Atheists destroy churches, attack the faithful

Aridas said:
Much as TBD has a history of being somewhat dishonest on the topic, your gotcha isn't actually a gotcha. TBD didn't claim that atheism was mentioned in that. TBD cited that as including a suggested course of action that he agreed with. I happen to agree with that suggested course of action, too, incidentally.

With that said, if you want to challenge the mention of atheism, I suspect that it would be better to go to the WaPo article that he cited in the OP for that. "Officially atheist" is mentioned in the quote, and that's enough for TBD to engage in the... slight of hand that he did. That the people are atheists is , quite frankly, likely true, but largely irrelevant to the reasons for the abuses. With TBD's slight of hand, he's trying to push the view that it's a central part of the reasoning for the abuses despite the lack of anything other than coincidental involvement that can be found on inspection.
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You are not reflecting the debate correctly. The Big Dog's thesis was from his first post that atheism is the main cause of the closure of clandestine churches in China.

That is the issue we have discussed — or trying to— with him here. His comments and contributions were limited to narrate more or less dramatically the police actions and to mix it with the repression of the Muslim minority.
He has affirmed that the atheists of this forum denied these facts or justified the action of the Chinese government. None of this is true. One has to think that the Big Dog is incapable of understanding what is said or he lies. He even went so far as to attack atheism as a whole with very bad manners. What we have repeatedly asked him for is some evidence that atheism is the cause of the Chinese government's actions against Christian churches or the Muslim minority.
He has not produced any evidence. Only one opinion expressed by a Christian expert. When he was told that this opinion did not give reasons, the Big Dog slipped away, as he usually does. This is a mere argument of authority. Nothing rational.

If you have more reasons than the Big Dog has given, perhaps you could contribute them and we could have a rational debate, instead of reading Big Dogs's repetitive psalmody. It would be a relax for our eyes.
 
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Of course there are perverse atheists. The most wonderful idea in the world can find someone who hold it in a despicable way. But what needs to be discussed is whether that idea carries in itself the germ of evil or is twisted by the evil one for its own perverse ends.

That is where atheism takes advantage of religion.
 
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David Mo said:
British theists? How many? Have you counted them? Rather than discussing subjective appraisals you could specify who we are talking about.
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I'm unsure what exactly you're asking.

Still, 1 would do to disprove your assertion that non-religious theists don't exist outside of the realm of philosophy, so I'll offer up by old boss who wasn't religious, but did believe in God in the vague way that is not uncommon amongst theists in England.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I'm unsure what exactly you're asking.

Still, 1 would do to disprove your assertion that non-religious theists don't exist outside of the realm of philosophy, so I'll offer up by old boss who wasn't religious, but did believe in God in the vague way that is not uncommon amongst theists in England.
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On the importance of non-religious theists: Non-religious theism is called in philosophy "deism". To get an idea of its breadth, organizations of this type cover 0.2% of the population in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism#Contemporary_deism. They don't seem like many, really.

That you know a deist doesn't seem like much to evaluate the extent of the phenomenon. In this way the count can take us a thousand years. Suggest something more objective and faster, please.

ADDED: Of course, deism refers to the world of philosophy or of the scientists who have been interested in it. There are exceptions: an astronaut, a politician. On a list I even found the president of the Philippines, although I suppose it is not his deism that has led him to destroy human rights in his country.
 
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David Mo said:
You are not reflecting the debate correctly. The Big Dog's thesis was from his first post that atheism is the main cause of the closure of clandestine churches in China.

That is the issue we have discussed — or trying to— with him here. His comments and contributions were limited to narrate more or less dramatically the police actions and to mix it with the repression of the Muslim minority.
He has affirmed that the atheists of this forum denied these facts or justified the action of the Chinese government. None of this is true. One has to think that the Big Dog is incapable of understanding what is said or he lies. He even went so far as to attack atheism as a whole with very bad manners. What we have repeatedly asked him for is some evidence that atheism is the cause of the Chinese government's actions against Christian churches or the Muslim minority.
He has not produced any evidence. Only one opinion expressed by a Christian expert. When he was told that this opinion did not give reasons, the Big Dog slipped away, as he usually does. This is a mere argument of authority. Nothing rational.

If you have more reasons than the Big Dog has given, perhaps you could contribute them and we could have a rational debate, instead of reading Big Dogs's repetitive psalmody. It would be a relax for our eyes.
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Zzzz... plenty of evidence, at least two experts, several atheists have justified the Chinese abuses, virtually all have deliberately diminished the severity of the abuses, whether outright (see post 2) or by derailing the subject time after time after time, I have repeatedly explained that there are concurrent causes, and have posted numerous articles to third party sources explaining these facts.

What do I get in return? Well posts containing zero analysis just plain denial, gainsaying... just like the above quoted post.

"This is a mere argument of authority." You are damn right it is.
 
Atheists of all nations! I call on you, I shout at you -- nay I command you, to cast off your drab objectivity! Reveal your red robes of commieism! Forward! Grind down the cross and crescent! Oppress the religionists! (It'll do them good, I mean wot the heck?) Raze utterly their temples! Or maybe convert them into malls for Party members. Stuff like that. We can really have fun.

Are you listening? Goddammit, gimme some ATTENTION!
 
sackett said:
Atheists of all nations! I call on you, I shout at you -- nay I command you, to cast off your drab objectivity! Reveal your red robes of commieism! Forward! Grind down the cross and crescent! Oppress the religionists! (It'll do them good, I mean wot the heck?) Raze utterly their temples! Or maybe convert them into malls for Party members. Stuff like that. We can really have fun.

Are you listening? Goddammit, gimme some ATTENTION!
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I guess sackett is being "clever"? The thing is that the Unyielding Marxist Atheists are doing those exact things.

Fantastic
 
The Big Dog said:
Zzzz... plenty of evidence, at least two experts, several atheists have justified the Chinese abuses, virtually all have deliberately diminished the severity of the abuses, whether outright (see post 2) or by derailing the subject time after time after time, I have repeatedly explained that there are concurrent causes, and have posted numerous articles to third party sources explaining these facts.

What do I get in return? Well posts containing zero analysis just plain denial, gainsaying... just like the above quoted post.

"This is a mere argument of authority." You are damn right it is.
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Your two experts affirm; no one explains anything.
One of them is so biased that he speaks of "atheistic dogma".
You mentioned the concurrent causes, but you did not prove that they were.
Indeed, we have refuted your assertions, which is the same to denying them. You don't want us to refute them by affirming them, I suppose.
We have also given alternative explanations.
Etc., etc.

And you continue with your psalmody.

Go back to sleep, please. That way we will be able to talk about serious things in this forum.
 
David Mo said:
Your two experts affirm; no one explains anything.
One of them is so biased that he speaks of "atheistic dogma".
You mentioned the concurrent causes, but you did not prove that they were.
Indeed, we have refuted your assertions, which is the same to denying them. You don't want us to refute them by affirming them, I suppose.
We have also given alternative explanations.
Etc., etc.

And you continue with your psalmody.

Go back to sleep, please. That way we will be able to talk about serious things in this forum.
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gainsay
gainsay
gainsay
bald assertion
"psalmody"
and tells me to go back to sleep.

That ladies and gentlemen is a full freighter's worth of ******* fail. Fantastic.
 
sackett said:
Atheists of all nations! I call on you, I shout at you -- nay I command you, to cast off your drab objectivity! Reveal your red robes of commieism! Forward! Grind down the cross and crescent! Oppress the religionists! (It'll do them good, I mean wot the heck?) Raze utterly their temples! Or maybe convert them into malls for Party members. Stuff like that. We can really have fun.

Are you listening? Goddammit, gimme some ATTENTION!
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Sackett, I bow at your feet. :p
 
dann said:
That's a little like when gays think that all the cute ones are also gay, isn't it?! :)
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Maybe, although I loathe the guy's politics (even as I see him as a product of his environment, so it's sort of not his fault.)

He wrote of his mother (a single mother who raised him in a foreign land):

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/05/07/the-conciliator
“In a land where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship,” Obama writes, “she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.”
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Then later, when he's close to getting elected, he changed it to:

https://thinkprogress.org/hume-twis...ot-so-sure-obama-is-a-christian-9f35a9561143/

My mother was a Christian from Kansas, and they married and then divorced. I was raised by my mother. So, I’ve always been a Christian.
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So, which is it? :)
 
sackett said:
Reveal your red robes of commieism!
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I have no problem confirming this one! And it's why I can safely say that Xi is no commie. If he were, and if he seriously wanted to put an end to religion in China, he would be doing his utmost to improve the conditions of the working people there rather than trying to deprive them of the opium that they seek comfort in because of those conditions. (And we all, except TBD, know that he doesn't really try to deprive them of that opium; he just wants the clergy to conform to the Chinese style of government. Otherwise, he's fine with religion!)
To leave them with the conditions that make them need the opium of the people is neither Marxist nor atheist.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
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sackett said:
If they would examine their beliefs for actual content, and measure the worth of their tiresome religions against the hardship they suffer needlessly, perhaps, if they can act like sensible people, they would abandon their bedtime stories and start living a rational life.
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Examining your beliefs for actual content and measuring the worth of your tiresome religion against the hardship you suffer needlessly, i.e. acting like sensible people, is much easier to do when the hardship isn't as hard as it is in their case. The hardship is what makes them need their 'bedtime stories' and what makes it so difficult for them to abandon them. Living a rational life in the midst of the circumstances that surround them is a beautiful ideal, but it's not easy to accomplish.

Do you think that you would be able to live "a rational life" under these circumstances?
UNDERCOVER IN AN IPHONE FACTORY: What it's really like to work in a Chinese mega-factory (Business Insider - Nordic, April 12, 2017)

ETA: And would you be able to do so under these circumstances?
Is it great to be a worker in the U.S.? Not compared with the rest of the developed world. (Washington Post, July 4, 2018)
 
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dann said:
I have no problem confirming this one! And it's why I can safely say that Xi is no commie. If he were, and if he seriously wanted to put an end to religion in China, he would be doing his utmost to improve the conditions of the working people there rather than trying to deprive them of the opium that they seek comfort in because of those conditions. (And we all, except TBD, know that he doesn't really try to deprive them of that opium; he just wants the clergy to conform to the Chinese style of government. Otherwise, he's fine with religion!)
To leave them with the conditions that make them need the opium of the people is neither Marxist nor atheist.
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Yeah, I suspect the Chinese elites are onto this:

https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...ificial-intelligence-religion-atheism/565076/
Using a separate model, Future of Religion and Secular Transitions (forest), the team found that people tend to secularize when four factors are present: existential security (you have enough money and food), personal freedom (you’re free to choose whether to believe or not), pluralism (you have a welcoming attitude to diversity), and education (you’ve got some training in the sciences and humanities). If even one of these factors is absent, the whole secularization process slows down.
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The other models raise similar concerns, he said. “The modrn model gives you a recipe for accelerating secularization—and it gives you a recipe for blocking it. You can use it to make everything revert to supernaturalism by messing with some of those key conditions—say, by triggering some ecological disaster. Then everything goes plunging back into pre-secularism. That keeps me up at night.”
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Dann my man, I'm with you, except that I really don't think ******** is ever good for people, whatever their circumstances.
 
No, as a kind of ... let's call it 'coping strategy', I don't think it's good either, I'm not defending it, but I can see why they do it, I can empathize with them, but I'd always advise against it.
I would also advise against the use of actual opium, except in an emergency.
 
dann said:
No, as a kind of ... let's call it 'coping strategy', I don't think it's good either, I'm not defending it, but I can see why they do it, I can empathize with them, but I'd always advise against it.
I would also advise against the use of actual opium, except in an emergency.
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Well said.

Years ago, the forum pretty much agreed that religion has one genuine use: as a comfort for the dying.
 
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