Should atheism be considered a movement?

[Meadmaker]

I would suggest that it is not the religion that makes this a good school but might be the level of discipline and the general intensity of the place, I would assume (please correct me if wrong) that the school maintains a better standard of discipline that the other schools locally and therefore produces better results.

I cannot conclude that somehow religious teaching produces cleverer kids, maybe god helps them to learn .

I don't think there's a huge discipline difference, except for the ability to expel a true problem child. If anything, these kids are probably more rambunctious than the average public schooler. You are correct that there is a higher intensity to the place. I don't think God is helping out there, but religion definitely is. In Jewish culture, learning is prized above all else. Their basketball teams usually suck, though.

However, why does it matter? I don't really care why their students do well. I know that this seemed like a good fit for my kid, but there are people today who are sure I made a mistake on that subject, and would gladly correct that mistake for me. I don't like that. That's where this "movement" of atheism is different from just having more atheists in the world. The organized atheist movement, as their base grows, is more likely to start imposing their views on others, just as the religious majority did before them.

 

[GreyICE]

I don't think there's a huge discipline difference, except for the ability to expel a true problem child. If anything, these kids are probably more rambunctious than the average public schooler. You are correct that there is a higher intensity to the place. I don't think God is helping out there, but religion definitely is. In Jewish culture, learning is prized above all else. Their basketball teams usually suck, though.

However, why does it matter? I don't really care why their students do well. I know that this seemed like a good fit for my kid, but there are people today who are sure I made a mistake on that subject, and would gladly correct that mistake for me. I don't like that. That's where this "movement" of atheism is different from just having more atheists in the world. The organized atheist movement, as their base grows, is more likely to start imposing their views on others, just as the religious majority did before them.

Can we have a good comparison of your son's private religious school versus private secular schools? Hell, just give us the test scores, we'll do the rest.

Comparing private school to public school is apples and oranges. Lets do apples and apples, and see how much religion is holding things back.

 

[Hokulele]

Can we have a good comparison of your son's private religious school versus private secular schools? Hell, just give us the test scores, we'll do the rest.

Comparing private school to public school is apples and oranges. Lets do apples and apples, and see how much religion is holding things back.

I don't think that religious schools are necessarily better than secular schools, in fact, when the religion overwhelms the curriculum outside of the religion classroom, there is definitely a problem (the teaching of evolution for example). I disagree strongly that religious schools are necessarily worse. Here is an apples to apples listing of private boarding schools in New England that shows that test scores are closely clustered between various schools (the list is alphabetical by range, not sorted by test score). Also note that the top score is held by an Episcopalian school.

http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/highest_sat_scores/sort/1

My main point in all this is that I do not know what would happen if religious schools were outlawed, and I do not believe you know either. My hope is that for schools that promote a heavily biased agenda, the graduates would not be valuable to higher education institutions, or to the upper tiers of the workforce. Success breeds success, regardless of the denomination of the school. The success of the institutions in the list I provided can be seen in how long they have been around, and the college acceptance and matriculation rates of the graduates of these schools.

As a last point, I would be very upset if the US government outlawed private religious schools. To me, that would be a serious breach of the Constitution, which advocated separation of church and state for a very good reason. I would much rather let the marketplace sort things out and see how the survival of the fittest works out. It will be interesting to see how long some of the newer, more fundamentalist private schools last.

 

[Darth Rotor]

You're obviously still in shock from your encounter with Texas Drano.

Yes, I suffer from Texic Shock.

@ Grey Ice and plumjam: if the T-shirts for this movement were all filled with large knockers, it might get more adherents than if not.

@ Marquis: Yes indeed, the Skeptic movement, which funnily enough the JREF is a part of, need not discriminate against deists, agnostics, some religionists, goats, and others in order to achieve its aims. An atheist movement would seem, by definition, to be hamstrung in that regard.

DR

 

[The Atheist]

First, critically thinking people can have a blind spot for their god beliefs (of course they recognize other god beliefs are myths) and still be critical thinkers. That doesn't change the fact that a person evaluating the evidence will see there are no magical beings in the sky and there are no nebulous beings in some bizarre existence somewhere outside of the Universe with some kind of magical powers over the beings inside the Universe. Theists cannot see how mythical their personal god beliefs are. That doesn't make their god beliefs any less mythical.

No. You need to find some thinking theists and talk to them. Non-existence of evidence is not evidence of non-existence - surely you realise that?

And I suppose that when the various dictionaries backup YOUR position you won't quote them in your defense...

Tu quoque. Well played.

And the antecedent of their is...?

Oh, don't you start. You could at least have come back with a Moses quote.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

TA, seriously, whose existence was being denied? Regardless, drunken haze is a good bet for where I was when it happened.

 

[The Atheist]

TA, seriously, whose existence was being denied? Regardless, drunken haze is a good bet for where I was when it happened.

People who group together through atheism, particularly the radical kind. But don't bother too much - if you didn't see the train wreck of a thread about it, it won't be relevant.

I thought you might have been aware of it, but drunk was certainly a better state to be in. Old hat, joke missed, sleeping dogs and all that...

 

[Meadmaker]

Can we have a good comparison of your son's private religious school versus private secular schools? Hell, just give us the test scores, we'll do the rest.

Comparing private school to public school is apples and oranges. Lets do apples and apples, and see how much religion is holding things back.

Why on Earth would we want to do that? What purpose could it possibly serve? The point is that this school teaches math, science, English, etc. just like the other schools do. They also teach foreign language, although the choice is somewhat limited. (Next year, he won't speak English for half the day. Just Hebrew.) In other words, they teach all the same stuff, but more of it. (The kids have a lot of homework. About 30 minutes per day in the third grade, but the kids have told me in the 5th grade it jumps dramatically.)

So, why do you think it is appropriate to make such a comparison? If your interest is academic purely, then no problem. However, if you are trying to decide whether you think it ought to be allowed to stay open, then I have an objection. Why would anyone think that they have the right to decide that a school ought to be shut down because of the non-academic activities that occur at the school? I'm not following the reasoning here, unless it's just another case of "I know better than you, so you ought to do things my way, and I'll use government force to make that happen if necessary."

ETA: And speaking of apples and oranges, if you have a public school, a Baptist school, and a Jewish school, which ones are apples and which ones are oranges? Come to think of it, why don't we just consider each school as an individual set of students and teachers, and, as long as they are meeting appropriate standards for education, let them continue doing what they are doing? Why do we need to bring religion into it?

 

[Mister Agenda]

Whenever you find an 'atheist movement' you're looking at something that is more than just atheism. The Brights are about a naturalistic worldview that doesn't seek supernatural explanations for phenomena. Already that's more than mere atheism. They can include pantheists, agnostics, even deists, as well as atheists. It is a movement that would logically be concerned about things like scientific education and the rights of nontheists. Dawkins et al are motivated by their Humanism as much as by their atheism, aren't they? The Brights are a movement that includes atheists, the Out movement is composed of atheists who ALSO feel it is important to draw attention to atheists. Atheism doesn't require any beliefs, but every atheist has OTHER beliefs, which will color how they behave. I think any movement involving atheists will need more that just 'atheist' as a descriptor if you want to know what it is really all about.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There's evidence that "there are no nebulous beings in some bizarre existence somewhere outside of the Universe"?

Yes, as a matter of fact there is.

First, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that god beliefs are just made up constructs by ancient people trying to explain what they observed around them. It's a failed hypothesis.

Second, if magical beings existed, unless they do not interact with the Universe, they should be detectable and they are not. All of our observations support the fact that laws are operating in the physical world and god explanations add nothing to our understanding. IE, god beliefs are like adding an unnecessary layer when there is absolutely no evidence such a layer is needed.

Third, the only untestable god, the one always dragged out when theists and agnostics for various reasons want to move the goalpost out of the playing field, is one defined as undetectable. If anything else is undetectable, that we also know came from fictional stories, we certainly don't run around in science claiming, "well we can't prove there are no invisible pink unicorns in my back yard", with any real conviction such as is the sentiment when the same statement is made about gods.

"Well you can't prove there are no gods". Why would I need to bother? It is merely a statement about a principle in science of not being able to prove certain negative hypotheses. It is not a statement that lends any actual weight to any god beliefs. The fact you cannot prove the existence of some nebulous beings in some bizarre existence somewhere outside of the Universe adds exactly zero weight to the possibility such beings exist.


So add that up. All the evidence is against such things plus zero evidence for such things and a misconception that the principle in science one cannot rule anything out is some actual reason god beliefs could be true and the equation equals no gods exist.

 

[GreyICE]

Why on Earth would we want to do that? What purpose could it possibly serve? The point is that this school teaches math, science, English, etc. just like the other schools do. They also teach foreign language, although the choice is somewhat limited. (Next year, he won't speak English for half the day. Just Hebrew.) In other words, they teach all the same stuff, but more of it. (The kids have a lot of homework. About 30 minutes per day in the third grade, but the kids have told me in the 5th grade it jumps dramatically.)

So, why do you think it is appropriate to make such a comparison? If your interest is academic purely, then no problem. However, if you are trying to decide whether you think it ought to be allowed to stay open, then I have an objection. Why would anyone think that they have the right to decide that a school ought to be shut down because of the non-academic activities that occur at the school? I'm not following the reasoning here, unless it's just another case of "I know better than you, so you ought to do things my way, and I'll use government force to make that happen if necessary."

ETA: And speaking of apples and oranges, if you have a public school, a Baptist school, and a Jewish school, which ones are apples and which ones are oranges? Come to think of it, why don't we just consider each school as an individual set of students and teachers, and, as long as they are meeting appropriate standards for education, let them continue doing what they are doing? Why do we need to bring religion into it?

Ah, religion. It's like it drills holes in your brain where all the critical thinking skills pour out. I'm sure it doesn't hurt for the mindless repeating of facts for tests, but evidence from posts like this would be a nice start on an anecdotal case for what it does to your critical thinking.

To wit, I was responding to this claim:

I don't think there's a huge discipline difference, except for the ability to expel a true problem child. If anything, these kids are probably more rambunctious than the average public schooler. You are correct that there is a higher intensity to the place. I don't think God is helping out there, but religion definitely is. In Jewish culture, learning is prized above all else. Their basketball teams usually suck, though.

I responded logically by pointing out your public school comparison isn't fair, and that you should compare it to private schools. Hokulele nicely did, and it turns out that hey, the woo doesn't help the students at all (but I guess it's not actively holding them back, which is good, I guess).

So how do you respond?

So, why do you think it is appropriate to make such a comparison? If your interest is academic purely, then no problem. However, if you are trying to decide whether you think it ought to be allowed to stay open, then I have an objection. Why would anyone think that they have the right to decide that a school ought to be shut down because of the non-academic activities that occur at the school? I'm not following the reasoning here, unless it's just another case of "I know better than you, so you ought to do things my way, and I'll use government force to make that happen if necessary."

By the end of the paragraph I want to use government force to shut down your kid's school. Damn those evil atheists! Damn them to hell!

Yeah. And, remember, this was in response to your positive claim that religion helped the students. I didn't even tell you you were full of bull byproduct, I just asked for a fair comparison. And here you are, with me threatening to have the government shut down the school. To recap, this was my post:

Can we have a good comparison of your son's private religious school versus private secular schools? Hell, just give us the test scores, we'll do the rest.

Comparing private school to public school is apples and oranges. Lets do apples and apples, and see how much religion is holding things back.

All I did was make the exact opposite positive claim from your above positive claim (that religion was a benefit).

So, religion might not be hurting your kid, but your critical reasoning skills clearly resemble a block of swiss cheese. Seriously, only paranoia and a severe persecution complex could have resulted in your interpretation of my post, especially considering my previous posts in this thread (which were, to wit, that I did not approve of any attempt to organize an atheist movement, and I actually liked hanging out with Jews and Hindus (Congrats on making me rethink the entire Jewish person thing).

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....

I know graduates of that school, and I would trade their critical thinking skills with public school kids any day of the week. (Hmmm...unless it was forbidden on Saturday ) Also, they take the same standardized tests as the public school kids, and they do extremely well.

...

With the exception they are either going to be taught that their god beliefs are exempt from critical exam or they will come to the conclusion god beliefs are myths.

There are any number of scenarios that will result in exempting god beliefs from critical exam. They could be provided false evidence supporting god beliefs such as discounting the accuracy of radioisotope dating. They could be given the false impression that archaeological discoveries supporting some stories in religious texts are therefore evidence the god beliefs in the texts are true. Or they could get the scientific version defining god beliefs as faith based as if non-evidence based beliefs came in two flavors, and the "you can't prove god doesn't exist" reason one needn't think critically about it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...need not discriminate against deists, agnostics, some religionists, goats, and others in order to achieve its aims. An atheist movement would seem, by definition, to be hamstrung in that regard.

DR

That makes the false assumption that the methods of such a movement are going to be antagonistic. They needn't be at all.

I simply think science should stop accommodating god beliefs but that doesn't mean one then has to attack those beliefs. It's a fine line, but there is a line.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No. You need to find some thinking theists and talk to them. Non-existence of evidence is not evidence of non-existence - surely you realise that? ...

I realize you are unable to see the concepts I presented. I explained my position on the "not evidence of non-existence" and you seem to have ignored it because you failed to address it.

Telling me to talk to some theists as if I hadn't thought this carefully through is interesting. Apparently you haven't read my frequent, "the evidence is overwhelming that all god beliefs are myths", posts which I plaster all over this forum on a regular basis.

 

[Egg]

Yes, as a matter of fact there is.

First, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that god beliefs are just made up constructs by ancient people trying to explain what they observed around them. It's a failed hypothesis.

Second, if magical beings existed, unless they do not interact with the Universe, they should be detectable and they are not. All of our observations support the fact that laws are operating in the physical world and god explanations add nothing to our understanding. IE, god beliefs are like adding an unnecessary layer when there is absolutely no evidence such a layer is needed.

Third, the only untestable god, the one always dragged out when theists and agnostics for various reasons want to move the goalpost out of the playing field, is one defined as undetectable. If anything else is undetectable, that we also know came from fictional stories, we certainly don't run around in science claiming, "well we can't prove there are no invisible pink unicorns in my back yard", with any real conviction such as is the sentiment when the same statement is made about gods.

"Well you can't prove there are no gods". Why would I need to bother? It is merely a statement about a principle in science of not being able to prove certain negative hypotheses. It is not a statement that lends any actual weight to any god beliefs. The fact you cannot prove the existence of some nebulous beings in some bizarre existence somewhere outside of the Universe adds exactly zero weight to the possibility such beings exist.


So add that up. All the evidence is against such things plus zero evidence for such things and a misconception that the principle in science one cannot rule anything out is some actual reason god beliefs could be true and the equation equals no gods exist.

I added that up and got an assertion of overwhelming evidence and two philosophical arguments. I would be genuinely interested in what this evidence might be. Should we start a new thread rather than take this one off topic?

 

[The Atheist]

Telling me to talk to some theists as if I hadn't thought this carefully through is interesting. Apparently you haven't read my frequent, "the evidence is overwhelming that all god beliefs are myths", posts which I plaster all over this forum on a regular basis.

I sure have, it's just that they are meaningless blather; a good example is this:

So add that up. All the evidence is against such things plus zero evidence for such things and a misconception that the principle in science one cannot rule anything out is some actual reason god beliefs could be true and the equation equals no gods exist.

Zero evidence? You don't think 2000 years of christianity, several billion worshippers and millions of eyewitness accounts count as evidence? You should check the meaning of the word! It's almost certainly all flawed, but to claim it doesn't exist is as dumb as claiming a sky-daddy does.

Never mind, in what passes for your thought patterns, I'm sure you agree with yourself 100%.

Predictably boring.

 

[The Atheist]

I added that up and got an assertion of overwhelming evidence and two philosophical arguments. I would be genuinely interested in what this evidence might be. Should we start a new thread rather than take this one off topic?

That's a great idea - I can't wait to see evidence for the non-existence of god/s.

 

[Meadmaker]

To wit, I was responding to this claim:

I responded logically by pointing out your public school comparison isn't fair, and that you should compare it to private schools.

And I asked why would I want to do that? What purpose would it serve? I then speculated as to why one would want to make a comparison.

1. Purely academic reasons?
2. To determine whether a school ought to be allowed to stay open?
3. Some other reason? (Not stated in my post. An omission on my part, because someone could be forgiven if it appeared to him that I was creating a false dichotomy. That was not my intention.)

You also spoke about religion, and "how much religion is holding things back". Again, why would that serve a purpose? I am comparing my kid's school to an easily available alternative, specifically, the public schools. How would comparison of my one school to private schools in general serve any purpose at all? Suppose it were below average for private schools? What would that say? Above average for private schools? What would that say? How could we determine how much religion is holding things back by comparing my son's school to an average private school? I don't get it.

I made a couple of claims in my post. I said that my son's school had pretty good standardized test scores. It does. The point is that there is no reason to believe that the children at the school are educationally deprived. Therefore, if anyone is concerned that they aren't getting a good education, they may rest easy. The teaching of religion doesn't appear to be doing any harm.

Now, I did make a stronger claim than that. I actually said religion helps in this case. To make my statement more accurate, I said that Jewish culture helps in that case. Jewish culture really does emphasize scholarship. I can elaborate if anyone is interested, but unless someone asks, I'll just state that that is my experience, and the school reflects that culture.

So, you responded to my claims by saying I should compare test scores of my son's school to private schools. I'm not sure I'm following why I ought to do that. Just for emphasis, I'll repeat my claims, and perhaps you can explain how a comparison of my son's school's test scores to private school would help evaluate my claims.

Jewish culture (of which religion is one part) contributes to high academic achievement.
Test scores at my son's school are very good.
The critical thinking skills of people who graduated from my son's school are superior to those of public school graduates with whom I've interacted. Note that this isn't a general, testable, claim, just my experience. My point is not that my kid's school is provably better, just that in my experience in my neighborhood, the kids are turning out just fine.


So, to bring this back to the thread topic, why does this matter? I was noting that there was such a thing as an atheist movement. The people in that movement are publicly questioning whether certain changes ought to be made. Specifically, there is doubt about whether religious schools ought to exist. By implication, and in some cases from the lips of some people, there are questions about whether the government ought to allow religious schools to exist. People who happen to not believe in God do not constitute a movement. People who are discussing, proposing, or lobbying for societal changes that are consistent with atheist beliefs are accurately described as a movement.

I apologize if you thought I was accusing you of wanting to shut down my kid's school That really wasn't my intention. I think that perhaps some sloppy grammar and occaisional use of "you" when "one" would have been better contributed to that impression.

On the other hand, I did want to ask you, specifically, if you wanted to do that, because some people on JREF, when asked that question, have responded affirmatively. I use that question sometimes to bring out the fact that while some people are simply atheists who want the religious majority to leave them alone, there are others who are trying to take control, a movement if you will, and if allowed to do so, they would be just as bad as the previous zealots of other religions.

 

[Meadmaker]

With the exception they are either going to be taught that their god beliefs are exempt from critical exam or they will come to the conclusion god beliefs are myths.

They certainly will not be taught the former. As to what conclusions are reached, I think the possible range is broader than you allow, although your statement is not entirely wrong.

FWIW: A significant fraction of the graduates of that school are agnostic, or variants thereof, in my experience.

There are any number of scenarios that will result in exempting god beliefs from critical exam. They could be provided false evidence supporting god beliefs such as discounting the accuracy of radioisotope dating. They could be given the false impression that archaeological discoveries supporting some stories in religious texts are therefore evidence the god beliefs in the texts are true. Or they could get the scientific version defining god beliefs as faith based as if non-evidence based beliefs came in two flavors, and the "you can't prove god doesn't exist" reason one needn't think critically about it.

Certainly there are places where these things are taught, but I wouldn't send my son to any of those places.

ETA: On the other hand, what do you think ought to be done if I did? In my opinion, it's ok to hold schools to standards. I think it's ok to ask questions about real history on standardized tests, for example, as opposed to the mythic version in religious texts, and to shut down schools whose students don't have adequate knowledge about basic math, literature, science, and core curriculum subjects. However, if after doing that, they also teach that you'll go to heaven if you repeat magic words while counting beads, I say that's fine. It does me no harm.

 

[Meadmaker]

dupe