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Atheism - Obvious Default?

theprestige said:
My evidence is the same as yours: general review of humans through history.

Hatred, persecution, suppression, criminalization... Look at communism. Not a theistic ideology. But it has inspired religious fervor on par with the worst of the Catholic Church. Complete with crusades, inquisitions, and even anti-popes. All done not in the name of any god, but done in the name of a religion all the same.

Even if you get rid of the theos, if you don't get rid of the religious impulse, you haven't gotten rid of the problem.
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Now we are classing communism as a religion - careful you will get Karl Marx haunting you.

I embrace the religion of democracy then if you are going to play fast and loose with the definition of religion.
 
Thor 2 said:
Now we are classing communism as a religion - careful you will get Karl Marx haunting you.

I embrace the religion of democracy then if you are going to play fast and loose with the definition of religion.
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I wouldn't call communism a religion per se, there are however folks who are effectively religious commies. Maoist seem particularly prone to that kind of thinking, there are at least two historical cults based on Maoism. The Birchers and Objectivists are the only similar movements based on political philosophies I'm aware of. Really, its that humans can make a religion out of just about anything, which is pretty much all the prestige was saying.
 
ahhell said:
I wouldn't call communism a religion per se, there are however folks who are effectively religious commies. Maoist seem particularly prone to that kind of thinking, there are at least two historical cults based on Maoism. The Birchers and Objectivists are the only similar movements based on political philosophies I'm aware of. Really, its that humans can make a religion out of just about anything, which is pretty much all the prestige was saying.
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Which lends weight to the argument that the tendency towards religious thinking is innate in humans.
 
theprestige said:
If atheism is such an obvious default, why is human history full of societies that settled on some form of theism? Do we even have historical examples of societies defaulting to atheism?
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Probably because they didn't know as much about the world as we do. The more you understand of, well, science and the natural history of the universe as revealed by science, the less compelling ancient myths become as a competing worldview.

Too, there's the problem of ideologically atheist societies still committing the worst sins of religion. Avoiding the theos doesn't avoid the problem. So atheism probably isn't the solution
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Humans are still humans after all. I don't consider my atheism to be of the "ideological" sort, but rather of the empirical sort.

As to the question posed by the OP, whether or not atheism is the "default" isn't really a big concern of mine. To me, the default is agnosticism. But from the starting point of agnosticism, given the complete lack of any compelling evidence for the existence of deities (outside of myth), it's not far to atheism.
 
Puppycow said:
As to the question posed by the OP, whether or not atheism is the "default" isn't really a big concern of mine. To me, the default is agnosticism. But from the starting point of agnosticism, given the complete lack of any compelling evidence for the existence of deities (outside of myth), it's not far to atheism.
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[IMGw=300]https://media1.giphy.com/media/6w7tYtag2oZCJjKlkl/giphy.gif[/IMGw]
 
theprestige said:
If atheism is such an obvious default, why is human history full of societies that settled on some form of theism?
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Because in the prescientific era "some form of theism" was the only way to explain the otherwise inexplicable - i.e. the god(s) did it.

Do we even have historical examples of societies defaulting to atheism?
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In a sense we do. There are many Post-Christian societies where there is the loss of the dominance of the Christian worldview in public affairs. And disused churches being used for other purposes such as restaurants.

Too, there's the problem of ideologically atheist societies still committing the worst sins of religion.
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No, they are committing the "sins" of humanity. Religion or no religion makes no difference - which is an indictment of religion.

Avoiding the theos doesn't avoid the problem. So atheism probably isn't the solution
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"Isn't the solution" to what - false beliefs? Of course it is.
 
rockysmith76 said:
I have always hated the term Xtian.
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It's a strange one, it goes back at least 400 years and was in common use for centuries by Christians so it's only recently that Christians seem to find it disparaging. It is by the way the same formation as Xmas.
 
Thor 2 said:
Now we are classing communism as a religion - careful you will get Karl Marx haunting you.
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Not just "now". I've been classing it as such for longer than I've been a member here.

But note: I've been classing it as a religion, but not as a theism.

I embrace the religion of democracy then if you are going to play fast and loose with the definition of religion.
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Treating any ideology with religious fervor is a problem. I hope will embrace democracy as an ethical system of government, but that you do not treat it as a religion.
 
The basis of the practice goes back even farther when such abbreviations as Χος appeared in the Greek manuscripts of NT books, very long ago. Often there would be a textual apparatus such as a superscript bar to indicate that it was intended as an abbreviation, and a similar abbreviation for the given name Jesus was used that employed the uppercase iota. The letters following iota or chi were needed in some cases to provide grammatical coherence. But the notion that I stands for Jesus and X stands for Christ, and that these particles may be suffixed to indicate any word containing their principal, is an extremely old practice.

It really only becomes important when people take offense under the wrong reasons. If the claim is that these abbreviations were invented by non-Christians with the intent to deprive words of their original etymology, there's simply no historic basis for that claim. But of course that doesn't stop someone from naively using the abbreviation today with exactly that intent.
 
Here's my reason for not believing in god summed up in 2 words "childrens hospital" what did children do to deserve cancer, tumours, leukimeia etc ?? Where is your god when children are dying from these horrible things?? Meanwhile we have scumbag criminals walking the earth , murderers, paedos, robbers, drug addicts that have never paid a penny into society, Open your eyes sheeple, The Vatican alone could cure world hunger tomorrow without denting it's bank account, But they always need more, More for them and less for you (they have been doing this for centuries by the way) all tax free, Plus they ferried the Nazis out of Europe (see ratlines) **** ALL RELIGIONS.
 
theprestige said:
Not just "now". I've been classing it as such for longer than I've been a member here.

But note: I've been classing it as a religion, but not as a theism.


Treating any ideology with religious fervor is a problem. I hope will embrace democracy as an ethical system of government, but that you do not treat it as a religion.
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Yes I know, just about everything is a religion by your definition.

What is your definition thereof incidentally? :confused:
 
Guido Fawkes said:
Here's my reason for not believing in god summed up in 2 words "childrens hospital" what did children do to deserve cancer, tumours, leukimeia etc ?? Where is your god when children are dying from these horrible things?? Meanwhile we have scumbag criminals walking the earth , murderers, paedos, robbers, drug addicts that have never paid a penny into society, Open your eyes sheeple, The Vatican alone could cure world hunger tomorrow without denting it's bank account, But they always need more, More for them and less for you (they have been doing this for centuries by the way) all tax free, Plus they ferried the Nazis out of Europe (see ratlines) **** ALL RELIGIONS.
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Keep in mind, that's only an argument against a just god, it doesn't rule out an unjust god.
 
ahhell said:
Keep in mind, that's only an argument against a just god, it doesn't rule out an unjust god.
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It is for this reason that the idea of a "divine plan" exists. All those terrible things happen for a reason. God wants you to suffer so that... something something something mysterious ways.
 
theprestige said:
Not just "now". I've been classing it as such for longer than I've been a member here.

But note: I've been classing it as a religion, but not as a theism.


Treating any ideology with religious fervor is a problem. I hope will embrace democracy as an ethical system of government, but that you do not treat it as a religion.
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"Religion" is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as: "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. "ideas about the relationship between science and religion".

So, your use of "religion" might be correct at a colloquial level but no more than that. It is a "theism".
 
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