positive atheists try to hide behind agnostic/soft atheists in order to avoid making a claim, despite the fact that they are more than willing to make that claim in private. I've lost count of how many times I've heard an atheist say, "I don't claim that God doesn't exist!" when in fact I've heard them make exactly that claim in private conversation.

 

Both. That's why I don't agree with the correlation you are trying to draw.

Again, having read both, I don't see said correlation.

1) I'm a libertarian, not a progressive. 2) Hooray ad hominems. Those never get old.

I arrived at this conclusion back when conservative Christians were trying to cherry pick, feed me selective "facts" and push their agenda on me. I arrived at this conclusion by reading from the Reformers, then reading from Enlightenment philosophers.

The Reformation. How have you not heard of the Reformation?

The Reformers largely rejected Copernicus as a heretic. Try again. Yes, Gutenberg influenced both, because books.

Only if we ignore the actual Reformers.

This boogie man is also a straw man you've invented, rather than addressing my actual claims.

Because there were no public atheists. Because there was no freedom of religion and atheists were executed.

1) Atheism =/= Marxism 2) judging all atheists based on Marx is like me judging all theists based on Jihadists 3) Marxism and Darwinism are incompatible 4) For someone who claims to be free of ideological influences, you sure can't make it two posts without going for the fallacious "just attack the progressives" attack.

Unless you actually read what the Reformers had to say about it.

I have, and I find your position impossible to defend.

 

Perhaps this debate would go better in another thread.. it is kind of off topic, here. But the 'evolution' of philosophical thought & ideology is a fascinating study, & one of my favorite subjects. I do think you are mistaken about the reformation, & have the pop caricature that is generally taught in progressive schools. But i'll leave it at that.

I have addressed some of these issues in past threads..
http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/435575-roots-american-freedom.html
http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/343806-american-reformation.html

 

Off topic? You were literally the one who introduced these issues and you linked them to the philosophical categories introduced in your OP. Now that someone is willing to talk specifics you are trying to deflect to threads that were abandoned over a year ago?

Look, you tried to credit the Reformation for popularizing Copernicus/Heliocentrism. You ironically link to threads that try to credit scriptural authority for advances like this when the leaders of the Reformation explicitly rejected Copernicus/Heliocentrism on the basis of scriptural authority. And when someone expresses an interest in actually looking at Reformation and Enlightenment sources in order to challenge your views . . . you try to swing at a "OMG progressives!!!!" straw man? Really? For "on of [your] favorite subjects," you sure are avoiding it at all costs.

Here's what Martin Luther had to say about Copernicus/Heliocentrism:

"There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must needs invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth."

He also called Copernicus "a fool who went against Holy Writ." So much for that. Wait, maybe Calvin can back you up!

"We will see some who are so deranged, not only in religion but who in all things reveal their monstrous nature, that they will say that the sun does not move, and that it is the earth which shifts and turns. When we see such minds we must indeed confess that the devil posses them, and that God sets them before us as mirrors, in order to keep us in his fear. So it is with all who argue out of pure malice, and who happily make a show of their imprudence."

Er, okay, so not so much. Again, these Reformation leaders did so on the basis of the same scriptural authority that you attempt to credit for the Enlightenment. Odd, especially for someone who refuses to discuss scripture on the one hand, and credits it on the other. If you'd like to discuss what actual Enlightenment leaders had to say about scriptural authority, we can start with Thomas Paine. I promise you won't like it, though.

 

Nonsense. No one has the burden to prove a negative.

• Do you believe faieries exist? If you answer "no", is there a burden for you prove that negative?
• Do you believe Athena was a goddess? If you answer "no", is there a burden for you prove that negative?
• Do you believe the universe was created LastThursday? If you answer "no", is there a burden for you prove that negative?

I am an atheist. I state openly that gods do not exist (except in the mind of man). Man created gods in their own image. I have no burden to prove that all the gods and goddess created by man do not exist.



ETA: Your post #104 was excellent.

 

Contrary to recent popular online opinion, every Logic 101 class teaches the concept of a "claim" on the first day of class the same way -- negative and positive claims are still claims. Any claim can be expressed as a positive (A) or a negative (¬A). Each claim in the bullets above can be expressed using either notation. There is no privileged position for "negative" claims (a category that doesn't actually exist as a distinct category in any system of formal logic) in any logic textbook. If you affirm that "Gods don't exist," you have just as much of a burden of proof as someone who affirms that "Gods exist." There is no rule of logic that states otherwise.

 

Neither of the following statements can be proved or disproved.

• The universe was created LastThursday (A)
• The universe was not created LastThursday (¬A)

They are not provable because they are ridiculous conjectures. As such there is no burden on anyone to prove or disprove either of them. I put the concept of the Christian god into the same category as the concept of Athena being a goddess and into the same category as the concept that a god created the universe LastThursday

The people usually using the "Prove It" or "Disprove It" arguments are theists:

• You cannot Prove god does not exist
• Evolution is not Proven

I have never challenged a theist to prove his version of god exists. I have been challenged many times to disprove god exists. I usually respond by asking if they can prove the universe was not created LastThursday or if they can disprove the existence of faieries.

When I state "Gods do not exist" I do so on the basis of evidence. More specifically, on the basis of a complete lack of evidence for any god.

 

Your smugness is unwarranted. I've already explained why you're wrong but you keep blabbering the same things as in previous posts.

 

People don't have to prove or disprove the existence of their favorite deity. It's up to the deity to prove that he exists. So far not one celestial deity of any kind has ever proven that it exists. The only deities that have proven their existence have all been mortal men. One of the last was the Emperor of Japan.

 

I'll come back to this, and someone else may have already mentioned it in the next ten pages of this thread, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

There's also the chicken and egg problem: if you had more faith, you'd see more evidence of God's existence; without any faith in God, He's not going to show you any evidence that He exists.

 

Would you consider logic as evidence? I am an atheist and former believer. I tried to prove God's existence using logic and managed (despite my intentions) to prove to myself that God, at least the God we think of in the West, could not possibly exist. Boiled down to its essentials, I could not resolve the logical contradiction of a perfect God creating an imperfect human. While there is the possibility of an imperfect God (think Lisa Simpson accidentally creating a "world" on the surface of a tooth), such a God would not be one worth worshipping. Further, an imperfect God would imply a changeable God, so how would one even know in what manner to worship it? What worked yesterday might not work today. So I'm in two categories, I suppose... atheist in regards to a perfect God, agnostic in regards to an imperfect God.

By the way, one of the interesting dilemmas inherent in both theism and atheism is the infinite regression problem. If the universe was created in the Big Bang, where did all that mass and energy come from? Another universe? And then where did the energy and mass in that universe come from? Or alternatively, if God created the universe, where was God before? He couldn't be IN the universe before he created it, so where was he? In another universe? And then who created that universe? And where was that God? There's no logical solution to either problem.

 

I am discussing your comment about less examination given to atheism. Individuals who break the mould definitely exist (as I have pointed out before), but they are not many enough to shape the amount of examination, so I find them less relevant for these purposes.

I happen to be relatively left in American political terms, and those are some of the topics that sprung to my mind, but certainly leftists who argue in favour of welfare based on the Christian idea of charity (and similar) fall under the same umbrella. However, since I consider that to be a valid conclusion (in very broad terms) even without Christianity, it would be a lot harder to give an example of the impact if I discussed those arguments. I'm not trying to blanket correlate Christianity with things I think are wrong, I'm bringing up examples which highlight the impact I'm talking about.

It is true that any world view (atheism included) can be put on a placard and used to blanket vote in any policies, regardless of the content of the world view in question. This is however not the effect I'm talking about. Most atheists in the west reject these versions and that doesn't really put a dent in their atheism. No atheistic principles were used to derive the treatment of homosexuals in Cuba. If we had replaced Castro's atheism with a we-can't-know-anything agnosticism, nothing would change.

The idea I present is not to correlate theism with evils, it is a comment on the idea that atheism is less examined than, for instance, Christianity.

I submit that if one rejects Christianity in favour of agnosticism (or anything else that might be considered a base-line), then many things (of public importance) will change. Consequentially, it is important to examine one's Christianity to figure out whether one should reject it. (In particular, it is important to others, so they will bring it up.)

However, if one rejects atheism in favour of agnosticism, nothing really changes, because their practical ideas didn't rely on the idea that there is no god, but humanism, a respect/acknowledgement of the human experience (or "kill the bourgeoisie" or whatever). Therefore, it is not as important to examine it. Don't get me wrong, any statement should be examined, and you'd be quite welcome to, but I would say this distinction is a big reason to why that tends to happen less often in the public debate (like on forums).

 

No need to get your panties in a bunch. I was not criticizing you, just commenting that this debate would go better in another thread. My only link to history, was in showing the progression of atheism as a worldview, which began more earnestly mid/late 19th century. It was the marxist/darwinist ideologies that gave traction to this as an ideology, not the reformers, not the enlightenment thinkers, & not the early discoverers in science. I am not debating the influence of the reformation on atheism.. though i'm sure it could be an interesting historical study. I am tracing the history & expansion of atheism as a world view, & it roots, influences, etc.

Luther's or Calvin's opinions about science is irrelevant. So is the claim that protestants were equally murderous during the reformation. I was not claiming that luther believed, liked, or friended copernicus, but only correlating the ideology that presented the climate for BOTH movements. Criticizing the reformers for their scientific beliefs, which only reflected the beliefs of the day, do not address the point.
As a reminder, here is what i actually said:

I made no claim that the reformation caused the age of reason, or the enlightenment. That is your faulty conclusion. I would include Thomas Paine as a link in that ideology.. with the same roots as the other enlightenment philosophers.

The reformation was about freedom.. freedom of thought.. freedom to question. Freedom to challenge the status quo. That freedom did not exist, & many of the early reformers lost their lives pursuing it. These reformers were christian ideologues, not political activists. They died for their philosophical beliefs about the universe, not fighting for some political agenda. I am not talking about the political history of the time, which does not always reflect the values of the people of the time. I'm talking about the real protestants.. the huguenots, the palatinate, quakers, & protestants from many perspectives, rose together to resist the institutionalizing of christian faith, where belief (and science) was mandated. They left their homelands to find freedom to gather & believe. Many went to a few 'safe spaces' in europe. Many went to America. But this was the birth of protestantism, & it was not a political movement. It was about freedom, & IMO, it 'raised awareness' for many subsequent issues of humanity.

I see a correlation between the enlightenment, the reformation, & the printing press.. these began concurrently, & built upon each other. The absurd mandates of the Elite Aristocracy over science, the ability to print our knowledge base, so it can be built upon by subsequent generations, & the rebellion over man's authority on matter of religious belief... 'We must obey God, rather than man', was a common theme in the reformation, & many, if not most of the scientists of the day, who butted heads with the status quo, found courage in that same theme.

I do not see an atheistic thread in the enlightenment. Most of them were either devout christians, or simple deists. I know of no claims of atheism among the philosophers & scientists of that time. There may be some, but i haven't heard it. I know that there were many who were anti-christian, but this is not about christianity, but atheism & theism.

If you choose to use Paine as a source, i hope you are aware that he was a deist, not an atheist.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. ~Thomas Paine

I believe there is a solid argument to credit christianity for the many advances in science, though i have not been making that argument.

source

My central point is that freedom of thought, which is the cornerstone of scientific methodology, began in the same climate as the reformation, the Enlightenment, the printing press. They are all interrelated, & share a common heritage. Atheism, as an ideology, has its history in Marxism & Darwinism, which also began concurrently, & combined to shape the upcoming world view that would be known as progressivism, in the US. It took other forms in europe, with the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Nazis in Germany, & Mao's China. All of these world views were clearly influenced by Marx & Darwin, & even credited by their proponents.

 

Proving or disproving anything about deities is empirically impossible. That is a broad statement, but i don't think it can be refuted. The subject here is not proving or disproving the supernatural, but beliefs. An atheist does not believe in a supernatural 'cause', and a theist does. They are opposites, & antithetical. There is only the gray area of 'agnosticism' which is either simple ignorance, or greek skepticism, depending on how the agnostic defines himself. So it seem fairly plain to me, that everyone falls into one of these 3 basic categories. I have heard many objections from some on this thread, claiming they are not in any category, but are 'special', & are not like other people. But this is merely an attempt to take some kind of pseudo intellectual high ground, or perhaps is a reflection of a 'special snowflake' belief in themselves. But objectively, there are only these 3 options.. theism, atheism, or skepticism (per the greek definition)

• there is a god/supernatural
• there is not a god/supernatural
• nobody can know anything

If anyone can come up with a rational addition, subtraction, or other category for our special snowflakes, i'd love to hear it.

 

If you want to consider logic as evidence then you must also consider the evidence for the logic. There is ample evidence that all gods are the creations of mans hopes, fears and quests for knowledge. If all gods are man's creations there is no logical reason to try to differentiate between perfect gods and imperfect gods. I think your agnosticism stems from not being entirely past the "believer" stage.

The honest answer to both questions is We Don't Know. Science admits that it doesn't know what preceded the big bang. However, theists abhor We Don't Know. Instead, they have the knowledge that God Has Always Existed.

“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms....” (Deuteronomy 33:27).
“...The everlasting God...will not grow tired or weary...he gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (Isaiah 40:28 ).
​

 

I would say that logic is a manager of evidence, but not evidence, itself. Logic cannot really function without some kind of evidence.. either assumed, inferred, or empirical. Evidence is just there, even if it is mismanaged, distorted, or ignored.

I also think that trying to 'prove' anything about the supernatural with logic is a doomed endeavor. There is nothing in the way of empirical evidence, in our collective knowledge base, for any conclusion, for or against. So how can logic do anything, except juggle & manipulate assumptions & conjectures, which makes any conclusions based on assumption & conjecture?

IMO, personal experience & indoctrination are the 2 biggest factors in anyone's world view. And of course, personal experience is highly subjective, & dependent on accurate perceptions.. something which man has not been consistent with.

So i don't see a pathway to enlightenment through logic, though i am a big fan of logic. I would say enlightenment comes more when the chaff of lies & deception are blown away, by either critical thinking or experience.

 

Good reasoned reply.. thanks for the civil, rational tone. I never have understood why some feel obligated to be insulting regarding belief systems. ..well, i take that back. It is a very common human thing, to be roused in emotional loyalty to one's belief system, & to kill or die for it, at times. But i find it irrational, nonetheless.

I see your point about the motivation of ideology & beliefs, which has been my point, too. Nobody exists in a vacuum, but we are all the product of various influences & factors. But i don't agree, still, with your perception that christians cause all the bad things in the world, & if everyone was an atheist, we'd all be loving & holding hands. I do not see any ideology completely overcoming the humanity of man, even if it is spelled out, like in christianity & hinduism, for example. When it is not 'spelled out', but when human aggression is promoted by the ideology, it gives license to those who are naturally prone to that, anyway. I used islam & bolshevism as examples of that.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'less examination given to atheism'. I tried to show that any ideology can be held by those who commit crimes against humanity. Sometimes the ideology feeds it, sometimes not. There is not as much history for atheism in political ideology, but what there is, is not very inspiring. Lenin, Stalin, Pol-Pot, Castro, Mao, & many more small or large dictators that held or hold an atheistic belief system, do not have a good record for human freedom, individual rights, & social harmony.

I would dispute that changes in ideology bring significant changes to views on specific issues. Some.. sometimes, but most people, from my observation, tend to reflect the values they were raised with. That does not mean they believe in the ideology, just that they reflect the values. And when there are significant changes, it is usually in a religious experience kind of event..where one's formerly held worldview is changed radically through a religious experience.

 

You also tried crediting the Reformation for the Enlightenment, using Copernicus as a specific example. This is not a defensible position. As for "the progression of atheism as a worldview," this is another rationally tenuous argument and a radically inconsistent approach illustrating a serious double standard.

They are if you want to credit the Reformation for the Enlightenment and specifically the popularization of Copernicanism/Heliocentrism.

It is if you want to give the Reformation credit for freedom of religion, which is another thing you attempted to do.

The climate they created, which focused on scriptural authority, stunted science. The Enlightenment popularized the scientific method and freedom of religion by rejecting this Reformation view.

You pointed to the Reformation as part of those roots. Putting Thomas Paine's "roots" in the Reformation is shaky, and that's being generous.

The Reformers rejected such freedoms. Your claim has no basis in history.

And killed others for questioning. you are literally trying to argue that the Reformation was about freedom while simultaneously claiming that any attack on freedom by the Reformers should be ignored and doesn't matter. It is hard to find a way to make that argument more hypocritical than it already is.

They were both. See Geneva and the support that the Reformers gave to the divine right of kings. They did not see a distinct separation between religion and politics.

They died and killed for both.

The Reformed Christian Protestants persecuted Quakers and other groups that they didn't approve of.

Yet another display of a stunning lack of historical knowledge. They fled for their own freedom, but they did not extend that freedom to others in their new lands. They made a home in Geneva . . . where they burned heretics at the stake. You relying on a heavily whitewashed, revisionist "history."

Where they continued to persecute others for their religious beliefs for quite some time.

Because you literally refuse to even consider all of the ways these Protestants stood against freedom.

Scriptural authority is no less an impediment to science than the aristocracy was.

I don't see a Reform thread in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment progressed in part by rejecting the scriptural authority of the Reformation.

Most where Christians who had rejected scriptural authority or deists, who also rejected scriptural authority.

In large part because the "freedom loving" Reformers did not allow freedom of religion for atheists. Also, you seem to equate atheism with naturalism and materialism. Thomas Jefferson was materialist, believing even God to be a material being. Thomas Hobbes was, likewise, a materialist who was accused of atheism. Spinoza was a naturalist and the only God he believed in was the universe itself.

Also Diderot and d'Holbach were both self-identified atheists and pretty big deals during the Enlightenment.

If you are going to credit Christian roots with all of the things you've credited it with, then yes, we are talking about Christianity.

I'm well aware. I've read everything available that he's written. I pointed to him as a strong rejection of scriptural authority.

And my central point is that the Reformers violently rejected such freedom of thought.

Atheism predates both Marxism and Darwinism. Equating atheism with Marxism is completely dishonest, and as I've pointed out, Marxism and Darwinism are incompatible, which is part of why the Soviets replaced it with Lamarckism in their schools. The study of Darwinian evolution famously led Sagan to leave Marxism.

Wrong yet again. The Soviets rejected Darwinism in favor of Lamarckism, since natural selection threatened their Marxist philosophy of the dialectic. The Nazis were mostly theists, not atheists, and though Hitler said one or two positive things about Marx, he rejected his philosophy as a whole. Marx's theory that class trumped nation didn't mesh well with Hitler's radical nationalism, and Marxist thinkers were thrown in concentration camps. Likewise, Hitler embraced social Darwinism, which didn't actually come from Darwin. Blaming Darwin for Nazi social Darwinism is like blaming Jesus for the Nazi Positive Christianity movement.

And here we come to the biggest double standard. You want to blame this made up "atheist worldview" for this small window of history while ignoring thousands of years of theistic and even specifically Christian violence, judging the theism based only on a tenuous relationship with the Enlightenment.

 

Well, it seems we have little in common in our 'facts' of history, & since this debate is not topical to the thread, I do not see any reason to continue. Your assertions about historical facts are indeed assertions, & your 'rebuttal' did not address my points, but only a strawman of your own construction.

I stand by my observation of Marx & Darwin being influential factors in crafting the current atheistic ideology.

Two scientists can hardly be named who have, in the second half of the 19th century, dominated the human mind to a greater degree than Darwin and Marx. Their teachings revolutionized the conception that the great masses had about the world. For decades their names have been on the tongues of everybody, and their teachings have become the central point of the mental struggles which accompany the social struggles of today. The cause of this lies primarily in the highly scientific contents of their teachings.
...
The scientific importance of Marxism as well as of Darwinism consists in their following out the theory of evolution, the one upon the domain of the organic world, of things animate; the other, upon the domain of society. ~Anton Pannekoek, 1909

Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect. Engels, letter to Marx, 1859

“Marx and Engels accepted evolution almost immediately after Darwin published The Origin of Species. Evolution, of course, was just what the founders of communism needed to explain how mankind could have come into being without the intervention of any supernatural force, and consequently it could be used to bolster the foundations of their materialistic philosophy.” ~Conway Zirkle

Darwin had an undeniable and profound influence on the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the development of Communism. Although not intended by Darwin, the effect of the theory of evolution emerged as the single most significant social engineering movement of the twentieth century. 'Darwin, Here & Now', Richard William Nelson

"..after the Newtonian Theory of the universe had been developed, almost all thinking tended to express itself in the analogies of the Newtonian Theory, and since the Darwinian Theory has reigned amongst us, everybody is likely to express whatever he wishes to expound in terms of development and accommodation to environment." ~Woodrow Wilson

I can find a ton of quotes by atheists, theists, & historians who obviously correlate the progressive movement and atheism, with the works of marx & darwin. If you are claiming they do not relate, i would have to see by what evidence you make this claim. I see none in history.

I ABSOLUTELY see theistic ideology influencing the reformation, the enlightenment, & the scientific revolution. I see NO atheistic influences in that era. If you claim that it was atheistic ideology that inspired the enlightenment, & dismiss the reformation, i see no evidence for that view. I can provide plenty of quotes & writings from many in that era that show their theistic ideology in their scientific & political writings, including Paine. I don't see any influential thinkers or writers of that time with atheistic beliefs. So, if there is any revisionism going on here, it is your flawed perceptions of history, based in, IMO, an indoctrination from progressive education. Those are not accurate perceptions of history, but agenda driven beliefs.

This thread is not supposed to be a pi$$ing contest for 'atheism vs theism', but merely a deeper examination into the atheistic world view... it's roots, & evolution. Pointing out the historical basis for anything is not a pejorative, but a factual pursuit. And, deflecting with criticisms toward perceived christian evils does not correlate, unless you are trying to show a connection between the social evils of the time, & the use of atheism to correct them. I don't think you can make a case for that, before the mid 1800s.

If you wish to rebut my claim that modern atheism has its roots in marxist & darwinist ideology, go for it. I'd like to hear some alternate views, with evidence for those views. But merely asserting, & dogmatically claiming historical superiority is not evidence, & does not prove your case. Nor does continued attacks on your strawman.. if you rebut my points, do it as they are written, not as you revise them.

 

Since you refuse to actually discuss said "roots," ignore every challenge to it, abandon points and shift goalposts, etc., then yes, I agree that there is little further discussion to be had. If you would actually like to debate and discuss, let me know. I'll still be around. As for influential atheists of the time, I provided you with examples, which you decided to ignore.

 

..since you seem to want to abandon reason for ad hominem, i agree that further discussion is pointless.

 

There is no ad hominem in the previous post, only an observation that you refuse to discuss the things that you claim to wish to discuss.

 

I'm very keen on reasonable debate, so I'm happy we both are being civil. Thank you for that.

I guess it is important to point out exactly what is being discussed here. I am responding to the line from your OP:

I suggest that the reason that religious beliefs are examined more often is that many political or practical beliefs of religious people hinge directly on the validity of their religious beliefs, whereas the same is not true for atheism. The beliefs that most atheists hold never hinge on the non-existence of God so much as the idea that we can't know whether God exists.

The relation with naturalism is similar, the ideas you might attribute to naturalism don't derive from naturalism being true, but from the idea that given no other certain information, the best idea is to behave as if naturalism is true, even if it isn't.

Nobody can deny that atheism was a central point in several bad governments like those of Stalin or Mao. However, given that most atheists are uninterested in the kinds of governments that Stalin and Mao had, it becomes important whether atheism brought about those kinds of governments or if it was the other way around, or if in some other way, modern atheism would cause similar governments. My current understanding of atheism is that nothing in it (which isn't very much) is likely to bring about such a government. Of course, the buck doesn't stop there, one should still be wary of world views' ability to be hi-jacked for other causes and whatnot, but we should keep track of that anyway, so I don't see that as a show-stopper.

I wouldn't want to give the impression that I think religions is behind everything bad in the world, they are not. In fact, I believe most of the problems that can be derived through religion aren't religious in their core. I don't think opposition to same sex partnerships come only from a literal reading of the Bible, I don't think ISIS just formed from a reading of the Qur'an. I believe people were grossed out by homosexuals and turned to the Bible for some objective justification to be against it, I believe Middle Easterners were agitated against western involvement and turned to the Qur'an for a justification to fight back. With a few exceptions, almost all religious problems are non-religious problems masked by whatever religion it is. Thus, if religion disappeared, I believe the problems would still be there only they would be covered by even weirder justifications. However, it's still very annoying not to get to the bottom of some issues because they're covered in layers of religion first, so I am still interested in dismantling religious justifications. Everyone being atheist would not lead to everyone singing Kumbaya, but it would be a lot easier to get a good grasp on why people believe what they believe and whether it is valid.

 

You declare what the topic is about, but you are the one defining what terms you will accept. You ignore so many of the other possibilities by putting your blinders on and dismissing anything that disputes your claims. Bad topic and faulty reasoning.

 

Mine rests on the simple acknowledgment that I don't care if there is a god or not. Totally irrelevant.