Rest in peace Mr. Hitchens

[Moonwood the Hare]

Well it depends what you mean bu the underlying beliefs. I's a bit like me asking whether all the deaths in Stalin's death camps don't make you think there is something wrong with atheism; it doesn't make sense to deal in that kind of broad generality.

MW don't even try to make that comparison. That is a very poor analogy, How exactly does the non acceptance of a belief in deities cause you to act in any way shape or form? Does you not believing in my Cell phone monster have any bearing on what your actions are going to be towards other humans? A positive belief though DOES have actions that can be linked to it. In Stalin's case it was his ideology, in the Christian burning of witches it was their religious ideology.

Fair enough I'm quite prepared to accept the view that mere atheism doesn't have any consequences at all. But how many atheists have no positive beliefs or no positive beliefs that are a consequence of their atheism? I think this kind of atheist is a pure fiction.

[Dr Mundo]

Well it depends what you mean bu the underlying beliefs. I's a bit like me asking whether all the deaths in Stalin's death camps don't make you think there is something wrong with atheism; it doesn't make sense to deal in that kind of broad generality.

MW don't even try to make that comparison. That is a very poor analogy, How exactly does the non acceptance of a belief in deities cause you to act in any way shape or form? Does you not believing in my Cell phone monster have any bearing on what your actions are going to be towards other humans? A positive belief though DOES have actions that can be linked to it. In Stalin's case it was his ideology, in the Christian burning of witches it was their religious ideology.

Fair enough I'm quite prepared to accept the view that mere atheism doesn't have any consequences at all. But how many atheists have no positive beliefs or no positive beliefs that are a consequence of their atheism? I think this kind of atheist is a pure fiction.

Well now I don't understand where that comment is going... I don't think I have any positive beliefs based off of my non-acceptance of someone else's positive belief. Could you tell me what positive beliefs atheism guides me to? Because I truly don't see it.

[StillSearching]

Here, though, is a key difference between your average non-believer and a self-identified Christian. We'd STILL be disgusted at all forms of inhumanity NO MATTER WHAT Jesus or Muhammad or The Great Pumpkin thinks or thought. In brief, that's simply because we're human beings who think independently.

Notice that I didn't say, "Jesus thinks the Inquisition sucked, so I do too!" Just sayin'.

Consider:
What if Jesus were to show up, Revelation style, and point out that he really is His Old Testament Father's Son and that he really meant exactly what he said with "not peace but a sword," and that the Popes and Inquisitors et al were doing his Will?
Would you then proclaim, "Right On, My Lord! Thy Will be done" ?

I hope this question is rhetorical. Or did you seriously need an answer?

I suppose if Jesus were to do what you describe above, then my fate would be sealed.

[humanguy]

Fair enough I'm quite prepared to accept the view that mere atheism doesn't have any consequences at all. But how many atheists have no positive beliefs or no positive beliefs that are a consequence of their atheism? I think this kind of atheist is a pure fiction.

I don't see how it follows that someone would necessarily have a positive belief in something as a consequence of being atheist.

[Moonwood the Hare]

Fair enough I'm quite prepared to accept the view that mere atheism doesn't have any consequences at all. But how many atheists have no positive beliefs or no positive beliefs that are a consequence of their atheism? I think this kind of atheist is a pure fiction.

I don't see how it follows that someone would necessarily have a positive belief in something as a consequence of being atheist.

Just not believing in any kind of God would not have any consequences; it would just be a psychological fact about one person; there are atheists of this kind who just don't believe and that's that but they don't tend to get into discussions of their beliefs because really there is nothing to discuss. If however that person goes just a little step further and says there are no grounds for belief in God or gods then he has moved into a positive belief because he must have some beliefs about what are adequate grounds for believing something - unless he is saying there are no adequate grounds for believing anything. If there are no adequate grounds for believing anything then obviously there are no adequate grounds for believing that there are no adequate grounds for believing anything so that belief would be self cancelling (read this a few times, it makes sense).

[Brad]

I hope this question is rhetorical. Or did you seriously need an answer?

I suppose if Jesus were to do what you describe above, then my fate would be sealed.

Glad to hear your last sentence, SS. But I know you're one of the "good guys," god-belief or no.

There are, of course, lots and lots and lots of Christians of many denominations, not to mention Muslims and Jews, who very seriously believe that God defines morality and compassion and that no matter what evil the deity might sponsor or support, that's what believers should sign up for in order to get their reward. Remember Frank Turek, for example? And then there is the Middle East...

And here in modern times, unlike when the deity was speaking directly*** to Moses or Abraham, morality for many believers is defined by the interpretations of agenda-driven and/or self-interested priests, pastors, and media personalities. This is the danger that Roger Cohen was talking about in the bits from his article I mentioned earlier.

What do you make of MTH's making nice with the Spanish Inquisition, by the way?
It really seems a bit much to me...




Of course, "directly" was not always what we'd call direct. Sometimes God just showed his rear end, as in Exodus 33:23.

[Brad]

MTH,
It seems you might be on the verge of understanding that the atrocities committed under Stalin were committed because he and his minions were vicious, deluded, sociopaths acting on a non-evidence based ideology which for the sake of simplicity, we can call communism.

Suppression of religion was one aspect among many of their ideology, driven in part because the Russian church was part of the old power structure that Lenin and Stalin wanted to destroy.

Of course, had they been believers in the Christian deity, they would have seen things differently, but to say that there is a direct connection between any of the communist theorists or dictators' disbelief in the Christian deity and the horrors eventually perpetrated by the lunatic Stalin is nothing more than delusional and wishful thinking on the part of Christians who want so very, very, badly to think atheists in general must be awful people.

Conversely, was Christian theology just one aspect among many of the motivations of those who burned witches in Salem or Europe, or of the Crusaders, or of the people who burned William Tyndale and who dug up and burned John Wycliffe's bones, men whose crimes were heresy - that is, translating the Bible into English, for but a few examples? (Of course, William and John were only two men - one shouldn't make too much of it, right?)
Or was Christian theology just a wee bit more central to those wonderful activities?

And how about today's Muslim suicide bombers? Do you think the idea that they're going to heaven, to be joined later by their families, might be kinda central to their willingness to disintegrate themselves and anyone else who might be nearby, or do you buy the argument that it's really all just about "politics?" Their theism is just peripheral, right?

I'm not surprised, frankly, that you would buy into the Stalin/atheist/death camp notion, given that you also buy the idea that the Inquisitions were really "not so bad," and that the Inquisitors were really just seeking to keep people falsely accused of heresy from being harmed by other crazed believers. Just keeping order, were they? Why, yes, they must have been fine gentlemen. And surely the stretching racks and waterboarding tables and whips and knives and needles were all necessary to keep those unruly peasants in line, no?

You know, the Catholic church (I forgot, are you Catholic?) has a very, very, large vested interest in putting a gloss on things like the Inquisition, the murder of Hypatia, the trials and oppression of Galileo, the burning of Tyndale and of Wycliffe's corpse, the molestation of children world-wide, etc., etc., etc.
I'll bet you can find some truly AMAZING scholarship at Notre Dame that explains away all of these things, blaming them on atheists or protestants or perhaps shortages of incense and crackers.
It looks to me like you, Catholic or not, might find such scholarship more persuasive than many of the rest of us, believers or atheists.



OK, I've got to check out of here for a month or so. The holidays, finally selling a house and moving, and work will keep me scrambling for a while.
Happy holidays, and yes, very much including merry Christmas, to all!

[Brad]

P.S.
I'd bet that if Tyndale and Wycliffe were alive today they'd be atheists. They were very courageous men who used their minds to think independently and who were not afraid to use all the knowledge available to them despite tradition or the demands of religious "authorities."

OK, I'll really go, now.

[StillSearching]

What do you make of MTH's making nice with the Spanish Inquisition, by the way?

I reject your characterization of his comments. I think he was trying to mitigate the exaggeration that was going on and give the event its proper context. Merry Christmas!

[JustJim]

I think he was trying to mitigate the exaggeration that was going on and give the event its proper context.

In what context does the grotesque torture and murder of thousands of people fit "properly"?

Merry Christmas!

Ho! Ho! Fucking Ho!

Jim

[Moonwood the Hare]

There's a bit in Yes Prime Minister where the civil servant Sir Humphrey asks Prime minister Jim Hacker what he is trying to do and Hacker explains that he is trying to help the public understand the issues. Prime Minister replies Sir Humphrey, people don't want to understand the issues they want to know who the goodies and the baddies are. That seems to be what is going on here.

With the Spanish Inquisition you had this historical situation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century where Atheists, Protestants and Jews all had a vested interest in painting the worst possible picture and it lead to a lot of false information. There is no denying for example that the Inquisition used torture but they used it sparingly and did not use the kind of techniques used by secular torturers; the secular rulers wanted to keep people out of the hand of the Inquisition because they felt the punishments were too mild (for example if you were gay it was death from a secular court and penance from the inquisition and once you had done your penance you could not be re-tried and killed). As a member of Amnesty International I have actively campaigned against torture and would oppose its use but if you want to look at history you have to start by examining the facts. The revisionist view of the Inquisition has not come about because people wanted to defend the Catholic Church but because people became aware that earlier histories had been biased; Roman Catholics are not the only people who can take a biased view of history. If you look at the past through the spectacles of the present and judge everything by today's standards then you will find plenty to be outraged about but you will never understand; if you explain every atrocity in history where religion was involved by saying that happened because people were religious you will never get the full picture because you will be making no attempt to see why people's religion took that form at that time. In the same way you have to try to understand why atheism took the form it did in Stalin's Russia. We teach this kind of thing in Junior School here in the UK.

My mention of Stalin came in the context of explicitly stating that I am not claiming that atheists in general are awful people so I am bewildered that you now fling the accusation of saying that at me. The view Stalin and for that matter Marx took was that it was historically inevitable that religion would die out and so they had better be on the side of history. Not all atheists take that view but some do. It's a view Keep the Reason has expressed often enough. And so yes there are beliefs in common between Stalin and some present day atheists but and I want this in big letters - This does not mean that everyone who believes the decline of religion is inevitable will commit atrocities It makes no sense to believe that just as it makes no sense to believe all Christians would commit atrocities because the inquisitors did.

And no I am not A Catholic.

[StillSearching]

I think he was trying to mitigate the exaggeration that was going on and give the event its proper context.

In what context does the grotesque torture and murder of thousands of people fit "properly"?

I did write context, didn't I? Let me see....mmmmm....yep, definitely wrote context and not justification (as implied). Context, as in, "the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed."

[JustJim]

I think he was trying to mitigate the exaggeration that was going on and give the event its proper context.

In what context does the grotesque torture and murder of thousands of people fit "properly"?

I did write context, didn't I? Let me see....mmmmm....yep, definitely wrote context and not justification (as implied). Context, as in, "the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed."

So, in your way of thinking, the grotesque torture and murder of thousands of people did fit properly within the circumstances that formed the setting for the Inquisition, i.e., its "context"? Perhaps I wouldn't have questioned your initial explanation if you'd just said he was putting into context, rather than that he was giving it a "proper" context. My bad....

Jim

[Brad]

Did somebody say, HO?

Gotta go...