Dear Squeers,

<<I'm happy to accept that some people simply don't believe in God and it's not an issue. That's me in fact.>>

Technically me too, as I also don't believe that God exists (but it's not an issue for me as it doesn't stop me from trying my best to love Him with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my capabilities).

<<But 'atheism' is a discursive fashion with little or nothing to recommend it politically. Terry Eagleton calls it liberal rationalism and I think that's spot on.>>

Yes, apparently that's how language operates: Just as the word 'religion' was upturned by modern society to mean something derogatory and so different than its original use, so much that people are now shy of calling themselves 'religious' ("No, I'm only spiritual"...), why should the fate of the word 'atheism' be different?

Unlike its original precise definition, in common contemporary language, 'atheism' came to imply the hate of religion and the religious and might even include in common speech those who do believe in God's existence, but hate Him nevertheless. I can well identify with your wish to not be identified as such.

Yuyutsu,

If you have something to say to me, then it’s polite to just say it to me; the other thread is still open if you have something more to add.

Squeers hasn’t suggested for a moment that that’s why he doesn’t use the word “atheist”. That was me pointing out that Squeers stating that he does not believe in any gods carries with it the implication, from perspective of millions of theists, that he does in fact believe in their god and hates it/him/her.

No definition of atheism hints that this is what it means - indeed it is a contradiction of the actual definition - this is just the petulant foot-stamping and dishonesty of certain theists.

Ironically, if those who fit the description refuse to use the word, then they feed the prejudice against disbelief by allowing others to pin all sorts of absurd and irrelevant connotations to it. After all, many theists are happy to use the term ‘atheist’ interchangeably (switching back and forth between mere disbelief and whatever caricature suits them at the time), so merely refusing to use the term doesn’t necessarily protect the disbeliever refusing to use it from such offensive suggestions, it just makes the job of those who have an interest in creating a stigma around disbelief even easier.

Peter Vexatious,

Spot on. It is making more and more sense now. Thank you for relaying the Magna Carta history. I had no idea.

Life is getting tougher and many people are unhappy.

I would rather live under a Catholic State than the current Nanny State we are in. We are all more and more under chronic stress, particularly in the work place. I had an awakening one day, after I had been suffering from extreme stress which I had relayed all my issues. He said “you do realise that most the people in the department are Atheists?”. Then, the penny dropped. The same applies to most people on this forum. And that is why it is so difficult getting the message across.
In the current Post Christian world we live in,Christians only get pilloried by Elitists. Along being the most persecuted which is hardly emphasised in mainstream media.

Are you aware of Rerum Novarum - Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical which supported the average worker for better dignity. Rerum Novaram had been since used in a few countries as a very democratic model for the workforce.

Those politicians you mention are representing the average Joe, and they are sorely needed.

Cont....

...Cont.

There is a terrific book called “How to be Free” by Tom Hodgkinson. He believes that life was more humane in the Middle Ages. He says peasants actually had a pretty good life, and only worked a few months of the year and paid very small rent and sometimes no rent. They also usually had two different type of work, for eg. working in the field and being an artisan (they always did something creative which is very important). And of course under a Catholic theocracy, plenty of parties that could go on for days, such as celebrating a holy day (holiday). And some type of work could be deemed sinful. Wages were spread out evenly and so prevented greedy competition, especially when it did not contribute to the community. Poor people, vagrants were looked after usually by the local monastary. And not much crime in those days.

People also had the fear of God in them so people had a propensity to be more passionate. And live was more enriching for it.

I agree with just about everything he says in the book.

The Protestant work ethic has turned us all into SLAVES. Slave to work and to mortgages. They encourage us to be in debt.

Its revolution time methinks.

AJ Philips,
you seem to be sniffing evasion on my part, but I'm afraid it isn't so. I'm just bored. The whole tedious business of definition is rendered moot by the position I'm taking. Words are inherently slippery and a/theism is no different. However I put "atheism" in brackets above in order to highlight the "ism", which makes it a cult/ural phenomenon.
I don't believe in God and it's not an issue for me, but I don't say there isn't a God. And as an agnostic I'm persuaded one can't know. So my atheism is a passive stance; I acquiesce to my ignorance and put no great faith in my power to reason the matter out, given that the reasoning tradition I've inherited is deeply flawed and/because politically enslaved.
According to his Apology Socrates claimed to "know" at the last, based on dreams and oracles and myriad other communications from "the God", yet even so he asserted it the most blameworthy ignorance to claim to know what one doesn't know. This of course was long before Christ and Socrates was the primary influence behind the Western tradition.
Yuyutsu, When atheism does manifest as hatred for theism, I suspect this is due to the conservative position theists tend to take on a raft of issues. This spontaneously offends me too--theists forget Christ was a radical--but them I'm also wary of the social libertarianism that would banish all mores and mimic capitalism culturally. This is how I think of liberal rationalism: blindly rationalising "free thought" and "free choice" (as if they existed) as universal virtues; dressing up a degenerate culture in the finery of these airy raiment. What I see is naked and ugly.

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Dear George,

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« “Belief in afterlife” : note that I used quotation marks to indicate that it is a state of mind (that you obviously don’t share) and not something there can be a (scientific) evidence for, or a (scientific) theory that can be “objectively” scrutinised. »
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Thank you for that explanation, George. No, I did not note that the quotation marks around “belief in afterlife” indicated that it was just “a state of mind” which, according to my Oxford English Dictionary, means “way of thinking and feeling” – which, I agree, has nothing to do with objective reality.

I’m afraid you’re asking too much of me there, George. I could not possibly have guessed that. There’s quite a lot I can read into words. I’m even not too bad at reading between the lines, but, unfortunately, I’m absolutely hopeless on quotation marks. Better to spell it out to me, George.

Having said that, I imagine you are expressing, here, your own personal view of “belief in afterlife” and the “soul”. Unless I am mistaken, it does not correspond to the religious dogma (prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true) of the Abrahamic denominations.

I understand, for example, that the Catholic church used to sell one way tickets to heaven (called “indulgences”) in the Middle Ages to its faithful in order to finance the crusades and raise funds for the construction of many of the magnificent cathedrals we have today.

I doubt that there was anything written on those tickets, even in the fine print on the back, about it being just “a state of mind” and not a firm reservation in the V.I.P. lodge next to God :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1k8B-qw040

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