Is Atheism Depressing?

[jillian]

no. it means he's not sure. that is agnostic.

atheists are certain

"Agnostic" isn't the same as "not sure". Agnosticism is the position that the we can't know for sure whether gods exist or not. You can be agnostic, yet still a true believer. You can also be agnostic AND atheist (you don't believe in god, yet acknowledge it can't be proven one way or another.

Also - and this is important - agnosticism isn't the claim that we haven't 'yet' proven the existence of gods, but rather the position that there is something about the concept which makes their existence un-provable. It's the position that we literally can't know whether gods exist. We have to take it on faith, or not. Most of the religious folks I know are agnostic. Which is to say, they believe in God, but they don't think their belief can be proven like more mundane forms of knowledge.

I don't agree. How do you know what you can't know? As an agnostic I can only say that I do not know, not that I cannot know. To say I cannot is just another unverified belief.

yep

 

[Capstone]

Atheism is to communism as roller skates are to fishing poles: two entirely different means to two entirely different ends. The fact that some moron from the past once tried to catch a fish while roller-skating isn't a very sound basis for claiming that roller skates and fishing poles are therefore inextricably tied together for the remainder of eternity.

 

[Thunderbird]

the conclusion that the concept of a "god" is nonsense

Tell these scientists: 50 NOBEL LAUREATES AND OTHER GREAT SCIENTISTS WHO BELIEVE IN GOD

without having ever heard of the politics of Russia or the Soviet Union.

The brutality of Russian Communist atheists is just the beginning! So many atheist sects have called for intolerance and violence. There's Mao and Pol Pot and Mengistu, there's Utilitarian atheists and fascist atheists and Randian Objectivists.

Some prominent atheists:

1. Mussolini - Historian Denis Mack Smith wrote that Mussolini believed: "Science had proved that God did not exist and the Jesus of history was an ignorant Jew whose family thought him mad... Religion, he said, was a disease of the psyche, an epidemic to be cured by psychiatrists, and Christianity in particular was vitiated by preaching the senseless virtues of resignation and cowardice." Mussolini even wrote a pamphlet entitled God does not exist.

2. Stalin - Responsible for millions tortured, imprisoned, starved, shot. Learn about the Holodomor HERE.

3. Pol Pot - Genocidal dictator of Cambodia.

4. Peter Singer - One of the world's most influential philosophers, Utilitarian Peter Singer is a professor at Princeton.

quote: Singer argues that it should be legal for parents to decide to have their disabled infants killed up to 28 days after birth.

LINK

5. Ayn Rand

quote: Her diaries from that time, while she worked as a receptionist and an extra, lay out the Nietzschean mentality that underpins all her later writings. The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough."

LINK

6. & 7. Leopold & Loeb - Inspired by Nietsche, they felt superior men such as themselves should create their own moral values. They committed what they thought was the perfect crime.

LINK

8. Marquis de Sade - He enjoyed torturing underage prostitutes.

9. Herman Kahn - He wrote calmly of mass nuclear horror and enjoyed playing God.

10. Lenin

article: Lenin Paints Himself Black With His Own Words

 

[Thunderbird]

Atheism is to communism as roller skates are to fishing poles:

Can you admit that atheism is at the heart of Communism? Can you acknowledge that most atheists worldwide are Communists? That Communism is a very important sect within atheism?

 

[Thunderbird]

So many atheist sects/leaders have preached hate, intolerance, violence.

Marx: Of course, in periods when the political state as such is born violently out of civil society, when political liberation is the form in which men strive to achieve their liberation, the state can and must go as far as the abolition of religion, the destruction of religion. But it can do so only in the same way that it proceeds to the abolition of private property, to the maximum, to confiscation, to progressive taxation, just as it goes as far as the abolition of life, the guillotine.

Nietzsche: Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of "pleasure." The human being who has become free — and how much more the spirit who has become free — spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free man is a warrior.

Nietzsche: Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches — and in punishment there is so much that is festive!

Nietzsche: You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!

Nietzsche: The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" — that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".

Sam Harris (an insignificant figure compared to the first two, yet he is the idol of the anti-Christian cranks you occasionally meet up with on the internet): The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

Atheism is to communism as roller skates are to fishing poles:

Can you admit that atheism is at the heart of Communism? Can you acknowledge that most atheists worldwide are Communists? That Communism is a very important sect within atheism?

The communist sect of atheism? First I've heard of it. All this talking out of asses, it's really starting to stink in here.

I could point out that it was a Christian Socialist, Francis Bellamy, who penned the American Pledge of Allegiance and invented the Bellamy salute later adopted by the Nazi Party, but that would no more establish a link between Christianity and socialism as you have between communism and atheism. About the best anybody can accomplish is that communism has been proven to be every bit as capable of enslaving people as religion has been at various times in history. End of story.

 

[Capstone]

Can you admit that atheism is at the heart of Communism? Can you acknowledge that most atheists worldwide are Communists? That Communism is a very important sect within atheism?

No, no, and nope.

I can, however, acknowledge that you're espousing a view pushed by anti-communists throughout the cold war era into the present day.

Here's a cool site for ya' (fair warning: it is a bit weighted on the factual state of religious affairs worldwide).

[...] The religious outlook of most Chinese people consists of some combination of beliefs and practices from these four traditions. It is very rare for only one to be practiced to the exclusion of the others. [emphasis Capstone's]

The phrase "most Chinese people" is particularly damning to your preferred view.

 

[Thunderbird]

The communist sect of atheism? First I've heard of it. All this talking out of asses, it's really starting to stink in here.

communism and atheism

If you ever manage to get your head out of your ass take a look at this website:

League of Militant Atheists

And check out this POST.

 

[mjollnir]

The communist sect of atheism? First I've heard of it. All this talking out of asses, it's really starting to stink in here.

communism and atheism

If you eve manage to get your head out of your ass take a look at this website:

League of Militant Atheists

And check out this POST.

Poor, stupid child: atheism has no sects. It is simply a non-belief, no matter how hard you stomp your wittle feet and pout.

 

[Thunderbird]

I can, however, acknowledge that you're espousing a view pushed by anti-communists throughout the cold war era into the present day.

Here's a cool site for ya' (fair warning: it is a bit weighted on the factual state of religious affairs worldwide).

Not sure what your point is. I am glad that China's religions have survived in the face of Communist atheist terror. Christianity in particular seems to be thriving. However the CCP has about 80 million members and religious people are not allowed to join the party.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

The communist sect of atheism? First I've heard of it. All this talking out of asses, it's really starting to stink in here.

communism and atheism

If you ever manage to get your head out of your ass take a look at this website:

League of Militant Atheists

And check out this POST.

Wow. You really showed me. The League of Militant Atheists! Sounds so sinister. Sure. The existence of a militant group proves the correlation between communism and atheism.

Grow up. So, if I google or wiki a bunch of militant Christian groups will that establish a link between Christianity and something militant? Of course not.

BTW, don't take it personal. My "talking out of asses" comment was not directed entirely at you. It is pretty rampant in this thread.

 

[Thunderbird]

Poor, stupid child: atheism has no sects. It is simply a non-belief, no matter how hard you stomp your wittle feet and pout.

Some definitions for you to ponder.

atheism: the doctrine that there is no deity

sect: A faction united by common interests or beliefs.

 

[mjollnir]

Poor, stupid child: atheism has no sects. It is simply a non-belief, no matter how hard you stomp your wittle feet and pout.

Some definitions for you to ponder.

atheism: the doctrine that there is no deity

sect: A faction united by common interests or beliefs.

Lulz. Start with faulty assumptions and/or definitions, end with faulty conclusions.

Please be less stupid.

 

[Thunderbird]

The League of Militant Atheists! Sounds so sinister. Sure.

Sarcasm?! These people were violent and intolerant. Don't you think they were sinister?

The existence of a militant group proves the correlation between communism and atheism.

I provided other evidence.

 

[Thunderbird]

Start with faulty assumptions and/or definitions, end with faulty conclusions.

Why do you say the definitions I provided are false? They come from the dictionary.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

The League of Militant Atheists! Sounds so sinister. Sure.

Sarcasm?! These people were violent and intolerant. Don't you think they were sinister?

The existence of a militant group proves the correlation between communism and atheism.

I provided other evidence.

Of course it's sinister. I still doesn't prove that atheism and communism are one as you are so desperate to prove. Militant groups tend to be intolerant. That's about all you've proven. Let's see, the Ku Klux Klan are militant and Protestant Christian in makeup. That must prove that Christians are violent and intolerant. Hogwash. If an atheist were to use that b.s. argument I would call them out on it too, and have.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

Poor, stupid child: atheism has no sects. It is simply a non-belief, no matter how hard you stomp your wittle feet and pout.

Some definitions for you to ponder.

atheism: the doctrine that there is no deity

sect: A faction united by common interests or beliefs.

Lulz. Start with faulty assumptions and/or definitions, end with faulty conclusions.

Please be less stupid.

If you don't like the definitions used, you should probably take it up with Merriam-Webster.

 

[Thunderbird]

Of course it's sinister.

Glad we agree.

Let's see, the Ku Klux Klan are militant and Protestant Christian in makeup. That must prove that Christians are violent and intolerant.

I see your point. My response:

1) Christianity is based on Jesus' message of forgiveness, kindness, peace, and human dignity. (Of course Christians have not always followed this challenging teaching.) In contrast the most important atheist sects/leaders have called for violence and oppression. I've provided many examples.

2) Christians have done a lot of good in the world. Have atheists?

3) On a per capita basis atheists are by far the worst murderers in human history.

Check out my POST.

 

[Uncensored2008]

For the most part, the Nazis were Christians.

As were most of their victims. But Nazism was not Christian and had nothing to do with religion.

 

[PratchettFan]

"Agnostic" isn't the same as "not sure". Agnosticism is the position that the we can't know for sure whether gods exist or not. You can be agnostic, yet still a true believer. You can also be agnostic AND atheist (you don't believe in god, yet acknowledge it can't be proven one way or another.

Also - and this is important - agnosticism isn't the claim that we haven't 'yet' proven the existence of gods, but rather the position that there is something about the concept which makes their existence un-provable. It's the position that we literally can't know whether gods exist. We have to take it on faith, or not. Most of the religious folks I know are agnostic. Which is to say, they believe in God, but they don't think their belief can be proven like more mundane forms of knowledge.

I don't agree. How do you know what you can't know? As an agnostic I can only say that I do not know, not that I cannot know. To say I cannot is just another unverified belief.

Cool. I suppose many people reject agnosticism on those grounds. But that is what agnosticism is about - it's a viewpoint on the possibility of real knowledge (of god's existence). Agnosticism is the position, call it a 'belief' if you will, that we can't prove it one way or another. And from that perspective, belief in gods can only ever be a matter of faith.

Our positions are very close, but I think the differences are still important. There is a difference between what we know and what we believe. Agnosticism, for me, admits to that difference. Do I believe in a god? Sorta, but not in the standard western way. However, I fully acknowledge that my belief has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it is true. I don't know if there is any truth to it. I don't know if there is not. Since I don't know, I simply believe what pleases me.

To say that God is unknowable creates an automatic conflict. To say something is unknowable presupposes enough knowledge about it to create that label. If it is truly unknowable, then there is no way for you to know that it is unknowable. Which argues against the notion that an agnostic understands the difference between what he knows and what he believes.

To me, this makes agnosticism just another belief system. However, I prefer to think of it as a rational approach to human behavior.