George

Until I started reading theists views here at OLO, I had no idea how disturbed and threatened they are by non-religious people.

For the record, I no more hold Graham Young responsible for witch burnings or the bombing of medical clinics, than I do for 9/11.

Therefore, I find his persistence in generalising about atheists, who are among the most diverse peoples on this planet, as somehow secret Marxists or uncharitable, lacking in compassion as extremely unbecoming for someone who holds the position of editor-in-chief of OLO. I also find his claims that not believing in a supernatural deity as being a belief - beyond belief!

As has been acknowledged, ad nauseum, there is good and bad among all people irrespective of belief.

Get out Severin the athiests seem just as threatened by the religious here.

I'm deeply religious, as I don't believe that Tom Cruise is an alien.

It's my belief system

I think one of the main reasons there’s some confusion in the Theist camp here, is because Atheism actually has a title. I mean - going back to my juror analogy - it’s not like we call jurors the “Not-guiltyists”.

George,

<<...there were many societies built on religion - organised or not - that survived for centuries.>>

This is a spurious statement. While generally true, the fact that they were “built on religion” wasn’t necessarily the reason they survived so long.

Australia wasn’t necessarily “built on religion” and it’s doing alright.

<<The Communist experiment was so far the only one trying to built and organise a society without religion.>>

Yes, but remember that the “without religion” part was an aspect - an important aspect even - but not a fundamental basis. Whether or not one could possibly imagine communism without Atheism.

Religion was apparently a symptom, not the disease.

<<The experiment failed in a couple of decades.>>

Here you’re tying to imply that religious societies last longer because they’re religious.

You need to remember that the major reasons Marxism failed was because it was an economic and social disaster. It didn’t necessarily fail because it was Atheistic. Just as the societies built on religion didn’t necessarily succeed because they were built on religion.

<<We shall probably not live to see if other attempts to build a society based on atheist values...>>

Hold up!

“Atheist values”?

You’ve been deliberately ambiguous here and I’ll explain why.

Firstly, you either mean “Atheistic values” or “values of people who happened to be Atheists”.

You know that if you say “Atheistic values”, it would be too easily countered because Marxism doesn’t necessary represent the values of all Atheists.

You also knew that that if you said “values of people who happened to be Atheists” (which was actually more the case), that the following would be nonsense...

<<...but I doubt it if anti-religion atheists cannot accept that in that failed experiment attrocities were committed IN THEIR NAME: not to admit guilt but to learn.>>

Continued...

...Continued

No, the communist regimes of the 20th century did what they did in the name of a political ideology. They did not do it in the name of Atheism.

Please don’t try to use your experience as a means to obfuscate. It’s a cheap shot.

<<I certainly did not make that implication [of one being able to go from “I do not believe in any Gods” to “The working class should therefore...”], neither do I believe Graham did.>>

Graham did imply that by claiming that Marxism was fundamentally based on Atheism. You seemed to imply it too by saying that you agreed with much of what Graham was saying, then sharing your experience as if to provide some support to the arguments against the claims of the “armchair” experts.

<<...I do not understand what having no belief “one way or the other” means, unless one spells out what is here the “one way” and what the “other”, and describes the third way that is neither the one nor the other.>>

One does not need to spell out what either way is to have an absence of a belief. I don’t see how that’s difficult to understand, sorry.

<<There were no such ambiguities with the classical definition of atheism and agnosticism.>>

And there is nothing ambiguous about what I said either. Particularly since I’m adhering to the classical definitions of Atheism and Agnosticism. Hence Graham’s claim earlier that one allegedly “can't use some sort of etymological reductionism to define Atheism”.

One deals with belief, the other deals with knowledge.

How is that ambiguous? What on Earth would you actually consider “simple”?

Please don’t try to turn my accusation of others re-defining words, or obfuscating their definitions, back on to me. It won’t work.

George,

With all due respect, the oppression of christians in communist Russia, while barbaric in western terms, was comparitively a slap on the wrist compared with punishments for possessing "capitalist" literature, which usually met with summary execution, or a long trip to Siberia.

For example in the Stalingrad campaign when soldiers were in demand and there was "comparative" leeway given to grumbling, about 15000 were executed for unpatriotic talk such as suggesting that the communist party was incompetent.

I see a vast gulf between people who are 'atheists' in the view of theist's because they do not believe in a god...and those 'Atheists', with a capital A, who insist on cramming their unbelief down everyone's neck.

I inhabit the former camp, and am increasingly fed up with the sort of nonsense Atheists write in their justifications.

But worse, of course, is the led-blind, those who spruik mindless and endless nonsense about what they believe in, an unproven invisible nothing, that may or may not exist, and none of us will ever know.

In the meantime, there is nothing at all to recommend organised religion, unless you have a penchant for mafia-like crime bosses and their dodgy dealings in business and sex.

I see no 'moral behaviour' being practised by any religions, or their followers, that would indicate it came from gods, or God, and was worth emulating.

In the Oz, on Monday, p.15, we can read yet more about the evil of the Roman Catholic church. Observe the probably solid gold crucifix dangling from the Popes' neck and wonder about the wealth of this crime syndicate.

In a small box mid story is a section "Abusers 'must face justice'", and we all know it will be a feather duster delivered by a boy chorister or young girl, not a trap door swinging, or a 15 stretch in some German Stalag Luft 69 that these scumbags will be copping.

But there is an interesting quote from the Pope, who explains away all the 'unfortunate' incidents, not on himself and his predecessors, as he should, but on 'inadequate procedures' when selecting men, slack seminaries (as if they were somehow not his fault)... the 'religious life'... but he still insists on celibacy.... and...wait for it.... "a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures".

Well, he's a Clever Trevor, ain't he?

Isn't that what 'faith' is all about? Unquestioning, obedience, status quo, subservience, blood sacrifice and all the other ghastly phrases that spew out of the mouths of the pseudo-religious cranks, on this and every other outlet?