What about your religious views would you say are "radical"?
One other problem I've seen with some of the most outspoken atheists is that they fundamentally seem to misunderstand the role that religion plays in many people's lives. Biblical literalists like Answers in Genesis are really a side show - they're easy to mock, but don't represent what religion is to most adherents. Most people don't look to religion for scientific answers but for community, a scaffolding to build their lives around, and for relief from existential dread. "New Atheism" often had no alternative answer to these functions.
One interpretation of this apparent misunderstanding, is that it is simply easier and more profitable to create humorous or rage-baiting content around obviously absurd claims that cater to a pre-existing views, than it is to watch an extensive lecture going over particular arguments.
I don't think this is true at all, particularly when you consider the world at large and not just the West. Also, you can find these functions elsewhere. You don't need to believe in God or in miracles to have any of that. Also, biblical literalists are the reason many rights are eroding in the West. Confronting them is a necessity, even if you're a religious person.
You don't actually know this, but you were raised in a culture where clairvoyance is considered acceptable so it doesn't seem weird.
Faith-based thinking seems to be a core part of the human experience.
Weird how me and hundreds of millions of people can do without it then. I have no idea what you meant about clairvoyance.
Weird how you can't realize that the actual truth value of that perception is a function of the truth value of the accusation itself.
> I have no idea what you meant about clairvoyance.
The truth value of "You don't need to believe in God or in miracles to have any of that" (or, "me and hundreds of millions of people can do without it") is a function of the experiences of the individual human beings in the referenced set. You do not actually have access to that, so your mind whipped up a virtual proxy of reality to stand in for reality itself. In your culture, this supernatural practice is considered normal, so no one even bats an eye at it. In my experience, most people consider it ~crazy to not do this.
Nor should it. Wishing for something to be true doesn’t make it true.
Your arguing for something to be a belief system, when it’s precisely the opposite.
It was the juxtaposition of the hubiris against the weakness of the arguments. I'm generally put off by people who think they're much smarter or stronger than they really are, and who use it to bully others.
>What about your religious views would you say are "radical"?
To give one example, I now believe non-Abrahamic religions (or a lack thereof) should be entirely illegal.
I did not hold any beliefs even remotely as fringe back before discovering Mr. Repzion, Richard Dawkins, Jackyln Glenn and The Amazing Atheist, Onision as a kid back in ~2011.
After that my impression of atheists gradually soured and I began to observe that in some sense, their attitude was not restricted merely to speech despite what they might dishonestly claim, and that their positions and the demand for that content reflected society's general attitude towards religious people.
I began to understand that this is natural for all groups, tribes etc, so it would be naive for me to allow myself to be on the backfoot.
That's an accurate observation, but being a zoomer, it's also pretty standard.
We see this more explicitly in China and France, but we are also beginning to see it in other areas of the western world primarily using soft power, such as by funding subversive institutions and figures.
As with the prisoner's dilemma, there is no good reason for religious people to play the game with their hands tied behind their backs.
You're calling for a theocracy, and I assume forced re-education and/or mass murder of non-religious people. This, in your mind, is the best way to have a stable society? And you came to this conclusion because of the influence of some shitty, middle-brow Youtubers and their click-bait?
Bizarre.
"the only really straight heterosexual position is to be an asexual incel." -Nick Fuentes
Thankfully God blessed me with charisma, good looks and a positive outlook.
>No different than if I was to start saying we need to kill all the god-believers because of the times they told me I was going to hell. Kill them all, because they clearly don't respect me and are in my way, who knows what theyll do next. They'll do anything if its in that book of theirs!!
Many atheists already hold this view either explicitly or in effect, and it's a more logically consistent one than yours. There's nothing stopping you from staying silent in the prisoner's dilemma, but confession is the most strategic choice.
>"the only really straight heterosexual position is to be an asexual incel." -Nick Fuentes
lol
So I looked him up, and found his blog, and this is the latest post on it: "Why Should Muslims Defend Slavery and Minor Marriage?" https://muslimskeptic.com/2023/04/10/slavery-minor-marriage/
As per the title, it explains his belief, as a radical Muslim, that slavery and underage marriage ought to be defended
If this is where you are getting your ideas from–I don't really know what to say in response. A lot of people who ended up joining Islamic State and blowing themselves up on some battlefield in Syria, they started out by listening to people who say the sort of things that he does
For example, Catholicism: Vatican II's declaration on religious freedom (Dignitatis humanae) says that "a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion, or when it hinders men from joining or leaving a religious community". Of course, some Trad Catholics reject Vatican II, and for many of them their biggest disagreement with it, is not anything to do with liturgy (as one might expect), it's this teaching on religious freedom. But, unlike many Trads, most Catholics don't reject that – not just moderate or liberal Catholics, even many very conservative ones. A devout Opus Dei member who prays to Pope Saint John Paul II every day can't reject Vatican II, because JP2 taught very explicitly that it was binding, and because Opus Dei was always a big supporter of it (and still is–which is a big part of why many Trads, SSPX in particular, dislike them so much).
What I do have a problem with, is them imposing their values and morals on me, or judging me by them. They should keep that within their own communities. Also note that many religions disagree on many things, and they all believe they are the one true right one, yet this is literally impossible.
But I would not wish to suppress other beliefs as long as they don't impose their values upon atheists or followers of other belief systems. And if they do try to do so my problem is with that imposition alone.
One of the things I never really grasp is how much hate is coming from religious groups regarding what people do in the bedroom. Something that does not affect or hurt them at all. I never understand the reason for this.
This rings hollow, because as soon as we want to police our own communities according to our laws suddenly it becomes 'you are sexist, you are homophobic, you are anti-democratic, now hand over your children, your wealth and your guns'.
>What I do have a problem with, is them imposing their values and morals on me, or judging me by them. They should keep that within their own communities.
So that we can instead have your morals and values imposed on us?
>But I would not wish to suppress other beliefs as long as they don't impose their values upon atheists or followers of other belief systems. And if they do try to do so my problem is with that imposition alone.
So you would have no problem with Christians fining other Christians for premarital sex, or imprisoning women for having abortions, or Muslims flogging other Muslims for engaging in sodomy? Hell, what if we just don't want to bake a cake for a gay couple?
>Something that does not affect or hurt them at all. I never understand the reason for this.
Our morals are based on our religious texts. It has nothing to do with whether we feel 'affected' in the short term.
Is it ok to be a non-practicing Jew, or is it required to be orthodox? Are Mormons acceptable? 7th Day Adventists? Jehovah Witnesses? Why or why not?
How does one believe something when they simply and sincerely do not? Is it possible to force someone to believe something?
Can you cite examples of blasphemy laws which have proven to be a net positive in society? How do we deal with people having similar beliefs but exercising them wildly differently? Is that ok? Why or why not
I'm all for thought experiments and playing what-if, but if you're going to make the statement that my sheer existence should be illegal, I need quite a bit of clarity!
You know as well as I do that going down a road like what antibasilisk is suggesting only ends in concentration camps.
The notion of forced religion certain could lead to the worst versions of theocracy imaginable, but surely someone would think things to their logical conclusion before professing something so heinous. Right?
It would be according to what is apparent from your statements, observances and symbolisms. If you wear a cross or a sockcloth for example, you are counted among the Christians until otherwise proven, a similar principle is applied to wearing a yarmulke, tefflin, kufi or hijab. These are of course not perfect metrics, but this was the standard used in the middle ages in Arabia, and it generally sufficed for demonstrating group identity in practice.
>Do the benefits outweigh the harm?
I think that it is important for humans to have some shared basis for a worldview, and the abrahamic religions encompass a significant enough portion of the world without so much variation as to be as problematic as other belief systems.
>Is it ok to be a non-practicing Jew, or is it required to be orthodox? Are Mormons acceptable? 7th Day Adventists? Jehovah Witnesses? Why or why not?
This is a question I have been exploring, and that I need to do more rigorous thinking on. I cannot provide a satisfactory answer at the moment, other than that people who take wholly symbolic positions on religions would definitely be excluded from those definitions (e.g: jungians, nontheist quakers). Other groups are a greyer area to me.
>How does one believe something when they simply and sincerely do not? Is it possible to force someone to believe something?
It's not necessary for us to go exploring your thoughts, that would be impractical and invasive. We need only concern ourselves with what's external and the impact it has on society.
Although it's not possible to force someone to believe something, practising a belief may eventually lead to you feeling an affinity towards it if you're on the fence.
>Can you cite examples of blasphemy laws which have proven to be a net positive in society?
This question actually does very well in demonstrate the conflict in worldview that becomes apparent in the assumptions we use. What is 'positive'? As far as many religious people are concerned, a lack of blasphemy and irreligiosity is itself beneficial.
>How do we deal with people having similar beliefs but exercising them wildly differently? Is that ok? Why or why not
Any given belief system necessarily has a certain tolerance for variation in beliefs, and usually a distinction is drawn between creedal differences and practical differences, with the former being a greater concern than the latter.
This I can wholeheartedly agree with.
In what way is atheism a danger or harm to society except that it violates your proposed monoculture?
Violating said monoculture is a problem in itself because it leads to a population that cannot collaborate or agree even broadly on morals that concern day to day life. We're seeing this right now in America, where each side of the aisle (which broadly speaking is cut across religious lines) is becoming progressively angrier as they realise the others beliefs necessarily requires capitulation from their side on some issues, in ways that cannot be accepted, such as abortion or the integration of homosexuals and transgenders. This is gradually destabilizing the country.
Your examples are counter to your own point. Jews don't seem to have the same views on abortion that the evangelicals appear to have. The United Methodist church is splitting because of differing views on homosexuality and other LGBTQ+ issues.
Having common values is very important, but predicating it on all the doctrine of a set of religions or a single religion seems shaky at best.
I also noticed you still haven't given a good reason. Your opening line is circular - violating the monoculture is bad because it disrupts the monoculture. Instead of proposing a broad set of morals outside of religion, you intend to (by force?) push a set of morals that YOU dictate based off ancient texts of dubious origin.
People will not cease to differ, yet despite all of that they agree that atheism is disastrous.
>Your examples are counter to your own point. Jews don't seem to have the same views on abortion that the evangelicals appear to have. The United Methodist church is splitting because of differing views on homosexuality and other LGBTQ+ issues.
This is a very shallow understanding of religion. There will always be fringe groups who differ. The fact is religious texts have a meaning, that someone wants to negate that meaning makes no difference. If text did not have meaning you would not be able to understand what I am saying.
Jews, Muslims and Christians all have slightly different beliefs on abortion between them for example, but they all agree the unborn have certain rights. The differences are minor such as when the unborn is a person, if the unborn can be mourned, what constitutes necessity that could justify an abortion etc. None of these groups permit elective abortion.
>Instead of proposing a broad set of morals outside of religion
It is not possible to believe that religion dictates morals, while also believing in morals external to your religion, because it entails contradiction.
>you intend to (by force?) push a set of morals that YOU dictate based off ancient texts of dubious origin
If my morals were based on conjecture, they would be just as baseless as your moral conjecture, regardless what the conjecture was.
You have no moral basis from which to criticize me, you only have personal preferences, and there is no god of liberal humanism that will punish me in a way that I cannot escape if I fail to comply.
What does this have to do with your argument?
The Methodists are hardly a fringe group.
Atheism is "disastrous" only in that it is based on non-belief, not that Atheists themselves are detrimental to society.
The hundreds/thousands of protestant sects counter your statement that "religious texts have a meaning." They are long, often self-contradictory, and open to many interpretations. Not "a" meaning, but many "meanings." Again, the things you are claiming to be strength do not bear out in reality.
I think you to be better than the sociopath you claim to be. Do you only abstain from murder and rape and lying and cheating to avoid punishment in the afterlife? Because while I may have "baseless" moral conjectures, a simply moral code of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is superior in a myriad of ways.
You admit yourself, morals are based off standards. We can agree to those which bear out healthy, happy, productive societies or ones which do not. It's funny how most people consider theocracies to have a negative connotation.
Still waiting to hear what punishment is befitting a person of non-belief.
Au contraire, subscribing to hard DCT is an active choice I made.
>I guess all those philosophers just needed to agree to use the same exact interpretation of the same holy books and there would be no need for discussion, right?
Wholly negating meaning on the basis of usually minor differences is sophistry.
>Do you only abstain from murder and rape and lying and cheating to avoid punishment in the afterlife?
Yes. Reading Stirner helped me to realise that there was very little difference between disliking heights and disliking murder aside from God telling me that avoiding the latter leads to unimaginable reward. Absent that I could simply decide to start liking things if it so pleased me, just as I did with heights.
>We can agree to those which bear out healthy, happy, productive societies or ones which do not.
Except that all of these terms are based in belief systems, of which mine and yours are wholly different.
Catholic teaching (both traditional and contemporary) is that objective morality is inherent in the very nature of created things, and hence knowable in principle by anyone who knows those created things–even a convinced atheist. If by "hard DCT", you mean that good and evil are (in the general case) contained in the contingencies of God's free will as opposed to the necessity of God's own nature (theological voluntarism) – such that God could have chosen to command murder instead of prohibiting it, in which case it would be good rather than evil; and that right and wrong are unknowable except through special divine revelation (e.g. the Bible) – then Catholicism condemns that as heresy
Since you advocate taking away the religious freedom of atheists and non-Abrahamists (Hindus/Buddhists/Sikhs/Jains/Taoists/Shintoists/etc) – would you be okay if a Catholic theocracy persecuted you for your own belief in "hard DCT", given that according to Catholicism it is heretical?
Indeed, from a traditional Catholic perspective, hard DCT is a socially harmful heresy – by reducing right and wrong to God's whims, it encourages aberrant sects which justify all manner of evils as God's prophetic command; by falsely claiming that non-believers are incapable of knowing objective morality, it discourages them from seeking to know and understand and obey that morality, and gives them an excuse with which to evade their own moral responsibility. If any heresy is sufficiently socially harmful to justify its persecution, your own "hard DCT" is arguably among them.
I get the impression you are Muslim, or at least leaning in that direction. "Hard DCT" is the Asharite position, so you might call it the mainstream traditional Sunni view. Catholicism's view on this topic has been influenced by Islam, since Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was a big influence on mediaeval Latin Catholic philosophy (including Aquinas), and through that on Catholic theology too. Something close to the Asharite position occurred among Catholics as well - William of Ockham and the nominalists, most notably – but Catholicism ended up decisively rejecting that approach. It still has some advocates among Protestant philosophers (most notably nowadays, Robert Merrihew Adams)–but the Catholicism of recent centuries has rather decisively ruled it out.
By contrast, in Islam, Ibn Rushd's viewpoint was adopted by the Mu'tazilites, but opposed by the Asharites, and the later generally won out over the former; unlike Ibn Rushd, al-Ash'ari and his followers were ignored by Latin Catholic Europe. The Mu'tazilites largely died out, and their theology was not accepted as orthodox in Sunni Islam. However, Māturīdism, which can be viewed as somewhat of a compromise position between the Mu'tazilites and the Asharite views, is generally accepted as an orthodox Sunni theological school–and it agrees with Ibn Rushd, the Mu'tazilites, and Catholicism, in rejecting hard DCT.
My impression is that Asharite theology is more popular than Maturidite theology in contemporary Sunni Islam; while there is no necessary correspondence between schools of Islamic law (madhhabs) and schools of Islamic theology (aqidah), in practice Hanafis tend to be Maturidite while the followers of the other schools of fiqh tend to be Asharite or Atharite instead, and Hanafis are only about a third of contemporary Sunni Islam. Twelver Shi'a theology also rejects the "hard DCT" viewpoint of the Asharites; a basic principle of Twelver Shi'a theology is that right and wrong are an inseparable part of the divine essence, not just what God happened to choose to make right and wrong. I'm not entirely sure what the Atharite position is, if they have one; but if we take Ibn Taymiyyah as representative of Athari theology, he condemned the Asharite position that God could have chosen to make evil deeds good – which suggests that "hard DCT" is contrary to the Atharite position.
I would not, but I'm not sure what that has to do with my broader argument, since it doesn't hinge on Abrahamic religions seeing eye to eye on all topics. For example, you wouldn't find Ahmed bin Hanbal saying that he would prefer no caliphate to one that believed in the createdness of the Qur'an, despite being persecuted for that belief himself.
>"Hard DCT" is the Asharite position
Yes, but it's also not exclusive to them. For example Ibn Hazm was a prominent theologian who subscribed to it, despite his vehement opposition to asharism.
>I'm not sure what the Atharite position on this question is, if they have one
My understanding is that Ibn Taymiyyah takes the view that goodness is based on the nature of God, rather than command or foreknowledge exclusively, and that individual commands may take either side of euthyphro's dilemma, rather than being confined to one or the other.
Well, your whole idea of persecuting non-Abrahamists is a good example of something Abrahamists don't see eye-to-eye on. Certainly a lot of Christians are opposed to it – as I pointed out before, it violates the official teaching of the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council – but I don't believe all Muslims have ever agreed on it either. When Muslim rulers first conquered parts of India, and ended up ruling over Hindus and Buddhists, most of those rulers decided against extermination – and there were plenty of ulama willing to provide them with a fiqh justification for that decision.
> For example Ibn Hazm was a prominent theologian who subscribed to it.
Ibn Hazm lived before Sunni theology had settled-down into three established schools, and as such can't really be said to belong to any of them. Who follows Ibn Hazm's aqidah today? I'm guessing, if anyone does, it would be Zahiris? (who are sometimes considered a "minor Sunni maddhab", in addition to the four major ones)
> My understanding is that Ibn Taymiyyah takes the view that goodness is based on the nature of God, rather than command or foreknowledge exclusively, and that individual commands may take either side of euthyphro's dilemma, rather than being confined to one or the other.
Okay, but all Jews, Christians and Muslims agree that some divine commands are "positive" – only binding because God willed them, not because the object of the command is inherently good (for an obligation) or evil (for a prohibition). So in saying "individual commands may take either side of euthyphro's dilemma", Ibn Taymiyyah is not saying anything different from what Māturīdīs or Twelver Shi'a or Roman Catholics would say. "Hard DCT" always takes "one side" of Euthyphro's dilemma; everyone else takes "both sides" depending on the specific rule, just as Ibn Taymiyyah does. I don't actually see any difference between Ibn Taymiyyah (or Athnaris more broadly) and the Māturīdīs on this particular issue, while he clearly disagrees with the Asharites and Ibn Hazm
Yes, that's the position of the Hanafi and Maliki schools. The Shafi'is, Hanbalis and Zahiris however opt for extermination.
>Ibn Hazm lived before Sunni theology had settled-down into three established schools, and as such can't really be said to belong to any of them.
For Ibn Hazm, all three schools had been established by then. The 'schools' are broad categories, not everyone falls into them, he wouldn't be the last to express views outside of them (even today you have the New Kalam movement continuing these discussions).
>Who follows Ibn Hazm's aqidah today? I'm guessing, if anyone does, it would be Zahiris? (who are sometimes considered a "minor Sunni maddhab", in addition to the four major ones)
Outside of the three schools nobody really takes aqaid wholesale. There are matters people agree with him on and other matters they disagree on. His most controversial position was on resigning the meaning of God's names.
>I don't actually see any difference between Ibn Taymiyyah
I agree, but I think he would dispute that.
So basically you are saying you want everyone to commit genocide against Hindus and Buddhists, because a minority of Sunni ulama believe such a genocide to be obligatory (at least in theory)? Sources disagree on whether Malikis or Shafi'is are larger in number; if you accept the larger estimates for the number of Malikis, the Hanafis and Malikis together would be the numerical majority of contemporary Sunni Islam, which means the majority of Sunni Islam rejects your pro-genocide position.
I don't think you are going to convince many people to accept your pro-genocide viewpoint – which is a very very good thing. In fact, while unlike you I'm no great fan of making beliefs illegal, if we are going to do it, I think your own pro-genocide beliefs should be near the top of the list
Really, just say it. Say the quiet part out loud.
If you actually believe something is true, trying to compel people to believe it is a very counter-productive measure, because it doesn't convince people to believe it – they may outwardly pretend to believe, but inwardly they'll rebel against the compulsion; compelling people to believe something is sending the message "my arguments are no good which is why I have to resort to force". I remember my mother trying to force me to go to Mass as a young teenager – it did nothing to endear the Catholic Church to me, and to the extent I have any sympathy for it nowadays, that's in spite of her influence not because of it
You see this in Iran – the government makes it a crime to leave Islam, with the result that only around 40% of the population really believe in Islam any more; most of the remaining 60% will pretend to believe (to escape persecution) but in private they don't. [0] (Tolerated religious minorities–Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians-are less than 1% of the population.) While I have no doubt some of the decline of Islam in Iran would have happened anyway, for similar reasons to secularisation in the West, I think the Iranian government's attempts to force Islam on people (and a very authoritarian interpretation of it at that) have likely accelerated the decline of Iranian Islam, and it would probably be in a healthier state today if the 1979 Revolution had failed
[0] https://theconversation.com/irans-secular-shift-new-survey-r...
This isn't the case at scale, people are more likely to believe something if it is normalized for them.
How then do you explain the case of Iran I cited? Islam enforced as the state religion, leaving it is punishable with death (at least in theory), and yet there has been a huge decline in Islamic belief over the last few decades. That's evidence against your position.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
In those experiments, only a minority of test subjects adjusted their expressed belief in response to social pressure; and only a minority of that minority appeared inwardly convinced in doing so. So this experiment doesn't support your position – putting aside the question of whether a highly contrived experiment is actually generalisable to ordinary human social behaviour.
'more likely' isn't the same as 'nobody leaves'. If you compare similar statistics between secular countries and conservative ones, it's quite clear that more people remain religious in the conservative countries.
>In those experiments, only a minority of test subjects adjusted their expressed belief in response to social pressure
It doesn't have to be a majority.