Dangerous feuds between theists and atheists

[kowalskil]

Are dangerous feuds between theists and atheists desirable? If not then what can be done to reduce their intensity? One approach, named NOMA, is described in my article published in the April 2012 Issue of American Atheist Magazine. The link is:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowals ... heist.html
=======================================

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)

[Divine Insight]

I am a very spiritual person myself, and I totally disagree with your assessment of the situation.

To begin with your following dichotomy is totally false and this very view actually serves to insult and anger various people, myself included.

From your article, "The first step toward mutual respect between theists and atheists should be the recognition that most people on Earth live in two different worlds: material and spiritual."

No, it's totally false that these people live in two different worlds that could be classified as "material and spiritual". In fact, that very accusation is an insult to atheists whether you realize it or not. So you're not about to generate "mutual respect" by trying to categorize people into groups of being either "Spiritual" or "Material" people.

With all due respect, any attempt to create that kind of dichotomy would only result in even greater hostilities.

The real problem, and the only problem, lies with the Abrahamic religions created by the ancient Hebrews and their creation of a "Jealous God".

It is the simple fact that the Abrahamic religions are based on a Jealous God that makes them so dangerous and hateful.

Even the followers of those religions hate each other for this very reason. The Jews and Muslims can't get along because they both hold different views of what this supposedly "Jealous God" wants from humanity, and which doctrine represents "His Word".

The Christians hate everyone who refuses to accept that Jesus was "The Christ".

The Christians even hate each other. There is no love lost between the Catholics and the Protestants. And even the many different sects of the protesting Protestants are often at each others throats because they disagree about what they "Jealous God" expects from people.

If we could get rid of the "Jealous God" religions we could make some headway.

It's not about any dichotomy between "Atheists and Spiritualists".

I'm a living example of that. I'm a very spiritual person and the Christians hate me just as much as they hate the atheists, simply because I don't buy into the Hebrew folklore of a Jealous male-chauvinistic God who will hate everyone who doesn't love him.

That is where the problem lies sir.

The problem lies entirely within the Hebrew myths of a Jealous God male-chauvinistic God who will supposedly hate everyone who doesn't love him.

That's what gives all these religious people a GREEN LIGHT to hate people in the name of their Jealous God. After all, if they have been convinced that God hates everyone who refuses to believe in him, then is it any wonder they that mimic that behavior?

Christians use Jesus as nothing more than a rubber doll to beat people over the head with for not accepting that Jesus is God.

That's all their religion amounts to in the end. Using Jesus as an excuse to hate people in Jesus' name.

It all stems from the Hebrew mythology of a JEALOUS GOD.

That's the core of the problem right there.

There is NO OTHER PROBLEM.

This problem isn't going to go away until everyone wises up and realizes that the Hebrew mythologies of God never had anymore merit than the Greek mythologies of Gods.

And fortunately people are indeed wising up. It's been predicted that 9 out of 10 college students who begin college with religious beliefs, leave college as atheists. If that's a true statistic we may see religion become a thing of the past very soon.

As a spiritualist myself, I'm not real happy about that. But if it means they are tossing out the Jealous God religions, then it's worth it.

IMHO, an atheistic view of life is better than a "Jealous God" view.

As we can clearly see, the "Jealous God religions" cause nothing but "Dangerous Feuds", as you have recognized. And not just between believers and non-believers, but even between the believers themselves. They are self-destructive religious beliefs. So the sooner they disappear from humanity the better.

[A Troubled Man]

Are dangerous feuds between theists and atheists desirable? If not then what can be done to reduce their intensity? One approach, named NOMA, is described in my article published in the April 2012 Issue of American Atheist Magazine. The link is:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowals ... heist.html
=======================================

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)

I got to this statement and realized any explanations beyond it were fallacious.

"The first step toward mutual respect between theists and atheists should be the recognition that most people on Earth live in two different worlds: material and spiritual. "

[kowalskil]

I am a very spiritual person myself, and I totally disagree with your assessment of the situation.

To begin with your following dichotomy is totally false and this very view actually serves to insult and anger various people, myself included.

From your article, "The first step toward mutual respect between theists and atheists should be the recognition that most people on Earth live in two different worlds: material and spiritual."

I changed my terminology slightly (in the paper to be published). Instead of saying that "people live in two different worlds, material and spiritual," I now say that our "one world" has two components, material and spiritual.

Ludwik

[Divine Insight]

I changed my terminology slightly (in the paper to be published). Instead of saying that "people live in two different worlds, material and spiritual," I now say that our "one world" has two components, material and spiritual.

Ludwik

It's still a false dichotomy.

To begin with, all humans are the same whether they are atheists or theists. What they believe doesn't change their reality.

Even if the theists are right and there exists a God, then atheists live in that world too.

The very idea, (or insinuation of any kind) that people who merely don't believe in a God are somehow immoral people or enemies of God, is a bogus idea that is clearly false.

In fact, the Abrahamic Religions make this very claim. The doctrine itself proclaims that those who don't believe in this God are immoral. It even claims that nary a single one of them do good, and that they are all an abomination.

Psalms 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

The dogma itself demands that this be so.

Thus this is from whence this false dichotomy arises. And this is a large part of why such "feuds" exist in the first place.

If Christians weren't constantly acting like atheists are less than moral people, then atheists would have probably never even cared about religions at all.

I actually see the "Rise of Atheism" as a direct response to the constant degradation that these religions have been dishing out toward non-believers of their religions since the dawn of time.

In fact, if you actually stop and think about it, the so-called "feuds" between theists and atheists are typically very peaceful. They might become a bit rowdy in terms of conversations but they aren't threatening to become physical violence in most cases (some exceptions always apply as usual)

But look at the real danger. The real danger is not between theists and atheists. The real danger is between the theists themselves. Islam and Christianity are on a collision course as world societies become more global. And of course we are all aware of the great theistic wars going on between Islam and Judaism in the Middle East.

Atheists are the least of the worries that theists have to consider.

They are far more threatening to each other than any atheists are.

In fact, the theists are threatening to become so violent toward each other that they become a serious threat to anyone who isn't even involved in these theistims.

If Christianity, Judaism and Islam start slugging it out in actual WARS, which they are already doing, that's going to be a very dangerous world for atheist to have to live in.

Christians preach that we are to love our neighbors. But why should atheists love Christians, Jews and Muslims, if those people are out to destroy each other and any innocent atheists who happen to get in their way?

If any of these religions could actually act like they might genuinely love someone things could be different. But thus far all they have demonstrated is that they love to hate each other. And apparently they love to hate atheists as well.

As far as I can see the totality of the "problem" lies with the theisms, not with the atheists.

[kowalskil]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

Instead of posting a long reply to Devine Insight I decided to post a link to that reply at:

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/atheist.html

In that way my university colleagues will be able to read this post as well.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 6 by kowalskil]

I'm flattered that my quotes from this forum would be used on a website addressing the concerns of "atheists". Actually I'm not exactly an atheist in the most general meaning of the term, but that's another story.


From your page you say:

Some atheists are highly moral and some theists are highly immoral. But what is morality? It is a code of proper and improper behaviour that each society needs, to live in peace and harmony. Who is the author of our moral code, called commandments?

My answer to the question "What is morality?", is that morality is entirely an invention of humans. We invented the concept. And we define it. It also has absolutely nothing do do with any "Commandments" (especially not from Hebrew mythology). That may be the case within religious communities (especially Abrahamic religious communities), but it's not the case with humanity in general.

In fact, think about this. We currently (at least in the USA) have laws against "Cruel and Unusual Punishments". In fact, there are many people, myself included, who will arguing that criminals should not be "punished" at all. Certainly they need to be dealt with for the sake of protecting society as a whole, but the process does not need to be thought of in terms of punishing them. I personally feel that this mindset is not intelligent. We should be thinking far more along the lines of treating them as being sick and in need of help.

So for me the very concept of morality is something that we subjectively and collectively consider and ultimately agree to, or potentially argue against. Obviously gay people do not feel that being gay should be viewed as being immoral. And the question of whether this is some sort of objective moral question or whether it's actually a subjective choice for humanity to make is an open question. I personally feel that it's entirely up to humanity to subjectively decide what laws they will make. The very term "morality" may be a meaningless term in the end. It's really up to humans as a society to subjectively decide and find consensus on what they deem to be permissible or not. We certainly don't need a list of "Commandments" from some very ancient primitive society.

I mean this really has nothing to do with atheism. Even if a person believes in a God why should they believe in the Hebrew God? I would personally favor something along the lines of Buddhism or Taoism if I'm going to believe in a "spiritual essence to reality".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now turning to your definition of the "Spiritual World".

From your article web page:

Yes, unlike God, atheists and theists are material entities, made of atoms and molecules. God is a spiritual entity invented by our ancestors. Other spiritual entities are: hell, heaven, angels, etc. What is spiritual reality? This question was addressed by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, in "Simple Words," [Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999]. He wrote: that "it consists of all things we relate to through our minds. This includes our thoughts and emotions, love, hate, and envy, the ability to read, to enjoy music, or to solve equations, to know that we exist, and relate to others. All of these are intangible--they cannot be touched or weighed. However, they are commonplace, direct experience, and they are as real as anything can be. All these together make up our second world, the spiritual one. ... Is the spiritual world real? It is, in the same way that everything, which exists, is real. It cannot be touched, just as a scent or a magnetic field cannot be touched; it cannot be seen, just as the sound of a trumpet is invisible. Yet it can be perceived and measured."

Having been involved in physics and the sciences my entire life, and also considering philosophical ways of thinking, I am not prepared to accept the conclusions of Rabbi Adin steinsaltz.

The sound of a trumpet may be invisible, but it is indeed physical. It is physical vibrations of air.

Now it maybe aruged that the physical vibrations of air aren't even truly "sound". And that these vibrations don't become sound until they entire our ear and our sensed by our brain and converted to a conscious awareness of an experience of sound.

But still, all of that is physical. At least up to the actual moment and phenomenon when an it becomes and actual "experience".

I will be the first to grant that the mystery of precisely what it is that is having an experience is a profoundly deep mystery. I've posted conversations along those lines many times on these forums. In fact, it is this very question that keeps my open-minded to the potential of a "spiritual essence" to reality.

However, we can't know the answer to this mystery. We can't say with absolute certainty whether the answer to this question requires a spiritual dimension of reality or whether or could be some sort of physical phenomenon as the secular atheists claim.

The secular atheists (or secular materialists) claim that experience is somehow an "emergent property" of the physical world. It could be the result of some sort of electromagnetic feed-back loop going on within a biological brain which is basically nothing more than an analog computer. And very complex one at that.

Having knowledge of how electronic systems work. Especially electronic feedback systems and analog computers I can see where there could be something to this purely secular materialistic view of reality that actually accounts for the phenomenon of the experience of awareness.

But I simultaneously confess that I'm not totally sold on the idea, and because of this I leave open the possibility that there maybe something more going on. That there very well may be a spiritual underpinning to reality that is mystical and magical.

However, in truth, that explanation isn't anymore convincing.

In short, I have eventually come to realize that both of these scenarios are basically absurd. They are both extremely strange and potentially "mystical".

Either situation is equally difficult to accept and neither one of these proposed scenarios give me reason to say, "Ah ha. I see how it works now".

I think a lot of secular materialists are pretty quick to accept the analog computer feedback phenomenon to the point where they are happy saying, "Oh yeah, that makes sense and explains everything".

I can't go along with that. It doesn't explain everything to me because even given the feedback loop idea it's still difficult to imagine how a feedback loop can actually have a sentient experience.

But then again, imagining that there is some magical spiritual being underneath it all doesn't really provide me with the "Ah ha!" moment either. Because that idea isn't exactly apparent how that would work either.

So I'm willing to say that the whole thing is still an open mystery. But I confess that the secular feedback loop idea has some merit in many ways.

I don't think this is a question that can be answered anytime soon. And may potentially be unanswerable. It might turn out that we can simply never know. We'll just have to always guess that it's one or the other.

Some secular materialists feel that the feedback loop (or emergent property) will be demonstrated to be the truth of reality eventually. I can't imagine how that will be proved, but I'm certainly in no position to rule it out either.

But in any case, I think the position that Rabbi Adin steinsaltz is a bit premature and in some sense a bit naive. I can see why he would be compelled to think along these lines, but to state it as being a matter of fact, is a bit presumptuous I think.

It may or may not be true. The secular materialist might actually be correct, whether spiritualists are happy with that reality or not.

I don't know what the final answer is. But what I do know is that we aren't really in a position to make any convincing claims one way or the other.

Although I will say that many materialists are quite passionate about claiming that we already have sufficient evidence to conclude the materialistic view. And I confess that they do have some pretty powerful arguments.

In fact, in order to dismiss their arguments a spiritualist needs to propose some really bizarre excuses to keep the spiritual picture afloat. Those bizarre excuses cannot be disproved, but let's face it the more bizarre the excuses become to hold up the spiritual picture of reality the more Occam's Razor tends to favor the secular view.

If we reach a point where the secular view is extremely simple, and the spiritual view requires a myriad of complex tricks to keep it afloat, it just stands to reason that the secular view is more likely.

Many secularists claim that we are already at that point. And I can't really argue with them on this issue directly. I have no choice but to confess that the spiritual view requires a lot of extra bells and whistles. They may be bells and whistles that can't be disproved, but still they tend to add up to a high degree of improbability.

Anyway, that's my response to your web page article where you used my quotes without permission, and without acknowledgement of precisely who you were quoting.

[kowalskil]

[Replying to post 7 by Divine Insight]

Thank you for constructive criticism. The content of the post

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/atheist.html

has been corrected accordingly.

Ludwik