"The Trouble With Atheism", by Rod Liddle

[TithonusSyndrome]

A thread was made about this earlier, but not until recently do I beleive that Youtube videos were available of this canard parade out of Britain. Rod Liddle struts around onscreen with the kind of smug faux-diplomatic attitude I've come to expect from agnostics who are more concerned with making themselves appear reasonable via golden mean tactics than with genuine debate, as he goes over those classics we've all come to know and despise like the eminently atheist purges of the Soviet Union and the clear-as-day dogmatism of atheists everywhere.

Check it:

Part 1
Part 2

[Teebs]

I started watching it but the presenter and what he was saying irritated me enough that I stopped after 5 minutes.

Apparently atheists are creating a belief system about how we should live our lives in a dogmatic way and then he started interviewing a nutter outside a cathedral who claimed to be the 'atheist messiah'.

[Spyder]

"Heartland USA, where the equally intransigeant forces of Christianity and Athiesm square off."

He golden means all over the place. He says some things which may be technically accurate but he's trying to make it sounds as though Athiest and religous forces are two equal sides in a battle. When the president of the Athiest Institute tries to point out that there is vastly more religous influence in the world he tries to put words in her mouth.

Also, for something called "The Trouble with Athiesm" he uses the term "some athiests" a lot. It would be more honest if he'd called it "The Trouble with a couple of Athiests and why they keep trying to confuse me with facts."

Edit:

...and here comes Hitler. Natural selection -> Eugenics -> Nazi Death Camps... It's so obvious now!

Oh good, he's just worked out that the scientific method doesn't provide moral guidance. I hope he won't be too dissapointed when he works out that it doesn't come with a matching set of steak knives either.

[Rye]

Urgh. Revered religious texts in origin of the species? Fuck off, you 'tard!

Atheism has blood on its hands? Does it now? Imagine a belief that says absolutely nothing about morality not preventing people from acting immorally! Does this guy seriously think that because they didn't believe in God that had any impact on their behaviours, rather than the belief system they did accept and fervently followed that caused them to misbehave? It is that behaviour and that mindset that is at fault here, not atheism, which says nothing about that mindset. Religions encourage it, certain atheistic philosophies encourage it, atheism (and also theism) itself does not.

"Isn't that a tad arrogant" he asks, when someone says that religious beliefs and theology are stupid. What, dying godmen, riblet women and dust devils aren't stupid, are they not? Like arrogance is a justifiable reason to dismiss a message.

[K. A. Pital]

A smoking pile of crap. Ooooh, atheist purges? Arrogant atheists? Hitler - atheist? Darwin inspired Hitler's racial ideas? Fucking shit, I thought we were beyond this already.

Purges weren't atheist, atheism doesn't say you should purge religion, even if it's hostile to religion as a useless, senseless waste of time and resource, sans it's potential usefulness for civil organization.

Atheists aren't arrogant, they just point out religion is pure crap. That's a lot more honest than the popes and clerics, each of whom offer "Truth, Life and the Way" and nothing but that. Oh, the only true one, too.

Hitler was a Creationist and Christianity played waay more role in his racism than any "Darwinian" ideas, not to mention the fact that a lot of Christian Germany followed his, essentially Lutherian ideas, for exactly that reason.

Now, what to think of those who make such documentaries? Retards. Atheism and religion are not on equal footing, not EVER, since science & reason versus bullshit fairytales indicates _clear superiority_ in rational thinking on part of science and reason. Rant over.

[Darth Wong]

As I've said many times before, the few agnostics who aren't just atheists in disguise and who genuinely believe in agnosticism are almost invariably just lapsed religious folk, and their arguments always carry the stain of their religious indoctrination. Those arguments are textbook examples of religious anti-atheist lies.

[K. A. Pital]

Agnosticism differs from religion in one way only - it staunchly refuses to acknowledge it's own ignorance. Religion relishes in ignorance - agnosticism does so as well, it just shys to say it out loud.

[R. U. Serious]

Is there any agnostic who actually makes a solid argument as to why the believe in one (or many) god(s) should be treated different than the belief in fairys, celestial teapots, magic unicorns, new ageisms, paranormal activity or any other made up outlandish claim with no evidence? It seems like that this point is like the huge elephant in the room that never gets mentioned.

Even in the documentary Dawkins makes that exact point (at 18:50 in part 1, in response to the question whether he is a 100% atheist, even though God can't be disproven 100%, he replies he treats it the same as fairys), that point is not acknoledged let alone responded to.

Is agnosticism for those people, just a symptom of a deeper seated post-modernism or solipsism where "anything goes or could go, we shouldn't make any judgements"?

[R. U. Serious]

Wow, in the second part he is talking about how "Darwinism" is too old, and there are many holes and scientists are starting to doubt the theory of evolution. And how "Darwinism" is not a theory of everything, and therefore atheist are taking it too far and way out of context. It's like he's going out of his way to make use of every type of fallacy out there.

[Ritterin Sophia]

The problem with agnostics is, they reject the burden of proof and decree that Atheists must prove God doesn't exist and that Theists must prove he does, completely ignoring the existence of a Negative Proof Fallacy.

[Darth Wong]

The agnostic is the religious man who thinks he is enlightened because he has figures out that his parents' religion is not reliable. The problem is that he has not figured out that this applies to every religion, so he refuses to pledge allegiance to any particular sect but he thinks they're all at least partially true.

It's like a slave-owner who thinks he's enlightened because he has gotten rid of his slaves, even though he still supports the idea of slavery.

[PeZook]

Huh. I thought the argument atheist crimes got discredited a long time ago? Like there as a single man murdered by Stalin who had "Religious" marked as his crime in the death sentence

I also find it cozy how asks every atheist he speaks to "Isn't it horribly arrogant of you to think that?"

It's like asking Robert Oppenheimer "Isn't it arrogant of you to say neutrons split uranium atoms making them release energy? How can you be certain? You don't know the exact amount of energy released, so it's just pure speculation!"

[bz249]

What makes a person moron is dogmatism. It can happen to anyone regardless of his beliefs, because it only represents the lack of education. From what I heard and read in the US it is more common for the ones with 'religious backgrounds'. However in my home country (Hungary) the atheists tend to be more dogmatic and moronic. Maybe because they are mostly the same group who worshipped Lenin and the Party.

[Starglider]

I've often wondered if assigning probabilities renders you technically non-agonstic or not. Really you can't escape implicitly assigning probabilities other than by the futile gesture of refusing to think about the problem, but a strict definition of 'not knowing' might imply an indifferent prior only (though that's nearly impossible to formally define for metaphysics). I explicitly assign a probability of 'very low' to any sort of supernatural creator existing (on Occam's razor grounds*), put the probability of any wild hypothesis as ridiculously detailed as the average human religion being correct at 'so miniscule it can be regarded as zero for all practical purposes' and the probability of each Abrahamic religion I've encountered to date being correct at 'literally zero' (due to rampant internal inconsistencies and blatant conflicts with reality). Much as I'd love to assign specific numbers, the domain is so ill-defined, the amount of recursion you'd need to do (on the probability of getting the base priors right) so excessive and the utility of doing so so low I don't think it's sensible (for me) to try. Then there's the philosophical morass around whether you believe it is possible to know metaphysical truths (ha, contradiction in terms), objectively or subjectively, which I generally write off in the most materialist fashion possible.

So I usually tell people I'm an 'atheist' as that should give them a more accurate mental model than 'agnostic' would, even if the later may strictly be more accurate.

* The irony being that Occam was in fact a Catholic monk.

[K. A. Pital]

However in my home country (Hungary) the atheists tend to be more dogmatic and moronic.

How can an atheist be "dogmatic" if the only "dogma" he has is disbelief in superstution? If he strongly defends things like naturalism, materialism and science, and says out loud "religion is a bunch of lies and fairytales", is he a "dogmatic"?

[Pint0 Xtreme]

How can an atheist be "dogmatic" if the only "dogma" he has is disbelief in superstution? If he strongly defends things like naturalism, materialism and science, and says out loud "religion is a bunch of lies and fairytales", is he a "dogmatic"?

Religious people don't realize the fundamental differences between believing in a religion and accepting science. To them, they're the same things with different names and ideas and they equate atheism with belief in science and naturalism. Hence, they think an atheist defending science is as dogmatic as a theist defending his religion. If the narrator of the show had actually figured out that science isn't just a bunch of accepted tenets but rather a proven methodology of understanding natural phenomenon, he might actually realize the stupidity of the use of "dogmatic" towards atheism and naturalism. The Golden Mean Fallacy is so popular because it appeals to everyone's desire to appear reasonable rather than their desire to be reasonable.

[Twoyboy]

How can an atheist be "dogmatic" if the only "dogma" he has is disbelief in superstution? If he strongly defends things like naturalism, materialism and science, and says out loud "religion is a bunch of lies and fairytales", is he a "dogmatic"?

I think what bx249 was referring to is atheists who come to their conclusion through the method of faith. I am an atheist through agnosticism, that is, I have no reason to believe due to the lack of evidence. But if I said "I know that there is no god despite the lack of evidence" I wouldn't be falling into the default position, but rather making a dogma that there is no god.

Dawkins deals well with this distiction (much better than I did anyway) in "The God Delusion".

[mr friendly guy]

Indeed he does. Agnosticism is the methodology, atheism is the conclusion. While it may be possible to be agnostic on non religious matters because of a lack of evidence either way, the example Dawkins uses is mysteries in science such as the Cambrian explosion, agnostics do not have that luxury when it comes to the validity of religion. To persist is either intellectual cowardice or a bunch of smart arse wankers who think they someone hit upon some truth which everyone else has missed.

[bz249]

[quote="Stas Bush"][quote]However in my home country (Hungary) the atheists tend to be more dogmatic and moronic.[/quote]
How can an atheist be "dogmatic" if the only "dogma" he has is disbelief in superstution? :roll: If he strongly defends things like naturalism, materialism and science, and says out loud "religion is a bunch of lies and fairytales", is he a "dogmatic"?[/quote]

Well if they use the dialectic materialism as their starting point... (eventually this will end up to atheism, but with the cost of the biggest bullshit in the history of mankind). One of my favorurite book is the 'Fundamentals of Michurinian biology, where they for eg. describe how they educated the wheat grains to grow in the Siberian winter. If I am in a bad mood these jokes helps.
However religious morons are activating here also, I can't stand waiting for the next leaflet which describes why the Genetics, Radiocarbon Dating, The Theory of Evolution (in the original form, neglecting the refinements which has happened in the last century) and Quatum Mechanics are utter nonsenses :D .[/i]

[K. A. Pital]

Well if they use the dialectic materialism as their starting point...

If you speak about science, what is the difference between "dialectic" and any other materialism - "dialectic" or not, materialism is one of the propositions of atheism, not idealism. The key points of materialism, and also dialectic materalism, are the primacy of material world, which is reflected in the perception of the brain but exists independently from us, and that this world is knowable, consisting of matter and the interactions of matter.

Atheism co-exists with materialism, the alternative is either agnosticism (subscribing to postmodernist bullshit "all points can be more or less valid") or downright idealism - upon which you can say that "personal experience is existence" and "therefore God is true". The fact that during the early XX century, fundamental mistakes in scientific research were made like the ones you said, what does this mean for today's atheists? It means jack shit. Science is progressing, society is progressing in their understanding of nature which is the material world.

When I say there's not a single shred of evidence to say that something beyond the material world and it's laws exists, am I "dogmatic" compared to a religious person who says "well, I think my God exists and he's true"? Not really, I'm just saying what is true, from a scientific point of view.

[Darth Wong]

You've got to love the stupid assholes who think it's just as "dogmatic" to insist upon physical evidence as it is to firmly believe despite the lack of such evidence.

[mr friendly guy]

I think maybe those people don't know what a lot of words such as dogma means. They just see smarter atheists attack their religion on such grounds so realise dogma = bad, and since atheism = bad, they must be dogmatic.

Substitute dogmatic for fallacy, faith etc and you see a common tactic of religious morons.

[bz249]

[quote]
If you speak about science, what is the difference between "dialectic" and any other materialism - "dialectic" or not, materialism is one of the propositions of atheism, not idealism.
[/quote]

A hell lot... dialectic meterialism is treating the books of Marx, Lenin and Engels as their holy scripts. In most of the popular science books of the 50s, 60s and 70s there were pages of explanations how one of them foresee this and this scientific result. So they act like the worst bunch of religious morons, while technically they were atheist.

[K. A. Pital]

A hell lot... dialectic meterialism is treating the books of Marx, Lenin and Engels as their holy scripts. In most of the popular science books of the 50s, 60s and 70s there were pages of explanations how one of them foresee this and this scientific result. So they act like the worst bunch of religious morons, while technically they were atheist.

Um... do you know what dialectic materialism is?

The basic Marxist idea is that everything can be explained by one thing -- Matter. Matter is the total explanation for space, nature, man, psychic consciousness, human intelligence and every other aspect of existence. Marxism then assigns the task of knowing all truth to science. If science can get to know everything about matter, then it can get to know about everything. Conclusively, matter is accepted as the beginning and ending of all reality.

This is dialectic materalism.

Now what you are referring to is historical materialism, which is another thing alltogether:

Historical materialism starts from the view that in order to exist human beings collectively work on nature to produce the means to life. Not all human beings, however, do the same work; there is a division of labour in which people not only do different jobs, but some people live from the work of others by owning the means of production. How this is done depends on the type of society.

Following Marx, writers who identify with historical materialism usually postulate that society has moved through a number of types or modes of production. These would generally include primitive communism or tribal society (a prehistoric stage), ancient society, feudalism and capitalism. In each of these social stages, people interact with nature and make their livings in different ways. The surplus from production is allotted in different manners. Ancient society was based on a ruling class of slave owners and a class of slaves, feudalism on landowners and serfs. Capitalism is organised on the basis of capitalists who own the means of production, distribution and exchange (e.g. factories, mines, shops and banks), and the working class who live by selling their labour to the capitalists for wages.

...

Frederick Engels wrote: "I use 'historical materialism' to designate the view of the course of history, which seeks the ultimate causes and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, with the consequent division of society into distinct classes and the struggles of these classes."

At least from the 1870s the pressure towards the doctrinalisation of Marx's interpretation of history became increasingly strong, for several reasons.

(1) Marx & Engels did aim to increase their own political influence in the labor movement and socialist movement, and for this they needed a popular ideology or doctrine which people could easily understand and act upon. Both men were quite capable of splendid political rhetoric and, occasionally, of making sweeping generalisations

(2) Attacks by critics, academics and competitors in the socialist movement also forced them to systematise their ideas; generalisations from experience and research demanded a more explicit coherent theoretical framework.

(3) Christian religious and moral doctrine was still very influential among the working classes, who mostly lacked access to a scientific education, and this created the political need or pressure to articulate a complete alternative belief system or scientific world outlook. Thus, Engels sought to distinguish between religious-utopian and practical-scientific socialism.

These three factors are the original sources of the tension between science and ideology in Marxism. Engels, who was the first great "Marxist systematiser", tried to take a nuanced approach in his writings and popularise the materialist approach without vulgarisation.

In 1880, about three years before Marx died, Frederick Engels indicated that he accepted the usage of the term "historical materialism". Recalling the early days of the new interpretation of history, he stated:

"We, at that time, were all materialists, or, at least, very advanced free-thinkers, and to us it appeared inconceivable that almost all educated people in England should believe in all sorts of impossible miracles, and that even geologists like Buckland and Mantell should contort the facts of their science so as not to clash too much with the myths of the book of Genesis; while, in order to find people who dared to use their own intellectual faculties with regard to religious matters, you had to go amongst the uneducated, the "great unwashed", as they were then called, the working people, especially the Owenite Socialists". (Preface to the English edition of his pamphlet Socialism: Utopian and Scientific)

I think there's a difference between dialectical materialism which is essentially advocating a scientific view of nature, and the historical materialism which tries to grasp a far more complex thing - the prediction of development of human societies.

[bz249]

If you are right then their epigons failed to understand the principle (which is scientific method afterall) and got some wrong conclusions from that.