Naw, religion was an invention of the nerds so the jock/hunter/warrior guys would stop pulling their loincloths down and instead give them the best piece of meat so they could offer it to the gods- the smell, anyway.
[quote=“superking”]Ermintrude is saying atheism is religious behaviour not that it is a religion. You are still espousing a belief system about the nature of humanity, the universe and the afterlife. Same as all them religious folks.
Anyway, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist. It’s the story you have chosen to follow. And you have to follow something.[/quote]
No, atheism is simply saying you don’t accept a supernatural explanation for the Universe. From that point, you may pick a particular ideology, point-of-view etc. Unless you are saying religion simply means “whatever anybody believes about anything is their religion.” Some people use it that way, but it tends to render the word meaningless.
[quote=“MikeN”][quote=“superking”]Ermintrude is saying atheism is religious behaviour not that it is a religion. You are still espousing a belief system about the nature of humanity, the universe and the afterlife. Same as all them religious folks.
Anyway, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist. It’s the story you have chosen to follow. And you have to follow something.[/quote]
No, atheism is simply saying you don’t accept a supernatural explanation for the Universe. From that point, you may pick a particular ideology, point-of-view etc. Unless you are saying religion simply means “whatever anybody believes about anything is their religion.” Some people use it that way, but it tends to render the word meaningless.[/quote]
Bingo. Pick one and don’t be too much of a dick. Problem(s) solved.
I think I got this social morality thing down though:
A country that is nice but not Christian is nice because of Christianity.
A country that is Christian but not nice is not nice because they’re not Christian, even though they are.
A country that is not nice and not Christian is not nice because they’re not Christian…or is that they 're not Christian because they’re not nice?
And the countries that are both nice and Christian are the ones that aren’t Christian.
Well, okay then.
Oh jimi, can’t you see? Atheism is a religion, just like pacifism is a form of war-mongering, and vegetarianism is a form of meat-eating, and slow cooking is a form of fast food. It’s logically quite clear. “A is based on the premise that B is a bad idea” clearly indicates that A is a subset of B.
Or something like that.
Oh, love is hate too. I saw that on a shirt somewhere.
I mean, yeah, we could parse religion as “the way you think the world works”, rather than “belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power”, but that seems a little odd to me, unless we want to shove mathematics and physics and all the other sciences into the Religious Studies Department. “The first commandment of my religion is that if you drop something it goes down. The second is that fire is hot.”
Being an atheist just means you don’t believe in a god. It doesn’t say anything about what you do believe. It is not defined as a religion.
Chris·ti·an·i·ty (krĭs′chē-ăn′ĭ-tē, krĭs′tē-)
n.
1. A religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus.
Is·lam (ĭs-läm′, -lăm′, ĭz-, ĭs′läm′, ĭz′-)
n.
- A monotheistic religion characterized by the doctrine of absolute submission to God and by reverence for Muhammad as the chief and last prophet of God.
Hin·du·ism (hĭn′do͞o-ĭz′əm)
n.
A diverse body of religion, philosophy, and cultural practice native to and predominant in India, characterized by a belief in reincarnation and a supreme being of many forms and natures, by the view that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth, and by a desire for liberation from earthly evils.
a·the·ism (ā′thē-ĭz′əm)
n.
Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
Wikipedia’s list of religions does not include atheism. ReligiousTolerance.org says, ‘Atheism is also not a religion or a complete ethical system.’
And for that matter,
religion
Definition of religion in English:
noun
1 The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods:
ideas about the relationship between science and religion
1.1 A particular system of faith and worship:
the world’s great religions
1.2 A pursuit or interest followed with great devotion:
consumerism is the new religion
I don’t think we’re talking about anything on a level with “consumerism” here 
And this is why atheists are so fcking boring. 
Googled dictionary defs?
OK the next time the meaning of a word is in question I’ll just make up whatever definition I like for it
No. Don’t. You’re no reader.
Hey, it the theists 
bringing the conversation down to the point where dictionaries are needed.
This is more where I would be prefer to be having a conversation:
[quote=“Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior”]Many philosophers find it hard to think of animals as moral beings, and indeed Dr. de Waal does not contend that even chimpanzees possess morality. But he argues that human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks that are clearly at work in chimp and monkey societies.
Dr. de Waal’s views are based on years of observing nonhuman primates, starting with work on aggression in the 1960s. He noticed then that after fights between two combatants, other chimpanzees would console the loser. But he was waylaid in battles with psychologists over imputing emotional states to animals, and it took him 20 years to come back to the subject.
He found that consolation was universal among the great apes but generally absent from monkeys — among macaques, mothers will not even reassure an injured infant. To console another, Dr. de Waal argues, requires empathy and a level of self-awareness that only apes and humans seem to possess. And consideration of empathy quickly led him to explore the conditions for morality.
Though human morality may end in notions of rights and justice and fine ethical distinctions, it begins, Dr. de Waal says, in concern for others and the understanding of social rules as to how they should be treated. At this lower level, primatologists have shown, there is what they consider to be a sizable overlap between the behavior of people and other social primates.
Social living requires empathy, which is especially evident in chimpanzees, as well as ways of bringing internal hostilities to an end. Every species of ape and monkey has its own protocol for reconciliation after fights, Dr. de Waal has found. If two males fail to make up, female chimpanzees will often bring the rivals together, as if sensing that discord makes their community worse off and more vulnerable to attack by neighbors. Or they will head off a fight by taking stones out of the males’ hands.
Dr. de Waal believes that these actions are undertaken for the greater good of the community, as distinct from person-to-person relationships, and are a significant precursor of morality in human societies.
Macaques and chimpanzees have a sense of social order and rules of expected behavior, mostly to do with the hierarchical natures of their societies, in which each member knows its own place. Young rhesus monkeys learn quickly how to behave, and occasionally get a finger or toe bitten off as punishment. Other primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. They remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have groomed them. Capuchin monkeys show their displeasure if given a smaller reward than a partner receives for performing the same task, like a piece of cucumber instead of a grape.
These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality.
Dr. de Waal sees human morality as having grown out of primate sociality, but with two extra levels of sophistication. People enforce their society’s moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. They also apply a degree of judgment and reason, for which there are no parallels in animals.
Religion can be seen as another special ingredient of human societies, though one that emerged thousands of years after morality, in Dr. de Waal’s view. There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion. So it seems reasonable to assume that as humans evolved away from chimps, morality emerged first, followed by religion. “I look at religions as recent additions,” he said. “Their function may have to do with social life, and enforcement of rules and giving a narrative to them, which is what religions really do.[/quote]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?pagewanted=all
Interesting stuff.
Last time I was in the US I was waking in an area where people had set up tables to sell this and that, one table had a guy with a sign “Ask the atheist anything”. Seemed kind of preachy behavior to me.
Sure you can. [/quote]
Not if you can 
I think the value of life is rather more explicit. I found out how much it means when I started consciously living.
[quote]My dad is from a third-world country (nominally Buddhist) and I can tell you with absolute confidence that that country has nothing that resembles a moral code, the Golden Rule, or even Buddhist dogma. People get on with the daily grind, and generally avoid bothering each other simply because it’s too much trouble to do otherwise, not because they actually give a shit. Co-operation is impossible because nobody trusts each other: attempt to set up a win-win scenario and everyone involved will deliberately turn it into a lose-lose. Given the opportunity and the motivation, they do unto others whatever they can get away with.
But of course, that’s simply because they’re ‘poor’, right? No, they’re poor because they have no moral code. Prosperity in such countries is physically impossible without a change of culture; once the culture starts to change, then prosperity can continue, and prosperity will reinforce different cultural values. I was suggesting earlier than religious or pseudoreligious memes - if they are ‘good’ memes and reach a critical mass of people - might kickstart that process, as (IMO) they did in Japan.[/quote]
Moral norms differ from place to place, sure. But that’s not the wonton disregard for human life that you suggested earlier.
This is usually called ‘the problem of evil’. Personally I resolve this as follows:[/quote]
Indeed, I understand the resolution of it. It’s an extra layer of improbability added though, from my viewpoint. In fairness, one layer of a napoleon.
A guy was sitting at a table?
with a sign saying that he was willing to answer your questions if you had any?
Doesn’t seem so “preachy” to me.
Might need to break out the ol’ dictionary. :neutral:
adjective
preach·i·er, preach·i·est
Inclined or given to tedious and excessive moralizing; didactic.
Standard theologian’s tactic:
“But the fact that God will burn you in Hell for Eternity shows how much He loves you.”
“God is not a being; He is Being, but not in the same sense as other things are being”
“God is that of which nothing can be said; and here are the rules He told me to lay down for you.”
[quote=“finley”]
It just so happens that nice people like TG and antarcticbeech have been brung up proper. They (presumably) grew up in societies with advanced moral codes (I’ll stop calling it a ‘Christian’ code if that bothers people). Thus they accept the value of life (for example) as axiomatic. It’s pure belief. No justification is necessary or demanded. There are other societies such as South Africa and D.R.Congo where people are brought up to think that (say) rape is no big deal.
This assertion has no basis in observable reality. The UN and its offshoots have attempted to improve lives in third-world countries by funding material prosperity, and in 50 years have achieved precisely nothing.[/quote]
Which shows that you have to reach a certain level of social/civic development before economic development kicks in. You don’t need a huge spiritual transformation.
[quote]My dad is from a third-world country (nominally Buddhist) and I can tell you with absolute confidence that that country has nothing that resembles a moral code, the Golden Rule, or even Buddhist dogma. People get on with the daily grind, and generally avoid bothering each other simply because it’s too much trouble to do otherwise, not because they actually give a shit. Co-operation is impossible because nobody trusts each other: attempt to set up a win-win scenario and everyone involved will deliberately turn it into a lose-lose. Given the opportunity and the motivation, they do unto others whatever they can get away with.
But of course, that’s simply because they’re ‘poor’, right? No, they’re poor because they have no moral code. Prosperity in such countries is physically impossible without a change of culture; once the culture starts to change, then prosperity can continue, and prosperity will reinforce different cultural values. [/quote]
Backwards- development starts first, usually driven by strongly immoral practices- squeezing the peasants off the land; stealing land from the natives or traditional possessors; using the state to enforce unfair laws and labour practices- the period known as “primitive accumulation” that our free-market economists from Adam Smith down are so eager to ignore.
Sure- in Japan it was Confucianism, nationalism, and the ability to successfully incorporate feudal social practices in a modernising economy.
Looking at Japan and the rest of Asia, it would seem that Confucianism is the major driver of economic development, with Buddhism coming along behind to distribute the gains. Christianity, not so much- not that it can’t, just that in the Asian context it didn’t.
Incidentally, came across this show today hosted out of Texas by an atheist who got there via training to be a Baptist minister. The couple of episodes I watched had some interesting philosophical discussions. I plan to watch some more.
I’ll take the empirical data point, anecdotal as it is, over Marxist doctrine any day.
Let the land and capital be controlled by those who will make the most productive use of it. That’s best all around. You’re not doing the peasants any favors by letting them squander the land.
Besides which, the peasants’ ancestors probably stole the land from some other group. Should we give America back to the Clovis culture? Give Israel back to the Caananites, or even the Neanderthals?
[quote=“rowland”]I’ll take the empirical data point, anecdotal as it is, over Marxist doctrine any day.
Let the land and capital be controlled by those who will make the most productive use of it. That’s best all around. You’re not doing the peasants any favors by letting them squander the land.
Besides which, the peasants’ ancestors probably stole the land from some other group. Should we give America back to the Clovis culture? Give Israel back to the Caananites, or even the Neanderthals?[/quote]
For once I agree with Rowland. Giving land to peasants who have no clue what they’ve been given and don’t know what to do with it is a recipe for Failed Statehood.
As for land ownership, it makes no sense at all. It has always been based on violent robbery and could not really be based on anything else. The state-lease model is far more logical. The problem with it is that it’s hard to decide on ‘fair’ prices, and the whole process is susceptible to corruption.
This is a bit like saying the Thar desert is a bit warmer than the Pyrenees. Technically accurate, but doesn’t really capture the human reality.
You’re confusing immorality with amorality. Disregard for human life doesn’t necessarily end in murder - just extreme selfishness. Nobody resorts to murder if they can get what they want by simpler means, and in amoral societies there are all sorts of ways to get what you want. Threatening violence is common and works if the victim doesn’t call your bluff. Simply sitting on your ass and doing nothing - passive aggression - is astoundingly effective.
The point is that if you are amoral, all options are on the table. All of them. You choose them on the basis of what’s most expedient (there is no other basis on which to choose). If you are immoral, you might choose the option that’s the most fun and humiliates your victim to the max.
Amoral societies generally tick along in a slough of despond. They only boil over into overt and widespread cruelty when there’s some trigger to do so, but when it happens the results are appalling.