Islamic Socialism

[smk]

What is Islamic Socialism? Are there any major groups today which are truly in support of it? In a purely economic sense, how different is it from Marxism (i.e ignoring all of that religious stuff.)? And lastly, does anyone know anything about Ali Shariati?

[NGNM85]

It's a fundamental contradiction in terms.

[Ocean Seal]

It's a fundamental contradiction in terms.
Said a person who belongs to a very marginalized group *cough* communists *cough*.
You don't support a socialist who will end capitalist oppression because of what God he believes in? I thought that to you he didn't exist? If so, why perpetuate religious sectarianism. You can only join us if you are an atheist? That'll get the working class to join up in droves, and of course they'll all drop religion because you tell them that its bad.

[Red Commissar]

What is Islamic Socialism? Are there any major groups today which are truly support it? In a purely economic sense, how different is it from Marxism (i.e ignoring all of that religious stuff.)?

Islamic Socialism could be seen in two major bodies- the stuff being advanced by Qadaffi and what some strands of the Iranian revolution had (like the PMOI). This isn't saying that they are the only ones, as we did see some tinkering along this lines with Muslim populations in the Soviet Union. At best their economic concepts would probably be similar to what you see advanced by social democratic outfits- nationalization of key industries, regulation of other fields, and welfare services. One distinction they tried to make was that they respected private property in accordance with Islamic virtues, but also followed what they felt was the stand against wealth accumulation and the necessity for social services to the people. Combine this with promises of social/cultural renewal and progress, and you got their agenda.

Like "Arab Socialism" that was advanced by radical nationalists elsewhere, they said they needed a form of socialism that could be adapted for their populations and the cultural environment, that certain values of socialism were too rooted in Western experience. That's the message I get out of it.

As for Ali Shariati, I can't tell you anymore than what wikipedia or the internet will tell you.

[NGNM85]

Said a person who belongs to a very marginalized group *cough* communists *cough*.

I am not a communist.


You don't support a socialist who will end capitalist oppression because of what God he believes in?

The fundamentals of Islam and Socialism are antithetical to eachother.


I thought that to you he didn't exist? If so, why perpetuate religious sectarianism.

I have little interest in religious sectarianism, beyond my desire to see religion consigned to the dustbin of history. I am against all religions. However, that being said, some religions are worse than others.


You can only join us if you are an atheist?

Who is 'us'?


That'll get the working class to join up in droves, and of course they'll all drop religion because you tell them that its bad.

Some are responsive to logic. Dawkins' website has a number of testimonials from the former faithful. Clearly, some are receptive to that. Others are not. It's a process. However, I do think the battle against religion is winnable, on a long enough timescale.

[Sixiang]

What is Islamic Socialism?
From wikipedia:


Islamic socialism is a term coined by various Muslim leaders to meet the demand for a more spiritual form of socialism. Muslim socialists believe that the teachings of the Qur'an and Muhammad are compatible with principles of equality and the redistribution of wealth. But some orthodox Islamic scholars declare various socialist practices, such as the confiscation of private property, to be oppressive and against Islamic teachings...Some Orientalists believe that there exist a number of parallels between Islamic economics and communism, including the Islamic ideas of zakat and riba...The concepts of welfare and pension were introduced in early Islamic law as forms of Zakat (charity), one of the Five Pillars of Islam, under the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century. This practice continued well into the Abbasid era of the Caliphate. The taxes (including Zakat and Jizya) collected in the treasury of an Islamic government were used to provide income for the needy, including the poor, elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled. According to the Islamic jurist Al-Ghazali (Algazel, 1058–1111), the government was also expected to stockpile food supplies in every region in case a disaster or famine occurred. The Caliphate can thus be considered the world's first major welfare state.


Are there any major groups today which are truly support it?
As far as the middle east, atheistic communist groups are few and far between. The left of the middle east is mostly composed of Islamic socialists, which I guess is a step. Most socialist parties of middle east claim to be Islamic Socialist, from what I can gather at a glance.


In a purely economic sense, how different is it from Marxism (i.e ignoring all of that religious stuff.)?
Well, the Koran says that men are superior to women. This is contradictory to Marxism.


And lastly, does anyone know anything about Ali Shariati?

He tried to merge Marxism with Islam. He focused mostly on sociology and what not, applying class antagonisms to Islam. I don't know too much about him, though.

[ed miliband]

What is Islamic Socialism? Are there any major groups today which are truly support it? In a purely economic sense, how different is it from Marxism (i.e ignoring all of that religious stuff.)? And lastly, does anyone know anything about Ali Shariati?


I'd imagine that 'Islamic Socialism', much like the 'Christian Socialism' of 19th century Britain, would criticise capitalism on moral grounds and wish to create a 'moral capitalism' without usury, with a degree of co-operation favoured over competition, and with charity being a central tenet of society.

[Black Sheep]

Islam is incompatible to socialism, when you use the terms in one, "Islamic Socialism", implying that it is somewhat of a fusion of two.

You can't have socialism without equality between genders.You can't have equality between genders with Islam.

You can't have socialism without humanism.You can't have humanism with Islam.

You can't have socialism without rational decisions,materialist viewpoint, non aggression.But you must, in Islam ;)

[Red Commissar]

As far as the middle east, atheistic communist groups are few and far between. The left of the middle east is mostly composed of Islamic socialists, which I guess is a step. Most socialist parties of middle east claim to be Islamic Socialist, from what I can gather at a glance.


That's an inaccurate picture of the "left" in the Middle-East. There are plenty that advance socialism and secularism. It'd be a stretch to claim that most of the left is "Islamic Socialist". There's more of a problem with ethnic nationalism being thrown in than religious values in most "left" groups in the Middle-East.

[Blackscare]

You don't support a socialist who will end capitalist oppression because of what God he believes in? I thought that to you he didn't exist? If so, why perpetuate religious sectarianism. You can only join us if you are an atheist? That'll get the working class to join up in droves, and of course they'll all drop religion because you tell them that its bad.

There is a huge difference between being a genuine, scientific socialist who is religious, and advocating theocracy.

[Sixiang]

That's an inaccurate picture of the "left" in the Middle-East. There are plenty that advance socialism and secularism. It'd be a stretch to claim that most of the left is "Islamic Socialist". There's more of a problem with ethnic nationalism being thrown in than religious values in most "left" groups in the Middle-East.
I have no idea. I've never been to the middle east and know very little about it.

[smk]

Islam is incompatible to socialism, when you use the terms in one, "Islamic Socialism", implying that it is somewhat of a fusion of two.

You can't have socialism without equality between genders.You can't have equality between genders with Islam.

You can't have socialism without humanism.You can't have humanism with Islam.

You can't have socialism without rational decisions,materialist viewpoint, non aggression.But you must, in Islam ;)


In a purely economic sense.

[Red Commissar]

I have no idea. I've never been to the middle east and know very little about it.

Well from the time I've been there I never really got struck by even the soft-left groups incorporating Islamic Socialism. Then again western media likes to water everything down to Islam. Islam is a force in the Middle-East but I think a lot of people oversimplify the political and social environment in the Middle-East.

Just to point out again, "Islamic Socialism" I think could be equated by attempts to make "Socialism" seem more "humane", free of what people saw in the Soviet Union as totalitarianism. It's more a product of the environment some people were working in, and I think if it were implemented we'd mostly see something of a social-democratic type economy that was common in the 60s and 70s.

[Dimentio]

Said a person who belongs to a very marginalized group *cough* communists *cough*.
You don't support a socialist who will end capitalist oppression because of what God he believes in? I thought that to you he didn't exist? If so, why perpetuate religious sectarianism. You can only join us if you are an atheist? That'll get the working class to join up in droves, and of course they'll all drop religion because you tell them that its bad.

I do not support "socialists" who intend to govern through a set of laws from the later antiquity which stipulates male supremacy in the home, mutilation as a punishment for minor misdemeanors, the discrimination of Non-muslims and the execution of people who turn their back on Islam.

"Islamic Socialism" is nearly as much a contradiction as "National Socialism", and is a cheap attempt to draw people into supporting an international theocracy which would rule in accordance with Shar'iah.

A piece of shit doesn't turn into a delicious cake if you sugar it with rhetoric. It remains a sugared shit, and those who enjoy serving shit are sadists and those who enjoy eating shit are known as masochists.

Islam should be like it largely was in the 1950's.

Semester to Mecca, five prayers a day and some charity.

Islamism is an abomination.

As for those who claim to be islamic socialists just to draw votes, they have more respect. Those who sincerely believe in the "islamic" part of that should not be cooperated with.

[smk]

I do not support "socialists" who intend to govern through a set of laws from the later antiquity which stipulates male supremacy in the home, mutilation as a punishment for minor misdemeanors, the discrimination of Non-muslims and the execution of people who turn their back on Islam.

"Islamic Socialism" is nearly as much a contradiction as "National Socialism", and is a cheap attempt to draw people into supporting an international theocracy which would rule in accordance with Shar'iah.

A piece of shit doesn't turn into a delicious cake if you sugar it with rhetoric. It remains a sugared shit, and those who enjoy serving shit are sadists and those who enjoy eating shit are known as masochists.

Islam should be like it largely was in the 1950's.

Semester to Mecca, five prayers a day and some charity.

Islamism is an abomination.

As for those who claim to be islamic socialists just to draw votes, they have more respect. Those who sincerely believe in the "islamic" part of that should not be cooperated with.

So you don't agree with a distinctly radical group of "Muslims" (term used loosely), so that means that all Islam is an abomination?
Also, you are seeing Shariah and Islam as a static thing. I can tell you that many philosophers and theologians say that Islam and all religions should constantly contextualized and adapted to the present. Everything in the Qu'ran, including the seemingly harsh punishments for minor offenses, was relatively normal for seventh century Arabian tribesmen.

I think Tariq Ramadan is the most modern and famous of these theologians.

[none of this is an endorsement of Islamic socialism, I am just pointing out the flaws in his logic and biased views.]

In addition, you are mixing culture and religion. Patriarchal cultures are patriarchal regardless of religion. If you look at Christians in the Middle East and Christians in Germany, they are completely different people. If you looked at Christians in the middle east, you would probably say that Christianity is patriarchal, whereas if you look at Christians in Germany, you would say that there is near equality between the sexes.

[Sixiang]

Well from the time I've been there I never really got struck by even the soft-left groups incorporating Islamic Socialism. Then again western media likes to water everything down to Islam. Islam is a force in the Middle-East but I think a lot of people oversimplify the political and social environment in the Middle-East.

Just to point out again, "Islamic Socialism" I think could be equated by attempts to make "Socialism" seem more "humane", free of what people saw in the Soviet Union as totalitarianism. It's more a product of the environment some people were working in, and I think if it were implemented we'd mostly see something of a social-democratic type economy that was common in the 60s and 70s.
It might be, like Christian socialism, and attempt to merge religious morality with socialism.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think there are some legitimate arguments against religious socialism of any kind, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim. But there are some good arguments for it too, especially in deeply religious cultures. You're not going to convince 200 million Pakistanis to abandon Islam, but you might use the logic inherent in their spiritual beliefs to argue in favour of a moral and metaphysical socialism.

It depends on how you relate "Islam" to "Socialism". Shariah Socialism would be a debacle, assuming one adopts "all" shariah rules from ancient arab society (it seems there are multiple schools of shariah). I don't know anyone in Europe or America who wants to live by the moral code of 600s AD Arabia, nor do many Arabs, or Persians for that matter.

But "God" is a convenient metaphysical category for those who want to bind another's claim to inalienable property rights. Basically, if all property belongs in an absolute sense to God, and we are all equal in the eyes of God, it is idolatry to think that your property is so inalienable when weighed against the legitimate needs of others.

That said, mixing religion and any political system is dangerous, precisely because you give it greater metaphysical justification. If you need evidence of that, look at Iran's recent decision to stone a woman to death because her lover killed her husband (the murderer got off with a slap on the wrist and the "horrible seductress" that drove him to do it, of course, was sentenced to die in the way Muslims attack Satan himself during the Hajj-stoning). Religion is great at reforming a society with backwards beliefs (ie, Islam was often good at taking societies with even more sexist views of women and making them less so), but you also run the risk of a religion's inherent dogmatism in controlling and stifling debate.


Some are responsive to logic. Dawkins' website has a number of testimonials from the former faithful. Clearly, some are receptive to that. Others are not. It's a process. However, I do think the battle against religion is winnable, on a long enough timescale.

Dawkin's arguments against religion really aren't that good, from what I've read, nor are they necessarily any more "logical" than that of a religious person. You are confusing empirical with logical, and from that confusion you are creating a category error where you assume that because faithful person X believes in Y unseen hidden being, that faithful person X has an illogical or irrational belief. On the contrary, there are plenty of "logical" proofs for god, the issue is in there being no empirical evidence.

[Queercommie Girl]

Any genuine socialist must support the basic democratic right of religious freedom.

The socialist state is atheist, but not atheist-theocratic or atheist-fundamentalist.

Dawkin's arguments are fine from a purely rationalist perspective, I don't have a problem with it at all. However, he completely ignores the socio-economic dimension of religion, which for Marxists is actually primary.

But the socialist state cannot make atheism-Dawkins-style into an official policy. That would be nothing more than the oppressive policies of an ideological dictatorship. A socialist state is not the atheist equivalent of the reactionary Roman Catholic Church and the damn Inquisition.

I'm a political Leninist but cultural anarchist. The state has no right to dictate to people what "cultural norms" they should follow, no more than the state (or any collective organisation of the working class for the anti-state anarchists here) has any right to dictate what people's sex lives should be, as long as these cultural elements are not reactionary (read: anti-socialist) or discriminatory (read: sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic).

On the other hand I'm a militant secularist, and believe that politics and religion must remain completely separate. Indeed, only a secularist state can actually genuinely protect religious freedom. Otherwise the dominant religion will surely oppress minority religions.

[Dimentio]

So you don't agree with a distinctly radical group of "Muslims" (term used loosely), so that means that all Islam is an abomination?
Also, you are seeing Shariah and Islam as a static thing. I can tell you that many philosophers and theologians say that Islam and all religions should constantly contextualized and adapted to the present. Everything in the Qu'ran, including the seemingly harsh punishments for minor offenses, was relatively normal for seventh century Arabian tribesmen.

I think Tariq Ramadan is the most modern and famous of these theologians.

[none of this is an endorsement of Islamic socialism, I am just pointing out the flaws in his logic and biased views.]

In addition, you are mixing culture and religion. Patriarchal cultures are patriarchal regardless of religion. If you look at Christians in the Middle East and Christians in Germany, they are completely different people. If you looked at Christians in the middle east, you would probably say that Christianity is patriarchal, whereas if you look at Christians in Germany, you would say that there is near equality between the sexes.

The subject is not Eastern Christian Socialism.

And Islam has a keen way of associating itself with reactionary cultural practices, enshrining them. A lot of these practices were on the decline in the 1950's. Now, they are growing again.

And Pakistan scares me. Seriously.

A bodyguard killed a governor out of religious motivations, and is cheered by the entire population. That means that the only thing preventing the islamists from assuming state power is an increasingly weak military machine.

[Crimson Commissar]

We shouldn't praise religious fundamentalism just because it has popular support, guys. There have been far too many cases in the less developed parts of the muslim world where reactionaries have risen up against genuinely progressive movements and destroyed any hope of real change coming to those regions. The mujahideen in Socialist Afghanistan, for example.

[Queercommie Girl]

We shouldn't praise religious fundamentalism just because it has popular support, guys. There have been far too many cases in the less developed parts of the muslim world where reactionaries have risen up against genuinely progressive movements and destroyed any hope of real change coming to those regions. The mujahideen in Socialist Afghanistan, for example.

Religious fundamentalism per se isn't actually the primary problem. So what if some people decide to actually believe in crazy things? Scientific education would take time, and in any case in a genuinely democratic society cannot be forced upon anyone. There is nothing anyone can do if someone simply chooses to follow superstition, as long as he/she is not breaking any socialist laws in the political and civil sense.

The primary problem is theocratic political religion. Which is why religion and politics must remain separate. People can believe whatever they like, but they can't interfere with socialist politics with their beliefs.

[Queercommie Girl]

Islamic Socialism could be seen in two major bodies- the stuff being advanced by Qadaffi and what some strands of the Iranian revolution had (like the PMOI). This isn't saying that they are the only ones, as we did see some tinkering along this lines with Muslim populations in the Soviet Union. At best their economic concepts would probably be similar to what you see advanced by social democratic outfits- nationalization of key industries, regulation of other fields, and welfare services. One distinction they tried to make was that they respected private property in accordance with Islamic virtues, but also followed what they felt was the stand against wealth accumulation and the necessity for social services to the people. Combine this with promises of social/cultural renewal and progress, and you got their agenda.

Like "Arab Socialism" that was advanced by radical nationalists elsewhere, they said they needed a form of socialism that could be adapted for their populations and the cultural environment, that certain values of socialism were too rooted in Western experience. That's the message I get out of it.

As for Ali Shariati, I can't tell you anymore than what wikipedia or the internet will tell you.

There is basically the more secular versions of "Arab socialism" (e.g. Nasser) and the less secular versions of "Islamic socialism" (e.g. in Iran), but even the latter is no way as theocratic as the brutal capitalist regime in Saudi Arabia that is backed by the US.

Economically speaking basically they are just a version of Social Democracy. The difference is in the superstructure since some Muslim concepts are used in the state ideology. Politically the fundamental flaw is the lack of democracy compared with Trotskyist or even Social Democratic systems. But generally speaking there is actually better objective political democracy in these states than in many Stalinist ones.

Socially the main problem is sexism and queerphobia, though it has to be said that the secularist Nasserite version of Arab socialism isn't really more sexist than your average Western capitalist state, and even Islamic Iran isn't as sexist as some in the West imagine it to be, sexism is a problem in Iran, so is homophobia (despite its relatively progressive stance on transgender issues), but it's still far ahead of US-backed Saudi Arabia, which is one of the most unequal and brutal theocratic regimes on Earth.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

We shouldn't praise religious fundamentalism just because it has popular support, guys. There have been far too many cases in the less developed parts of the muslim world where reactionaries have risen up against genuinely progressive movements and destroyed any hope of real change coming to those regions. The mujahideen in Socialist Afghanistan, for example.

This is true.

Mind you, the Mujahideen in Socialist Afghanistan are a unique case, since thanks to the Soviet occupation and harsh Soviet tactics, their own brutality was ignored (people almost always are more aware and less forgiving of the brutality of people from *other nations* than people of their own ethnic or national groupings). The Mujahideen was also deeply influenced by a foreign, hyper conservative Saudi ideology. Salafism is probably one of the most worrying theological movements in Sunni Islam.

Anyways, I think in that case, the USSR ran up against various cultural traits of some of the tribes in Afghanistan, mixed with America looking to get revenge for the Vietnam debacle, and a conservative Saudi establishment looking to spread their ideology while preventing the spread of Socialism.



And Islam has a keen way of associating itself with reactionary cultural practices, enshrining them. A lot of these practices were on the decline in the 1950's. Now, they are growing again.

And Pakistan scares me. Seriously.

A bodyguard killed a governor out of religious motivations, and is cheered by the entire population. That means that the only thing preventing the islamists from assuming state power is an increasingly weak military machine.

Pakistan is the scariest country on the planet. It's the worst possible mix of Iran in 1978, Russia in 1916, and Afghanistan during the late 70s, mixed with 100 atomic weapons aimed mostly at India. I fear mostly for millions of Indians who would be the victims of a Pakistani-chauvinist religious war if the fundamentalists take over. Consider the Mumbai attack, which killed around 200 people but was tacitly supported by the Pakistani government! Did any of the leaders get extradited to India? No, of course not. And this is the supposedly secular democratic leadership. If things get less stable there, you will see a lot of deaths.

But Pakistan in particular is a unique case, in part because of mass Saudi and American support for conservative religious institutions in their war against the Soviets, which spread a simplified but conservative notion of Islam through Sunni sects, and eventually it seems even into the Sufis (it was a Sufi who shot the governor of Punjab-Sufism is not really known for producing violent extremists).


Any genuine socialist must support the basic democratic right of religious freedom.

The socialist state is atheist, but not atheist-theocratic or atheist-fundamentalist.

Dawkin's arguments are fine from a purely rationalist perspective, I don't have a problem with it at all. However, he completely ignores the socio-economic dimension of religion, which for Marxists is actually primary.


I agree with you largely, except for your support for dawkins's arguments (Dawkins is a great scientist, but he is too reductionistic. He ignores a lot of real religious arguments. At best, Dawkins is great at showing how particular religious dogmas, like a creator whose a bearded man who made Adam and Eve, are thoroughly outdated, but he can't answer the core metaphysical problems involved or get at the moral lessons of various religions)


But the socialist state cannot make atheism-Dawkins-style into an official policy. That would be nothing more than the oppressive policies of an ideological dictatorship. A socialist state is not the atheist equivalent of the reactionary Roman Catholic Church and the damn Inquisition.

I'm a political Leninist but cultural anarchist. The state has no right to dictate to people what "cultural norms" they should follow, no more than the state (or any collective organisation of the working class for the anti-state anarchists here) has any right to dictate what people's sex lives should be, as long as these cultural elements are not reactionary (read: anti-socialist) or discriminatory (read: sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic).

On the other hand I'm a militant secularist, and believe that politics and religion must remain completely separate. Indeed, only a secularist state can actually genuinely protect religious freedom. Otherwise the dominant religion will surely oppress minority religions.

I like your way of thinking about it. On one hand, the state should act as if there is no God, or at least not a God which fits according to one particular religion (ie, in an atheist or agnostic way). On the other, it doesn't matter if a Muslim woman, out of her own free will, chooses to wear a veil, or a Jewish man, out of his own free will, choses to walk to his synagogue on sabbath when he could drive. The community has bigger problems, such as development. However, it's a huge problem when one group from the community decides that, thanks to a millennia old treatise on metaphysics by a crazy desert prophet (be he muhammad or abraham or paul), gays or women should be oppressed.

Although the state may still need to intervene in particular religious issues, IE Babri Masjid, where Hindu fanatics tore down a mosque allegedly built on the ruins of a temple where the Hindu Avatar/cultural hero Rama was born; to resolve the dispute, last year the Indian supreme court gave 1/3 to mainstream Hindus, 1/3 to a Vishnu-worshipping sect, and 1/3 to Muslims. On some level, the government still needed to intervene to prevent violence between these communities.


Note, for much hilariousness (Especially considering the content of this thread), go look up the fundamentalist rightwing anti-obamaist reaction in the american media to egypt riots ... basically, glenn beck and his "followers" think that Communists in Europe and America, along with progressives, are working to create the Islamic caliphate.

And look at this: he uses a clip of a revolutionary socialist as evidence of the danger of the muslim brotherhood (http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201102070023#1183326). It's like he knows nothing of the story of the Iranian revolution and how many Communists the Ayatollah killed.

[NGNM85]

I think there are some legitimate arguments against religious socialism of any kind, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim. But there are some good arguments for it too, especially in deeply religious cultures.

I’m highly skeptical about that. I don’t think there really is such a thing as good religion. However, some are worse than others.


You're not going to convince 200 million Pakistanis to abandon Islam, but you might use the logic inherent in their spiritual beliefs to argue in favour of a moral and metaphysical socialism.

Overnight? Certainly not. However, there’s every reason to believe it is possible. In Western Europe, religiosity among the indigenous population has been substantially declining. Even in the US, which is an anachronism in terms of religious zealotry, more people are becoming atheists. There also seems to be a link between education and religious ideation, although, there are exceptions.


It depends on how you relate "Islam" to "Socialism". Shariah Socialism would be a debacle, assuming one adopts "all" shariah rules from ancient arab society (it seems there are multiple schools of shariah). I don't know anyone in Europe or America who wants to live by the moral code of 600s AD Arabia, nor do many Arabs, or Persians for that matter.


But "God" is a convenient metaphysical category for those who want to bind another's claim to inalienable property rights. Basically, if all property belongs in an absolute sense to God, and we are all equal in the eyes of God, it is idolatry to think that your property is so inalienable when weighed against the legitimate needs of others.

However, there are better arguments that don’t rely on primitive nonsense.


That said, mixing religion and any political system is dangerous, precisely because you give it greater metaphysical justification. If you need evidence of that, look at Iran's recent decision to stone a woman to death because her lover killed her husband (the murderer got off with a slap on the wrist and the "horrible seductress" that drove him to do it, of course, was sentenced to die in the way Muslims attack Satan himself during the Hajj-stoning). Religion is great at reforming a society with backwards beliefs (ie, Islam was often good at taking societies with even more sexist views of women and making them less so), but you also run the risk of a religion's inherent dogmatism in controlling and stifling debate.

My biggest disagreement would be to add emphasis to the dangerousness of religion when it, inevitably, intersects with politics, as well as the dogmatism, which, as you point out, is inherent.


Dawkin's arguments against religion really aren't that good, from what I've read, nor are they necessarily any more "logical" than that of a religious person. You are confusing empirical with logical, and from that confusion you are creating a category error where you assume that because faithful person X believes in Y unseen hidden being, that faithful person X has an illogical or irrational belief. On the contrary, there are plenty of "logical" proofs for god, the issue is in there being no empirical evidence.

No, no, no, no. You could make a case for some kind of ‘blind watchmaker’, which, if we’re serious, is really just an advanced extraterrestrial, which we wouldn’t need to mystify by calling it ‘god.’ That is possible, but by absolutely no means proven, not even close. There certainly is no hard evidence to support it. However, this has absolutely no resemblance to what 99.9% of the faithful believe in. They believe in a character from ancient literature, and said belief has nothing to do with cosmology, or physics.

I’d recommend you check out The God Delusion.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Islamic Socialism is what glenn beck says is the new evil in the world.

[Hexen]

"Islamic Socialism" is a oxymoron.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I’m highly skeptical about that. I don’t think there really is such a thing as good religion. However, some are worse than others.

...

However, there are better arguments that don’t rely on primitive nonsense.



This is clearly a biased position. There are no bad or good religions, there are however religious institutions that behave in a bad or corrupt manner. As for "primitive nonsense"... wow, talk about people taking huge moral and cultural assumptions for granted. You're basically showing how "religious" your own atheism is by writing all religion off as "primitive".


Overnight? Certainly not. However, there’s every reason to believe it is possible. In Western Europe, religiosity among the indigenous population has been substantially declining. Even in the US, which is an anachronism in terms of religious zealotry, more people are becoming atheists. There also seems to be a link between education and religious ideation, although, there are exceptions.


There are more than just "exceptions", and even Western Europe has a lot of religiosity in certain regards. I would say, paradoxically, your viewpoint is very "Christian", insofar as you believe that there's some "good news" which you think will liberate all people spiritually and mentally, regardless of historical or cultural context, and that all belief systems without this "good news" are primitive. One can think of this as a "Christian Atheist" point of view.



My biggest disagreement would be to add emphasis to the dangerousness of religion when it, inevitably, intersects with politics, as well as the dogmatism, which, as you point out, is inherent.

Religion isn't always dangerous when it intersects with politics (consider the abolition movement, the civil rights movement, Gandhi's quit india struggles, etc). It can be dangerous, but it might not be, religion is a social institution like any other, and I'd argue that it often depends on the class interests that different religious institutions are beholden to.

The main issue with dogma is in that it makes particular viewpoints or arguments to be metaphysically absolute. But this isn't an argument against spirituality or the truth values in "religion" in general, just the fact that no "religion" can be taken as "The Absolute" in of itself.

No, no, no, no. You could make a case for some kind of ‘blind watchmaker’, which, if we’re serious, is really just an advanced extraterrestrial, which we wouldn’t need to mystify by calling it ‘god.’ That is possible, but by absolutely no means proven, not even close. There certainly is no hard evidence to support it. However, this has absolutely no resemblance to what 99.9% of the faithful believe in. They believe in a character from ancient literature, and said belief has nothing to do with cosmology, or physics.


No offense, but you're stuck with a very simple, one-sided notion of God. The "Theos" is more than just a crazy alien with a creative streak. And this is where theology comes in. Pantheism, monotheism, polytheism ... these are all ontological and metaphysical beliefs that go well beyond simple cosmology and biological origin. In fact, cosmology and physics is compatible with many theologies and even "religions".



I’d recommend you check out The God Delusion.

Meh, I didn't read his book, but I've talked about many of his arguments (including in a Phil of Religion university course) and the logical assumptions behind it don't hold water. Basically Dawkins has a very particular idea of what God is, and instead of discussing what many theologians thinks, basically just constructs a lot of straw men. He has some good arguments against particular, very simplistic, popular notions of God, but he naively thinks that these popular, lay notions of God are the limit and extent of the philosophical and theological understanding of the Divine. It's a little like arguing against global warming based on an every-day "street" understanding of the science; any moderately well educated sophist could come up with some brilliant arguments against "popular" global warming, but it's much easier than actually exploring the actual climatology.


Islamic Socialism is what glenn beck says is the new evil in the world.

Correction, its the Brotherhood of Marxist Islamic Progressive Socialist Muslim Islamism. And it's trying to team up with European anarchist-leninists, Van Jones, the Chinese ObaMaoists and "the global elites" to create a new world order in which the baby george washington (who was born in a manger on december 25th) is forced to receive government Obamacare from a Caliphate.

Well, at least thats what I gathered from the clips of Glenn Beck's ramblings which I saw. like this nonsense (http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201102100026)

[NGNM85]

This is clearly a biased position. There are no bad or good religions,..

'There are no good religions', I’ll agree with that. The ones that exist vary from seriously socially destructive to mildly irritating.


..there are however religious institutions that behave in a bad or corrupt manner.

This is nonsense. To suggest that religious violence and bigotry in society is completely divorced from the numerous, specific exhortations to be bigoted and violent contained in religious texts, is ridiculous. This is akin to saying that it’s just a complete mystery that we don’t see more Hindu steakhouses, or Jain MMA combatants. There is absolutely no reason this should come as a shock. I’m not implying people are simply automatons, however, if we observe the majority of the faithful, we will see very predictable behavioral trends.


As for "primitive nonsense"... wow, talk about people taking huge moral and cultural assumptions for granted. You're basically showing how "religious" your own atheism is by writing all religion off as "primitive".

Well, first we’d have to establish what morality is, etc., and it sounds like we’d have substantially different answers.

First of all these accusations of ‘dogmatic atheism’ are just complete nonsense. Atheism has no tenets, no ethos. There is nothing you have to take on faith in order to be an Atheist. I’m not saying, definitively ‘There is no god.’ Or, more accurately; ‘There is no advanced extraterrestrial-creator-of-the universe-who-we-would-never-intentionally-mystify-by-calling-it god-because-presumably-we’re-interested-in-science.’ What a mouthful.

Most religions are, literally, primitive, being both ancient, in terms of human lifespan, and socially backward. There are some exceptions; Scientology, for example, is an entirely new type of poisonous idiocy.


There are more than just "exceptions", and even Western Europe has a lot of religiosity in certain regards.

Unfortunately.


I would say, paradoxically, your viewpoint is very "Christian", insofar as you believe that there's some "good news" which you think will liberate all people spiritually and mentally, regardless of historical or cultural context, and that all belief systems without this "good news" are primitive. One can think of this as a "Christian Atheist" point of view.

This is ridiculous. No, the only thing I can be said to ‘believe’ in, in that sense, is science. However, that belief is predicated on hard evidence. Religious faith is specifically predicated on a total absence of evidence. That’s what religious faith is; total certitude based on zero evidence. I will take the Pepsi challenge with science against Islam, or Mithraism, anyday. Science is an unparalleled good. It works equally well for all people, under all conditions.


No offense, but you're stuck with a very simple, one-sided notion of God. The "Theos" is more than just a crazy alien with a creative streak. And this is where theology comes in. Pantheism, monotheism, polytheism ... these are all ontological and metaphysical beliefs that go well beyond simple cosmology and biological origin. In fact, cosmology and physics is compatible with many theologies and even "religions".

As far as I can tell, this is just intellectualized nonsense, like Postmodernism.


Meh, I didn't read his book, but I've talked about many of his arguments (including in a Phil of Religion university course) and the logical assumptions behind it don't hold water. Basically Dawkins has a very particular idea of what God is, and instead of discussing what many theologians thinks, basically just constructs a lot of straw men. He has some good arguments against particular, very simplistic, popular notions of God,…

…The ones that something like more-than-three-quarters of the human species actually believes in. The people who believe in…whatever it is you are not describing, would probably fill a seminar.

Second, from what I’m hearing it sounds like you’re resting on the ‘Argument from Existence’, which isn’t exactly a Rainmaker.


but he naively thinks that these popular, lay notions of God are the limit and extent of the philosophical and theological understanding of the Divine.

What it comes down to, beyond the colorful verbiage, is; are you saying this entity actually exists, in a literal, material sense?


It's a little like arguing against global warming based on an every-day "street" understanding of the science; any moderately well educated sophist could come up with some brilliant arguments against "popular" global warming, but it's much easier than actually exploring the actual climatology.

No, the problem is the American public are not very smart. ‘Global warming’ is just a dumbed-down reduction of ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’, which most Americans only understand in the crudest, most literal sense, because most Americans don’t understand that there is a difference between climate and weather.

[DaringMehring]

Religious socialism is not a contradiction in terms... maybe religious Marxism, but even then, it's not really true in real life.

There is a long & proud Christian socialist tradition, from the Diggers to the guy who composed the Pledge of Allegiance, and Jewish socialism has also been prominent historically. I don't know much about Islamic socialism, but I don't see why it wouldn't have potential to be about the same as the others.

[Hexen]

Religion is basically submitting to a deity which is very analogous to capitalism/feudalism where we submit to a monarch or the bourgeoisie which is very contradictory to socialism.

Why can't humanity be gods ourselves rather than submitting to one/them?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Religious socialism is not a contradiction in terms... maybe religious Marxism, but even then, it's not really true in real life.

There is a long & proud Christian socialist tradition, from the Diggers to the guy who composed the Pledge of Allegiance, and Jewish socialism has also been prominent historically. I don't know much about Islamic socialism, but I don't see why it wouldn't have potential to be about the same as the others.

This is true. I think all religious socialism is potentially dangerous, but there's nothing inherently evil in it. Though Marx was correct about religious socialism that it tended to be naive and overly metaphysical ... socialism works best when based on an empirically based structure of the world, but I think its also easiest to build socialism when people have religious views more amenable to a socialist lifestyle, so its a catch 22.


Religion is basically submitting to a deity which is very analogous to capitalism/feudalism where we submit to a monarch or the bourgeoisie which is very contradictory to socialism.

Why can't humanity be gods ourselves rather than submitting to one/them?

Not necessarily. Buddhism requires no submission to the divine, and the point of most Hinduism is to see the divine in other beings (hence the ritual of Darsan, or looking at the God, so that the God and you see the divine in each other). The "Submission" of Abrahamic religions is a complex entity, and I don't want to dismiss it outright.

Also, worshipping all humans as "gods" is dangerous, I'd rather worship the "divine potential" in all humans.


'There are no good religions', I’ll agree with that. The ones that exist vary from seriously socially destructive to mildly irritating.[/FONT][/COLOR]


Thanks to the values of Mahatma Gandhi, a religious figure acting on a personal philosophy motivated by what to him seemed like a perfectly rational spiritual background, India found independence without bloodshed. I'd call that socially constructive.



This is nonsense. To suggest that religious violence and bigotry in society is completely divorced from the numerous, specific exhortations to be bigoted and violent contained in religious texts, is ridiculous. This is akin to saying that it’s just a complete mystery that we don’t see more Hindu steakhouses, or Jain MMA combatants. There is absolutely no reason this should come as a shock. I’m not implying people are simply automatons, however, if we observe the majority of the faithful, we will see very predictable behavioral trends.

ALL kinds of corruption are socially conditioned, this includes but is not exclusive to conditions with religious origins. The fact that certain religions tend to produce certain kinds of corruption shouldn't be a surprise to us, since religions do stress different values. But what isn't true is that these kinds of bigotry are the ONLY things to come out of religion. For instance, Hinduism produced both advocates for and critics of the caste system. Was the caste system unique to Hinduism? In many respects, yes. But it wasn't the only possible moral result of people living within the Hindu value system.



Well, first we’d have to establish what morality is, etc., and it sounds like we’d have substantially different answers.

First of all these accusations of ‘dogmatic atheism’ are just complete nonsense. Atheism has no tenets, no ethos. There is nothing you have to take on faith in order to be an Atheist. I’m not saying, definitively ‘There is no god.’ Or, more accurately; ‘There is no advanced extraterrestrial-creator-of-the universe-who-we-would-never-intentionally-mystify-by-calling-it god-because-presumably-we’re-interested-in-science.’ What a mouthful.

First, we don't necessarily have different moralities, just different understandings of ontology and metaphysics.

Second, I'd say that Atheism does have a couple of tenets (At least how you're presenting your atheism); particularly, that mysticism is bunk, that consciousness is fundamentally positivistic and that metaphysical materialism is the most "modern" and therefore the only valuable way of seeing the world.


Most religions are, literally, primitive, being both ancient, in terms of human lifespan, and socially backward. There are some exceptions; Scientology, for example, is an entirely new type of poisonous idiocy.

See, I'd consider that to be a statement loaded with assumptions of faith. You're presupposing a certain notion of "socially backward", which implies an ethos on your part, and a positivist eschatology.


This is ridiculous. No, the only thing I can be said to ‘believe’ in, in that sense, is science. However, that belief is predicated on hard evidence. Religious faith is specifically predicated on a total absence of evidence. That’s what religious faith is; total certitude based on zero evidence. I will take the Pepsi challenge with science against Islam, or Mithraism, anyday. Science is an unparalleled good. It works equally well for all people, under all conditions.

Science is not a universal good. Science is only a universal good when utilized to uphold a value system worth fighting for. I'd argue that people like Dr Mengele show that science in of itself is not some absolute value.


]…The ones that something like more-than-three-quarters of the human species actually believes in. The people who believe in…whatever it is you are not describing, would probably fill a seminar.

....

No, the problem is the American public are not very smart. ‘Global warming’ is just a dumbed-down reduction of ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’, which most Americans only understand in the crudest, most literal sense, because most Americans don’t understand that there is a difference between climate and weather.

So, on one hand, you define religion in terms of what "the masses" believe, but you only define science in terms of what actual scientists believe? Poor education results both in poor theology and poor science, and good education results also in rational and empirical theological and scientific views.

Let me say, most mystics and theologians come closer to how I was defining "God". Behind all of these religions is a far deeper and more philosophically complex system (without which, none of them would have survived the scientific revolution)



Second, from what I’m hearing it sounds like you’re resting on the ‘Argument from Existence’, which isn’t exactly a Rainmaker.

No, just saying there is more to the social, philosophical and religious notion of "God" than Dawkins thinks.



What it comes down to, beyond the colorful verbiage, is; are you saying this entity actually exists, in a literal, material sense?


First, this isn't about what I believe, its about what people of many different religions believe. I'm agnostic, but I've done a lot of research on different religions and theological points of view. Having come from a very Atheist family background, I feel like I have a good, reasonably objective outsider's view, and I can tell you that no religion I've ever studied is just mindless babble (although there usually is a fair share of mythology, strange ritual, etc, that's not the limit of or the essence of these religious practices).

And no, most religions don't believe God has a literal material existence, because they envision him as eternal (and therefore transcends the material). I'd love to give you an Apology on behalf of ancient theologians of all types I'm aware of, but I don't know if you're really that interested. But let me just say this, there's a reason why well-educated intelligent people of all disciplines, including the sciences, believe in God without needing material confirmation.


As far as I can tell, this is just intellectualized nonsense, like Postmodernism.

In that case, you probably don't know enough philosophy of religion to call all religions irrational. Theologians have been struggling with those ideas for 3,000 years, and they all have a unique rational basis and viewpoint on the world.

[Hexen]

Also, worshipping all humans as "gods" is dangerous, I'd rather worship the "divine potential" in all humans.

I think the divine potential is a better option.

[NGNM85]

Thanks to the values of Mahatma Gandhi, a religious figure acting on a personal philosophy motivated by what to him seemed like a perfectly rational spiritual background, India found independence without bloodshed. I'd call that socially constructive.

A minor historical exception. Defenders of religion always do this. I admit, Liberation Theology, for the most part, was predominantly positive. Although, again, it is a minor anomaly. Also, these individuals may have been inspired by what they read into their respective religions, but the belief in Indian independence, or opposition to the various US-supported South American police states does not require one to accept any ideas about god or the afterlife. Those are not specifically religious ideas. Those individuals very conceivably would have come to the same position, irrespective of religion. However, other beliefs, like; 'Homosexuals are an abomination against god.', or; 'It is good to murder civilians in defense of the Prophet', are explicitly religious ideas.


ALL kinds of corruption are socially conditioned, this includes but is not exclusive to conditions with religious origins. The fact that certain religions tend to produce certain kinds of corruption shouldn't be a surprise to us, since religions do stress different values.

Absolutely. The only difference, here, is the amount of emphasis we place on this point.


But what isn't true is that these kinds of bigotry are the ONLY things to come out of religion. For instance, Hinduism produced both advocates for and critics of the caste system. Was the caste system unique to Hinduism? In many respects, yes. But it wasn't the only possible moral result of people living within the Hindu value system.

It wasn’t the only result, but it eas a significant contributing factor. There are pro-life Christians, there are Christians that are tolerant of homosexuals,…but not many.


First, we don't necessarily have different moralities, just different understandings of ontology and metaphysics.

At this point, we can only speculate.


Second, I'd say that Atheism does have a couple of tenets (At least how you're presenting your atheism); particularly, that mysticism is bunk,

That isn’t a tenet of atheism, that’s an empirical observation. Atheism is merely a by-product of a scientific, rational worldview.


that consciousness is fundamentally positivistic…

While we don’t full understand the phenomena of consciousness, we have made great strides. Historically, such knowledge was the sole purview of religion, which has thoroughly poisoned our discourse on such matters, now, with Neurology and Psychology, we are able to achieve a deeper understanding of this phenomena, and wrest it from the talons of sorcerers and mystics. One thing that I think is particularly interesting is that we are beginning to understand the Neurological dimensions of religion.


and that metaphysical materialism is the most "modern" and therefore the only valuable way of seeing the world.

It isn’t the best because it is modern, although, it certainly requires a certain degree of progress to get to develop the idea. It is the best because it gives us the most grounded, accurate picture of the world as it actually is. Cosmologists and Physicists give us an infinitely superior understanding of the beginning of our universe than the Book of
Genesis.


See, I'd consider that to be a statement loaded with assumptions of faith. You're presupposing a certain notion of "socially backward", which implies an ethos on your part, and a positivist eschatology.

No, I stand by that assessment. The text of the Old Testament, for example, with it’s various prescriptions about the role of women in society, the rabid intolerance, the favorable view of slavery, etc., this clearly represents the wisdom of it’s time; and age when fire, the wheel, and written language were relatively novel technologies, and most humans spent their short, unhappy lives foraging for food and slaughtering (Or, conversely, being slaughtered.) neighboring tribes. The idea that these individuals would had the best ideas on virtually any given subject, that we absolutely can’t do better, is highly suspect, at best.


Science is not a universal good. Science is only a universal good when utilized to uphold a value system worth fighting for.

No, that isn’t the science’s fault. Science doesn’t hurt people. The understanding and technological capacity to split the atom, by itself, is an absolute good. Governments (And, perhaps, in the near future, terrorist groups.) turned it into an instrument of mass-murder.


I'd argue that people like Dr Mengele show that science in of itself is not some absolute value.

I’m dismayed to hear you employ such a fundamentally bogus argument. Josef Mengele was in virtually no sense of the word, a scientist. He kept sloppy records, most of his ‘experiments’ had no proven utility, whatsoever. That was merely sadism, presenting itself as science. Nazi racialist nonsense was in no way scientific. Their ideas about German supremacy, wasn’t based on any facts, their anti-Semitism wasn’t the result of experimentation. They used science to justify that of which they were already completely certain. That is the opposite of science. This idea, that science has some sort of dark side, is complete and utter nonsense.
Also, the death-cult of Nazism resembles nothing more than religion.


So, on one hand, you define religion in terms of what "the masses" believe,…

It’s significant that this concept of religion that you are defending, and, deliberately, I think, not describing, is radically different from that which people actually believe. I mean, if you want to talk about religion could be, fine, but I’m talking about what religion is, and, historically, has been.


but you only define science in terms of what actual scientists believe?

Science really has no ‘beliefs’, per se.

Anthropogenic Climate Change is a verifiable, empirical fact.


Poor education results both in poor theology and poor science, and good education results also in rational and empirical theological and scientific views.

There is no such thing as rational religion, this is a fundamental contradiction in terms.


Let me say, most mystics and theologians come closer to how I was defining "God". Behind all of these religions is a far deeper and more philosophically complex system (without which, none of them would have survived the scientific revolution)

I think you’ve taken pains to avoid defining it.

They survived the Enlightenment through adaptation, and obstinacy.



No, just saying there is more to the social, philosophical and religious notion of "God" than Dawkins thinks.

I think you’d be more qualified to make that assessment if you had actually read The God Delusion, but, really, it’s neither here nor there.


First, this isn't about what I believe, its about what people of many different religions believe. I'm agnostic, but I've done a lot of research on different religions and theological points of view. Having come from a very Atheist family background,..

I envy you.


I feel like I have a good, reasonably objective outsider's view, and I can tell you that no religion I've ever studied is just mindless babble (although there usually is a fair share of mythology, strange ritual, etc, that's not the limit of or the essence of these religious practices).

Entirely? No, but much more so, than not.


And no, most religions don't believe God has a literal material existence, because they envision him as eternal (and therefore transcends the material). I'd love to give you an Apology on behalf of ancient theologians of all types I'm aware of, but I don't know if you're really that interested.

This just sounds like sophistry, to me.


But let me just say this, there's a reason why well-educated intelligent people of all disciplines, including the sciences, believe in God without needing material confirmation.

That’s because they are bad scientists, or, at the very least, inconsistent in their application. If Francis Collins applied the rigorous discipline he employs in the field of genetics, to Christianity, it would collapse, immediately.


In that case, you probably don't know enough philosophy of religion to call all religions irrational. Theologians have been struggling with those ideas for 3,000 years, and they all have a unique rational basis and viewpoint on the world.

This is a non-argument.

[gorillafuck]

Said a person who belongs to a very marginalized group *cough* communists *cough*.
You don't support a socialist who will end capitalist oppression because of what God he believes in? I thought that to you he didn't exist? If so, why perpetuate religious sectarianism. You can only join us if you are an atheist? That'll get the working class to join up in droves, and of course they'll all drop religion because you tell them that its bad.There's a difference between being a Muslim and a Socialist and Islamic Socialism. He said Islamic Socialism is a contradiction in terms. Which it is, along with Christian Socialism or Jewish Socialism. Socialism is incompatible with theocracy. Obviously you can be a Muslim who is a socialist though.

Also I seriously doubt that most Muslim socialists believed in "Islamic Socialism" as a system, so it's basically an irrelevant point.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

A minor historical exception. Defenders of religion always do this. I admit, Liberation Theology, for the most part, was predominantly positive. Although, again, it is a minor anomaly. Also, these individuals may have been inspired by what they read into their respective religions, but the belief in Indian independence, or opposition to the various US-supported South American police states does not require one to accept any ideas about god or the afterlife. Those are not specifically religious ideas. Those individuals very conceivably would have come to the same position, irrespective of religion. However, other beliefs, like; 'Homosexuals are an abomination against god.', or; 'It is good to murder civilians in defense of the Prophet', are explicitly religious ideas.

There are plenty of other "Exceptions" in the history of religion. In fact, these "exceptions" are often held in high esteem by most mainstream religions, like St Francis. Consider also the early abolitionists, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ himself ...

Anyway, saying "homosexuality is an abomination to God" is religious, but saying "homosexuality is bad" is not. There are homophobes of all stripes, just as there were Indian independence agitators or liberation fighters, but its also true that the religious ones do tend to have world views based on their faith just as much as intolerant people who see their views as based on their faith.


It wasn’t the only result, but it eas a significant contributing factor. There are pro-life Christians, there are Christians that are tolerant of homosexuals,…but not many.

Not many? Considering prop 8 still got 48% no, and America is still "majority Christian", I'd say that a fair number are "liberal" even if a majority aren't. Consider also the drastic change in how Christians view women; an age where a majority of Christians are ok with homosexuality, at least in "Western" countries like America, will arrive soon.

Anyway, caste systems and other class systems perpetuated by religion tend to come from social conditions that exist regardless of the religious system, and merely get reified through dogmatic religion.


That isn’t a tenet of atheism, that’s an empirical observation. Atheism is merely a by-product of a scientific, rational worldview.

You confuse empirical with rational; as you yourself say, it's based on "empirical observation". The virtue of empirical science is that it is systematized observation, but pure reason is not the same as the empirical, at least according to the traditional philosophical epistemologies.


While we don’t full understand the phenomena of consciousness, we have made great strides. Historically, such knowledge was the sole purview of religion, which has thoroughly poisoned our discourse on such matters, now, with Neurology and Psychology, we are able to achieve a deeper understanding of this phenomena, and wrest it from the talons of sorcerers and mystics. One thing that I think is particularly interesting is that we are beginning to understand the Neurological dimensions of religion.

Nooooo, I meant consciousness in the Marxist sense, not the neurological one.

Anyhow, I happen to disagree with you about consciousness on that level, not because neurology isn't amazing and doesn't tell you a lot, about yourself, but for a number of anti-reductionistic reasons that are tangential to the main discussion, and that my girlfriend could explain better anyhow.


It isn’t the best because it is modern, although, it certainly requires a certain degree of progress to get to develop the idea. It is the best because it gives us the most grounded, accurate picture of the world as it actually is. Cosmologists and Physicists give us an infinitely superior understanding of the beginning of our universe than the Book of
Genesis.

I certainly don't think Genesis is good as an explanation for the material world. I don't think its necessary to be religious and to accept all the mythology presented by your "chosen" religion to be "factually accurate". It is almost always the least educated portions of a religious community with this hard-line view.


No, I stand by that assessment. The text of the Old Testament, for example, with it’s various prescriptions about the role of women in society, the rabid intolerance, the favorable view of slavery, etc., this clearly represents the wisdom of it’s time; and age when fire, the wheel, and written language were relatively novel technologies, and most humans spent their short, unhappy lives foraging for food and slaughtering (Or, conversely, being slaughtered.) neighboring tribes. The idea that these individuals would had the best ideas on virtually any given subject, that we absolutely can’t do better, is highly suspect, at best.

Yes, it does have those views about women and slavery and so on, but you still need some ethical or moral system whereby control of women and slavery is valued as bad to begin with. There have been plenty of slave-holding non-theists in history as well.

Anyway, so people in the ancient period had bad ideas, we know they also had good ideas (last I checked, we're still using the wheel). That they have bad ideas is often confirmed by religious thinkers themselves, as most mainstream Jews for instance disapprove of the religious laws from 2,500 years ago.


No, that isn’t the science’s fault. Science doesn’t hurt people. The understanding and technological capacity to split the atom, by itself, is an absolute good. Governments (And, perhaps, in the near future, terrorist groups.) turned it into an instrument of mass-murder.

"Science" isn't a person and has no value in of itself outside of human understanding. Science can hurt people when done badly, and according to a corrupt or mindless value system. This is one of the things religion and science have in common (though they are like this for different reasons.)


’m dismayed to hear you employ such a fundamentally bogus argument. Josef Mengele was in virtually no sense of the word, a scientist. He kept sloppy records, most of his ‘experiments’ had no proven utility, whatsoever. That was merely sadism, presenting itself as science. Nazi racialist nonsense was in no way scientific. Their ideas about German supremacy, wasn’t based on any facts, their anti-Semitism wasn’t the result of experimentation. They used science to justify that of which they were already completely certain. That is the opposite of science. This idea, that science has some sort of dark side, is complete and utter nonsense.
Also, the death-cult of Nazism resembles nothing more than religion.

I'd say he is a bad scientist, not a non-scientist, much as a priest who uses his religion to justify torture and sadism is a bad priest, not a non-priest. Anyway, I'm aware of the fact that Mengele wouldn't pass muster in any science department today, but at that time standards were much lower in many sciences. I'm merely pointing to how the notion of science can be misused when simplified to its superficial elements and stripped of core ideals, just as religion has been so frequently.

I wouldn't say Naziism resembles a religion or science, it resembles a megalomaniacal project in Hitler's personal will.


t’s significant that this concept of religion that you are defending, and, deliberately, I think, not describing, is radically different from that which people actually believe. I mean, if you want to talk about religion could be, fine, but I’m talking about what religion is, and, historically, has been.

The "lay" understanding of science is by no means any less the essence of science than the "lay" understanding of religion. Most people don't understand the science behind climate change, but most people also probably don't understand advanced moral theologies argued by religious thinkers. Most large religious communities seem to accept that the lay community has many ignorant beliefs about the religion; for instance, advanced Buddhist monks accept that much of the mythology is symbolic and that rebirth is not necessarily how it was conceived in ancient India (the Buddha himself argued so much), but it is admitted that the lay community (ie, non-monks) and novice monks will have some unenlightened views. I don't see this as a bad mark of religion, merely a sign that many people happen to be ignorant, and will form ignorant views of both science and religion.


Science really has no ‘beliefs’, per se.

Anthropogenic Climate Change is a verifiable, empirical fact.

Considering "knowledge" is defined philosophically as a "true belief", "empirical facts" would in fact, be beliefs. Although any empirical "fact" is understood and interpreted in accordance with a particular set of assumptions about how the world works and what kind of phenomena you're witnessing, so no "empirical fact" corresponds perfectly to "Reality".


There is no such thing as rational religion, this is a fundamental contradiction in terms.

Not at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Etymology


I think you’ve taken pains to avoid defining it.


No, I explicitly stated that there are many different definitions of it. Any generalized definition would be biased in favor of certain abrahamic beliefs, say, and ignore hindu or chinese systems, for instance, or ignore the very real diversity within these systems.


This just sounds like sophistry, to me.

Considering it was Socrates who defined Sophistry as the "other", and considering he raised similar questions about the eternal as I'm asking, that's an odd charge.


That’s because they are bad scientists, or, at the very least, inconsistent in their application. If Francis Collins applied the rigorous discipline he employs in the field of genetics, to Christianity, it would collapse, immediately.

That's a category error, one can do perfectly good science in a particular area while accepting metaphysical, moral or ontological beliefs from a particular religion.


This is a non-argument.

!! I brought up the very real theological disputes between pantheists, monotheists, etc, and you said it sounded "post-modern". Considering those are debates that have been going on for 3,000 years from India, to China, to Greece and Germany, it does seem absurd to dismiss it all as "post-modern".

[Devrim]

What is Islamic Socialism? Are there any major groups today which are truly in support of it? In a purely economic sense, how different is it from Marxism (i.e ignoring all of that religious stuff.)? And lastly, does anyone know anything about Ali Shariati?

Just to go back to the OP, 'Islaimic Socialism' doesn't really exist. The vast majority of people in the Arab, and Muslim world who consider themselves to be socialists, see their socialism as either antithetical, or incidental to Islamic belief.

Devrim

[Devrim]

As far as the middle east, atheistic communist groups are few and far between. The left of the middle east is mostly composed of Islamic socialists, which I guess is a step. Most socialist parties of middle east claim to be Islamic Socialist, from what I can gather at a glance.

It isn't the Middle East I know. I would say that most groups that consider themselves to be revolutionary communists in both this country and the wider region are explicitly secular if not atheistic.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I'd imagine that 'Islamic Socialism', much like the 'Christian Socialism' of 19th century Britain, would criticise capitalism on moral grounds and wish to create a 'moral capitalism' without usury, with a degree of co-operation favoured over competition, and with charity being a central tenet of society.

I think there is a difference between Islam and Christianity in that in the 15th century many primitive communists expressed themselves through the Christian religion. Gerald Whinstanley is a well know English example.

In contrast, at the heart of Islam is the idea of commerce. It was much harder historically for primitive communism to articulate itself through Islam.

Whereas Whinstanley and his ilk could see a world without money and property as being a Godly one, this is very difficult in Islam, where the Koran, the direct word of God, is very very detailed on its rules about commercial transactions, and how they should take place, which implies by omission that God favours the law of value.

Devrim

[Devrim]

But Pakistan in particular is a unique case, in part because of mass Saudi and American support for conservative religious institutions in their war against the Soviets, which spread a simplified but conservative notion of Islam through Sunni sects, and eventually it seems even into the Sufis (it was a Sufi who shot the governor of Punjab-Sufism is not really known for producing violent extremists).

Sufism has a weird reputation in the West, but in Sunni Muslim countries at least, it is virtually always associated with the hard right.

Devrim

[NGNM85]

There are plenty of other "Exceptions" in the history of religion.

Over a period of thousands of years, counting billions upon billions of individuals, that is to be expected. However, this is still cherry-picking.


In fact, these "exceptions" are often held in high esteem by most mainstream religions, like St Francis.

Some of them are, some aren’t. Rome was hardly thrilled with Liberation Theology, Ratzinger, the present pope, bitterly denounced it.


Consider also the early abolitionists,..

In the United States, the first abolitionists were predominantly deists. Also, Christian abolitionists could only maintain this position by editing their faith. Christianity is not fundamentally opposed to slavery, quite the contrary. In fact, southern slaveowners frequently justified this institution on the basis of scripture.


Martin Luther King,

Again, taking creative liberties with scripture.


Jesus Christ himself ...

I’m extremely skeptical that this character is actually based on a historical personage. Even if this is so, and we can’t be sure, we can’t know that much about ‘him.’


Anyway, saying "homosexuality is an abomination to God" is religious,

Yes.


but saying "homosexuality is bad" is not. There are homophobes of all stripes, just as there were Indian independence agitators or liberation fighters, but its also true that the religious ones do tend to have world views based on their faith just as much as intolerant people who see their views as based on their faith.

If one believes the former, it, at least implies they have accepted the latter. I mean, the Evangelical groups are radical hawks when it comes to Israel, they claim to care very much about Israel. However, if you scratch the surface, their beliefs are deeply anti-Semitic. They are about as anti-Semitic as you can get, it just doesn’t manifest itself in the form of overt hostility. The belief that the divine creator of the universe considers homosexuality to be an abomination has had an observable impact on the treatment of homosexuals in regions where the Abrahamic faiths are predominant. Also, there is no other defensible reason for devaluing or hating homosexuals. It ultimately comes down to religion. Just like the ‘pro-life’ position ultimately reduces to religion.


Not many? Considering prop 8 still got 48% no, and America is still "majority Christian", I'd say that a fair number are "liberal" even if a majority aren't. Consider also the drastic change in how Christians view women; an age where a majority of Christians are ok with homosexuality, at least in "Western" countries like America, will arrive soon.

Very probably so, but this has nothing to do with Christianity, itself. The scripture is obviously static, and the institution only changes because it has to. Were it still possible, there is no reason to believe the Catholic church wouldn’t still be torturing people for challenging the Ptolemaic view of the universe. They just can’t get away with it, anymore.



Nooooo, I meant consciousness in the Marxist sense, not the neurological one.
Anyhow, I happen to disagree with you about consciousness on that level, not because neurology isn't amazing and doesn't tell you a lot, about yourself, but for a number of anti-reductionistic reasons that are tangential to the main discussion, and that my girlfriend could explain better anyhow.

You have to state a proposition for me to be able to argue with it, or, to even consider it.



I certainly don't think Genesis is good as an explanation for the material world. I don't think its necessary to be religious and to accept all the mythology presented by your "chosen" religion to be "factually accurate". It is almost always the least educated portions of a religious community with this hard-line view.

It is intended to be accepted as being factually accurate. These texts were intended to be interpreted literally. Again, that’s what religion is, you have to believe at least some of this stuff is literally true, the extent to which you do that is, generally, the extent to which you are religious.


Yes, it does have those views about women and slavery and so on,

Excellent, another point of agreement.



but you still need some ethical or moral system whereby control of women and slavery is valued as bad to begin with.[quote]

I really don’t think you need a doctorate in philosophy to come to that conclusion, but let's move on...

[QUOTE=Shiva Trishula Dialectics;2021066]There have been plenty of slave-holding non-theists in history as well.

Absolutely. However, they aren’t relevant in terms of this discussion.


Anyway, so people in the ancient period had bad ideas, we know they also had good ideas (last I checked, we're still using the wheel).

That’s true, however that has proven itself, that’s science. I’m just saying, in general, the idea that after all this time, in the age of genetic engineering, space shuttles, and nuclear weapons (Especially, nuclear weapons.) that the greatest wisdom of humankind is to be found in these ponderous iron age tomes. Many people accept this proposition unconsciously, not realizing how fundamentally preposterous it is.


That they have bad ideas is often confirmed by religious thinkers themselves, as most mainstream Jews for instance disapprove of the religious laws from 2,500 years ago.

Religion has adapted as a survival mechanism. It has had to develop an increasingly sophisticated mechanism of cognitive dissonance. They have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity every step of the way.


"Science" isn't a person and has no value in of itself outside of human understanding.

Nothing has any value outside of understanding by sentient beings. However science is unique in that it is always good, and grants greater and greater rewards with time. We get better answers and better tools to get even better answers and even better tools, ad infinitum.


Science can hurt people when done badly,

That which is described as ‘bad’ science is science that is not adequately scientific.


and according to a corrupt or mindless value system.

A corrupt or mindless value system is a value system that is un-scientific.


This is one of the things religion and science have in common (though they are like this for different reasons.)

No, they don’t. See above.


I'd say he is a bad scientist, not a non-scientist, much as a priest who uses his religion to justify torture and sadism is a bad priest, not a non-priest.

This is incorrect. Again, what makes ‘bad science’ ‘bad’ is the extent to which it is un-scientific, not scientific. Torture is not un-, or anti-Christian. Both Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, respectively, found torturing or killing heretics perfectly compatible with Christianity, and rightfully so. From a purely theological perspective, this is unassailable.


Anyway, I'm aware of the fact that Mengele wouldn't pass muster in any science department today, but at that time standards were much lower in many sciences.

It doesn’t make any difference, rigorously applying the scientific method there is no way to get to what he did. ‘You can’t get there from here.’


I'm merely pointing to how the notion of science can be misused when simplified to its superficial elements and stripped of core ideals, just as religion has been so frequently.

Nazi ‘expiriments’ weren’t the result of an overdose of rational thought, quite the contrary.


I wouldn't say Naziism resembles a religion or science, it resembles a megalomaniacal project in Hitler's personal will.

It’s very similar; the fervor, the dogmatism, the personality cult. Nazism was, essentially, a secular religion.


The "lay" understanding of science is by no means any less the essence of science than the "lay" understanding of religion. Most people don't understand the science behind climate change, but most people also probably don't understand advanced moral theologies argued by religious thinkers.

The Abrahamic faiths are deontological, god told us what morality is, morality is complying with those dictates. This is how catholic missionaries are able to justify preaching against prophylactics in the most AIDS-ravaged parts of sub-Saharan Africa. According to their faith, that’s the moral thing to do. This is the whole message of the parable of Abraham and Isaac.


Most large religious communities seem to accept that the lay community has many ignorant beliefs about the religion; for instance, advanced Buddhist monks accept that much of the mythology is symbolic and that rebirth is not necessarily how it was conceived in ancient India (the Buddha himself argued so much), but it is admitted that the lay community (ie, non-monks) and novice monks will have some unenlightened views. I don't see this as a bad mark of religion, merely a sign that many people happen to be ignorant, and will form ignorant views of both science and religion.

However, in many cases, the religious leaders are just as ignorant and bigoted as their followers.


Considering "knowledge" is defined philosophically as a "true belief", "empirical facts" would in fact, be beliefs. Although any empirical "fact" is understood and interpreted in accordance with a particular set of assumptions about how the world works and what kind of phenomena you're witnessing, so no "empirical fact" corresponds perfectly to "Reality".

Ok, here’s perhaps the root of the problem, this deeper skepticism about reality. This is a major impasse.


Not at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Etymology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Etymology)

No, rational, scientific thinking involves making inferences based on established facts and rigorous analysis and testing. Virtually nothing that can be described as religion can be said to be scientific.


No, I explicitly stated that there are many different definitions of it. Any generalized definition would be biased in favor of certain abrahamic beliefs, say, and ignore hindu or chinese systems, for instance, or ignore the very real diversity within these systems.

This is absurd. You are missing the forest for the trees. To most religious people on earth, and throughout human history, ‘god’ means an actual entity, a being, usually looking very much like a human, or animal, or both.

Anything that has actual substance can be explained in plain English. I know a little about Quantum Physics, and I know I could understand more if I wanted to. There is no reason you can’t explain your own conception of ‘god’ (Which is a fundamentally un-scientific concept.) in plain English.


Considering it was Socrates who defined Sophistry as the "other", and considering he raised similar questions about the eternal as I'm asking, that's an odd charge.

You just seem to be taking pains to avoid the heart of the matter. Historically, overwhelmingly most religious texts, most religious clerics, priests, etc., and most of their congregations, believe their god literally exists, as an actual entity, at the very least. That is a scientific claim which can be evaluated.


That's a category error, one can do perfectly good science in a particular area while accepting metaphysical, moral or ontological beliefs from a particular religion.

Again, I’m not questioning his work on genetics, however on the issue of the origin of the universe, the afterlife, etc., his mind goes horribly astray.


!! I brought up the very real theological disputes between pantheists, monotheists, etc, and you said it sounded "post-modern". Considering those are debates that have been going on for 3,000 years from India, to China, to Greece and Germany, it does seem absurd to dismiss it all as "post-modern".

I was referring to the perverse way in which Postmodernists use language, using colorful verbiage and an abundance of syllables to mystify and obfuscate.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Over a period of thousands of years, counting billions upon billions of individuals, that is to be expected. However, this is still cherry-picking.

It isn't cherry picking considering those figures tend to be the most revered figures in these religions. I'm picking the people that the faithful themselves respond to.


Some of them are, some aren’t. Rome was hardly thrilled with Liberation Theology, Ratzinger, the present pope, bitterly denounced it.

Yes, and there have been disputes between mainstream science and new theories too.


In the United States, the first abolitionists were predominantly deists. Also, Christian abolitionists could only maintain this position by editing their faith. Christianity is not fundamentally opposed to slavery, quite the contrary. In fact, southern slaveowners frequently justified this institution on the basis of scripture.

Jewish law is not opposed to slavery, but people extrapolated based on the statements of Jesus that God opposed slavery, and the word of Jesus trumps the old testament.

Anyway, there were also Deist slaveowners, who viewed their ownership of human beings as due to the biological inferiority of their slaves.


Again, taking creative liberties with scripture.

Right, I think the Reverend with a PhD knew his religious literature well enough to interpret it honestly.


I’m extremely skeptical that this character is actually based on a historical personage. Even if this is so, and we can’t be sure, we can’t know that much about ‘him.’

Pretty much every quote from him is oriented towards peace, love and brotherhood of man. Even if he was invented, then it's to the credit of early Christians that they invented such an honourable man as the origin of their faith. And there's no reason to doubt his life, considering how many Jewish Rabbi cultists were around at that point in history.


If one believes the former, it, at least implies they have accepted the latter. I mean, the Evangelical groups are radical hawks when it comes to Israel, they claim to care very much about Israel. However, if you scratch the surface, their beliefs are deeply anti-Semitic. They are about as anti-Semitic as you can get, it just doesn’t manifest itself in the form of overt hostility. The belief that the divine creator of the universe considers homosexuality to be an abomination has had an observable impact on the treatment of homosexuals in regions where the Abrahamic faiths are predominant. Also, there is no other defensible reason for devaluing or hating homosexuals. It ultimately comes down to religion. Just like the ‘pro-life’ position ultimately reduces to religion.

I agree that Christian zionists are secret racists. But i don't think that Atheist homophobes are secret Christians. Stalin didn't hate gays because God told him to, he hated Gays because they made him uncomfortable.


Very probably so, but this has nothing to do with Christianity, itself. The scripture is obviously static, and the institution only changes because it has to. Were it still possible, there is no reason to believe the Catholic church wouldn’t still be torturing people for challenging the Ptolemaic view of the universe. They just can’t get away with it, anymore.

Scripture is not static by any means. The text may never change, but our interpretation and perspective on it is always changing.


You have to state a proposition for me to be able to argue with it, or, to even consider it.

I already stated my argument, that your notion of Atheism supports a positivistic understanding of consciousness (in the marxian/hegelian sense of the term)


It is intended to be accepted as being factually accurate. These texts were intended to be interpreted literally. Again, that’s what religion is, you have to believe at least some of this stuff is literally true, the extent to which you do that is, generally, the extent to which you are religious.

Who says this? Hardline creationists? Even the Catholic church disputes literalistic interpretations.


I really don’t think you need a doctorate in philosophy to come to that conclusion, but let's move on.

Presumably, there's a difference in how people like you and people 200 years ago saw the world. Perhaps you're not aware of it, but it's only because you've internalized many of the arguments made since then. No, you don't need a doctorate in philosophy to come to those conclusions, because past philosophers already did.


Absolutely. However, they aren’t relevant in terms of this discussion

So, your argument is that atheism is bad is that there are bad theists (but good theists aren't relevant) and good atheists (but bad atheists aren't relevant)


That’s true, however that has proven itself, that’s science. I’m just saying, in general, the idea that after all this time, in the age of genetic engineering, space shuttles, and nuclear weapons (Especially, nuclear weapons.) that the greatest wisdom of humankind is to be found in these ponderous iron age tomes. Many people accept this proposition unconsciously, not realizing how fundamentally preposterous it is.

I think one can see these texts as valuable even if they represent the thinking of a past age, especially if we understand why these iron age people thought these things, and the process whereby they stopped thinking them. It was actually Christian revelation that negated a lot of the bad in Jewish law that we see in the bible, like stoning homosexuals. Not to mention, the religious books themselves speak of an age where people will have a higher understanding (the book of revelations for instance, which gets misused by fanatics)


Religion has adapted as a survival mechanism. It has had to develop an increasingly sophisticated mechanism of cognitive dissonance. They have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity every step of the way.


Really? I think the picture is a little more complicated, even if there's some interesting scientific evidence here and there. Religion, at least from a historical point of view, has a complex and varied role, that most importantly seems to rely on tying communities together around core values (the sacred, the divine, the truth). Insofar as these institutions are conservative, that is often why. But that's not a necessary feature, nor is it always a bad thing, as religious conservatism at least forces people to stop, think, defend why they want to do something and advocate for it.


Nothing has any value outside of understanding by sentient beings. However science is unique in that it is always good, and grants greater and greater rewards with time. We get better answers and better tools to get even better answers and even better tools, ad infinitum.

(1) You're presupposing a certain notion of "The Good" and "Greater Rewards" which is nonscientific in of itself (not un-scientific, but non-scientific, as in not opposed to science but merely other to it)

(2) Science is not unique in that it is always good, science is good insofar as it grants further knowledge and understanding of entities. How you use that knowledge, how you systematize it with other bits of scientific data, and how critical you are in your application of science to answer the problem, is another matter.


That which is described as ‘bad’ science is science that is not adequately scientific.


That which is described as "bad" religion is religion that is not adequately holy.


This is incorrect. Again, what makes ‘bad science’ ‘bad’ is the extent to which it is un-scientific, not scientific. Torture is not un-, or anti-Christian. Both Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, respectively, found torturing or killing heretics perfectly compatible with Christianity, and rightfully so. From a purely theological perspective, this is unassailable.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." Doesn't sound like the New Testament endorses torture. Anyways, St Augustine's notion of just war was a lot better than the secular notions that the Romans had before, even if it seems barbaric and backwards from a modern perspective.

Science from a certain point of view would approve of torture as long as torture brought empirical data. But because it in of itself is empty of a value system, it is not pro or anti-torture.


Nazi ‘expiriments’ weren’t the result of an overdose of rational thought, quite the contrary.

They were based on a very naive notion of empirical evidence, in that they had empirical reason to believe that races existed based on various socially, culturally and economically conditioned realities. It wasn't an isolated case for hard, serious scientists of the time to have believed in Eugenics, even if the Nazis took that system to its logical extremes.


It’s very similar; the fervor, the dogmatism, the personality cult. Nazism was, essentially, a secular religion.

"essentially"? That's a strong word. At best, it shared some common features with many religious movements. Again, it also shared some common features with scientific movements. I would not call it either a religion or a science, but an opportunistic political ideology that used and abused pretty much every social system which they could.


The Abrahamic faiths are deontological, god told us what morality is, morality is complying with those dictates. This is how catholic missionaries are able to justify preaching against prophylactics in the most AIDS-ravaged parts of sub-Saharan Africa. According to their faith, that’s the moral thing to do. This is the whole message of the parable of Abraham and Isaac.


Last I checked, there were billions of religious people who don't follow Abrahamic faiths.

Anyways, even with the Abrahamists, peel back the surface and you start to find lots of mysticism in these movements, as well as rationalist theologies which critique the old models, such as Lutheranism, and move beyond its limitations.


However, in many cases, the religious leaders are just as ignorant and bigoted as their followers.

In some respects they may be, but again, in science you have ignorant people who are scientists or who claim to be, as already mentioned with Mengele (who did have followers who believed he was a scientist, much as genocidal priests might have followers who consider them holy)


k, here’s perhaps the root of the problem, this deeper skepticism about reality. This is a major impasse.

It's not skepticism about reality as such, just the notion that empirically witnessed events don't absolutely correspond to a material absolute. This isn't a theistic belief, Marxist Atheists agree that empirical events should be viewed skeptically to be viewed scientifically so as to question ontological presuppositions that lead to their appearance as a phenomenon


No, rational, scientific thinking involves making inferences based on established facts and rigorous analysis and testing. Virtually nothing that can be described as religion can be said to be scientific.

(1) Again, scientific thinking is more than just reason, it is also empiricism, which is a different category altogether

(2) Buddha described his methods as a pragmatic, means-tested method to transcend the suffering of the world, so to dismiss all religions like that is unfair.

(3) I put the link of the etymology of religion to show you how religion in itself doesn't care about the scientific either way, in a positive or negative sense. Religion is respect for the sacred, not blind belief in something, though it may include blind belief as a component of itself.


This is absurd. You are missing the forest for the trees. To most religious people on earth, and throughout human history, ‘god’ means an actual entity, a being, usually looking very much like a human, or animal, or both.

Anything that has actual substance can be explained in plain English. I know a little about Quantum Physics, and I know I could understand more if I wanted to. There is no reason you can’t explain your own conception of ‘god’ (Which is a fundamentally un-scientific concept.) in plain English.

What are you basing that first assumption on?

(1) God by definition is the absolute, and you will find most mystics or theologians define him as unknowable, therefore impossible to "define". Asking someone to define the absolute is impossible. And this isn't just some cop out I'm making, this is a pretty old argument.

(2) Aside from that, you still haven't dealt with the fact that behind all of those superficial beliefs in "spirit dragons" "devas" "olympians" and so on are unique metaphysical models of what those things are. For instance, some faiths see God as the unity of all empirical things (pantheism), others see God as a being which transcends all time and exists outside, never changing and always the same (monotheism).

(3) Read the upanishads, it is a series of different, sometimes opposing Hindu texts devoted to different understandings of God, including polemics against ritualism and dogmatic religion, from ~2500-3000 years ago. There you will see how the sages viewed the anthropomorphic understanding of the Gods adopted by many priests and their followers was a less true way of seeing the world than a higher, mystical way because it attached metaphysical existence to various spirits and so on.


You just seem to be taking pains to avoid the heart of the matter. Historically, overwhelmingly most religious texts, most religious clerics, priests, etc., and most of their congregations, believe their god literally exists, as an actual entity, at the very least. That is a scientific claim which can be evaluated.


They may believe that their god literally exists, but they don't believe he literally exists in our material plane. Ask a Muslim to prove where God exists and he won't say in a spaceship, he'll say outside the universe, waiting for the day of judgement.

That's the achievement of monotheism over old mythological polytheism. It took God out of the empirical world, and the divine was no longer inherently and absolutely tied to particular phenomena anymore.


I was referring to the perverse way in which Postmodernists use language, using colorful verbiage and an abundance of syllables to mystify and obfuscate.

I can assure you I wasn't. All of those things I listed are honest and deeply contested things.

[NGNM85]

It isn't cherry picking considering those figures tend to be the most revered figures in these religions. I'm picking the people that the faithful themselves respond to.

I don’t argue that Martin Luther King and the Liberation Theologists had good intentions, and had a positive impact. However, they are largely insignificant anomalies in the history of Christendom. Ever since the Romans stopped feeding them to lions, Christianity has generally been on the side of the oppressor, it has been the perpetrator of bigotry, not the antithesis.


Yes, and there have been disputes between mainstream science and new theories too.

That is completely different. That is based on evidence. Science is one of the few areas where someone can achieve respect (Deservedly so.) by proving himself wrong. Outdated, or disproven theories get discarded over time. It is impossible to separate Islam from ther Koran, or Christianity from the Bible, these are the core of these faiths.


Anyway, there were also Deist slaveowners, who viewed their ownership of human beings as due to the biological inferiority of their slaves.

That’s true, and I’m not excusing that. However, I’m trying to focus on the subject of religion. Also, there is a difference between someone arbitrarily engaging in an act of cruelty, or malice, and someone committing an act of cruelty or malice that is mandated, or, at least, justified, by their scripture.


Pretty much every quote from him is oriented towards peace, love and brotherhood of man. Even if he was invented, then it's to the credit of early Christians that they invented such an honourable man as the origin of their faith. And there's no reason to doubt his life, considering how many Jewish Rabbi cultists were around at that point in history.

There’s the similarity to other contemporaneous myths common to the region, especially the Egyptian god Horus. The near total lack of any extra-Biblical confirmation, what little (Very little.) ‘evidence’ we have is also colored by the voluminous amounts of ‘evidence’ which has been revealed to be forgeries created by the church. Then there are the significant discrepancies between books, the discarded texts, the apocrypha, etc., etc. I’m not making a decision either way. I’m saying, quite honestly, I think, that there is no way we can conclude this character has any basis in reality. However, even if this is so, there certainly is no reason to accept that he had magic powers, etc.


I agree that Christian zionists are secret racists.

I don’t think it’s that big of a secret. This is also, essentially the position of the Catholic church, it just exposes the myth of religious tolerance.


But i don't think that Atheist homophobes are secret Christians. Stalin didn't hate gays because God told him to, he hated Gays because they made him uncomfortable.

I admit I don’t have any statistical data on hand to verify this but I would expect Atheists to be significantly less homophobic than Theists. We live in an extremely homophobic culture, a Judeo-Christian culture. More to the point, as I was saying, at least, today, there are no cogent reasons for devaluing or marginalizing homosexuals without invoking religion.


Scripture is not static by any means. The text may never change, but our interpretation and perspective on it is always changing.

I was referring to the text, itself. This is partially true. However, these reforms have been fairly small, and almost none have originated within the church itself. As I said, they had to be dragged into modernity kicking and screaming.


Who says this? Hardline creationists? Even the Catholic church disputes literalistic interpretations.

No, they dispute completely literal interpretations. That god exists as an actual entity, that ‘he’ created the world, that Jesus was his son and had magic powers, etc., that is absolutely meant to be taken literally. Also, again, the church fought the Heliocentric model, the big bang, until they lost, then they adapted. If they still had the power they had in ancient times it’s likely they’d still be pushing the Ptolemaic model.


Presumably, there's a difference in how people like you and people 200 years ago saw the world. Perhaps you're not aware of it, but it's only because you've internalized many of the arguments made since then. No, you don't need a doctorate in philosophy to come to those conclusions, because past philosophers already did.

Well, I don’t want to run off on a tangent, but this sort of depends on your views about morality, ethics, etc. I think our morality is twofold, we have an instinctive moral sense which is part of our evolutionary software, then there’s a more sophisticated, more formalized system that comes from philosophy. Even very small infants have displayed this impulse. I think anyone who is not a psychopath to observe that human beings don’t like to be beaten and tortured. I think that’s extremely obvious. I think it takes a degree of conditioning to override that, which religion has historically provided, time and time again.


So, your argument is that atheism is bad is that there are bad theists (but good theists aren't relevant) and good atheists (but bad atheists aren't relevant)

Atheism is morally neutral, although it is often intertwined with humanism. The sole determinant of Atheism is not accepting extreme propositions about the afterlife, the origin of the universe, etc., based on insufficient evidence. The difference is there are Theists who do very bad things specifically because of their faith, there are no Atheists who kill people because of their Atheism. Before you bring up the Soviet Union, let me say that is a false comparison, Atheism does not naturally lead to homicide, however, many religious texts very openly suggest, and even insist that their adherents commit acts of violence.


I think one can see these texts as valuable even if they represent the thinking of a past age,

I’m not saying they should be discarded. They have historical value, they are important historical artifacts. I just want people to appreciate them in that way, and not take them literally, especially to the degree of harming other people because of them.


Not to mention, the religious books themselves speak of an age where people will have a higher understanding (the book of revelations for instance, which gets misused by fanatics)

There’s some pretty bogus shit in the Book of Revelations.


Really? I think the picture is a little more complicated, even if there's some interesting scientific evidence here and there. Religion, at least from a historical point of view, has a complex and varied role, that most importantly seems to rely on tying communities together around core values (the sacred, the divine, the truth). Insofar as these institutions are conservative, that is often why. But that's not a necessary feature, nor is it always a bad thing, as religious conservatism at least forces people to stop, think, defend why they want to do something and advocate for it.

There is a natural tendency towards conservatism and literalism because these texts are almost universally intended to be taken that way. They also tend not to make suggestions, they tend to make commands, and the cost of disobedience is often suffering and/or death, which is merely a prequel to an eternity of incomprehensible suffering.


You're presupposing a certain notion of "The Good" and "Greater Rewards" which is nonscientific in of itself (not un-scientific, but non-scientific, as in not opposed to science but merely other to it)
Science is not unique in that it is always good, science is good insofar as it grants further knowledge and understanding of entities. How you use that knowledge, how you systematize it with other bits of scientific data, and how critical you are in your application of science to answer the problem, is another matter

I completely disagree. There’s this attitude that science is just hopelessly mute on questions of ethics, this is absurd. When we say something is ‘right’, that’s a testable determination about what is ideal for sentient beings. Even if you put these questions to an artificial intelligence without any programmed morality, it would very likely come up with something that came very close to our idea of morality. There is no scientific argument for child abuse, generally speaking. All else being equal, a society that practices systemic child abuse will be less ideal for human beings.



That which is described as "bad" religion is religion that is not adequately holy.

‘Holy’, used literally, is a nonsense word. No, there are a number of instances where religions specifically command their adherents to commit otherwise monstrous acts which are presented as not only justifiable, but laudable, even glorious.


It was actually Christian revelation that negated a lot of the bad in Jewish law that we see in the bible, like stoning homosexuals.
Jewish law is not opposed to slavery, but people extrapolated based on the statements of Jesus that God opposed slavery, and the word of Jesus trumps the old testament.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." Doesn't sound like the New Testament endorses torture. Anyways, St Augustine's notion of just war was a lot better than the secular notions that the Romans had before, even if it seems barbaric and backwards from a modern perspective.

He also said; ‘I bring not peace but a sword.’, and; ‘He that does not believe in me, bring him hither and slay him before me.’ Those quotations might not be totally exact, but they’re pretty close. Also, it is suggested several times that the old rules still apply;

“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” — (Matthew 5:18-19)

“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17)

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17)

“Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law” (John 7:19)

So, it’s perfectly justifiable to adhere to the prescriptions of the Old Testament.


Science from a certain point of view would approve of torture as long as torture brought empirical data. But because it in of itself is empty of a value system, it is not pro or anti-torture.

You can’t scientifically say torture is universally wrong. That requires some outside source, like a divine mandate. That doesn’t mean that you generally shouldn’t do it. Atheist morality is not absolute, but atheists do have morals. Honestly, I think that’s better. Secular moral systems are contingent on consequences. Once you separate morality from the human consequences you can get some very nasty results.


They were based on a very naive notion of empirical evidence, in that they had empirical reason to believe that races existed based on various socially, culturally and economically conditioned realities. It wasn't an isolated case for hard, serious scientists of the time to have believed in Eugenics, even if the Nazis took that system to its logical extremes.

No, no, no. There was evidence to the contrary. The Nazi party had the same relationship with ‘science’ as Young-Earth Creationists, if they can find a scrap that, when twisted horribly out of context, suits their needs, they supposedly love science, but they toss everything that doesn’t support what they already believed. In science the conclusion follows the facts, and you genuinely look to disprove it. Nothing like that happened. Again, it wasn’t ‘bad’ science, it was ‘non-science.’


"essentially"? That's a strong word. At best, it shared some common features with many religious movements. Again, it also shared some common features with scientific movements. I would not call it either a religion or a science, but an opportunistic political ideology that used and abused pretty much every social system which they could.

The comparison with religion is perfectly apt. The only missing ingredient is perhaps a creation myth, however, while not formalized, mysticism abounded among leaders of the Nazi party Himmler thought Aryans descended from the heavens frozen in ice.



Last I checked, there were billions of religious people who don't follow Abrahamic faiths.

True, but, collectively, the Abrahamic faiths make up close to 60% of the worlds’ faithful. Most of the remaining 40% or so subscribe to belief systems which are analogous.


In some respects they may be, but again, in science you have ignorant people who are scientists or who claim to be, as already mentioned with Mengele (who did have followers who believed he was a scientist, much as genocidal priests might have followers who consider them holy)

But that’s different. I can easily verify that Mengele was not a scientist. I can’t say Osama bin Laden is not a Muslim, or a bad Muslim. In fact, by his own literalist, strict, interpretation, he appears to be an excellent Muslim.


It's not skepticism about reality as such, just the notion that empirically witnessed events don't absolutely correspond to a material absolute. This isn't a theistic belief, Marxist Atheists agree that empirical events should be viewed skeptically to be viewed scientifically so as to question ontological presuppositions that lead to their appearance as a phenomenon

Everything should be viewed with skepticism. That which can meet the burden of proof is truth.


Buddha described his methods as a pragmatic, means-tested method to transcend the suffering of the world, so to dismiss all religions like that is unfair.

Many Buddhists also literally believe in reincarnation, etc. Also, it isn’t unfair, because it is at least partially representative of most religious traditions, as practiced by most of their adherents, throughout most of human history.


I put the link of the etymology of religion to show you how religion in itself doesn't
care about the scientific either way,

Nothing can be said to be ‘outside’ of science.


in a positive or negative sense. Religion is respect for the sacred, not blind belief in something, though it may include blind belief as a component of itself.

‘Sacred’ is another nonsense word. Again, to the majority of religious people, throughout history, blind belief was/is the core of their religion. It is usually intended to be so.


What are you basing that first assumption on?

God by definition is the absolute, and you will find most mystics or theologians define him as unknowable, therefore impossible to "define". Asking someone to define the absolute is impossible. And this isn't just some cop out I'm making, this is a pretty old argument.

Aside from that, you still haven't dealt with the fact that behind all of those superficial beliefs in "spirit dragons" "devas" "olympians" and so on are unique metaphysical models of what those things are. For instance, some faiths see God as the unity of all empirical things (pantheism), others see God as a being which transcends all time and exists outside, never changing and always the same (monotheism).

No, this is clouding the issue. Do you, or do they believe that these entities actually exist? That is a scientific claim, albeit a bogus one.


They may believe that their god literally exists, but they don't believe he literally exists in our material plane. Ask a Muslim to prove where God exists and he won't say in a spaceship, he'll say outside the universe, waiting for the day of judgement.

Ok, that’s completely bogus, but that’s an actual statement. We can actually evaluate that. By all existing tools and methods, while we cannot totally disprove this hypothesis, the evidence is woefully insufficient. Therefore, to accept this proposition as true is irrational.


That's the achievement of monotheism over old mythological polytheism. It took God out of the empirical world, and the divine was no longer inherently and absolutely tied to particular phenomena anymore.

I tend to think it was a sign of progress, that we no longer needed to invent multiple gods to explain lightning, fire, etc.