Ah Principles, I think the article is about whether Atheism is a faith or not, so your questions are diverting the thread. One reason I'm not going to buy into them.

I thought some of you would have jumped on this article http://bit.ly/aBnA76 or another like it which reports research suggesting atheists and left-wing voters are smarter than the religious and conservative voters. Though before you get too excited, the average atheist intelligence was only 103, so nothing to write home about.

Severin, think you better go and read my post again. I didn't say that all atheists were Marxists. Should I also infer from what you have written that religion had nothing to do with the inquisition? So all these things happen just because we are human and nothing else? Are you letting religion off the hook that Dawkins wants to put it on?

Thanks Bushbasher.

Graham,

The reason for the ‘law’ joke, was because Marxism is totally unrelated here and acts only as a red herring, as I will demonstrate…

Firstly, the ‘A’ in “Atheism” (a-Theism) is a prefix that means ”without”, “lack of” or “absence of”. Atheism essentially and literally means “not a theist”. Thus most Agnostics are Atheists and all Atheists are Agnostics. The two are not mutually exclusive. “Agnostic” is a useless and unhelpful term.

That being said; because of your misunderstanding of what Atheism is, you’re effectively saying that no one can “disown” an historical negative; everyone is guilty; we are all born with the burden of an historical negative of some sort.

All sounds very ‘original sin’ to me.

I agree that Christians can’t “disown” the Inquisition. I also agree that Atheists can’t “disown” Marxism, and that’s because Atheists never “owned” it in the first place.

Atheists don’t need to take ownership of Marxism because Atheism is the default position.

Just as a Juror needs to start with “not guilty” as the default decision until “guilty” is proven, people start with Atheism as an automatic/default position until something is (or they think is) proven.

<<[Marxism] may not be your form of atheism...>>

Marxism is not a form of Atheism. Marxism is a form of political/social ideology.

<<...but to deny that it is an atheistic philosophy as you appear to do...>>

I don’t deny that. But there’s a big difference between Marxism being a “form of Atheism” and Marxism being an “Atheistic philosophy”.

So how did you go from the former to the latter? I don’t know. But the discrepancy invalidates your analogy...

<<...is as illogical as me denying that Catholicism is a form of Christianity...>>

Yes, Catholicism is a form of Christianity; Marxism is not a form of Atheism.

<<One of the rhetorical tricks to try to vilify religion and advance atheism is to characterise religion by the behaviour of its worst adherents, but to define atheism so narrowly that it has no adherents who do anything less benign than write books and argue on Internet forums.>>

Continued...

...Continued

It matters not what the adherents do, but why they do it.

There have been many horrors throughout history committed in the name of religion, but the Marxist dictators of the 20th century did not do what they did in the name of Atheism. They did it in the name of a political ideology; a political ideology that consisted of, but was not fundamentally reliant, on Atheism.

Remove the elitism attached to the church and there is no reason why religion couldn’t have been compatible with Marxism - especially after the teachings of the alleged Jesus. Collectivism and an anti-capitalist stance were at the heart of Marxism. Atheism - again, by default - was compatible due to the lack of elitism attached to it. After all, who could possibly be elitist about a non-belief in something?

Conflicts have been fought in the name of religion, but I don’t know of any that were fought in the name of Atheism.

<<Atheists believe that the material world is all there is to know.>>

No, that would be a ‘Materialist’. A Materialist is an Atheist, but an Atheist isn’t necessarily a Materialist. My wife is an Atheist, but staunchly rejects Materialism.

<<I don't think you can fundamentally prove [that the material world is all there is to know], or at least prove it given our current knowledge.>>

I don’t know anyone who thinks you can prove that. Most people are aware that you can’t usually disprove the non-existence of something.

<<For me there is a mystery at the heart of life which is most probably not accessible by human conscious or knowledge. I call that mystery God.>>

That’s fine.

But to put a label on that mystery and assign characteristics to it; and then jump to the conclusion that “Jesus and his teachings present a way of approaching that mystery” is - in my opinion - irrational, because you are seriously limiting what your findings will be in any search for the answers to those mysteries.

But that’s just my opinion.

I recall working with a young woman who made all her decisions by asking herself "What would god want me to do?".

Fortunately 'god' never appeared to want her to bring an Uzi to work and let fly or to step in from of a train. The fact that she could simply use her own reason and conscience in order to make decisions never occurred to her.

Graham, my point (which seems to always evade you) was that we are all human beings for better or worse, that many atrocities have been committed in the name of some ideology or other - therefore I am certainly NOT "letting religion off the hook" and you know it, unless you are not as intelligent as you like to appear. However we do need to learn from history - is that too difficult? And try to be accepting of others despite them not believing as you do - this would eliminate a lot of disputes. For myself the great mystery is not answered by Jesus; the great mystery of life, the universe and everything continues... that's what makes it a mystery.

Atheists are as likely to be communists as they are capitalists - given the penchant for the individualism of neo-cons, one would expect to find many atheists following unregulated consumerism just as AJ Phillips has pointed out that in following Christ's teachings one would also expect to find many socialists.

>> I think the article is about whether Atheism is a faith or not,

The answer is "no". the answer is obvious. the answer is only not obvious if you engage in the most absurd kind of word-manipulation, definition-stretching and special pleading.

so what would you like to talk about now?

Severin.... "Fortunately 'god' never appeared to want her to bring an Uzi to work and let fly or to step in from of a train. The fact that she could simply use her own reason and conscience in order to make decisions never occurred to her."

Yes, I wondered about Blair when he said he prayed at night before launching the UK into war.

What was he getting back from Mars? Was it a simple 'yes-no', or did he get redirected to the excuses for war, the 'just war' stories Christians rely on before setting off to slaughter?

I'm reminded of Luke Rhinehart's 'Dice Man', which I tried to follow once. Naturally, if you are making up the choices for yourself to follow 'by chance' when your hand plunges into the bucket of 'options' you've just written and put in there, then it's no surprise that you end up doing something you had just thought of doing.

There may indeed exist a God of the wishy-washy variety that inspires GrahamY, but those who seem to regard it as a more 'tangible intangible' do seem to use it as an excuse for their good or bad behaviour, depending on their mood or even general character.

And of course, atheism is not a faith of any sort.... just an absence of a faith...should we coin 'afaithist' to make it clearer?