:up:

I'm not "leaving it out." It's not relevant. — T Clark

It most certainly is relevant. Its what I’m talking about, and what you are commenting about. I just explained in my previous post exactly why its relevant. You choosing to ignore it in service of your pet false equivalence doesn't make it irrelevant.
You're obviously deeply invested in equating theism and atheism, have at it. I’ve made my point clearly and don’t think Ill add more.

Another reason it's irrelevant. — T Clark

You are the one who broadened it out! :lol:
You were being a word weasel, rephrasing what I said, leaving words out or adding them as you needed to in order to service your false equivalence. I point it out and your response is “bah its not relevant anyway”. Hilarious.
Im beginning to understand this isnt a discussion for you, but rather some adversarial trolling. So doubly hilarious for you I guess, congratulations.

An atheist simply lacks a theistic worldview. S/he might, however, have a 'Platonic worldview' or 'Buddhistic worldview' or 'animistic worldview' ... Just as bald is not a hair color, atheism is not a belief about g/G (color) but about theism (hair). — 180 Proof

Theists can also have a Platonic, Buddhist, or animistic world view.
Some would say unless you subscribe to classical theism, you are an atheist. But then what do you call someone who claims to know or believe in God but rejects religion?

But then what do you call someone who claims to know or believe in God but rejects religion? — HarryHarry

A theist.

It's not unusual for a theist to reject religion. When they belong to a particular religion they are called a Christian or a Muslim, etc. We just use the term 'theist' as a cover all so we don't have to specify the religion.

An atheist simply lacks a theistic worldview. S/he might, however, have a 'Platonic worldview' or 'Buddhistic worldview' or 'animistic worldview' ... Just as bald is not a hair color, atheism is not a belief about g/G (color) but about theism (hair). — 180 Proof

:lol: but it is a belief (about theism - that it's false). Ergo, atheism can't say of itself that it's a lack of belief, oui?

This issue must be setttled once and for all, to the satisfaction of both parties (theists/atheists) involved.

If atheists and theists are both naturally equally good people — T Clark

But what is a naturally good person? Nature doesn't create good and bad people; it creates biological strategies, which are then moulded by social contexts and judged through ideological lenses. To make the idea of a "good person" intelligible, you have to point to a social context and ask how that person fits in. Cultural beliefs are part of that context. So, if you want to find a good person, find a good social context and ask what kind of person would get along in it. If your good social context is theist, that person is a theist. If your good social context is an atheist, that person is an atheist. It all reduces to your ideological view. You can even find the perfect person. Just invent a perfect world and ask what kind of person best fits it. Unfortunately, philosophers tend to get things backwards and create perfect people that don't fit anywhere.

This is another way of saying it's not necessarily desirable to focus on the good vs bad person division any more than it is to focus on the theist vs atheist one. It gets you nowhere.

Nature doesn't create good and bad people; it creates biological strategies, which are then moulded by social contexts and judged through ideological lenses. — Baden

But that's the defiency of naturalism, and the hope that naturalism will provide some kind of moral compass. At best, as you say, it can provide a means of orienting yourself to your social context, hopefully positive. But nature is indifferent to good or bad, there's only the well-adapted, and then those who aren't - presumably departed.

I think it's necessary to peer behind all of the socially-conditioned concepts of "theism" to ascertain if there really is a true good, a true north which the ethical compass must orient towards. Of course as soon as you say that, it sounds like an appeal to religion, and is then opposed on those very grounds. But if there is to be any kind of real ethical principle, then I don't see how it can be avoided. Perhaps it can be re-articulated or re-mapped as existentialism attempts to do but deep down it's grappling with the same level of elemental truth - suffering is bad, love is good, life is transient, success is perishing, all we hold dear will pass. And so on.

One of the essays I often hark back to is Anything But Human, by Richard Polt, a Heidegger scholar, arguing against the reductionism of much modern thinking. He makes no appeal to theism, yet strangely his ideas, like those of Heidegger, echo those concerns in a more contemporary idiom. Because absent "theism" - a word I'm sure only sprang into popular usage with the Internet, as that to which "atheism" is a foil - then what is it to be human, other than a highly-evolved animal or not-very-efficient computer?

Wherever I turn, the popular media, scientists and even fellow philosophers are telling me that I’m a machine or a beast. My ethics can be illuminated by the behavior of termites. My brain is a sloppy computer with a flicker of consciousness and the illusion of free will. I’m anything but human.

Maybe the rejection of "theism" often, maybe always, results in the loss of something more than an archaic social institution. Maybe "atheism" is right, but whether it is or not, it ought to be of concern to everyone.

I'm kind of with you on the first part but I reject the idea of accepting vs rejecting here in favour of creating vs being created. If your perfect world is theist, create for yourself that context and live in it. Whether or not it's "really right" or atheism is really right is a distraction imo--talking to ourselves about something that effectively makes no difference, i.e. the terms are defined so that we can't know in a way that we can confirm socially (someone can always justifiably doubt us). And I consider the dichotomy unhelpful as I said before. What matters imo is the degree to which we are consciously and purposefully creating our reality vs being created by it. We can do that both in a nominally "atheist" and "theist" world.

So, how about we define our ideal character, extrapolate from that our perfect world, and create to the best of our ability that world (starting with our immediate context and working outwards)? How "good" we are then is how good we are at doing that. How "right" it is is how well it works. The good becomes not some impenetrable free-floating idea nor defined from the outside in, but the experienced harmony between intention and manifestation that bonds us to ourselves and the world. And the "right" becomes the observable degree to which such a world becomes (as in fit) us.

As in, create the existence that justifies its own terms, rather than look for justifications to exist.

An irreligious theist.

Ergo, atheism can't say of itself that it's a lack of belief, oui? — Agent Smith

I'm saying atheism amounts to a belief about theism – that 'beliefs about god/s' are not true – and is not itself a 'god-belief'.

But what is a naturally good person? Nature doesn't create good and bad people; it creates biological strategies, which are then moulded by social contexts and judged through ideological lenses. — Baden

Good question and I agree. I was responding to claims that "theism can be the basis for a bad act by a good person." Of course it's much more complex than that, but I was working with what I was given.

You're obviously deeply invested in equating theism and atheism, have at it. — DingoJones

Im beginning to understand this isnt a discussion for you, but rather some adversarial trolling. — DingoJones

If my recent experience with you is representative, your response to posts you don't like is to question the motives and good will of those you disagree with.

I think so.

I'm assuming you mean here a god that can't be pleased by any human actions or gestures? I guess the debate would have no where to go. — Tom Storm

That's what I mean, yes. So, can we say then that the debate is driven by the belief in a God influenced by human conduct? [Wow, this is what Socrates must have felt like]

Those who think god's favour is dependent on our actions will have quite different attitudes towards what we ought do, to those who suppose god uninvolved.

Again, the issue is ethics rather than metaphysics. — Banno

I dunno. That would seem to make ritual tantamount to ethics. According to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (OHCAC), for example, we ought to partake of or participate in the Sacraments. But I doubt it would consider doing so to be a matter of ethics.

Your case to make. — DingoJones

You can't complain about religious oppression by theocracies and not complain about religious oppressions by atheistic governments. The immorality expressed by both is clear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism
https://www.uscirf.gov/release-statements/uscirf-releases-report-state-controlled-religion-and-religious-freedom

If this argument then turns into an attempted breakdown of which atheists count as true atheists and those not, then the equivalency will be complete because I will then start distinguishing which theists I want you to look at which I don't.

And all of this is to say that what has been done in the name of religion and what has been done in the name of atheism can be called immoral, but nothing in either position is inherently good or bad.

Again, the issue is ethics rather than metaphysics. — Banno

THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHICS

By Immanuel Kant

1780

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

…..if ya can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?

You can't complain about religious oppression by theocracies and not complain about religious oppressions by atheistic governments. — Hanover

State religions aka "autocracies" (e.g. China, Russia, North Korea) are manifestly indistinguishable from theocracies (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan) also with purges, inquisitions / show trials, invisible enemies, leader-cults, official scapegoats, etc. Secular states, in fact, are anathema to "religious oppression" as policy, unlike sectarian / one party states.

Some would say unless you subscribe to classical theism, you are an atheist. — HarryHarry

But this is the problem throughout, which is to try to identify "classical" theism, as if there is a standard which we all know of and then there are various fringes that we wonder what to do with them. It comes from the fact that there are certain predominate religions that overwhelm us into thinking that is all there is. To live in the West is to think religion = Chritianity, and so I had this confusing conversation with some atheists where it was explained to me that my theism was based upon fear, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they were talking about until it dawned upon me that they must be talking about fear of hell or damnation, things entirely foreign to my belief system. The same holds true for many of these fairly recent fundamentalist belief systems, as if the Bible is literally true. The Gospels are so wildly inconsistent, those views are hard to take seriously, and certainly should not be considered as containing the essential elements of what it means to be theistic.

State religions aka "autocracies" (e.g. China, Russia, North Korea) are manifestly indistinguishable from theocracies (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan) also with purges, inquisitions / show trials, invisible enemies, leader-cults, official scapegoats, etc. Secular states, in fact, are anathema to "religious oppression" as policy, unlike sectarian / one party states. — 180 Proof

The manifest disintinction between China and Iran is that the former is atheistic and the latter theistic, which was responsive to the question of what immorality has been committed in the name of atheism.

This response does answer the question.

An atheistic nation need not be secular, which I take to be that which you define as one allowing religious freedom. Obviously, if atheism is defined in such a way as to demand tolerance of all other forms of belief, then there would be no reason for me to seek to answer the question of when atheism has been oppressive to human rights because I'd be arguing from the created tautology. The same would hold true if I denied your every attempt to show an example of a theist denying religious freedom of another by submitting that the definition of theist entailed that the person be religiously tolerant.

And there are dozens more. Hundreds. — T Clark

I am not denying that any more. I am just saying that there is not much to say about atheism. "I don't believet there is a god or that there are gods." "Me too." There is not much more to say about atheism after that. But there is plenty more to say about religions and theism.

After a while that gets tired, too, so the conversation veers towards why atheists are also moral and ethical, what is the price of a good cut of beef at the butcher, and have you heard about Mrs. Holloway and Mr. Sputnik?

in the USA, where 96 percent of the population is a devout Christian? — god must be atheist

Apparently 63% of the USA population is Christian now and it was 90% 50 years ago.

If my recent experience with you is representative, your response to posts you don't like is to question the motives and good will of those you disagree with. — T Clark

My conclusion was based on your responses. Maybe my conclusion is incorrect.
You DID rephrase what I said and tried to put words in my mouth. When I attempted to clarify what I actually meant you said it was irrelevant. You quoted my points partially and followed up with short rebuttals that ignored most of what I said. You didnt clarify points but quickly chalked them up to…I don’t know, atheist dogmatic responses?
It all gave me the impression that this wasnt a discussion for you. It seemed like you were annoyed and sorta fucking with the source of your annoyance. If you were actually interested in a good discussion you would have listened better, or so I imagined.
It wasn’t because I didnt like your post though, I’m not that petty. A good discussion needs disagreement.
I am understand where youre coming from, I admit I do rely on assessment of motive and good will when I cannot think of better explanations for peoples responses. Its the internet, a shitshow of personality disorders and the bravely anonymous. One must exercise caution.

The point you are missing is that an atheist government doesnt do anything based on its atheism. What they do, they do for other reasons. You really need to get this bit down. Its important.
To which of course you will reply with a reference to the lack of theism being the source of any immorality.
Go ahead and make the case, I’m listening.

The point you are missing is that an atheist government doesnt do anything based on its atheism. — DingoJones

Of course they do. It's part of their ideology and it's why the offer restrictions on religion. The atheism you find in communist countries isn't just an innocuous mission statement, but it informs the way they control their people and beliefs, and it's also part of their fundamental Marxist ideology.

To which of course you will reply with a reference to the lack of theism being the source of any immorality. — DingoJones

You are taking the tack suggested by @180 Proof which attempts to muddle the distinction between atheism and secularism. The former refers to any person's belief system as it relates to the non-existence of a diety, with no reference to government. The latter references a government that seperates the church from the state.

It is therefore possible (and quite common) for a theist and an atheist to be secularists, meaning they have whatever beliefs they might have, but they don't believe government should involve itself in enforcing those beliefs.

What this means is that I disagree with your comment I quoted above, where you assume what my response to you would be. That is, I do not believe a theocracy can be secular because that is a self-contradictory statement. If a nation has a religious belief system and they use it as law, that would not be secularist, but would be theocratic, and it would be immoral.

By the same token, a government that has taken a formal stance on the issue and determined itself atheistic and then attempted to impose those beliefs on others would be as immoral as the theocracy I described above.

That is, I have provided you the very example you were looking for, which was that of an oppressive atheist. What you are trying to say, which is simply false, is that the communist nations cited just happen to be atheist, just like they may happen to have red flags, and those two facts have nothing to do with their immorality. What I am saying is that I fully understand your distinction between relevant and irrelevant causes of the oppression, and I am saying that the atheism factor looms large as one factor among many in informing the cause of communistic oppression.

To say that the offical atheistic stance of China is irrelevant to the oppression of its people is as incorrect as to say that the official theistic stance of Iran is irrelevant to the oppression of its people.

we ought to partake of or participate in the Sacraments. But I doubt it would consider doing so to be a matter of ethics. — Ciceronianus

I don't see how to understand that in a coherent fashion. What is ethics if not what one ought do?

But I see a few posts that take a more restricted view of ethics, as if moral acts are only a sub-class amongst the things we do. Seems to me that it would be difficult to make it clear which of one's acts have no moral import.

I'd say the atheist countries count as atheist countries. So, in a broad sense, I agree with @Hanover

The New Atheists had people in them who were just as eager to punish believers, too.

I have no doubts that atheists can be as faulty as theists. I think it's human.

Of course they do. It's part of their ideology and it's why the offer restrictions on religion. The atheism you find in communist countries isn't just an innocuous mission statement, but it informs the way they control their people and beliefs, and it's also part of their fundamental Marxist ideology. — Hanover

Atheism has no ideology. Thats why you always have to mention communism and marxism etc along with the atheism. Atheism alone has no edicts, no rules, no goals…its merely a position on theism.

It is therefore possible (and quite common) for a theist and an atheist to be secularists, meaning they have whatever beliefs they might have, but they don't believe government should involve itself in enforcing those beliefs.

What this means is that I disagree with your comment I quoted above, where you assume what my response to you would be. That is, I do not believe a theocracy can be secular because that is a self-contradictory statement. If a nation has a religious belief system and they use it as law, that would not be secularist, but would be theocratic, and it would be immoral. — Hanover

Uh..ok. I stand corrected as to what your response was going to be.

the same token, a government that has taken a formal stance on the issue and determined itself atheistic and then attempted to impose those beliefs on others would be as immoral as the theocracy I described above. — Hanover

Agreed, but that immorality wouldnt have atheism as its source.

That is, I have provided you the very example you were looking for, which was that of an oppressive atheist. What you are trying to say, which is simply false, is that the communist nations cited just happen to be atheist, just like they may happen to have red flags, and those two facts have nothing to do with their immorality. What I am saying is that I fully understand your distinction between relevant and irrelevant causes of the oppression, and I am saying that the atheism factor looms large as one factor among many in informing the cause of communistic oppression. — Hanover

We are talking about atheism, not communism.
Also, Im not saying they just happened to be atheist.
Listen:
Im saying that atheism is not the reason for their immorality. Atheism is not a ethical system, nor a system of belief of any kind. Again, this is why you must attach your criticisms of atheism to communism.

Atheism has no ideology. Thats why you always have to mention communism and marxism etc along with the atheism. Atheism alone has no edicts, no rules, no goals…its merely a position on theism. — DingoJones

:100:

If you are generally tolerant of the views of those who have found personal existential meaning and you have no concern trying to proselytize others to your views, it would seem no one should have any reason to object to that kind of person. — Hanover

Ah, good. As delightful as it is to compare China and Iran, I'd prefer to explore the motivations of theists (or other believers, to the extent they're involved) and atheists in their dispute about God.

Now, I suppose it's possible that theists engage with atheists because they think atheists are unethical, it being necessary that God is accepted in order for mere mortals to be moral. And, I suppose it's possible atheists engage with theists because they contest that view. But that doesn't seem to be the origin of the debate, nor does it account for its intensity. It's just not juicy enough, as it were.

Intolerance would account for the intensity, which sometimes devolves into contempt. But intolerance by atheists seems inappropriate where there is simply belief, without demand that others believe as well or behave as if they believe, or that others support the belief. If someone claimed to be a follower of Mithras, I'd be eager to find out just what that means (I wish we did), but wouldn't feel obliged to say "There ain't no Mithras" and argue the point with him/her. If someone claimed to be an atheist, I wouldn't feel obliged to argue that God exists, though I feel there's something which may be called divine.

So, is that all there is? Intolerance on both sides, which flares up whenever someone claims there is or is not a God?