A Point of View: Does atheism have to be anti-religious?

[rug]

We tend to understand atheism as a war between religion and science - but in earlier times atheism was both more complex and more rich, says philosopher John Gray.



John Gray is a political philosopher and author of False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism
30 August 2015
From the section Magazine

In recent years we've come to think of atheism as an evangelical creed not unlike Christianity. An atheist, we tend to assume, is someone who thinks science should be the basis of our beliefs and tries to convert others to this view of things. In the type of atheism that's making the most noise today, religion is a primitive theory of how the world works - an intellectual error without human value, which we'd be better without.

But this isn't the only kind of atheism. History shows that atheism can have a complexity that reaches well beyond our currently dominant version. Though many today seem unaware of the fact, by no means all atheists have wanted to convert others to unbelief. Some have actually been friendly to religion. Nor have atheists in the past always turned to science for inspiration. There have been many varieties of atheism. That this has been so shouldn't be surprising. In itself, atheism is a purely negative position.

An atheist - and here I speak as one myself - is anybody who doesn't rely on an idea of God. Of course there are different ideas of God, but in western cultures the deity is understood as a divine mind that is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving. Atheists reject this idea, or simply don't need it. But that's all they have in common. Atheism has gone with a wide diversity of world-views and values. Among many atheists who differ from the present crop, let's look at two in particular.

Consider the early 19th Century Italian Giacomo Leopardi. Known chiefly for his exquisite verse, Leopardi was also a highly original thinker, who in his Zibaldone - a "hodge-podge of thoughts", some 4,500 handwritten pages long - produced a penetrating analysis of modern life. Brought up in a small hill-town to be a good Catholic by his father, an old-fashioned country nobleman who still wore a sword, Leopardi became an atheist in his teens.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34054057

"more complex and more rich"? Here?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Most atheists I 've run into aren't particularly evangelical.

If you want to continue to operate on superstition, they don't really care, unless your superstition causes injury to others.

[xfundy]

2. I'd have no problem with the God-botherers

if they hadn't targeted me.

I don't care if someone wants to worship whatever they come up with to deify, but when they claim superiority over others, they've gone too far.

[Igel]

5. Why?

The problem isn't that atheism has to be anti-religion, it's that people are too insecure to ignore those claiming superiority.

It takes a certain measure of silent self-confidence or confidence in what others say to listen to somebody preach and just say, "Meh. I think that's wrong." Most of the time we have to convert or at the very least argue to make sure that others we don't know or care about don't get the wrong idea about us.

I was in a church. Most Xians would think us loony. Most of us didn't care what they thought. To each his own. But some were furious that another would think them inferior, mistaken, or otherwise less. Seemed silly to me, but there you have it. They'd try to proselytize not for the benefit of the other person but because they couldn't bear to let the other person think them wrong. It wasn't, "Isn't this great?!" but "Look, you need to get that I'm right and you're the one who's wrong."

That means I don't accept their view that they're right and I'm wrong. Otherwise I'd be arguing that I should change my views. Nor does it mean that I think it doesn't matter. Then the value or belief that's held becomes meaningless and at best a formal nicety and there's no point in either. On good days I find points of commonality, because that's what builds society and social trust. It takes a shock like being in a completely foreign culture with a diverse group of Americans to realize that what unites us is more than what separates us, and petty domestic politics and social conflict are usually focusing on 2% to the exclusion and often the denial of the other 98. It's the tip of the tail not so much wagging the dog as picking it up and bashing the canine into pulp against the sidewalk.

As long as I'm treated civilly, I'm okay with what people think about me. I don't require appreciation or validation from acquaintances. And certainly not from strangers or the government. Outgrew that in middle school. Okay, I lie. I outgrew that late in elementary school. But very late in elementary school.

What I'm annoyed with is having the majority view foisted upon me in practice, but that's one of the things that goes with being a majority. You don't run societies or organizations for the sake of the minorities. I work in schools. I keep the feast of trumpets and passover and not Xmas or Easter. I might be the only person in a school with thousands of kids and hundreds of employees that does so. I don't expect the school to shut down for "my" days and be open on Xmas. To deleaven in the spring. To avoid all pork products and ban them from school. But would be nice if some provision were made for me. As it is, between personal days and sick days I either observe the holidays I believe I should and have no time left over for me or my kid to have the flu or I work on days I think I should be off. In college, I was annoyed when the meal plan choices for dinner were porkchops, pepperoni pizza (with pork), or pork sausage. It took nothing but a moment's thought to make sure hamburgers or beef hotdogs were available or to put out a basket of matzoh like one school I attended did.

When in Mecca, you don't bad-mouth Muhammed. Still, when in Brno, you speak Czech. When I was there you'd even not be surprised to find a chunk of lard floating in your vegetarian meal. Majorities have some rights. Most of the "oppression", even that I feel, is incidental. I had to point out to non-vegetarians that lard is not vegetarian. Most people make allowances for individual quirks--provided that there's social trust so they think you're not just making up an excuse to get out of something or get some perk.

When somebody comes to my doorway, literal or metaphorical, and preaches something I think wrong I tell them I'm okay with what I have, disagree with them, and close the door. I mostly forget they exist. That can be religious, social or political doctrine, or pseudo-scientific claptrap. Sometimes I like to argue, but it's more of an intellectual exercise and I have very little emotional involvement in the game.

[Promethean]

10. Your point can be refuted with one name.

Rick Santorum.

Tell me, if this man was given the power to shape our laws would you want to live in the society he would create? I know I would be in the underground resistance movement opposing the tyrant and his theocrats. Santorum isn't some extreme example either. There is an entire movement that he is part of and they get far too many votes by just chanting jesus and bible. Religion is attacking our way of life, constantly. It is not benign or beneficial, it wants to force you to follow bronze age doctrines.

[SheilaT]

3. Does religion have to be anti-atheist?

Until such time as religions and religious people stop condemning those who do not believe as they do, or even just those who do not believe, I'll feel quite free to be anti-religion.

[Lordquinton]

7. Religion requires evangillism

otherwise it dies. The pope even said so directly.

[Arugula Latte]

9. I think religion is anti-atheist by definition.

Religion starts from the assumption that there is a god/deity/supernatural creature (or more than one) and those who do not go along with this are dead wrong. Not only that, in most cases the religion advocates that they should be punished for their dead wrongness.

[Cartoonist]

4. Where is that?

in western cultures the deity is understood as a divine mind that is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving.
-
All-loving? Not in the Bible I read.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. the omni attribute is simply a logical impossibility. At best gods are simply an abstract concept,

at worst they are a dangerous delusion, but what they most certainly aren't is omnipotent and omniscient.

[MisterP]

6. someone's read their Ernst Bloch

[safeinOhio]

8. Back in the day, I use to watch Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

She was very anti-religious. Now days, most of my Humanist friends just find religion interesting, with good and bad point, just not for them.

[Leontius]

11. It turns to anti-theism only when the individual allows that kernel of

hate and bigotry inside themselves dominate.

[Lordquinton]

12. How does that reflect the inherent anti-atheism in religion?

This spin will be interesting to witness.

[Leontius]

13. There is no inherent anti-athesim in religion.

I think that believers that turn to anti-atheism have the same kernel of hate and bigotry that they allow to control their attitude.

[Lordquinton]

14. How is religion not anti-atheist by nature?

It has the inherent need to convert people or die out, some don't, that's true, like the shakers who are almost gone.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. The abrahamic religions explicitly exhort to evangelize for it.

That by itself is anti-atheist.

There are worse elements, by that'll do for starters.

[Jim__]

17. Of course it doesn't, as Gray proves by his description of the views of Giacomo Leopardi. - n/t

[Angry Dragon]

18. yes, no , maybe??