New Atheist Ideology Disected and Disproved

Andrew Brown, author of Fishing in Utopia (review) (won the Orwell prize)

New atheism is a political movement and not an Intellectual one:

Brown's blog on the Guardian site

In part this is difficult because the new atheism is largely a political and social rather than an intellectual movement. In some ways it can be understood as the canary in the coalmine of American power and exceptionalism.

this guy is an expert in ideology. This guy knows ideology when he sees it. He distills an idea for New Atheism (which proves one of my major assertions). His method for piecing together the ideology is to find the communality in the works of the major leaders of their movement, the major New Atheist writers.

The ideas I claim are distinctive of the new atheists have been collected from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Jerry Coyne, the American physicist Robert L. Park, and a couple of blogging biologists, P Z Myers and Larry Moran. They have two things in common. They are none of them philosophers and, though most are scientists, none study psychology, history, the sociology of religion, or any other discipline which might cast light on the objects of their execration. All of them make claims about religion and about believers which go far beyond the mere disbelief in God which I take to be the distinguishing mark of an atheist.

These are the ideas:

❄ There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.
❄ The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing – everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]
❄ Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]
❄ In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)
❄ Religion exists. It is essentially something like American fundamentalist protestantism, or Islam. More moderate forms are false and treacherous: if anything even more dangerous, because they conceal the raging, homicidal lunacy that is religion's true nature. [Sam Harris]
❄ Faith, as defined above, is the most dangerous and wicked force on earth today and the struggle against it and especially against Islam will define the future of humanity. [Everyone]
All of these propositions will be found in the authors I have cited as well as in the comments to religious articles here. I sometimes think that only the last two are unique to the new atheists: you can certainly find the others in earlier authors. But those are the six doctrines which I would reject when saying rude things about the new atheists.

let's take them one at a time:

❄ There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.

This is nothing more than the message board atheist fallacy about the nature of faith. The Faith article in Westminster Dictionary of Theology is like two huge pages of small type. It's much too complex to just pack into this loaded self serving ideological propaganda slogan. "unjustified bleief" no believer accepts that faith is unjustified and thus this is not a definition but a slogan. The Westminster article show that faith means as much "faithfulness" or commitment as it does placing confidence in an hypothesis. Faith is placing confidence in a hypothesis toward the end of making a commitment and remaining faithful to the placing of such confidence.

❄ The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing – everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]

Of course we only need a cure if there's an illness. There is no such illness because faith is not a negative. Of course the existence of God is not a scientific question. I've disproved this and written about why it's not many times.

the phrase in that point science is the only way of knowing is the atheist fortress of facts concept that I've talked about many times. Everytime I've brought it up on CARM they deny it then go on to prove I'm right by embracing it. So they deny it with one breath and embrace it with the next. Anyone who really knows much about history and Philosophy of scinece knows this is BS.

❄ Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]

The identification of reilgion with superstition belies all the talk about reason. When we actaully get around to apply some reason we see their argument is merely circular reasoning. They will say "theology is stupidity" but demand that they quote some theologian to prove its' superstition they say "I have not read theology, I don't to read it because I know it's stupid." That sort of anti-intellectual clap trap is a higher crime against reason. Reason is the last these jokers really believe in. The Dawkins statment at the end is the most anti-intellectual piece of crap ever uttered.

They are making the assumption that scienc eis reason but it's actually oppossed to reason because that concept contradicts what is said above about scinece being the only from of knowledge. Atheist disparage logic as a means of understanding the world. They deny that there is any other form of knowledge. Logic is a from of reason. Reason is not empircal observation. So therefore they are actually contradicting because reason is a competeing form of knowledge to empirical science.

❄ In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)

Here we have one of the most interesting. It's not only working from the myth of progress that modernity loves define itself by (thus demonstrated that it's an outmoded way of thinking--disproved by Postmodernism) but it also reads like an eschatology. This marks it as a true aspect of ideology. All ideologies have an eschatology, an end times, a end point toward which the great struggle of the ideological vanguard resolves itself in their victory. Check out past versions:

Christianity: Return of Christ in the end times

Marxism: Worker's paradise

Black Muslims: Black Supremacy

Feminism: Gynarchy (matriarchy)

there the new atheists have the scientific post religious society. this more than anything proves it's an ideology. The rest of the points are just rehashes. They have all the aspects of an ideology:

a exigence, a villain, a vanguard, a audience, a great struggle, an eschatology


Marxism:

exigence: exploitation of the working class.
villain: Capitalism
Vanguard: communist party
audience: workers
great struggle: class warfare
eschatology: worker's paradise.

Works with any ideology one cares to name.

Nation of Islam:

exigence: exploitation of the black race
Villain: White race
Vanguard: Fruit of Islam (black Muslims)
Audience: Black people
great struggle: racism
eschatology: Black society becomes dominate society.

new Atheism:

existence: faith prominent in society
Villain: religion
Vanguard: new atheists
Audience. people who hate religion
great struggle: to destroy religion
eschatology: scientific society post religious.

Having an ideology doesn't' necessary make people wrong. Both Marxists and Black Muslims have their salient points. New atheists, however, are totally afraid to admit they have an ideology. They will never admit it. Even the loyal opponent Hermit is still avidly denying that there is one. Which is odd becuase they seem to think they are the only valid view point there is.

Bogus Atheist Social Sciences: Response to Barber part 2: His article "the Human Beast"

This is Barber's own summary of his "study." It appears in the atheist prapaganda blog psychology today.
He begins with a summary of where atheism is big and where it's not so that he can make a correlation.

Atheists are heavily concentrated in economically developed countries, particularly the social democracies of Europe. In underdeveloped countries, there are virtually no atheists. Atheism is a peculiarly modern phenomenon. Why do modern conditions produce atheism? In a new study to be published in August, I provide compelling evidence that atheism increases along with the quality of life (1).
First, as to the distribution of atheism in the world, a clear pattern can be discerned. In sub-Saharan Africa there is almost no atheism (2). Belief in God declines in more developed countries and atheism is concentrated in Europe in countries such as Sweden (64% nonbelievers), Denmark (48%), France (44%) and Germany (42%). In contrast, the incidence of atheism in most sub-Saharan countries is below 1%.

As we saw from the Greely study "The Demand for Religion" when we break down the stats for Northern Europe we find actual atheism is very small. Most of what is passing for atheism is soft core or 'agnostic.' He says Sweden is 64% non believers but it's really misleading because what he's calling "unbelievers" are not necessarily atheists. Only 10% are strong athesits and most of them are "softest core" meaninng agnostic.

In the second column, "Soft Core" Atheists include those in the third column and those who, while they reject God do not completely reject life after death (they accept the third response on that question – there is "probably not" a life after death. This latter group might be considered to be on the far fringes of the religious market place.
The "Softest Core" Atheists in the third column include those in the first two and those who can fairly be called agnostics (the second response to the God question) because they do not completely reject the possibility of the existence of God. They might be considered as hovering a little closer to the religious market place.

It is only in former communist countries (which Sweden is not) that over 10% are strong atheists. Softest core atheist can believe there might something like God. This is another case of atheist inflation (blowing up their figures and stretching things to appear they have a much larger movement than they do).

Then turns to the question why would lower belief be correlated with better affluence?

The question of why economically developed countries turn to atheism has been batted around by anthropologists for about eighty years. Anthropologist James Fraser proposed that scientific prediction and control of nature supplants religion as a means of controlling uncertainty in our lives. This hunch is supported by data showing that the more educated countries have higher levels of non belief and there are strong correlations between atheism and intelligence.

Now of course the alleged "correlates" between atheism and intelligence are pure bull and have been disproved over and over again. Round one was disproved over a 50 year period were 16 studies showed no correlation, or that religious people are smarter (which I take to be indicative of correlation). Only six (6) studies supported the correlation and all were done before 1960. They all had terrible methodologies and much smaller samples than the one's done after 1960 that consistently showed no correlation until Francis three studies in the 90s. Francis work caped the first round and the field decided there is no correlation. The atheist propaganda machine came back on it, becuase the real burning drive to be an atheist is the need to feel superior to make up for the poor self esteem.(part 2 here). The second wave is a much more bogus attempt because they haven't bothered to gather their own data.

The second wave is lead by Lynn, Harvey and Nyborg. Nyrbog is a crack pot who thinks that women are genetically inferior and has racist leanings (his study IQ differences favor males was investigate and received reprimand form the university). They didn't gather their own data and have been roundly criticized for trying to draw together a huge among of interdependently gathered data with no unified scheme of standards for accessing IQ. Barber just dashes off the references to them as though they are a done deal. He seems to accept them uncritically. Their arguments are reminiscent of the Bell Curve and they seem to be trying to imply, especially the Psychology today Blog crowd, that atheism is an advance in evolution and atheists are a tiny elite, you would think they would be happy to accept the small status of their numbers. When one considers the most educated group in America, professors, one finds their ratio of belief nearly fits that of the general public. He also asserts that atheists are better eduated, see Atheist Watch for refutation.

Barber falls back upon James Fraser's (1854-1941) assertion that religion is about security and that rise in control of nature would supplant religoius belief. Of cousre one could make the same kind of prediction about scientifically minded people. Science is a means of calming the fears of people who are seeking control over nature because they fear it. They also make no attempt to analyze the probablity that allaying fear is the proper job of human psychology and that his is not invalid nor does it demonstrate some kind of outmoded in religion. No mores than the need to find food or hunt is displaced by the need to go to the supermarket. As Maslow predicts when the lower order needs are met then we move up the hierarchy to work on higher level needs. That's why all the major theological movements of the 20th century were about existentialism and process thought.

At this point Barber begins lauding his own work:

In my new study of 137 countries (1), I also found that atheism increases for countries with a well-developed welfare state (as indexed by high taxation rates). Moreover, countries with a more equal distribution of income had more atheists. My study improved on earlier research by taking account of whether a country is mostly Moslem (where atheism is criminalized) or formerly Communist (where religion was suppressed) and accounted for three-quarters of country differences in atheism.

Of course I showed the inadequacy of Barber's work last time. The assertion increases for countries with well developed social system is again, right out of Zuckerma (one of the only three footnotes Barber makes in this article) and it's hilarious because he has totally overlooked the fact that that the social welfare state of Sweden was built by Christians in the nineteenth century!

Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by


Ninna Edrardh Beckman

Page 1


Welfare and Values in Europe:
Transitions related to Religion, Minorities and Gender
(WaVE)
Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by Ninna Edgardh Beckman
Page 2

Introduction
Based on its very low figures of religious attendance and traditional religious faith, Sweden has a reputation of being one of the most secularised countries in the world. True as this might be, what the image conceals is the strong and complicated role that religion still plays in Sweden, not least through history and culture. The modern history of Sweden has its foundation in national homogeneity, grounded in the principle of one people and one faith. This principle is closely connected to the Lutheran majority church, to which nearly 80% of the Swedish population still belongs, even though formally state and church were separated in 2000. The recent presence of other world religions and official policies tending towards multiculturalism adds new religious aspects to Swedish culture. Religion thus continues to play an interesting role in Sweden, behind the seemingly straightforward image of a country on its way towards complete secularisation

The Swedish welfare state was built after the Second World War, based on the idea of ‘the home of the people’ (folkhemsidén). The basic principle of the model is that the state and local authorities guarantee the basic needs of all citizens. This principle is based on strong values of solidarity and shared responsibility. Decades of success for the system have since the 1990s been replaced by growing problems with keeping up the high level of benefits and services, a development, which is increasingly questioning also the values underpinning the whole welfare structure. Immigration is one factor, among many, challenging the system and immigrants have also been among those most affected by emerging new forms of poverty

(this source is not off the net. It's in downloaded PDF form. one can find the link to it in this Google search:)

Series: Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics
Edited by Kees van Kersbergen
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Philip Manow
Review
Universität Konstanz, Germany

This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state–church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.

• Radical revision of established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies based on a combination of country case studies and comparative accounts • Introduces a new perspective on why and how religion shaped modern social protection systems and gives a new comparative account of the formation of different welfare state regimes • Systematic inquiry into the role of the state–church conflict for social policy in advanced industrial societies

Contents

1. Religion and the Western welfare state: the theoretical context Philip Manow and Kees van Kersbergen;

2. Western European party systems and the religious cleavage Thomas Ertman;

3. The religious foundations of work-family policies in Western Europe Kimberly J. Morgan;

4. Italy: a Christian democratic or clientist welfare state? Julia Lynch;

5. Religion and the welfare state in the Netherlands Kees van Kersbergen;

6. A conservative welfare state regime without Christian Democracy? The French Etat-providence, 1880–1960 Philip Manow and Bruno Palier;

7. Religion and the consolidation of the Swiss welfare state, 1848–1945 Herbert Obinger;

8. The church as nation? The role of religion in the development of the Swedish welfare state Karen M. Anderson;

9. The religious factor in US welfare state politics Jill Quadagno and Deanna Rohlinger;

10. Religious social doctrines and poor relief: a different causal pathway Sigrun Kahl. Contributors


(contributors include:Philip Manow, Kees van Kersbergen, Thomas Ertman, Kimberly J. Morgan, Julia Lynch, Bruno Palier, Herbert Obinger, Karen M. Anderson, Jill Quadagno, Deanna Rohlinger, Sigrun Kahl).

Barber makes several undocumented assertion based upon steriotype.

Even the psychological functions of religion face stiff competition today. In modern societies, when people experience psychological difficulties they turn to their doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist. They want a scientific fix and prefer the real psychotropic medicines dished out by physicians to the metaphorical opiates offered by religion. No wonder that atheism increases along with third-level educational enrollment (1).

Of cousre what he's missing is the fact that there's a huge industry of Christian counseling and psychology. A large portion of it is admittedly worthless, especially when connected with Churches. Yet a large portion of it is scientific and valid. when people go to a psychiatrist rather than a minister there's a good chance his education is going is to have some cross over with religoius training. There's also a large number to go to ministers in addition to "shrinks." Christian based ministry is going to reflect the views of the chruch offering it. Of course if you go to a fundamentailst chruch thier counciling will reflect fundmenalism. They will not be engaged with the acadmeic nature of the field in a significant way. If one goes to a liberal Church one will find counselors who are so engaged. One might also consider the track record of alleged secular scientific counseling. I have a close family member who has been involved in the mental health care industry for some time. I wouldn't give two cents for their ability to help anyone.

Barber sums it up:

The reasons that churches lose ground in developed countries can be summarized in market terms. First, with better science, and with government safety nets, and smaller families, there is less fear and uncertainty in people's daily lives and hence less of a market for religion. At the same time many alternative products are being offered, such as psychotropic medicines and electronic entertainment that have fewer strings attached and that do not require slavish conformity to unscientific beliefs.

His happy little world of secular mental health is a sham, shattered by reality. We have 40 years of abuse, sexual crimes, abuse against civil liberties, warehousing rather than treating patients and so on. one of the symptoms of these atheist love letters to secular society is the rose colored glasses through which they dismiss all of societies problems on the pretense that secular answers solve everything.

Barber's title implies a jaded sort of superiority over the common man; the human beast, we need superior elite shrinks and social sciences to tell us what to do. This might start us wondering at an atheist movement in bogus social scinece that includes people with Nyborg's notions of genetic superiority and Barber's apparent desire to do social engineering.

New Atheist Ideology Disected and Disproved

Andrew Brown, Marxist critic who works for the Guardian, major left wing newspaper.

New atheism is a political movement and not an Intellectual one:

Brown's blog on the Guardian site

In part this is difficult because the new atheism is largely a political and social rather than an intellectual movement. In some ways it can be understood as the canary in the coalmine of American power and exceptionalism.

this guy is an expert in ideology. This guy knows ideology when he sees it. He distills an idea for New Atheism (which proves one of my major assertions). His method for piecing together the ideology is to find the communality in the works of the major leaders of their movement, the major New Atheist writers.

The ideas I claim are distinctive of the new atheists have been collected from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Jerry Coyne, the American physicist Robert L. Park, and a couple of blogging biologists, P Z Myers and Larry Moran. They have two things in common. They are none of them philosophers and, though most are scientists, none study psychology, history, the sociology of religion, or any other discipline which might cast light on the objects of their execration. All of them make claims about religion and about believers which go far beyond the mere disbelief in God which I take to be the distinguishing mark of an atheist.

These are the ideas:

❄ There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.

❄ The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing – everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]

❄ Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]

❄ In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)

❄ Religion exists. It is essentially something like American fundamentalist protestantism, or Islam. More moderate forms are false and treacherous: if anything even more dangerous, because they conceal the raging, homicidal lunacy that is religion's true nature. [Sam Harris]

❄ Faith, as defined above, is the most dangerous and wicked force on earth today and the struggle against it and especially against Islam will define the future of humanity. [Everyone]

All of these propositions will be found in the authors I have cited as well as in the comments to religious articles here. I sometimes think that only the last two are unique to the new atheists: you can certainly find the others in earlier authors. But those are the six doctrines which I would reject when saying rude things about the new atheists.

let's take them one at a time:

❄ There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.

This is nothing more than the message board atheist fallacy about the nature of faith. The Faith article in Westminster Dictionary of Theology is like two huge pages of small type. It's much too complex to just pack into this loaded self serving ideological propaganda slogan. "unjustified bleief" no believer accepts that faith is unjustified and thus this is not a definition but a slogan. The Westminster article show that faith means as much "faithfulness" or commitment as it does placing confidence in an hypothesis. Faith is placing confidence in a hypothesis toward the end of making a commitment and remaining faithful to the placing of such confidence.

❄ The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing – everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]

Of course we only need a cure if there's an illness. There is no such illness because faith is not a negative. Of course the existence of God is not a scientific question. I've disproved this and written about why it's not many times.

the phrase in that point science is the only way of knowing is the atheist fortress of facts concept that I've talked about many times. Everytime I've brought it up on CARM they deny it then go on to prove I'm right by embracing it. So they deny it with one breath and embrace it with the next. Anyone who really knows much about history and Philosophy of scinece knows this is BS.

❄ Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]

The identification of reilgion with superstition belies all the talk about reason. When we actaully get around to apply some reason we see their argument is merely circular reasoning. They will say "theology is stupidity" but demand that they quote some theologian to prove its' superstition they say "I have not read theology, I don't to read it because I know it's stupid." That sort of anti-intellectual clap trap is a higher crime against reason. Reason is the last these jokers really believe in. The Dawkins statment at the end is the most anti-intellectual piece of crap ever uttered.

They are making the assumption that scienc eis reason but it's actually oppossed to reason because that concept contradicts what is said above about scinece being the only from of knowledge. Atheist disparage logic as a means of understanding the world. They deny that there is any other form of knowledge. Logic is a from of reason. Reason is not empircal observation. So therefore they are actually contradicting because reason is a competeing form of knowledge to empirical science.

❄ In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)

Here we have one of the most interesting. It's not only working from the myth of progress that modernity loves define itself by (thus demonstrated that it's an outmoded way of thinking--disproved by Postmodernism) but it also reads like an eschatology. This marks it as a true aspect of ideology. All ideologies have an eschatology, an end times, a end point toward which the great struggle of the ideological vanguard resolves itself in their victory. Check out past versions:

Christianity: Return of Christ in the end times

Marxism: Worker's paradise

Black Muslims: Black Supremacy

Feminism: Gynarchy (matriarchy)

there the new atheists have the scientific post religious society. this more than anything proves it's an ideology. The rest of the points are just rehashes. They have all the aspects of an ideology:

a exigence, a villain, a vanguard, a audience, a great struggle, an eschatology


Marxism:

exigence: exploitation of the working class.
villain: Capitalism
Vanguard: communist party
audience: workers
great struggle: class warfare
eschatology: worker's paradise.

Works with any ideology one cares to name.

Nation of Islam:

exigence: exploitation of the black race
Villain: White race
Vanguard: Fruit of Islam (black Muslims)
Audience: Black people
great struggle: racism
eschatology: Black society becomes dominate society.

new Atheism:

existence: faith prominent in society
Villain: religion
Vanguard: new atheists
Audience. people who hate religion
great struggle: to destroy religion
eschatology: scientific society post religious.

Having an ideology doesn't' necessary make people wrong. Both Marxists and Black Muslims have their salient points. New atheists, however, are totally afraid to admit they have an ideology. They will never admit it. Even the loyal opponent Hermit is still avidly denying that there is one. Which is odd becuase they seem to think they are the only valid view point there is.

Response to Barber part 2: His article "the Human Beast"

This is Barber's own summary of his "study." It appears in the atheist prapaganda blog psychology today.

He begins with a summary of where atheism is big and where it's not so that he can make a correlation.

Atheists are heavily concentrated in economically developed countries, particularly the social democracies of Europe. In underdeveloped countries, there are virtually no atheists. Atheism is a peculiarly modern phenomenon. Why do modern conditions produce atheism? In a new study to be published in August, I provide compelling evidence that atheism increases along with the quality of life (1).

First, as to the distribution of atheism in the world, a clear pattern can be discerned. In sub-Saharan Africa there is almost no atheism (2). Belief in God declines in more developed countries and atheism is concentrated in Europe in countries such as Sweden (64% nonbelievers), Denmark (48%), France (44%) and Germany (42%). In contrast, the incidence of atheism in most sub-Saharan countries is below 1%.

As we saw from the Greely study "The Demand for Religion" when we break down the stats for Northern Europe we find actual atheism is very small. Most of what is passing for atheism is soft core or 'agnostic.' He says Sweden is 64% non believers but it's really misleading because what he's calling "unbelievers" are not necessarily atheists. Only 10% are strong athesits and most of them are "softest core" meaninng agnostic.

In the second column, "Soft Core" Atheists include those in the third column and those who, while they reject God do not completely reject life after death (they accept the third response on that question – there is "probably not" a life after death. This latter group might be considered to be on the far fringes of the religious market place.

The "Softest Core" Atheists in the third column include those in the first two and those who can fairly be called agnostics (the second response to the God question) because they do not completely reject the possibility of the existence of God. They might be considered as hovering a little closer to the religious market place.

It is only in former communist countries (which Sweden is not) that over 10% are strong atheists. Softest core atheist can believe there might something like God. This is another case of atheist inflation (blowing up their figures and stretching things to appear they have a much larger movement than they do).

Then turns to the question why would lower belief be correlated with better affluence?

The question of why economically developed countries turn to atheism has been batted around by anthropologists for about eighty years. Anthropologist James Fraser proposed that scientific prediction and control of nature supplants religion as a means of controlling uncertainty in our lives. This hunch is supported by data showing that the more educated countries have higher levels of non belief and there are strong correlations between atheism and intelligence.

Now of course the alleged "correlates" between atheism and intelligence are pure bull and have been disproved over and over again. Round one was disproved over a 50 year period were 16 studies showed no correlation, or that religious people are smarter (which I take to be indicative of correlation). Only six (6) studies supported the correlation and all were done before 1960. They all had terrible methodologies and much smaller samples than the one's done after 1960 that consistently showed no correlation until Francis three studies in the 90s. Francis work caped the first round and the field decided there is no correlation. The atheist propaganda machine came back on it, becuase the real burning drive to be an atheist is the need to feel superior to make up for the poor self esteem.(part 2 here). The second wave is a much more bogus attempt because they haven't bothered to gather their own data.

The second wave is lead by Lynn, Harvey and Nyborg. Nyrbog is a crack pot who thinks that women are genetically inferior and has racist leanings (his study IQ differences favor males was investigate and received reprimand form the university). They didn't gather their own data and have been roundly criticized for trying to draw together a huge among of interdependently gathered data with no unified scheme of standards for accessing IQ. Barber just dashes off the references to them as though they are a done deal. He seems to accept them uncritically. Their arguments are reminiscent of the Bell Curve and they seem to be trying to imply, especially the Psychology today Blog crowd, that atheism is an advance in evolution and atheists are a tiny elite, you would think they would be happy to accept the small status of their numbers. When one considers the most educated group in America, professors, one finds their ratio of belief nearly fits that of the general public. He also asserts that atheists are better eduated, see Atheist Watch for refutation.

Barber falls back upon James Fraser's (1854-1941) assertion that religion is about security and that rise in control of nature would supplant religoius belief. Of cousre one could make the same kind of prediction about scientifically minded people. Science is a means of calming the fears of people who are seeking control over nature because they fear it. They also make no attempt to analyze the probablity that allaying fear is the proper job of human psychology and that his is not invalid nor does it demonstrate some kind of outmoded in religion. No mores than the need to find food or hunt is displaced by the need to go to the supermarket. As Maslow predicts when the lower order needs are met then we move up the hierarchy to work on higher level needs. That's why all the major theological movements of the 20th century were about existentialism and process thought.

At this point Barber begins lauding his own work:

In my new study of 137 countries (1), I also found that atheism increases for countries with a well-developed welfare state (as indexed by high taxation rates). Moreover, countries with a more equal distribution of income had more atheists. My study improved on earlier research by taking account of whether a country is mostly Moslem (where atheism is criminalized) or formerly Communist (where religion was suppressed) and accounted for three-quarters of country differences in atheism.

Of course I showed the inadequacy of Barber's work last time. The assertion increases for countries with well developed social system is again, right out of Zuckerma (one of the only three footnotes Barber makes in this article) and it's hilarious because he has totally overlooked the fact that that the social welfare state of Sweden was built by Christians in the nineteenth century!

Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by


Ninna Edrardh Beckman

Page 1


Welfare and Values in Europe:
Transitions related to Religion, Minorities and Gender
(WaVE)
Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by Ninna Edgardh Beckman
Page 2

Introduction
Based on its very low figures of religious attendance and traditional religious faith, Sweden has a reputation of being one of the most secularised countries in the world. True as this might be, what the image conceals is the strong and complicated role that religion still plays in Sweden, not least through history and culture. The modern history of Sweden has its foundation in national homogeneity, grounded in the principle of one people and one faith. This principle is closely connected to the Lutheran majority church, to which nearly 80% of the Swedish population still belongs, even though formally state and church were separated in 2000. The recent presence of other world religions and official policies tending towards multiculturalism adds new religious aspects to Swedish culture. Religion thus continues to play an interesting role in Sweden, behind the seemingly straightforward image of a country on its way towards complete secularisation

The Swedish welfare state was built after the Second World War, based on the idea of ‘the home of the people’ (folkhemsidén). The basic principle of the model is that the state and local authorities guarantee the basic needs of all citizens. This principle is based on strong values of solidarity and shared responsibility. Decades of success for the system have since the 1990s been replaced by growing problems with keeping up the high level of benefits and services, a development, which is increasingly questioning also the values underpinning the whole welfare structure. Immigration is one factor, among many, challenging the system and immigrants have also been among those most affected by emerging new forms of poverty

(this source is not off the net. It's in downloaded PDF form. one can find the link to it in this Google search:)

Series: Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics
Edited by Kees van Kersbergen
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Philip Manow
Review
Universität Konstanz, Germany

This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state–church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.

• Radical revision of established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies based on a combination of country case studies and comparative accounts • Introduces a new perspective on why and how religion shaped modern social protection systems and gives a new comparative account of the formation of different welfare state regimes • Systematic inquiry into the role of the state–church conflict for social policy in advanced industrial societies

Contents

1. Religion and the Western welfare state: the theoretical context Philip Manow and Kees van Kersbergen;

2. Western European party systems and the religious cleavage Thomas Ertman;

3. The religious foundations of work-family policies in Western Europe Kimberly J. Morgan;

4. Italy: a Christian democratic or clientist welfare state? Julia Lynch;

5. Religion and the welfare state in the Netherlands Kees van Kersbergen;

6. A conservative welfare state regime without Christian Democracy? The French Etat-providence, 1880–1960 Philip Manow and Bruno Palier;

7. Religion and the consolidation of the Swiss welfare state, 1848–1945 Herbert Obinger;

8. The church as nation? The role of religion in the development of the Swedish welfare state Karen M. Anderson;

9. The religious factor in US welfare state politics Jill Quadagno and Deanna Rohlinger;

10. Religious social doctrines and poor relief: a different causal pathway Sigrun Kahl. Contributors


(contributors include:Philip Manow, Kees van Kersbergen, Thomas Ertman, Kimberly J. Morgan, Julia Lynch, Bruno Palier, Herbert Obinger, Karen M. Anderson, Jill Quadagno, Deanna Rohlinger, Sigrun Kahl).

Barber makes several undocumented assertion based upon steriotype.

Even the psychological functions of religion face stiff competition today. In modern societies, when people experience psychological difficulties they turn to their doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist. They want a scientific fix and prefer the real psychotropic medicines dished out by physicians to the metaphorical opiates offered by religion. No wonder that atheism increases along with third-level educational enrollment (1).

Of cousre what he's missing is the fact that there's a huge industry of Christian counseling and psychology. A large portion of it is admittedly worthless, especially when connected with Churches. Yet a large portion of it is scientific and valid. when people go to a psychiatrist rather than a minister there's a good chance his education is going is to have some cross over with religoius training. There's also a large number to go to ministers in addition to "shrinks." Christian based ministry is going to reflect the views of the chruch offering it. Of course if you go to a fundamentailst chruch thier counciling will reflect fundmenalism. They will not be engaged with the acadmeic nature of the field in a significant way. If one goes to a liberal Church one will find counselors who are so engaged. One might also consider the track record of alleged secular scientific counseling. I have a close family member who has been involved in the mental health care industry for some time. I wouldn't give two cents for their ability to help anyone.

Barber sums it up:

The reasons that churches lose ground in developed countries can be summarized in market terms. First, with better science, and with government safety nets, and smaller families, there is less fear and uncertainty in people's daily lives and hence less of a market for religion. At the same time many alternative products are being offered, such as psychotropic medicines and electronic entertainment that have fewer strings attached and that do not require slavish conformity to unscientific beliefs.

His happy little world of secular mental health is a sham, shattered by reality. We have 40 years of abuse, sexual crimes, abuse against civil liberties, warehousing rather than treating patients and so on. one of the symptoms of these atheist love letters to secular society is the rose colored glasses through which they dismiss all of societies problems on the pretense that secular answers solve everything.

Barber's title implies a jaded sort of superiority over the common man; the human beast, we need superior elite shrinks and social sciences to tell us what to do. This might start us wondering at an atheist movement in bogus social scinece that includes people with Nyborg's notions of genetic superiority and Barber's apparent desire to do social engineering.

Atheist Replies on the "Courtier's Replay"

I got some hate mail about a thing on Meatacrock's blog which was published way back a year abo (June, 25, 2010) "what is the courtiers replay?" I thought it would be instructive to look at the comments form that time since there are some intelligent atheists making comment, such as my old friend Bap Gronk.

Derek Porter said...

You sicken me, you lying scumbag. Why must I waste my life sharing a planet with lousy shits like you? Because make no mistake, every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every year, spent in the same universe as you IS wasted. And wasted through no fault of my own, but ENTIRELY through your fault. You loathsome piece of vomit.

O Yes they are not a hate group! they don't have an ideology? Who but a hate group ideologue would get so bent out of shape by the mere argument that one should know what one criticizes? This busienss of saying "Theology is stupid I don't need to know about it because I all I need to know is that belief in God is stupid" is just circular reasoning. It's the justification of ignorance.It's a refusal to think.

7:14 AM

Brap Gronk said...

Part 1: Here is how I look at the Courtier’s Reply. Let’s go back in time to when the only part of today’s Bible that existed was the Pentateuch. (If that’s not the general consensus on which books were written first, feel free to substitute whatever book or books were written first in place of “Pentateuch.”) If a person of that era is presented with the Pentateuch and told it is the word of God, inspired by God, or whatever, that person can decide whether to believe it or not.

So, why would this person believe the Pentateuch is the word of God? One reason might be because this person already believes in one or more false gods who are allegedly responsible for various natural occurrences, so a story about a one true God, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, seems quite plausible. I hope we can agree that accepting the Pentateuch base on that line of reasoning is less than great, since it’s based on false beliefs. Another reason this person might believe the Pentateuch is the word of God is because he has been searching for answers to explain the natural world around him, and he thinks there must be a supreme being who is in charge of it all and created everything. In my opinion that line of reasoning is similar to the first reason, since those false gods were created for the same reason, to partially or wholly explain the natural world. It doesn’t seem much different than God of the Gaps, since at that time it was all gaps. (No need to shoot down God of the Gaps for me. I’ll remove that last sentence so we can move on.)

Are there any other reasons a person of that era might believe the Pentateuch is the word of God, based on the evidence available at the time? I don’t know.

On the other hand, why might our ancient person not believe the Pentateuch is the word of God? There could be any number of reasons to reject it, such as being generally skeptical of anything or anyone, having a dislike for authority, etc. These reasons are not based on any evaluation of the Pentateuch but are instead personality traits, so no need to consider those as being valid. But why might he reject the Pentateuch based on the available evidence? I can think of a few things he might say:

- This is just some oral history you people finally decided to write down. Why should I believe it came from a god?
- How convenient of you to write a story about how God has selected you as his chosen people and promised you some land. I wish I had thought of that first.
- This God character really cares about the minutiae of our lives, doesn’t he? There are so many rules in there that I’m more inclined to think this is an attempt to justify enforcement of your rules of behavior, not God’s rules.
- Your stories about God seem to stress rewards for those who obey him and nasty consequences for those who do not. Since I can’t verify this god of yours really did any of these nasty things to those who allegedly deserved it, this looks like a bunch of empty threats intended to make me fearful of not obeying your god.

These seem like reasonable objections to me, and I think it’s safe to say that if a group of people today came up with a story about how their god has selected them as his chosen people, promised them some land in rural Montana, and gave them a bunch of reasonable rules to live by, they wouldn’t be taken very seriously by anyone of any religious belief.

So I am suggesting we consider only the Pentateuch, and any theology based solely on the Pentateuch, when evaluating whether or not the Pentateuch was divinely inspired. Feel free to call it the Ancient Courtier’s Reply. If that’s considered unfair, keep in mind that that’s all our ancient person had to go on, too. No Jesus, no resurrection, no atonement. The Ancient Courtier cannot tell our ancient non-believer to wait because it will all make sense in a few hundred years after God sends his son to Earth.

10:51 AM

Brap Gronk said...

Part 2 of 2: Another objection to the Pentateuch our ancient person would not have made, which we can make today, is based on the current level of scientific knowledge. Critics of the (Ancient) Courtier’s Reply will immediately say that if they can’t use the rest of the Bible and its theology to support the Pentateuch, atheists can’t use scientific knowledge that was not available at the time the Pentateuch was written. The difference, however, is that the scientific basis for rejecting the Pentateuch as being divinely inspired was true back when the Pentateuch was written, it just wasn’t known at the time. The remainder of the Bible, however, was not written until later, and many of the events certainly didn’t happen until later.

My position is this: An ancient person had no rational reason for believing the Pentateuch was divinely inspired, based on what we know today about the prevalent belief in false gods at that time. That’s a hurdle most Atheists can’t get over, which is why they say any theology about the rest of the Bible isn’t worth considering. The foundation is incredibly weak, and the ancient people who believed in this weak foundation built quite a large house on it. The Courtier keeps pointing out how wonderful the windows and doors are, and how beautiful the house looks from a distance. But the Atheists don’t care about the windows, the doors, or how it looks from across the street, because they have no faith in the foundation.

How does such a large, beautiful house get built on such a weak foundation? One contributing factor is groupthink. Once a group of people start believing in something, they tend to notice things which confirm their beliefs, and it’s difficult for a person in the group to stand up and say the beliefs of the group are wrong. The tale of the Emperor’s new clothes illustrates groupthink very well. Unfortunately, groupthink can go off in a really bad direction, and one need not look further than the crusades or the prosecution of witches to confirm that. If groupthink can go off in such a bad direction as the crusades, isn’t it plausible that groupthink could have gone off in an apparently good direction, building upon the weak foundation of the Pentateuch, adding more and more “goodness” to support that position, to the point where the Bible and theology exist today? Is it unreasonable to inspect the foundation with today’s knowledge? The rest of the house cannot support the foundation, no matter how well-constructed it is.

10:51 AM

Metacrock said...

Because I think you should read things you criticize? that's such an unfair demand!

1:16 PM

Metacrock said... from porter above:

You sicken me, you lying scumbag. Why must I waste my life sharing a planet with lousy shits like you? Because make no mistake, every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every year, spent in the same universe as you IS wasted. And wasted through no fault of my own, but ENTIRELY through your fault. You loathsome piece of vomit.


I said people should try to understand things they criticize. why is that so terribly horrible? becasue you are filled with hate agaisnt religious people aren't you? why? because God wont let stick your dick where you want to sitck, right? so you hate me because I don't hate on your behalf.

you must be one of the most selfish idiot an puriel little cretins int he universe.

1:29 PM

Metacrock said...

Brap Gronk
Meta to Brap
>>>No offense man but your ideas about how religion came to be and why people believe in it, why they believe sacred texts are totally out of date and have nothing to dow tih modern ideas about religion.

You are also acting like the whole of the Christian tradition is about the Bible, that's very old fashioned and silly and just plain wrong.

You also seem to be ignoring what the courtier's reply is about. It's basically saying "hate and ridicule things you don't know about." Or rather it says "religion is so stupid you don't have to learn about it or know what you say when you criticize it because it' just so dumb don't even bother thinking you might be wrong if you totally despise it.

That's so obviously ignorant. it's just nothing more than a lynch mob mentality.

This just really proves that atheism is a hate group.

1:34 PM

Metacrock said...

for Brap Gronk part 2:

the foundation of religious belief is not holy writ, or a text. The bible is not the basis of Christianity. The basis of religious belief is the sense of the numinous. That is so well proved and so well documented in a practical sense it really proves the existence of God. It's so clearly proved that atheist have to destroy man's knowledge of it as I'm sure they will try to do.

they are already trying to ridicule the studies out of existence before they have read any.

Don't think I'm think that's anything against your intelligence or your knowledge. nO it's not your fault that think this way, how could anyone not think that way without special training in theology since the fudnies are the religious voice we hear in the media and the fundies worship the bible.

No way to get another impression unless you really study a broad field of philosophy religion, history of religions, mythology, psychology religion and theology. The only programs where you can get all that are in liberal seminaries.

1:43 PM

Brap Gronk said...

"The basis of religious belief is the sense of the numinous. That is so well proved and so well documented in a practical sense it really proves the existence of God."

Does the sense of the numinous ever lead people to believe in false gods? Has it in the past? How does one tell the difference between a false god (one who does not exist) and one who practices divine hiddenness?

If we gathered a group of children who believed in Santa Claus, and over the years they compiled evidence of his existence, including their requests (prayers) to Santa Claus being answered on a semi-regular basis, how likely are we to believe in Santa Claus because of their sense of numinous?

I would agree that religions came about because of people believing in, or wanting to believe in, a supreme being, an afterlife, etc. I'm not suggesting the first Jew went around with a copy of the Pentateuch trying to convert people to Judaism. However, if the Bible is divinely inspired (inerrant or not), and the Pentateuch, as far as we know today, was the first part to be written, shouldn't there have been a rational reason for people to believe it was divinely inspired at the time? How else does a religion gain followers, other than by parents indoctrinating their children at a young age?

To move things forward a bit chronologically, would there have been a logical, rational reason for someone living in the first century BC to convert to Judaism if he was not raised as a Jew?

5:44 PM

Metacrock said...

Does the sense of the numinous ever lead people to believe in false gods? Has it in the past? How does one tell the difference between a false god (one who does not exist) and one who practices divine hiddenness?



Meta: no it does not. Experience of God is beyond words and beyond understanding. All human verbiage about God is based upon loading that experience into cultural constructs. That's the only way to talk about them. In that sense they are all false even Christianity if you literalize the metaphors. If you understand that these constructs that gestures which point to a reality beyond themselves then it can't be false.

Jesus is the exception because he was not a cultural construct, but he still had to speak in cultural constructs to communicate with us.

Paul tells us God is working in all cultures, Acts 17:21-29. By what the Bible seems to say elsewhere we would normally think of the Greeks as evil, sataic, but Paul says the worshiped the true God, they just didn't know what to call him.

The false aspects come from literilzing the cultural constructs.

6:39 AM

Metacrock said...

BGIf we gathered a group of children who believed in Santa Claus, and over the years they compiled evidence of his existence, including their requests (prayers) to Santa Claus being answered on a semi-regular basis, how likely are we to believe in Santa Claus because of their sense of numinous?


Meta:no one can bring back a dead father from realm beyond the styx by writing a letter to santa. no one can make an incurable patent live by the power of a letter to santa. Santa is given life by adults who think it's cute to keep the illusion going. But those adults cannot heal an incurable illness or raise form the dead to fool a child.

analogies are not proof.

I would agree that religions came about because of people believing in, or wanting to believe in, a supreme being, an afterlife, etc.

circular reasoning. why do they want that? You have to account for mystical consciousness and the sense of the numinous which is as old as the hills. The caveman Bulgarian give evidence of belief in after life, why? Because they sense the numinous, not because they had a preconceived notion of a God thousands of years before Humans talked about Gods.

We can trace the appearance of gods on the human stage of history, we cannot find the origins of the numinous which go all the way back to before we were human.

BG
I'm not suggesting the first Jew went around with a copy of the Pentateuch trying to convert people to Judaism. However, if the Bible is divinely inspired (inerrant or not), and the Pentateuch, as far as we know today, was the first part to be written, shouldn't there have been a rational reason for people to believe it was divinely inspired at the time? How else does a religion gain followers, other than by parents indoctrinating their children at a young age?


Meta no what I was trying to tell you before. you do not have an adequate understanding of how the Bible came to be or it's role in the Christian tradition.

I'm going to do a main blog post on this for next week.

6:46 AM

Metacrock said...

BGTo move things forward a bit chronologically, would there have been a logical, rational reason for someone living in the first century BC to convert to Judaism if he was not raised as a Jew?

Meta You are trying to assume what the televangelists and fundies say is really Christianity. If you not in the club you are going to hell the only way for people to be saved before Jesus day was to become Jews. That is a false assumption.

People before Jesus' day did not have to become Jews to avoid hell. People in our day don't have to become Christians to avoid hell. Hell is just a metaphor for spiritual death and God is working in all cultures (Acts 17-21-29) and anyone who follows the moral law on the heart is following Jesus defacto (Romans 2:6-14) It's not a matter of everyone goes to hell but members of the club.

The reason to be in the tradition (the Christian tradition) is to know God, not to avoid hell.

6:51 AM

Metacrock said...

After saying that a bunch of people are going to say "m a universalist." I am not a universalist. I am a liberal.

read my essay on Salvation and other faiths

6:54 AM

Brap Gronk said...

Meta, is this part of your argument for the existence of God:

God exists because people have believed in, or sensed, his existence for as long as humans have existed. The best explanation for this sense of the numinous is that God exists.

8:25 PM

Kristen said...

Derek, for Pete's sake! Where did all that hatred for someone you don't even know, come from? There must be some reason why this upsets you so much-- you're reaction is entiretly out of proportion to Metacrocks' post.

Brap Gronk, the reason you think the foundation is weak is that you don't understand the foundation. You might attempt to actually look at things outside your own box, before judging them from within your box.

The Courtier's Reply says, "Your ideas don't fit in my box and I'm not in the least bit interested in climbing out of my box. From in here I can't see what the fuss is all about-- therefore, you're making a fuss over nothing."

10:01 PM

Metacrock said...

Brap Gronk said...

Meta, is this part of your argument for the existence of God:

God exists because people have believed in, or sensed, his existence for as long as humans have existed. The best explanation for this sense of the numinous is that God exists.

Not exact. without understanding how it's used it sounds stupid but let's consider how its used.

(1) how it's not used: that is not the turning point of the argument that proves the rationality of belief (don't forget I don't have to prove that God exists, my task is to prove that belief is rational).

(2) the turning point that prove rationailty is the outcome of having the experince.

(3)so how is this used: It's the link between the feeling (numinous, Utter dependence, peak experience or whatever) and its' identification with the divine. That doesn't prove God exists, it tells us why these experiences are associated with God.

It's just if I report that I saw a do do bird. you say "what makes you think the bird you say is a do do bird?" Because it fits the description. "how do you know the description is accurate?" Because this is the same description people have always given for the bird.

what would ever prove something? Your problem is you are so hung up on answerintg any proofs that you can't stop adn ask yourself what would be a rational reason to believe something?

don't fall back on the mistaken idea that belief in God requires big amazing miracles no one can deny that's an atheist straw man argument.

8:46 AM

Brap Gronk said...

Kristen said: "the reason you think the foundation is weak is that you don't understand the foundation."

I realize that, which is why I am asking questions. I now understand the foundation of Christianity extends beyond (is earlier than) the Pentateuch.

If the foundation of Scientology is simply some of L. Ron Hubbard's writings, we don't need much Scientologist theology (if there is such a thing) to consider that a weak foundation. I suspect the apologists for Scientology have plenty to say beyond L. Ron Hubbard's writings, and when the Protestants, Muslims, Catholics and Mormons say it's a big fuss over nothing and don't bother to listen to it, the Scientologists might say those people don't understand the foundation and they are using the Courtier's Reply. (I doubt there is any comparison between the evidence presented to support Scientology and the evidence presented to support Christianity, so no equality is implied there.)

6:42 PM

Brap Gronk said...

Meta wrote: "(don't forget I don't have to prove that God exists, my task is to prove that belief is rational)."

I'm all ears, waiting for some rationality.

"2) the turning point that prove rationailty is the outcome of having the experince."

Assuming you are not saying correlation proves causation, what are you saying there? I know some people feel better and have good things happen to them when they believe in God, and I think there are studies that have quantified some of those effects. But I think the most we can logically conclude from such studies is that belief in a supreme being has been beneficial for more individuals than nonbelief has been. I'm even ok saying "belief" is the cause of those effects if you want to go that far, but that does nothing to determine the validity of the belief. Once again, if children who believe in Santa Claus get more presents than those who don't believe in Santa Claus . . .

"(3)so how is this used: It's the link between the feeling (numinous, Utter dependence, peak experience or whatever) and its' identification with the divine. That doesn't prove God exists, it tells us why these experiences are associated with God."

Then I'll revise my guess regarding part of your argument for the existence of God. How's this:

The sense of the numinous that humans have had as long as (or almost as long as) humans have existed is universal. It is universal in the sense that it has similar characteristics across time, culture, geography, language, age, etc. The best explanation for this universality of the sense of the numinous throughout human history is the divine (God).

"what would ever prove something?"

Repeatable, predictable, observable, verifiable results of experimentation seems like a good start.

"Your problem is you are so hung up on answerintg any proofs that you can't stop adn ask yourself what would be a rational reason to believe something?"

I'm not asking for a logical proof (deduction) of God's existence. Some inductive reasoning based on empirical evidence might be a good step toward rationality, though. Ignoring the ability of the human mind to convince itself something is true and to maintain that position, even when presented with overwhelming evidence (even video evidence) that contradicts it, seems a bit irrational.

"don't fall back on the mistaken idea that belief in God requires big amazing miracles no one can deny that's an atheist straw man argument."

I don't need a big amazing miracle to believe in God, although I cannot with certainty say what would convince me. But I can definitely state with certainty that without some convincing evidence of the supernatural interacting with the natural world, now or in the past, even a teeny tiny bit, I'm unlikely to consider it.

Some apologists like to say science cannot detect the supernatural, to which I say it can detect when things don't fit with our current knowledge of the natural world. If we consider the barrier between the natural and the supernatural to be a wall, science can detect where something goes through the wall and where it comes back. If it goes through and comes back in the same spot (divine hiddenness), I think it's more likely that it never crossed the wall at all.

6:44 PM

Metacrock said...

I suspect the apologists for Scientology have plenty to say beyond L. Ron Hubbard's writings,

I wouldn't bet on it. We can distinguish between valid religions and cults and scams.

I have a friend who was into Scientology at one time. He says its' a cult and a scam.

surely a being from your advanced world understands that argument from analogy and guilt by association are fallacious right? So if one group is bad that doesn't' make all religious groups bad, right?

I'll answer your other comments at greater length tomorrow.

7:06 PM

Metacrock said...

Meta wrote: "(don't forget I don't have to prove that God exists, my task is to prove that belief is rational)."

BG:
I'm all ears, waiting for some rationality.

Meta:
"2) the turning point that prove rationailty is the outcome of having the experince."

BG
Assuming you are not saying correlation proves causation, what are you saying there?


Meta: The rationality of belief is demonstrated by the effect of the experience of God's presence, or whatever you want to term religious experience. It's not an argument about causation because it's not a proof of God's existence, remember? all it has to show is that belief is rationally warranted. The rational warrant for belief is the effect of the experience.

BG
I know some people feel better and have good things happen to them when they believe in God, and I think there are studies that have quantified some of those effects. But I think the most we can logically conclude from such studies is that belief in a supreme being has been beneficial for more individuals than nonbelief has been.

Meta: wrong!

(1) don't reduce the effects with faint words like "feel better." These clinical and scientific analysis demonstrating dramatic and transfomrative effects.

(2) you can't argue that belief makes you feel better because these are dramatic experiences of sort that involve raising the level of consciousness through sensation of a presence and unity in the world that indicates the awareness of the divine. These experiences are not beliefs that make you feel better,they are often the reason one begins to believe. Not just feeling better but total life transformation.

read this link on the effects

this one states the argument in a somewhat more formal way and offers more evidence.

BG
I'm even ok saying "belief" is the cause of those effects if you want to go that far,

Meta: disproved by the fact that for many the experience is the cause of the belief not vice verse

BG
but that does nothing to determine the validity of the belief. Once again, if children who believe in Santa Claus get more presents than those who don't believe in Santa Claus . . .

Meta:children don't experience the presence of Santa.

you are arguing from analogy and your analogy is a bad one becasue it doesn't apply. Sensing the numinous or hte presence of God is very different from being told you parents about santa, totally different things.

I'll put up a major blog article on this soon, but first I want to deal some other things you raised.

I'll deal with the rest of your comments tomorrow.

you can come to my message boards too you know for more extended discussion.

doxa forums

7:18 PM

Metacrock said...

"(3)so how is this used: It's the link between the feeling (numinous, Utter dependence, peak experience or whatever) and its' identification with the divine. That doesn't prove God exists, it tells us why these experiences are associated with God."

BG
Then I'll revise my guess regarding part of your argument for the existence of God. How's this:

The sense of the numinous that humans have had as long as (or almost as long as) humans have existed is universal. It is universal in the sense that it has similar characteristics across time, culture, geography, language, age, etc. The best explanation for this universality of the sense of the numinous throughout human history is the divine (God).

meta: that's good. It's a rational warrant for belief becasue it' the best explanation for it.

"what would ever prove something?"

BG
Repeatable, predictable, observable, verifiable results of experimentation seems like a good start.

the M scale provides that. Since it was verified through over a dozen studies in about that many cultures. The M scale is a means of determining one has had a valid mystical experience. For this reason it's also the best way to make a definition of what that is. It's validated because the numbers bear out the theories of W.T. Stace who drew up his theories from the writings of the world's major mystics. So the mystic's experiences are verified in that their experiences are echoed in the experiences of people around the world.

Meta"Your problem is you are so hung up on answerintg any proofs that you can't stop adn ask yourself what would be a rational reason to believe something?"

BG
I'm not asking for a logical proof (deduction) of God's existence. Some inductive reasoning based on empirical evidence might be a good step toward rationality, though.

Meta ok fair enough I think I just provided that.

7:26 PM

Metacrock said...

BGIgnoring the ability of the human mind to convince itself something is true and to maintain that position, even when presented with overwhelming evidence (even video evidence) that contradicts it, seems a bit irrational.

say BG you keep putting the cart before the horse. For a lot of these guys the experience came first, so the experience is not being determined by the belief but the belief by the experience.

that's how it was for me btw.

Meta"don't fall back on the mistaken idea that belief in God requires big amazing miracles no one can deny that's an atheist straw man argument."

BG
I don't need a big amazing miracle to believe in God, although I cannot with certainty say what would convince me. But I can definitely state with certainty that without some convincing evidence of the supernatural interacting with the natural world, now or in the past, even a teeny tiny bit, I'm unlikely to consider it.

why do you say that? where do you get the concept of a Super natural?? why would you associate it with God?

here's an article I did some time ago (2006) what is the supernatural?

GB
Some apologists like to say science cannot detect the supernatural, to which I say it can detect when things don't fit with our current knowledge of the natural world. If we consider the barrier between the natural and the supernatural to be a wall, science can detect where something goes through the wall and where it comes back. If it goes through and comes back in the same spot (divine hiddenness), I think it's more likely that it never crossed the wall at all.

meta please read the link I think you will see you have the wrong end of the stick. the concept of supernatural is not understand by atheist, or aliens from other planets, nor most Christians for that matter.

that article will tell you what the super natural is. this one shows you empirical evidence of the SN

7:33 PM

Kristen said...

Brap Gronk said:

"Repeatable, predictable, observable, verifiable results of experimentation seems like a good start."

Metacrock spoke of the M-scale as a verifer of religious experience. But I suspect that won't be good enough for you because your words above show that you're stuck in your box. You can't prove someone loves you through "repeatable, predictable, observable, verifiable results of experimentation." You can't understand a piece of artwork, or a poem, through "repeatable, predictable, observable, verifiable results of experimentation." You can't even prove you exist through "repeatable, predictable, observable, verifiable results of experimentation."

If your only tool is a hammer, everything is going to look like a nail. Science is your hammer. Lay it down for a minute and see that there are things in the world that have nothing to do with being nails.

11:03 PM

Metacrock said...

If your only tool is a hammer, everything is going to look like a nail. Science is your hammer. Lay it down for a minute and see that there are things in the world that have nothing to do with being nails.

that's good. I like that. You are right Kristen. We don't have to replicable scientific standards to know phenomenologically verifiable apprehensions.

The M scale does mean that testing the validity of RE fits the criteria he laid out for scientific verification. But it doesn't have to be there for every aspect of belief. It works for verification of that experience, it doesn't have to available for verification of God's existence.

God is not a scientific question. So we can have the scientific criteria for things that fit scientific questions and we can have experience for God.

7:08 AM

Brap Gronk said...

Thanks for the dialog and the links, Meta. I see there's a new posting on your blog I might be interested in, too. I have a bit of reading to do, and unlike Mr. Porter I enjoy reading viewpoints from the other side, so I'll probably lay low for awhile. But to borrow a line from the Governator: "I'll be bach."

7:42 AM

Metacrock said...

Thanks for the dialog and the links, Meta. I see there's a new posting on your blog I might be interested in, too. I have a bit of reading to do, and unlike Mr. Porter I enjoy reading viewpoints from the other side, so I'll probably lay low for awhile. But to borrow a line from the Governator: "I'll be bach."

OK Brap, thanks. you are always welcome. Don't forget my message board.

I'm going to respond to of your comments in the main section so keep a look out for that.

8:22 AM