A Challenge to Richard Dawkins and the Atheists

[surreptitious57]

Ideas are emotionally neutral concepts

Only philosophers could ever think so. I am going to side with Richard Weaver the author on this one whose
book is titled Ideas Have Consequences and with this thought offered by one well qualified to know :

The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment or as the Nazi liked to say of Blood and Soil. I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers

Viktor Frankly Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor

Ideas only have consequences once they are implemented. Before that they are merely abstract thoughts or concepts
with no consequences at all. If the Holocaust had merely been thought of and no more it would never have happened

[Immanuel Can]

A secular society is simply one in which every one has the freedom to believe or to not believe with no favour being granted to either

Yes. So?

Whether you as a Christian think atheism has any virtue or not is totally irrelevant. You have the freedom to practice your belief without imposing upon the freedom of others to practice theirs. And so therefore your personal opinion of them is completely superfluous

I think you're talking of totalitarianism. Under totalitarianism, there are things you are not allowed to say to fellow citizens. You can't offend the regnant ideology without going to the gulag or the concentration camp. In a democracy, citizens are free to debate with each other, and it matters not at all whom they offend in so doing, so long as they harm no one in some serious physical way. Democracies understand that debate does not inhibit freedom: it is the precondition of it.

I said that I favour secular societies over atheist ones so I will give successful examples of them instead : Europe and North America

Both are Post-Christian. Their "secularism" is nominal and recent. Most of their citizens remain Theistic. Meanwhile, America remains nominally Christian, as do the majority in Canada. The UK is heavily influenced by Anglicanism, and Europe by Lutheranism, Calvinism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and so on. Whatever residual ethics and human rights they have are entirely due to that fact. Atheism generates no such values, as you can see. You yourself say it has no position on those things. It's "thin," remember?

Let me give you some better examples of truly Atheist societies...North Korea, China, Soviet Russia, Albania, Romania, Cuba, Cambodia under Pol Pot...all avowedly Atheist. How did they do?

[Immanuel Can]

Ideas only have consequences once they are implemented. Before that they are merely abstract thoughts or concepts
with no consequences at all.

True, in a simple way. But they have a tendency to get implemented. At least, if people really believe them, they do. And when they do, the nature of the ideas contained therein is truly exposed. That's Frankl's point.

I think he's right.

[Immanuel Can]

Neither. Nor am I denying His justice. Everyone will get no less, no more, and no other than justice requires. Benevolence will say exactly what that is. Justice will require it. Omnipotence will put it into effect. Of all that, you can be absolutely assured.

Atheists are exempt, of course.

Well, let's just see if they are.

I don't recommend that, but it's certainly one way to discover the truth. What are you willing to pay to find out?

Jesus said, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" Centuries later, Pascal would pose the same question in another form. But it remains the central one.

[surreptitious57]

A secular society is simply one in which every one has the freedom to believe or to not believe with. Whether you as a Christian
think atheism has any virtue or not is totally irrelevant. You have the freedom to practice your belief without imposing upon the
freedom of others to practice theirs. And so therefore your personal opinion of them is completely superfluous

I think you are talking of totalitarianism. Under totalitarianism there are things you are not allowed to say to fellow citizens
You cannot offend the regnant ideology without going to the gulag or the concentration camp. In a democracy citizens are
free to debate with each other and it matters not at all whom they offend in so doing so long as they harm no one in
some serious physical way. Democracies understand that debate does not inhibit freedom it is the precondition of it

I never said you could not say what you said : atheism has no virtue in a secular society
What I said was that it is irrelevant to the principle of secularism. Which of course it is

[Greta]

Jesus said, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" Centuries later, Pascal would pose the same question in another form. But it remains the central one.

What of the risk of giving up one's life for the sake of ancient fantasies? All positions necessarily contain opportunity costs. It's up to individuals to assess their own risks.

I figure that modern societies know far, far more about how reality works than Iron Age Abrahamics did. So I see zero risk in simply trying to lead a positive and decent secular life and considerable risk in throwing in my lot for superstitious beliefs in ancient myths.

I am atheist to the gods of mythology. However, I am agnostic to the possibility of other layers of reality that we have not yet even imagined, none of us, and perhaps we cannot physically process, just as my dog's brain is not physically equipped to comprehend calculus and other complex human abstractions.

[Immanuel Can]

What I said was that it is irrelevant to the principle of secularism. Which of course it is

Well, let me see how much you know about "secularism." Where did the concept come from?

Let me help you out there. It was originated by Christians, as a term distinguishing things that were "this-worldly" from "spiritual" concerns. The idea of it was the bifurcation of life into sacred and secular spheres, each having its own just claim to certain duties of the individual. For example, taxes are for Caesar, worship is for God...that's the origin of the idea of the "secular."

In other words, the idea that all of life would become "secular" was very far from the original conception. It was not invented by free-thinking Atheists at all, nor does the use of the word express their worldview: for they have no "non-secular" view of anything, by definition. How can you have a "secular," when for you, there is nothing "sacred"? Likewise, Muslims reject such a distinction: but for them, it's because they accept no distinction between Allah's domain (the "sacred," as they see it) and the "secular." They want ALL things designated as matters of religious concern.

So for Atheists, all things are non-religious; for traditional Muslims, nothing is.

But "secularism" is not a distinct ideology, far less a product of Atheism. Rather, it is a product of theology, a slant on the question of how much of life, or what aspects of life, should be viewed as non-religious -- the flip-side supposition being that some other aspects will inevitably remain religious.

So before we discuss how best to espouse the principles of "secularism," it's probably good that we should get that confusion out of the way, no?

[Immanuel Can]

It's up to individuals to assess their own risks.

Yes, Pascal thought that too. And when he did the probability calculation, he could show what was a risk, and what was not in each case. He just thought that it didn't take too much to see that if you're hazarding your soul, you weren't going to end up a winner if you lost it. If the Atheist were right, he would gain nothing anyway: you die and disappear. Meanwhile, if you believed in God and turned out to be wrong, you were no worse off than anyone, and perhaps a little emotionally and morally better for your illusions: certainly no worse, if they made you happy. So he thought the safe bet was on God either way.

But his big take-away was this: DON'T lose your soul, whatever you do.

I am atheist to the gods of mythology.

I don't believe in them either, of course: so we agree there.

However, I am agnostic to the possibility of other layers of reality that we have not yet even imagined, none of us, and perhaps we cannot physically process, just as my dog's brain is not physically equipped to comprehend calculus and other complex human abstractions.

Well, I'm not quite sure what this means. It looks like you're saying you're willing to at least hold open the possibility that there are things you don't already know -- "complex human abstractions" among them, you say -- and that seems fine. We've all got things yet to learn.

[surreptitious57]

I said that I favour secular societies over atheist ones so I will give successful examples of them instead : Europe and North America

Both are post Christian. Their secularism is nominal and recent. Most of their citizens remain Theistic. Meanwhile America remains nominally Christian as do the majority in Canada. The UK is heavily influenced by Anglicanism and Europe by Lutherans and Calvinism and Catholicism
and Eastern Orthodoxy and so on. Whatever residual ethics and human rights they have are entirely due to that fact Atheism generates no
such values as you can see. You yourself say it has no position on those things. It is thin remember?

Let me give you some better examples of truly Atheist societies ... North Korea and China and Soviet Russia
and Albania and Romania and Cuba and Cambodia under Pol Pot ... all avowedly Atheist. How did they do?

For the third time : I favour secular societies not atheist ones. I most definitely do not favour any of those
Communist ones. Why would I? But did you know that Hitler was a Christian? Now maybe only nominally so
though his speeches suggest otherwise. And Germany remained a Christian country during the Third Reich

[surreptitious57]

I am an apatheist and so my position is one of neutrality or indifference

Since when does apathy require a defense? Surely truly apathetic people have no opinions on the relevant
subject - they ignore it. Yet here you are apparently finding you are not quite as apathetic on the subject
of God as you profess : for you wish at least to discuss your position if not argue fairly passionately for it

I am only mentioning it because it happens to be relevant
I am discussing it but not passionately only matter of fact

[Greta]

It's up to individuals to assess their own risks.

Yes, Pascal thought that too. And when he did the probability calculation, he could show what was a risk, and what was not in each case. He just thought that it didn't take too much to see that if you're hazarding your soul, you weren't going to end up a winner if you lost it. If the Atheist were right, he would gain nothing anyway: you die and disappear. Meanwhile, if you believed in God and turned out to be wrong, you were no worse off than anyone, and perhaps a little emotionally and morally better for your illusions: certainly no worse, if they made you happy. So he thought the safe bet was on God either way.

But his big take-away was this: DON'T lose your soul, whatever you do.

An extra layer of logic can be applied to that of Pascal; any deity that destroys innocents who meant well for the "crime" of not believing is not worth bothering about. After all, we all know numerous people of better intent and decency.

Any deity worthy of worship would be more aware of how and why our foibles develop than we ourselves are, in which case all of our misdeeds are ultimately the understandable blundering of innocents, still developing, still struggling with personal damage and impulse control.

However, I am agnostic to the possibility of other layers of reality that we have not yet even imagined, none of us, and perhaps we cannot physically process, just as my dog's brain is not physically equipped to comprehend calculus and other complex human abstractions.

Well, I'm not quite sure what this means. It looks like you're saying you're willing to at least hold open the possibility that there are things you don't already know -- "complex human abstractions" among them, you say -- and that seems fine. We've all got things yet to learn.

That's exactly the point - there are probably things that the human mind is simply not equipped to understand; it would need many more connections.

[Immanuel Can]

But did you know that Hitler was a Christian?

He was an occultist, actually, if we look as his Arian mythological roots. And his philosophical roots were in Nietzsche by way of Heidegger. His politics were National Socialist. His eugenics, he got from the science of the day.

Now, he did have a concordat with the Pope: but how "Catholic" he really was is very debatable. Certainly no Christian, not by a long chalk.

As Christ said, "By their fruits you shall know them."

[Immanuel Can]

I favour secular societies not atheist ones.

Well, the topic here is Atheists, but okay.

What's really interesting is that "secularism" is a Christian idea, as I pointed out. The idea of a "secular" society is predicated on freedom of conscience, which as Locke showed, is a prime Christian value rationalized by Christian suppositions about the moral responsibility of human beings.

"Secular" isn't as secular as you might think.

[Harbal]

Well, let's just see if they are.
.

What are you looking at?

.
Jesus said, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"

Why did he say it in red?

. Centuries later, Pascal would pose the same question in another form.

What colour did he pose it in?

[surreptitious57]

I favour secular societies not atheist ones

What is really interesting is that secularism is a Christian idea as I pointed out. The idea of a secular society is predicated on freedom of conscience which as Locke showed is a prime Christian value rationalized by Christian suppositions about the moral responsibility of human beings

What is also interesting is how Christian feasts such as Christmas and Easter had their origins elsewhere. Appropriated from Paganism