Culture The Downfall of New Atheism

[Fleiur]

Being "Altruistic" means you even will fall for Hitler. There exists a "selfish" care/love and it's NOT the "altruistic" kind, it's one that involves putting more thought in it of a sort, like with Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 and Equality 7-2521 being "selfish" didn't mean he put off society entirely.

He just went about planning on helping it the smart way, given that even approaching the City, as a known criminal could lead to his death and chose to wait for guys who aren't mentally chained down. And he reinvented electricity only for them to get-issued at that, regardless of his good intentions, because it'd make him "better" than everybody else.

Religion, Nation, Family, Race, the PRAISE of others etc

Those are all forms of collectivism and if it's man's nature to chain oneself for a "higher cause" even should it and its followers go astray, then I pity those men

Pope Francis has good intentions and believes he is right and follows a sort of code he believes is right. As far as he's concerned, God's on his side and the EU and the Far Left. His desire for that "higher cause" or his "altruism" blinds him from actually truly caring about others.

Besides, it's not as if the values of the first Synagogues in Ancient Israel and Judea were always compatible with those of even the 1950s and much theocratic debate required stuff like the base of very educated Rome to even begin to be contemplated and spread. Slavery was a thing long before after Jesus and in the end it required people using logic trying to find a different way with the Bible to decide slavery was wrong even if guys in the Old Testament did it with no lectures from God.

Mankind's weapon against tyrants of the mind are freedom, logic and actual weapons. But most of all logic, without said thorough thinking, you can't question or reform what's long been taught or go against your leaders decisions.

You're just ignoring how Christianity shaped values and society again.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

You're just ignoring how Christianity shaped values and society again.

I’m not saying it didn’t, I’m saying it required surprisingly reasonable and educated religious people to do that and figure out that slavery was wrong even many centuries after the death of Christ

 

[Fleiur]

I’m not saying it didn’t, I’m saying it required surprisingly reasonable and educated religious people to do that and figure out that slavery was wrong even many centuries after the death of Christ

Yet, they used faith-based arguments to make the case on why slavery is immoral.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Yet, they used faith-based arguments to make the case on why slavery is immoral.

They used logic in the end to try and use the Bible to interpret that, without that education and logic, odds are they wouldn't have considered it

Look, I'm not completely dismissing religion, I'm saying reason & logic are/were a vital parting realizing what and why stuff like slavery and racism were wrong

"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage — the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.
Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas — or of inherited knowledge — which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.
Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.
The respectable family that supports worthless relatives or covers up their crimes in order to “protect the family name” (as if the moral stature of one man could be damaged by the actions of another) — the bum who boasts that his great-grandfather was an empire-builder, or the small-town spinster who boasts that her maternal great-uncle was a state senator and her third cousin gave a concert at Carnegie Hall (as if the achievements of one man could rub off on the mediocrity of another) — the parents who search genealogical trees in order to evaluate their prospective sons-in-law — the celebrity who starts his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history — all these are samples of racism, the atavistic manifestations of a doctrine whose full expression is the tribal warfare of prehistorical savages, the wholesale slaughter of Nazi Germany, the atrocities of today’s so-called “newly emerging nations"."

Hell, this argument against racism was made with reason & logic

 

[Rocinante]

As someone who was 100% on board with this "new atheist" movement and ate up Dawkin's words for breakfast:

I think most of us just grew up and got bored. I'm still an atheist. I just don't see the point of attacking someone EVERY FUCKING TIME they mention religion in any way whatsoever. Back then, that's very much what it was. It was the same argument EVERY TIME.

I'd say it never works and never changes minds..but I have actually successfully converted a few people. That fueled the fire and made me want to do it more.

Fast forward to my 30s...I just don't care anymore. Live and let live. I understand and respect your religious beliefs, and while it's lead a lot of people to political positions I don't agree with, it has a lot of value. Mostly in uniting cultures, and that's something I find desperately missing in today's society.

When religion was wide spread, we were a more united culture. I'm happy that people are able to live hiw they like, but to pretend this doesn't present some problems is dishonest. I'm not saying the solution is to go back to religion, but it can be argued that our brains are hardwired for religion, and atheists just utilize that part of the brain elsewhere. Like in worshipping politicians, or treating woke leftism as a religion.

I think Neitzsche was a couple hundred years ahead of his time as he called out EXACTLY that:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

 

[The Name of Love]

Hell, this argument against racism was made with reason & logic

First, Randian Objectivism didn't end slavery. Christianity did... twice.

Second, are you denying that Randian Objectivism had no influence from Christianity whatsoever?

As a side note, you also assumes that faith and reason are somehow at odds with one another, which they really aren't, at least according to most of Christian history. As the second century Christian apologist Justin Martyr once wrote "we do not make mere assertions without being able to produce proof."

 

[CarlManvers2019]

First, Randian Objectivism didn't end slavery. Christianity did... twice.

Second, are you denying that Randian Objectivism had no influence from Christianity whatsoever?

As a side note, you also assumes that faith and reason are somehow at odds with one another, which they really aren't, at least according to most of Christian history. As the second century Christian apologist Justin Martyr once wrote "we do not make mere assertions without being able to produce proof."

Never said it didn’t, but it could end slavery and racism if people acknowledged how outright stupid it both is, particularly the latter because “superior races” are bullshit and stolen glory and discounting individuals

Ayn Rand was Jewish, but non practicing and shaped by her experiences involving outright Communists. Though, probably to an unconscious degree influenced....then she starts thinking abortion’s okay....definitely VERY un-Christian

Never thought they weren’t. I meant Faith alone, without reason doesn’t produce results or change in thought. Hell, Rome probably did way more for that ancient abrahamic faith than Jerusalem ever did, not just in conquest but also in intellectual pursuits. That’s how ideas of “evolution” can exist side by side with religion, because the church used both.

 

[The Name of Love]

Never said it didn’t, but it could end slavery and racism if people acknowledged how outright stupid it both is, particularly the latter because “superior races” are bullshit and stolen glory and discounting individuals

First, slavery wasn't historically justified by references to "superior races" in most societies. The closest you'll find is Aristotle's concept of "natural slavery" which, while cited as a defense of enslaving the Indians in the 17th century, didn't really have much to do with race so much as with the idea that people who lacked rational faculties would benefit from being coerced by people who were in control of their rational faculties.

Second, why should the idea of the "superior races" be controversial under Darwinism? Surely, there are races that have more power than others, are there not?

Ayn Rand was Jewish, but non practicing and shaped by her experiences involving outright Communists. Though, probably to an unconscious degree influenced....then she starts thinking abortion’s okay....definitely VERY un-Christian

Ayn Rand's Judaism was undoubtedly a large factor in her condemnation of racism and Christianity, since modern Judaism is by and large opposed to both.

Never thought they weren’t. I meant Faith alone, without reason doesn’t produce results or change in thought. Hell, Rome probably did way more for that ancient abrahamic faith than Jerusalem ever did, not just in conquest but also in intellectual pursuits. That’s how ideas of “evolution” can exist side by side with religion, because the church used both.

Wait, are you serious? The Romans, some of the most superstitious people in history, "did way more that ancient abrahamic [sic] faith than Jerusalem ever did... in intellectual pursuits"? What?

 

[CarlManvers2019]

You know what, I give up, now I remember how much of a headache you were

Not feeling like doing some drawn out argument that usually occurs with you

Bye

 

[The Name of Love]

You know what, I give up, now I remember how much of a headache you were

Not feeling like doing some drawn out argument that usually occurs with you

Bye

Well, that's a darned shame. But I suppose I should've expected you being unable to answer any sort of criticism a mildly intelligent person like myself may have.

 

[ParadiseLost]

Rome just adopted Greek intellectualism.

Christianities parents were Jerusalem, Antioch, Athens, Alexandria, and Constantinople.

Rome just gave us the Catholic Church, which pretty much derailed Christianity for a millennia, and it was only after Rome's power was stripped away that Christianity revealed it's most powerful form.


Also, Randian Objectivism is mostly just Christian morality with the religious bits removed. There's a reason she's so popular among conservatives, and why if you give Anthem to the average conservative teenager they'll love it.

 

[Husky_Khan]

What exactly are the moral teachings of Randian Objectivism?

 

[ParadiseLost]

What exactly are the moral teachings of Randian Objectivism?

I'm on my phone, so this will be the super abridged / shortened version:

1) Morality is objective. (Objective morality exists.)
2) Morality can be determined by reason.
3) Attacking someone else without justification is always more wrong. (Aggression is irrational)
4) People have the right to self determination.
5) Both authoritarianism and anarchism are bad.
6) Enlightened self interest is good.

If you follow Rand all the way through you come to a set of ideas that would be very acceptable to the average conservative today.

 

[The Name of Love]

What exactly are the moral teachings of Randian Objectivism?

It's essentially a form of egoism moderated by libertarianism. Basically, rational selfishness is good and any form of altruism is evil.

Also, Randian Objectivism is mostly just Christian morality with the religious bits removed. There's a reason she's so popular among conservatives, and why if you give Anthem to the average conservative teenager they'll love it.

How is Objectivism "just Christian morality with the religious beliefs removed"?

 

[ParadiseLost]

It's essentially a form of egoism moderated by libertarianism. Basically, rational selfishness is good and any form of altruism is evil.

How is Objectivism "just Christian morality with the religious beliefs removed"?

You misunderstand Rand severely due to the way the term altruism has been degraded along with many other English words.

Read this: What Rand Meant by Altruism | Gary M. Galles

It explains what Rand means by "altruism." It's not what you think it means. Altruism (like many words) has been redefined over the past decades.



As for Rand and Christianity... Rand posits that an objective morality exists and can be rationally discovered and that it enables people to help others and make good decisions. Rand being on the "objective morality exists" side makes her an essentially conservative philosopher. I could explain further but I'm on my phone and don't feel like typing a lot.

 

[The Name of Love]

You misunderstand Rand severely due to the way the term altruism has been degraded along with many other English words.

Read this: What Rand Meant by Altruism | Gary M. Galles

It explains what Rand means by "altruism." It's not what you think it means. Altruism (like many words) has been redefined over the past decades.

Okay, but Rand used said idea of "altruism" to attack fascism, communism, and Christianity. None of these ideologies are altruistic in the Comtean sense.

As for Rand and Christianity... Rand posits that an objective morality exists and can be rationally discovered and that it enables people to help others and make good decisions. Rand being on the "objective morality exists" side makes her an essentially conservative philosopher. I could explain further but I'm on my phone and don't feel like typing a lot.

"Objective morality exists" is not something exclusive to Christianity or conservatism. I know that it's a cliche by conservatives to talk about how leftists are moral relativists, but I don't think anyone can claim this with any kind of seriousness.

Furthermore, two people who believe in objective moral standards might believe completely different things are moral. My moral views certainly differ from Rand's.

 

[almostinsane]

Rome just gave us the Catholic Church, which pretty much derailed Christianity for a millennia, and it was only after Rome's power was stripped away that Christianity revealed it's most powerful form.

Derailed Christianity? Tell me more about how Protestantism restored True Christianity (trademark) before splintering into multiple denominations and continued to splinter, culminating into Mormonism, Unitarianism, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

 

[The Name of Love]

Derailed Christianity? Tell me more about how Protestantism restored True Christianity (trademark) before splintering into multiple denominations and continued to splinter, culminating into Mormonism, Unitarianism, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Pictured: True Christianity (TM) being destroyed by evil papists.

In all seriousness, when will this kind of Protestant nonsense die?

 

[Husky_Khan]

Derailed Christianity? Tell me more about how Protestantism restored True Christianity (trademark) before splintering into multiple denominations and continued to splinter, culminating into Mormonism, Unitarianism, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

God I wish we had a popcorn reaction emoji right now...🍿

 

[almostinsane]

Pictured: True Christianity (TM) being destroyed by evil papists.

In all seriousness, when will this kind of Protestant nonsense die?

We're Deus Vulting the Muslims and converting the atheists first. After that, we are finishing what the Council of Trent started. xD