Eugenics was invented and practiced first in the United States, which purports to be the most Christian nation on the planet.
Two scientists discuss why they became atheist, or why they became Christian
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Lao Tse
Verified User
not it wasn't.
the important question is who is still for it.
you Dems are still for it.
that's why you're losers and you lost.
life is beautiful. fucking Nazis.
Daylight63
Verified User
That doesn't really matter since the concept of religion implies no significant change in the philosophy over time (they do follow Universal Truths). So even in those days it would have been obvious that killing other people for a difference in faith was a "wrong" behavior.
But that aside, I hope you were able to read the bit about how I don't actually believe that atheist regimes did their "evil" in the name of atheism. While obviously engaging in a crusade in the name of God and killing infidels (or even other Christians who differed in their faith just smidge) is doing it explicitly in the name of their beliefs.
I honestly don't want to debate this point because I feel it is beneath us and because you would have to answer the exact same question about theocracies like, oh let's say, Afghanistan under the Taliban. And besides you've already biased the discussion so you are able to ignore the excesses of religion on some arbitrary basis of "time elapsed". Unfortunately I don't agree with the limitations for the above stated reasons so I'm not really going to go down this path. Sorry.
I am quite familiar with how people who really hate atheism see atheism and want to find only the worst parts of it or lay blame for unrelated things at its feet.
This is why I always endeavor to highlight the things I think religion does WELL so it isn't just airing personal grievance against a philosophy one doesn't agree with.
I believe I explained that in more detail in the post.
Daylight63
Verified User
Slight correction: we don't know what created the universe, we have no clue and may never know.
Why it matters: religion never brooks the concept that it may be mistaken. It merely posits guesses and decrees them "truth".
That isn't necessarily an intellectual stance either.
I don't think what happened a thousand years ago is as relevant as what happened in the last 80 years and continues to this day.
More significantly, I have never made any claims that freedom and pacifism are core foundational values of religions, so I don't have to defend those positions.
You seem to be saying freedom is a foundational value of atheism.
That is not what I see in all the examples of State atheism from the Revolutionary France to modern communist China.
More importantly, I think it is pointless to discuss what atheist values are. Atheism doesn't have any organized system of values and beliefs. It's just a broad umbrella term for all people who don't like religion. That's just a statement of fact, it is not denigrating non-belief.
Atheists have tried to write up canonical texts and creeds, in recognition that atheism is not really a belief system that has a universal set of principles - that it should offer a tangible and positive alternative. But these attempts have never been widely accepted or implemented.
The fact is, atheists generally just take the value systems from the New Testament, from Buddhism, from Taoism, et al. and just strip it of all religious language and context. Which is perfectly fine.
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Daylight63
Verified User
Generally I would agree with you except we ARE talking about religion. To my understanding religion doesn't really allow for a lot of major changes in the beliefs. If indeed the beliefs are handed down from the eternal creator of the universe it shouldn't matter if you were born in 1120 or 2020, murdering people would still be considered wrong.
Incorrect. The poster asked for what good things I find in atheism. Freedom from arbitrary thought-crime type things is one of them.
I agree with you. HOWEVER you are then disallowed from trying to make a point that atheist "regimes" murder as if that is some tenant of atheism.
It is so much more than "not liking religion". That is why I noted the bit in Dawkins' video where he points out that his rejection of religion was NOT due to some "anger at God" or "dislike of religion". It was the realization that religion didn't offer any additional explanation that science couldn't.
Let's not consider corner cases, shall we? There is no "canon" in atheism. By definition.
There is NO requirement that atheism provide a "positive alternative" to anything. It is merely the acceptance that what other people claim without evidence is not beholding of them to believe.
Possibly because all those value systems are in-built in the human being. This why Luke 6:31 is so universally developed in most if not all religions over time.
Lao Tse
Verified User
though there have been massive changes over time.....
people used to not know the original messages. they could read it.
not so.
it was all in Latin and they couldn't read it.
the priests were telling them they needed to get raped and buy condolences.
the organization is not the philosophy, but the misunderstanding is hard to untangle.
and atheists just want to kill everyone because science says so.
you're worse than religionists.
religion is half hope and half good.
atheists are just all bad.
you cannot externalize the hierarchy.
the stability of the pyramid is threatened.
its all in the the symbology.
you should know this by now.
Daylight63
Verified User
That's how we know religion is largely man-made. It changes with the times and the needs of the believers.
However, in this instance I am using the concept of religion as it is generally understood to be by the believers.
Yeah, you aren't worth the time of day to respond to this sort of stuff. I get it. You love Jesus. That's cool. I like a lot of his teachings as well. If you hate a group of people that badly then I have to think you might be missing some of the key points Jesus made. But I also understand that sometimes for some people mouthing the right incantations and saying they love Jesus is all that is necessary for "salvation", even if the person is busy standing against eveyrthing Jesus stood for.
You really are an idiot.
Agreed. Atheism doesn't provide any positive alternative to religion, and it doesn't have any organized system of values. It's just a blanket term for those who reject religion.
That's not degragatory. That's just a fact.
Yes, the religions that began in the Axial Age and continued to the present day converged on certain universal values that were very radical for their time - but seem self-evident and obvious to us now because our civilizations have been permeated by them for over two thousand years. At one time, the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, the Eightfold Path, the Five Vows were very radical proscriptions for a certain kind of life.
Ancient Greeks managed to live quite well without your Jesus.
Yes, eugenics was first practiced in the Christian United States, and the Nazis took the inspiration from us, but they took it much deeper into inhumane and reprehensible practices.
I think your conscience would be utterly shocked at how the Greeks lived. Not everyone came from the aristocracy like Plato and Aristotle. The Greek treatment of slaves, women, and non-citzens was appalling. Plato's Republic is pretty shocking in some respects for its vision of the ideal political state.
I actually know something about ancient greeks. You know less than nothing.
Plato's Republic advocates Eleugenics and a socially stratified hierarchy. Slavery and the treatment of women in Greece is widely known to be appalling.
Whatever complaints you have about Jesus, he seemed to treat everyone as spiritual and social equals - including women and the poor, which was radical and practically unique for the world of antiquity.
I am familiar with Plato's Republic. So fucking what.
Couldn't give a shit about Jesus.
Lao Tse
Verified User
and Margaret Sanger of planned parenthood wanted abortion to kill off black people and was an avowed nazi.
do we want to end naziism?
who's still for it?
you or trump?
Daylight63
Verified User
Does it have to provide a "positive" alternative? Is NOT collecting stamps a "positive alternative" to collecting stamps?
I believe I can agree with that. So long as no pejorative intent is included in the "reject religion" category. As we all know it is QUITE common in the religious circles to suggest that atheist are just "mad at God". I once heard someone who really hates atheism characterize it as people who didn't get a bike as a child for CHristmas and got mad at God. That was offensive in the extreme given that many of us have arrived at the atheist position from one of having reviewed our own faith and our own conceptions of what nature requires to explain it.
I doubt very highly that the "Golden Rule" was radical at any time really. I believe you and I both agreed that many of the moral actions are instinctual in may animals. But humans are simply more capable of examining alternatives and need to universalize the moral edicts we are probably born with in no small way.
I think what might be radical is the step we as humans add onto it: framing the inherent moral instincts in more universal terms and provide a way to require people to go with the moral instincts as opposed to the alternatives which we are (uniquely?) capable of generating in our large brains.
The radical bit is to say it out loud. Or to frame it in a way to is more expansive than just the moral instinct to help others of our kind.