Rusty Catheter:

Sorry, your last post comes nowhere near the previous one in clarity.

This charge is often used as a fall-back by those who want to discredit religious or spiritual notions.
<< You may have been indoctrinated to think so, but that does make it so. >>
[I assume you meant “does not”?]
1. How could you know if I had been “indoctrinated?
2. What would “make it so”?

And then we come to this:
<<... it is possible to devote a *lot* of effort to imagining things not real.>>
Another snipe quite common among those who proclaim the scientific approach as the only valid way to explore reality. Imagination, next to dreams, is possibly the most effective route to psycho-spiritual reality. We’ve all got it, but many simply refuse to use it and call those who do "deluded".

And here you want to dictate the rules as well as compete:
<< The onus is upon you (or Sells) to show that there is *no way* that co-option of the mundane can explain religious experience.>>
Why? I guess it’s because you refuse to accept that logical empiricism is inadequate for both gaining the experience and learning from it. So if someone doesn’t justify a statement in logical-empirical terms you rule them out of order.

Then you attempt to increase the onus:
<< to demonstrate why there is something so extraordinarily special about it that (a) religion is definitely the answer and (b) "christianity" can claim to be the sole fullfillment in the face of others claiming likewise about other religions.>>
1. Your demand (a) is unclear. What does “it” refer to?
2. Demand (b) I reject out of hand. I have never claimed that “Christianity” is the only way, and I don’t think it is.

And your last paragraph? It’s built from multiple ambiguities, so I can’t comment.

Bugsy,
OK, so replace "camps" with "groups" in my last paragraph, if that is your problem. Otherwise I agree with what you wrote, nothing in my post contradicts it.

AJ Philips,
Here we go again. In my posts to Ozanby I did not express any opinion about "what exactly atheists object to and why". You apparently did not understand what I wanted to say with my analogy, fair enough. One cannot explain an analogy the same as one cannot explain a joke: you either get or don't get it.

In my rhetorical question "Why … are there so many atheists who cannot accept that Communist atheism was what it claimed to be, namely a kind of atheism" I used "MANY atheists" not "ALL atheists". However, you demonstrated that you were apparently one of them: "logically" (as much as I dislike the use of this term in debates, where it is easily abused) to accept that "Communist atheism is a kind of atheism" is not different from accepting that "green apples are one kind of apples". I made it clear that I was referring to atheism as the Communists (and those whom they persecuted) understood it, and not as e.g. you might understand the term today.

As for Sam Harris, I do not know what personal experience he had with Communist totalitarianism to make that claim (as you know I had the bad fortune of experiencing it for 20 years), but by quoting him you provided a good illustration of what I meant by "explaining away" the injustices - to put it mildly - of Communist atheism, e.g. by renaming it.

>>There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable<<
I cannot think of anybody - theist or atheist - who would want to contradict this, although I do not see what it has to do with the topic of my post.

Also the rest of your post - containing parts I agree with, parts I have reservations about - is irrelevant to what I was stating.

George,

I’m not sure why you’re bothering to point out the fact that you said “many” and not “all”, but I think you’re attributing more to atheism than what is reasonable; presumably to pin more to atheists than you possibly can.

I don’t think there are any atheists who cannot accept that Communist atheism was a kind of atheism and to demonstrate why, let’s re-word your question to say what it literally says:

“Why are there so many atheists who cannot accept that Communist disbelief was what it claimed to be, namely a kind of disbelief?”

I don’t see anything wrong with that.

But for the sake of your argument, you’d probably prefer that I deal with strong form of atheism and I’m willing to do that because I don’t think it makes any difference.

So with that in mind, let’s take another look at the question:

“Why are there so many atheists who cannot accept that the Communists’ rejection of theistic claims was what it claimed to be, namely a kind of rejection of theistic claims?”

Do you see what I’m getting at here?

You appear to be attributing too much to atheism, because I don’t know of anyone what would object to what you said. You're attacking a strawman.

This all goes back to what I was saying about not being too phased about what the Soviets did or what they claimed to be doing what they did in the name of, because I don’t share a doctrine, philosophy or worldview with them.

I have blonde hair; so if a blonde haired dictator were to start killing people with hair that was any other colour, would that mean I should dye my hair or be ashamed of my hair colour (something that, like my disbelief, I cannot help) or take some sort of ownership over what this dictator has done just because of this?

No.

And the same goes for atheism.

This all goes back to what I was saying the validity (or lack thereof) of religious belief.

Continued...

...Continued

<<...you demonstrated that you were apparently one of [the many atheists who cannot accept that Communist atheism was a kind of atheism]...>>

Really? How?

<<...to accept that "Communist atheism is a kind of atheism" is not different from accepting that "green apples are one kind of apples".>>

I couldn’t agree more!

<<I made it clear that I was referring to atheism as the Communists (and those whom they persecuted) understood it, and not as e.g. you might understand the term today.>>

My understanding of atheism is probably not that much different to the Communists’ understanding of atheism either.

If this is you’re only point then, not only are we wasting our time, but it appears that you’ve changed your tune ever-so-slightly since the last time we had this discussion. On other occasions, you seemed to want to - very subtly and indirectly, of course - pin communism on atheism.

In fact, I would have been convinced that you’d abandoned this angle-of-attack entirely had it not been for this...

<<As for Sam Harris, I do not know what personal experience he had with Communist totalitarianism to make that claim (as you know I had the bad fortune of experiencing it for 20 years), but by quoting him you provided a good illustration of what I meant by "explaining away" the injustices - to put it mildly - of Communist atheism, e.g. by renaming it.>>

Renaming it to what exactly?

Firstly, not only is a personal experience with Communist atheism not necessary, but having such an experience could hinder one’s ability to view these things rationally and objectively.

Secondly, Sam Harris did not “explain away” anything. What he did was put some perspective to this whole issue by pointing out that the problem with the Communist regimes was that they were extremely dogmatic and that dogmatism is a characteristic of religion - not atheism - and I would challenge you to point out one single reason as to why he was wrong, or why what he says is beside the point, rather than simply accusing him of explaining something away.

A J Philips,

As I understand it, Buddhism has no gods and yet is regarded as a religion.

So, perhaps we can say quite accurately, Communist atheism was/is a kind of theism ? A choice between alternative religions ?

'Our religion is better than your religion.'

'Don't question the principles of our religion, or of its founding fathers and their self-chosen heirs, or it's off to the gulags !'

Just trying to make a contribution .....

Joe

AJ Philips,
In spite of my earlier experience I reacted to your post. And I could also react to your latest post line-by-line, but in most of the cases I would only have to repeat myself.

Those who understood what I wanted to say about the Communist system do not need more explanation, whether or not they think that my experience with this System hinders my ability "to view these things rationally and objectively" as well as my ability to know what was the OFFICIAL name they gave their teaching about what THEY - not Harris - understood by religion and (belief in) God.

And those who did not understand are welcome to share your point of view if they can understand it (as I can't) and feel good about it, but I do not see any point in participating again in this ping-pong (the way e.g. mjpb did recently in the thread http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3814, before he apparently learned his lesson in the futility of such exercise).

So you are right when you speak about "wasting our time" if I continued with this game.