Jonathan's comments (member since Jan 01, 2008)

Jonathan's comments from the Banned Books group.

"Well- they're not REAL Buddhists, obviously."


Called it.

"Ok- it's easy to make a blanket statement- what's your theory to disprove my 'light and dark theory'?"

State it in a way that can be disproved and we'll find out. :)

To me, it sounded like a dismissive shrug of the shoulders. "Eh, there will always be atrocities. Nature needs war and genocide to balance out the happy things in life." So, consequentially, there's no point in trying to stop it.

But I really don't think it's like this. The bad things that result from "dangerous" thinking are certainly very common and have been around a long time, but that doesn't mean they're inevitable. I suspect we will eventually engineer cultures that are resistant to the more dangerous ideas.

"Or I guess, someone like yourself would be more likely to subscribe to the everyone is just a selfish, greedy bastard theory."

I don't know what that means. I think the ultimate law of nature is "take what you can get away with", but organisms have all kinds of other laws built on top of that one when they result in mutual benefit, like the "don't steal" rules of human society.

"This seems to be a point that people fail to pick, but atheism isn’t a thing, but a rejection of a thing – it is not a consistent set of beliefs, but a rejection of a set of beliefs."

You can certainly define it that way...

"Atheism, therefore, is not the basis for a moral theory – it just says that one based on faith isn’t going to work – very little more. So, Atheists – as a group – don’t really exist."

Of course they exist. The word just means different things to different people, in the same way that "Christians" and "the religious" have wildly varying beliefs and morals.

"The idea that freedom and democracy brings peace can’t really be an absolute a law, as is asserted in the article you pointed to, otherwise how would one explain Hamas in the West Bank? "

I certainly didn't link to Rummel because I agree with him! :) I was giving an example of the "other groups are inferior to my group, and it's my moral duty to save them from themselves, so I'm going to kill them" mentality. Most of the times that people do horrible things, they do them with the best intentions.

"neither organized religion nor the institutions of science really promote this idea, therefore, neither one, in general, can prevent violence."

Exactly.

"In response to the idea that science is only a force for peace, i submit the scientific creation of modern assault rifle and the rationalism of the nazi and khmer rouge holocausts."

...and biological weapons, nuclear bombs, anti-handling land mines ...

"religion, organized religion, prodding people to violence. But I think that has more to do with leadership and politics than the message of the religion."

Exactly. And anyone can fall into the same thought patterns. It's not a religious problem.

"though they were clearly against the spirit of the 'love thy neighbor' thing."

"Love your enemies", actually. And "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." But how many of his "followers" are even aware of this?

"After all, the thing I find most infuriating about religious fundamentalism is the relentless closure of minds that it engineers."

But it's not "religious fundamentalism" that leads to closure of minds. There are close-minded atheists and close-minded everything else. The "fundamentalist" mindset itself is the problem. How do we get rid of it?

"For me personally, a lot of atheists have met have been bitter about religion because they were made to sit on hard pews in church as a kid, or that they were told that they were sinners, sex is bad, etc."

And then they become the "close-minded atheists" who attack others without actually forming any rational basis for their own (non-)beliefs. It's a group to join; not a rational decision.

"Groups of people seem to be able to believe just about any nonsense."

When you're surrounded by people who believe the same thing as yourself, it's easy to never question your beliefs. :-/

No way. "Concerned parents" aren't as pragmatic as you assume. :)

They hate the book, and only because it's full of bad words. They don't even need to know what it's about.

I suspect this is also the reason why a lot of other people like the book. I certainly didn't get anything else out of it.

"In the end Communism ended up as much a faith as religion"

Are you just saying that so that you can blame their atrocities on "faith"? No true atheist kills people, so the communist killers are not true atheists?

http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfalla...

"Certainly communism has been a blatant example and exception for human atrocities."

Certainly not an exception. Think about all the atrocities you can remember, and then tally up what percentage of them were about religion, (as opposed to race, nationalism, etc.) The problem is not religion; the problem is this mode of thinking that humans exhibit where there's an "us" and a "them". "They" are foreign and backwards and wrong, while "we" are superior and rational and moral. It gets to the point where it's almost "our" duty to wipe "them" off the planet, forcibly reeducate them, etc. We're doing them a favor by killing their children. We're liberating them; spreading freedom.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/

Atheists fall into this mode of thinking just as easily as the religious, but it's just as wrong when they do.

"I would like to find a comprehensive view of the causes of peace... to understand the organic origins of it."

I've been thinking about this stuff ever since I left Christianity. I like this essay:

http://mwillett.org/atheism/god_shaped_h...

The idea that memes like religion and nationalism have evolved to hijack our instinctive pathways for altruism to our group. It's pretty Dawkinsian. :)

"Where there's violence, there's peace. Dark and light must co-exist, that's the law of nature."

No. No way. Argument from lack of imagination.

"If you look at Native American culture, they had(or have) ideas that promote peace and harmony with nature."

I'm not an expert on native Americans, but I highly doubt this modern highly romanticized notion of their culture. I believe their history is filled with wars and skirmishes just as much as every other culture.

Atheists can be dangerous fundamentalists, too. :-)

As far as finding truth, yes, the problem is faith vs reason.

But as far as being "dangerous" (to society and human freedom), the problem is not faith. The problems are things like ignorance, unthinking conviction, blind devotion. Those of faith and those of reason both fall into these traps.

"The enemy of knowledge and science is irrationalism, not religion" — Stephen Jay Gould