wow. what you people have done to simple atheism is beyond me.
making atheism an ideology is the dumbest fucking idea ever. ever.
Idiots.

^Atheism is essentially an ideology. There's a difference between a non-believer and an atheist, although the definitions often get muddled together.

All the different words are hard to define sharply, because so many people attribute different meanings to them: non-believer, atheist, agnostic, anti-theist, humanist, secularist, naturalist, free thinker, rationalist - they are all a different facet of the same gem, so to speak.

I'm vehemently opposed to organized religion, the concept of faith, the specific god of the bible and qua'ran (sp?), evangelical believers, irrationalists, people who do not accept evidence that are contrary to their beliefs, people who believe without any shred of evidence, people who are not grown up enough to see the world as it is, mysterianists, people with undeserved power, injustice, willful ignorance, willful confusion of the masses, deception, wickedness (as defined by my own sense of morality), exclusive knowledge, secret societies, secrets, censorship, bondage and slavery.

Whatever pithy label fits that, I'd use. For now Libertarian Atheist covers it fine, I think.

^This may be hard for you to fathom, but it is possible to simply not believe in g/God without any baggage. An atheist at the core is someone who does not believe in god; all else is dressing. I have to say that the "athie" ideologues are starting to bug me as much as the "fundies".

It's the difference between not eating meat and being a full-blown, protesting, proseletyzing Vegan who harps on his/her friends and anyone who will listen about the evils of meat and the meat industry.

There are people who don't eat meat or believe in god their whole lives and treat it as mundane as walking or breathing.

^But again, depending on your definition of the words, they are either non-believers, atheist, agnostics etc.. Just because they don't label themselves does not mean they don't fit the labels.

I agree that there are people who go about and just don't care - like I don't care about Fairies. But the problem is, that there are few of the (ahem) "other side" that go about it in this way, religion demands quite a few things of its believes, some beliefs decree that you must go out and convert (most of them do), and all of them have some sort of divine punishment for those who do not follow that particular religion, so it is essentially seen as a good thing to get people converted to your own religion, even if it is only in-directly implied in the holy texts. This is a problem! It warps peoples thoughts of right and wrong and in the end it undermines human progress.

Religion is a way to destroy human individuality and make us travel in herds again, this is why it has been so successful in the past (and still is). People are inherently pack animals, so if a leader says "we're all walking to the right" everyone does it - this can, and is, abused by wicked men and movements.

Atheists (or whatever label you want to use) are often very much individualists and this makes it hard to make a coherent group against the religions (like herding cats, as it's been put). When atheists finally come together under a banner, it is rarely frivolous, it's usually an informed choice (there is of course the bandwagon effect too, atheists because it's hip).

And I think it's hilariously underhanded for a believer to cry foul when we focus the atheist movement in this way.

Could be fun to have seen this said about 2000 years ago:

wow. what you people have done to simple monotheism is beyond me.
making monotheism an ideology is the dumbest fucking idea ever. ever.
Idiots.

>> ^bluecliff:
wow. what you people have done to simple atheism is beyond me.
making atheism an ideology is the dumbest fucking idea ever. ever.
Idiots.


I don't see how this video makes atheism an ideology. There are no strings attached to the atheism this video sells unless promoting your views automatically makes an ideology out of them.

I think the mere act of selling the atheism elevates it to an ideology. This is not a simple PSA promoting brushing and flossing. It's asking people to make major changes in personal beliefs.

Gwiz, you are over-generalizing religious people and religion. I know quite a number of religious people who are rugged individualists; heck, the history of the US is full of rugged individualists who were christians and non-believers.

Religion is not the cause of war; it is inherent in the human condition.

Were we all atheists, wars would continue.

religion is not the sole curse of war , but it is one of the many things that can cause war. it would be good to get rid of it along with all the other curses.

believing in something unquestionably purely on faith is incredibly dangerous.

atheism is simply not believing in gods or god, I see no danger coming from being an atheist where as if your prpared to belive that say cheistaintiy , Scientology, islam, is true then you can potentiality be a dangerous person from the religion and the ideals within the religions.


moderate religious people are in some ways like racist people that don't realise themselves to be racist , sure 90% of the time they represent no harm to society and they wouldn't attack coloured people or shout at them but there propagation of there insidious ideas slowly take a hold and you end up with a society of xenophobes making government policy based on irrationality.

I think atheism should be promoted but it should only be promoted in a purely factual way , in the same way you promote science , or information about flue vaxines.


also just because your an atheist dosnot make you a peace loving hippy , it just means you wont do things based on a belief in god , an atheists could still be a dip shit and go around hitting black people. but the important thing is that the hitting of black people dose not come from atheism.

I would argue that if sum one has come to the conclusion of atheism through reasonable thought and scientific thinking then its unlikely they will be the type of person that will be racist or hateful of other people. where as with religion it is far more likely that you can normally be a reasonable person but because of what it says in your religious script you will hate another people , or think it acceptable for your government to bomb another people. or that key scientific principles should not be tought in school . or that people should not be allowed to have abortions , not based on a good argument or your own personally worked out views from up to date evidence . but based on something written in a 2k year old book.

>> ^COriolanus:
Religion is not the cause of war; it is inherent in the human condition.
Were we all atheists, wars would continue.


The argument "if it were not religion that caused war, it would be something else" is a bad one. Religion is a cause for war, and "removing it" would have stopped quote a few wars, though of course not all.

Were we all atheists, we would still have wars, but less of them. Were we all the exact same denomination of Christianity/Islam/religion we would also have less wars for that matter, but of course there are more things than wars involved in the equation.

^ no.

money, power, territory, control (and the backlash of those oppressed by power and control) are the CAUSES of war. religion is simply the motivator. and the means used to manipulate underlings into fighting the wars.
religion= a means for control. power is the ends, money is power and territory is money.

I don't see any problems with spreading a good idea.

The video was nice. I dunno what it has to do with atheism. I couldn't read the subtitles, but they looked like they were just the song lyrics?

Anyways religion always has been and always will be abused for war and other bad stuff. However it's also been used to spread a hell of alot of peace. But saying that it's got to be one way or the other, and putting every religion in the same category is silly.

I would have to agree that so-called atheists annoy me just as much as religious fanatics. Everyone should just take a chill pill and let others think what they want to think.

>> ^peggedbea:
^ no.
money, power, territory, control (and the backlash of those oppressed by power and control) are the CAUSES of war. religion is simply the motivator. and the means used to manipulate underlings into fighting the wars.
religion= a means for control. power is the ends, money is power and territory is money.


many religions allow for people to be racist and have an excuse for it.
many religions are a celebration of faith, faith allows for grate evil.


I'm pretty sure that there are and have been many people who if they were not religious would have not done the evil they did. (There will also be many people who have done good in the name of religion however I would argue that those people who did good would have done it if they were atheist)

ether way there will be no people that have done evil or good specificly from being an atheist.

for example many religions specifcly tell the followers of them how to behave and what to do ,
atheism dose not tell anyone to do anything it is simply the lack of a belief in something. from that lack of belief they are then open to deduce things for themselves that that belief would have otherwise blocked. they are then free to ignore all the evils of religion and concentrate on the good if they so want to.

having a belief in many of the religions out there is like catching a virus that pollutes your ability to think. as a direct result of being religious and subscribing to religious texts you are far more likely to do harm or make bad dessisons than sum one who evaluates things on the available evidence using scientific principals and logic.

BTW an athist can still be sum one that makes terrible desisoins and applies no scientific principles or logic to there thought.

Its just a fact that on the current available evidence beliving in a christain , islamic, jewish, mormon, scentoligy , greek, god or gods is paintently stupid.

people get locked into religious thought instead of bettering there minds or being open to new ways of thinking about things.

>> ^peggedbea:
^ no.
money, power, territory, control (and the backlash of those oppressed by power and control) are the CAUSES of war. religion is simply the motivator. and the means used to manipulate underlings into fighting the wars.
religion= a means for control. power is the ends, money is power and territory is money.


So? Religion is as much an instigator as anything else. You can make steps back and find a cause for most things as something more basic. Two opposed religions can easily be the sole reason for a war, but there are often many factors as you yourself point out: power, territory, money. My point was that religion is one of the causes for war, "a cause" instead of "the cause". And what point are you really trying to make? That religion should be left alone because it's just caught in the middle? That's stupid.

Usually the people in power are not stupid enough to be die-hard believers and indeed are after power instead of "doing the will of God", but wars are not only fought by those people, they are fought by all the uninformed masses who march on believing the have god on their side, "fighting the good fight", in their heads the religion is as much a cause for the war as anything else. This is something the we should actively try to destroy. If they don't believe they are right no matter what, then wars can be avoided.

Like westy says, religion can be used to justify atrocities easily, and have been many times already. Removing it from the equation certainly wouldn't hurt.

>> ^longde:
I think the mere act of selling the atheism elevates it to an ideology. This is not a simple PSA promoting brushing and flossing. It's asking people to make major changes in personal beliefs.


No, it's not. It's just putting forward an idea that we could have a world without religion, and that this would be a good thing. Atrocious? Some people certainly believe so; I don't.

Ideas are promoted all the time in different channels without elevating them to ideologies. Don't drink and drive, return your glass waste to the correct deposit, brush and floss. I would say that your example asks for more changes to a persons life, as it asks you to extend your nightly routine. This commercial only informs you that a choice exists, and it is up to you what you want to do with it.

I remember watching an LDS Church commercial on american television when I was visiting USA a couple of years back. They wanted to send me a free Book of Mormon. And you know what? I'm OK with that. I don't want it, but I can appreciate that they are willing to spend money to get me information on something they believe is important for me to know. More importantly, the fact that they make a commercial out of it does not elevate Mormonism to an ideology; it already was. You could argue that this commercial would only have been possible if atheism too was already an ideology, but that would be the opposite argument of yours quoted above.

If I have to find an ideology that facilitates this commercial, it would have to be skepticism, not atheism. That you should make up your own mind based on falsifiable evidence is to my mind a good thing to have floating around in the marketplace of ideas. But as a skeptic you sometimes have to choose your battles, and this time it was against religion.

So, I finally come to my main point: A lot of ideas and ideologies are put forward all the time, with no complaints. Why the sudden outrage when skeptics do the same?

The ad says: "For a planet free of Religion". That's not atheism.
Atheism is a lack of belief in god(s) and the supernatural.
Religion could disappear from the face of the planet and people still be believers.

Jimmy Carr made my point already, so I'm gonna let him say it: http://www.videosift.com/video/Jimmy-Carr-on-Scientology-and-Christianity

>> ^gwiz665

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find evidence in history of a war caused by religion. I've looked (hint: not the Crusades). Athenians fought Spartans, Americans fought Americans, Hutus murdered Tutsis. War does just fine without religion.

I think the major point being demonstrated in this discussion is that a number of us are sick of commercials.

>> ^Lodurr:
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find evidence in history of a war caused by religion. I've looked (hint: not the Crusades). Athenians fought Spartans, Americans fought Americans, Hutus murdered Tutsis. War does just fine without religion.

Religion is never the obvious cause, but is constantly an underlying current that drives the wars. India/Pakistan, Israel/Palestine, US/Afghanistan/Iraq, to name a few that are recent / ongoing.

Religion is a unifying force, binding the followers of the same faith into one group, but is also a dividing force, separating different groups of believers from one-another. It is a lot easier to kill the "other", which is what someone of a different religion is automatically.

Nationality is second to that, but that is based on a physical fact (land), and not a theoretical one (my invisible sky-daddy is better than yours).

Religion certainly isn't a "constant" underlying current. There are many wars with no religious aspect to them at all. I also disagree that it drives wars. Religious or moral justification comes after the real impetus for armed conflict. The wiki entry on war has some interesting theories on the motivations for war.

Any ideology is a way to unite or divide people, and any small difference in ideology can be made gigantic when the environment is staged for conflict.

blah blah blah Hitler.

Just contributing.

>>thinker247 you cannot throw a godwin's grenade into a conversation on purpose. To do so can risk fracturing the entire internet. believe me its scientificy proven with no evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

>> ^westy:
>>thinker247 you cannot throw a godwin's grenade into a conversation on purpose. To do so can risk fracturing the entire internet. believe me its scientificy proven with no evidence.

Don't be silly, westy. The only known way to destroy the Internet so far is to type Google into Google.

Some extrapolated that typing Bing into Bing might do the same, but all they got was a BSOD.

you all miss the point.

no religion does not cause war. ever. religion motivates it, and masks it and disguises them as something noble and spiritual, so that underlings will fight those wars. that makes it inherently bad. (religion, not simple spirituality) but no worse than government. period.

>> ^demon_ix:
>> ^westy:
>>thinker247 you cannot throw a godwin's grenade into a conversation on purpose. To do so can risk fracturing the entire internet. believe me its scientificy proven with no evidence.
Don't be silly, westy. The only known way to destroy the Internet so far is to type Google into Google.
Some extrapolated that typing Bing into Bing might do the same, but all they got was a BSOD.


I'm sorry but I don't believe you I only believe things that are scentifcly proven with no evidence.

peggedbea you miss the point , Resources don't curse war ever they just motivate it...

surly the only way something can Cuse a human to do anything is by motivating them to do it ,

there for anything that motivates a human to do something was the thing that caused that something to happen?

>> ^peggedbea:
you all miss the point.
no religion does not cause war. ever. religion motivates it, and masks it and disguises them as something noble and spiritual, so that underlings will fight those wars. that makes it inherently bad. (religion, not simple spirituality) but no worse than government. period.


No amount of you saying "ever" or "period" will make you right. Religion is a factor in several war, but yes, it is rarely if ever the sole cause of it. I completely agree that religion is good for justifying a war, making it noble and spiritual and whatnot, but saying that government, as in all government, does the same is a tad naive from my perspective.

Most religions are based on the same underpinnings of faith, mysterianism and foolishness, which are in themselves bad for you. Government is a different kind of animal. There are many of the same controlling elements, yes, but it is inherently different to religion. One might see nationalism as a different kind of religious fundamentalism, with a more government slant - "anything my country/government does is right, no matter what!" - which is quite bad too, I'll agree.

Where's the difference between a factor, a motivator, a cause, and influence etc.? That actual "cause" for a war is rarely just one thing, there are many things playing a part to heighten the tension, religion being one of those. The cause is not merely "the last straw", like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that sparked WWI.

Religion can play an indirect role in causing wars. Since it's only an idea though, it can never be said to be directly responsible for a war...

Religion can help solidify a "Us vs Them" mentality. Take Blackwater killing innocents because their head guy felt he was on a crusade. From what it sounds like, he felt all muslims where worth exterminating. If there was no religion perhaps he wouldn't have been brought up to feel that way about other humans.

Everything comes down to the individual. How was that person raised? One can be a bigot without religion, but yet with religion out of the way I think more doors open for people to be taught and raised in a more open way of thinking, both about the world and others.

You can blame those who start the war, how did the leader of whatever force is attacking think? What was their justification? I think one of the biggest brain damages religion causes is an elevated since of self. As in; if God is on your side, then you can get away with what you need to because obviously God's got your back. You're no longer equal with the rest of humanity, you're part of a chosen (gang mentality, basically) That's how a person may -think- because of a religious upbringing. It still comes down to the person.

I can go into soldiers flocking under a religious banner, and wars started because one faith insults another too, but you get the idea.

>> ^COriolanus:
Religion is not the cause of war; it is inherent in the human condition.
Were we all atheists, wars would continue.


James Keegan would like a word with you . . .

What I've learned from this video is that you've got to be insane to use a loaded rifle as a baseball bat!

What causes war is ignorance and selfishness.

"I want your land" / "We deserve this land/asset"
"These people are responsible for our ills"
"We are better than these people" / "They aren't people"
"2000 years ago, this guy insulted this other guy's mother" / "No, he insulted OUR mother!"
"They started it"

Sometimes we must go to war because OTHER PEOPLE are ignorant/selfish, and we are left with no recourse. But this is still a war caused by ignorance/selfishness.

What causes war is ignorance and selfishness, where most religions TEACH ignorance, and are motivated by selfishness.

This is a silly debate.

The important thing, the thing that they got totally wrong is that the shell casing doesn't just drop at your feet from an M-16 it's thrown at least a half dozen yards.

That and God is stupid, sadistic, ineffective or non-existent, or a combination thereof...

People are trying to attach a core set of beliefs to "atheism", but I think that is missing the point.

Imagine the entire world's population as a large group. Take out the Christians, and the Muslims... take out everyone one who has an intentional belief in a religion, a superstition, or anything that isn't observable or testable.

After doing that, there will be people left over. They are not united in any particular belief, they are simply those who do not choose to believe in things that can't be observed. The term "atheist" gets applied to such people by others, and with it comes assumed meanings and associated beliefs. Many self-described atheists have a definite belief that no god(s) can exist, but that is not universal by any means. Others don't care enough to call themselves anything.



On a different note, religion is not the cause of conflict, it's just a fairly common way to distinguish "us" from "them". If it isn't religion then it's race, nationality, class, eye color, accent, immigration status, or any other attribute that can be used to create an obvious difference between two groups. When people are scared or unhappy with their situation then they look for someone to blame, and that can often lead to violence.

I like to imagine there's no people before I imagine there's no god. Peace and fuckin' quiet for a change. Then maybe I will have time to read all those -- my glasses! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Well...even without religion there will always be cretins like me. I mean - just because people don't believe in god, doesn't mean they won't try to find other reasons to start wars.

Sure, sure... religion doesn't cause wars - religious thinking does.

And religious thinking can be found in mindless nationalism just as easily as it can be found in theism. Religion just has the added downside absolutely zero accountability for the accuracy or impact of its proclamations - which is partly why it is a particularly dangerous form of mindlessness which HAS caused massive amounts of human suffering, not to mention wars, over the centuries. And sure, it may have been merely a tool of the powerful in order to fuel their wars - but that doesn't even remotely remove the blame from religion. In fact, it merely illustrates the primary point...

So, all in all, this entire debate seems rather silly to me.

I like how people think they can actually rid the world of religion. You might as well rid the world of humans. You might could get rid of Christianity but something else would eventually come along and replace it. To me the whole reason John says Imagine there is no religion is because you have to imagine. Ohh and Religion does not equal war, humans do. We naturally group up and ostracize others. Just ask the meerkats. Oh and I guess our other primate relatives.
As far as atheism and ideology is concerned I would say that it is not one. However it is very short from being one. All it needs is ritual and for atheists to unite under a weekly meeting. Not to mention to try and persuade non-atheists to join.
Life is shit fellas. And as much as I would like a perfect world without violence of any kind it will never happen. Just us much as others would love a perfect world without religion. I guess will have to just imagine.

I sort of want to parody this video where all the missionary work everyone complains about suddenly disappears. Then all the people in the video start dying of horrible diseases from the dirty water, or starving to death because they don't know how to properly irrigate their fields...

I like the comparison to overzealous vegans... this whole thing is getting old. Yes, people lobby for religious interests. There's also a meat lobby. Leave me alone, I won't sign your petition, and I don't have any money. To Dawkins and the rest, the public trust pays you to research biology, not pontificate on teapots from outer-space.

The reason nonbelievers don't organize is because we all have different political priorities. Why would you organize if you don't want the same things?

Id say religious people have different political priorities as well. Obama would not be president if only non-believers voted for him.
>> ^bmacs27:
The reason nonbelievers don't organize is because we all have different political priorities. Why would you organize if you don't want the same things?

>> ^ctrlaltbleach:
Id say religious people have different political priorities as well. Obama would not be president if only non-believers voted for him.

Uhhhh... of course not?

The point is simply that if the only reason we are organizing is because "they" (religious people) are organizing, than that is stupid. Religious people are already organized. That's why it's called "organized religion." Most of those people have at least a few core beliefs in common, or else they wouldn't bother organizing.

Presumably people have issue with the particular policy interests pursued by particular organizations, and thus feel that they themselves must organize to fight it. The problem is the leap from "need an organization" to "need an organization of atheists." If you have a problem with proposed policy X, form a group of people that commonly oppose proposed policy X. There isn't necessarily any correlation between non-belief in a deity, and disagreement with policy X. Further, you may alienate many sympathizers that happen to be believers. The only implied commonality between non-believers is in the negative. It's an absence of believing in something. Baptists, or Catholics, etc. are likely to have have many actual shared beliefs. That is, they are commonly interested, rather than commonly uninterested.

Apparently in a godless world, we still have soldiers, assault rifles, and crumbling cities, but now the soldier and kid think the assault rifle is a toy?

I suppose they're going for the idea that universal atheism would lead to some sort of pacifist utopia. Atheism may be certain kind of ideology, but it's about being against cults, not creating one of its own.

That's really one of my chief issues with religion and libertarian/conservative ideology -- they both claim to have simple, universal solutions for all earthly problems, if only everyone becomes a strict adherent to the ideology.