Really Dodgy Guardian article comparing Atheists to nutty religious fundamentalists

[nightbreed]

Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore vegetarians are dodgy. Hitler and Stalin had moustaches, therefore ...

More seriously, the personality cults surrounding Hitler and Stalin bore all the hallmarks of religion: sacred texts, rituals, icons, and most pertinent of all, a being at the apex whose word lay beyond all question. If we define "religion" as belief in a sky-god, they were not religious. But, if we stretch our criteria for "religion" beyond the most semantic definition, Hitlerism and Stalinism were bona-fide religious cults. Dictators don't abolish God: they become Him.

All dictatorial regimes ruthlessly persecute dissenters and depend on an apparatus of thought that mirrors fundamentalist religious faith exactly. That's what blows this spurious "X dictator was an atheist" argument out the water (and indeed, heavens).

I agree with this.

 

[zoltan]

what did Stalin train to do in his previous life before he became father of the soviets...................?

 

[nightbreed]

what did Stalin train to do in his previous life before he became father of the soviets...................?

Being an unaccountable rude bureaucrat? A mediocre clerk who used the ideas of marxism for personal gain?

 

[King Biscuit Time]

That's a lovely comparison
Is it your own work, or a quote from someone?

Not my own I'm afraid - I read it somewhere but I can't recall where!

 

[zoltan]

Being an unaccountable rude bureaucrat? A mediocre clerk who used the ideas of marxism for personal gain?

seminary skool - trainee priest

scarey!

 

[Phenotypic Dai]

I like to tease theists about getting sucked in by the idea of an invisible, universe sized, super being who's interested in their masturbatory habits and needs his arse kissing constantly.

They don't like it when you put it like that. They start whining that you should respect their gibberish beliefs.

Gods indeed!

 

[Suffolk Punch]

Atheism can justify fascism

"I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."

"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man."

Thomas Hobbes - atheist

 

[fogbat]

"I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."

"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man."

Thomas Hobbes - atheist

He definitely did his best work with Calvin

 

[likesfish]

always used hitler as a veggie to tease hippys with
as in I think I should become a veggie like my personal hero
works everytime

 

[Aldebaran]

I like to tease theists about getting sucked in by the idea of an invisible, universe sized, super being who's interested in their masturbatory habits and needs his arse kissing constantly.

They don't like it when you put it like that.

You must encounter only alien theists because what you list here is the very least religious people expect from people like you, who think they are original and find themselves obviously exetremely inventive and witty. You to an extend that you post about it on a public message board...

salaam.

 

[TAE]

If we define "religion" as belief in a sky-god, they were not religious. But, if we stretch our criteria for "religion" beyond the most semantic definition, Hitlerism and Stalinism were bona-fide religious cults. Dictators don't abolish God: they become Him.

In that case you can go even further: You can argue that any point of view which a group of people consider to be above questioning is a religion.

 

[Azrael]

Well "faith" is defined as "belief without evidence", so you certainly could argue that.

Adding rites, holy books and dodgy icons in the style of a bad DC comic artist just make the comparison all the more explicit.

 

[TAE]

Do atheists have hard conclusive evidence that there is no God? What is the certainty that there is no God based on? Is it merely an absence of evidence either way that leads them to conclude that there is no God? At the moment we have no evidence that aliens exist, but few people would argue this means they do not exist. So is the atheist belief that there certainly is no God a position of 'faith' ?

 

[In Bloom]

is the atheist belief that there certainly is no God a position of 'faith' ?

Whose belief is that then? My opinion that there's no god stems from the lack of evidence for his/her/it's existence.

Is not believing in the Loch Ness Monster a position of faith?

 

[AnnaKarpik]

Whose belief is that then? My opinion that there's no god stems from the lack of evidence for his/her/it's existence.

Is not believing in the Loch Ness Monster a position of faith?

Absence of evidence should lead to an agnostic position rather than an atheist one; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

[TAE]

Indeed.

Of course people can conclude that there is no God if they don't have any evidence indicating that he does exist, but when people start talking about being certain that there is no God then I have to wonder what they are basing that certainty on.

 

[In Bloom]

Absence of evidence should lead to an agnostic position rather than an atheist one; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So are you agnostic regarding the Loch Ness Monster? What about fairies and elves?

 

[In Bloom]

Of course people can conclude that there is no God if they don't have any evidence indicating that he does exist, but when people start talking about being certain that there is no God then I have to wonder what they are basing that certainty on.

Certainty is for losers, I prefer existential angst, it earns more pulling points with hot scenesters

(More seriously, I'm as certain that there is no God as I am that there are no fairies, make of that what you will)

 

[AnnaKarpik]

So are you agnostic regarding the Loch Ness Monster? What about fairies and elves?

If we discard the legends attached to such things as the Loch Ness monster and fairies or elves along with preconceptions about appearance and attributes we are left asking whether hitherto unknown species exist on the planet and whether supernatural beings exist.

There is a great deal of evidence that to support the first case. New species are discovered all over the place, so it must be possible that Loch Ness has a new species in it. I do think it improbable there is anything huge in there to be discovered but I remain agnostic. For all practical purposes I behave as if there were no monster in Loch Ness.

As regards supernatural beings I remain agnostic. For all purposes I behave as if there were no supernatural beings in the universe.

 

[Aldebaran]

Of course people can conclude that there is no God if they don't have any evidence indicating that he does exist, but when people start talking about being certain that there is no God then I have to wonder what they are basing that certainty on.

The standard intellectually lazy and utterly nonsense reply: "You can't prove a negative".

I never encountered an atheist who admitted the indisputable and very simple fact that when arguing "God does not exist", that implies just the same amount of belief lacking just the same amount of scientifically detectable evidence, then when arguing "God exists".

In my experience the arrogance of atheists surpasses by far the demonstrated arrogance of a fair amount of theists.

salaam.

 

[In Bloom]

If we discard the legends attached to such things as the Loch Ness monster and fairies or elves along with preconceptions about appearance and attributes we are left asking whether hitherto unknown species exist on the planet and whether supernatural beings exist.

There is a great deal of evidence that to support the first case. New species are discovered all over the place, so it must be possible that Loch Ness has a new species in it. I do think it improbable there is anything huge in there to be discovered but I remain agnostic. For all practical purposes I behave as if there were no monster in Loch Ness.

Oh please, that's probably the most feeble cop out in the history of everything.

The Loch Ness Monster refers to a huge, dinosaur-like creature living in Loch Ness, either it exists or it doesn't, and in the absence of evidence for it's existence, the only sensible option is to assume that it doesn't.

Similarly, you wouldn't believe me if I told you that I'm a secret agent sent from the future to kill David Aronovitch, despite a lack of evidence that I'm not.

 

[Aldebaran]

Jn Bloom, don't kill my favourite monster. I want Nessie to stay alive. Besides, Nessie exists. I have it on film (somewhere). It is even a whole family of Nessies.

salaam.

 

[gpbg48]

I reckon an atheist can be as much a fundamentalist as a 'religious' individual.

A fundamentalist believes absolutely that their thinking on a given matter is correct and dismisses possible alternatives, out of hand, as worthy of contempt. Atheists are often as guilty of this as anyone else.

It's also worth noting that religion is often merely used as a means to an end. The Crusades, for instance, were governed by personal motives bound up in religious rhetoric more than any genuine desire to convert anyone to Christianity.

Similarly atheists have been some of the worst kind of persecutors recently. Stalin suppressed Christianity so violently in Russia because he didn't want any challenger in people's minds to his authority; in this case God. No coincidence that during WWII he tentatively allowed Russians back to the churches. Similar thinking governs the actions of the Chinese government to this day. Why do you think it is that the Party insists on appointing all bishops?!

George.

 

[kyser_soze]

Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore vegetarians are dodgy. Hitler and Stalin had moustaches, therefore ...

More seriously, the personality cults surrounding Hitler and Stalin bore all the hallmarks of religion: sacred texts, rituals, icons, and most pertinent of all, a being at the apex whose word lay beyond all question. If we define "religion" as belief in a sky-god, they were not religious. But, if we stretch our criteria for "religion" beyond the most semantic definition, Hitlerism and Stalinism were bona-fide religious cults. Dictators don't abolish God: they become Him.

All dictatorial regimes ruthlessly persecute dissenters and depend on an apparatus of thought that mirrors fundamentalist religious faith exactly. That's what blows this spurious "X dictator was an atheist" argument out the water (and indeed, heavens).

BUT...I'm not making that argument. Nightbreed is arguining against the articles claim that the behavioural patterns particularly associated with religious fundamentalism can be reproduced by atheists, and are visible in the language and attitudes of prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins. Leaving aside the vast tracts of generalisations he makes about atheists. Nick 18111 then said:

Atheistic intollerance doesn't come within a million miles of religious intollerance. We don't burn embassies, we don't threaten to cut people's heads off. We don't kill people because someone said something bad about something we "believe" in.

Which isn't true - Stalin & Mao (I don't know why you've included Nazism in this - the Nazi's weren't atheists, they were Hegelian pagan/Christian mystics) both created state religious cults, but in both cases the mechanisms of their officially atheist states persecuted and executed theists (and the Chinese are still doing it to Falun Gong and Tibetan Buddhists)

You say that previous atheist oppression was based around the personality cults of Stalin & Hitler; well Dawkins has his own little personality cult (many on here in fact) who are equally intolerant of ALL religion, not just fundie stylee; Dawkins himself sees religion as a virus, a cancer in society - a society governed by those who think like Dawkins would NOT be a pleasant place to live a theistic life.

While atheism is a 'lack of belief', that doesn't mean that it isn't an intellectual system that can't demonstrate intolerance, irrationality or violence toward those who don't share it, and I'm really, really surprised that you of all posters don't seem to recognise this.

 

[Stigmata]

I reckon an atheist can be as much a fundamentalist as a 'religious' individual.

A fundamentalist believes absolutely that their thinking on a given matter is correct and dismisses possible alternatives, out of hand, as worthy of contempt. Atheists are often as guilty of this as anyone else.

It's also worth noting that religion is often merely used as a means to an end. The Crusades, for instance, were governed by personal motives bound up in religious rhetoric more than any genuine desire to convert anyone to Christianity.

True dat. The Spanish Inquisition was as much about nation-building as it was about Catholicism.

 

[Fruitloop]

... well Dawkins has his own little personality cult (many on here in fact)...

Name names.

 

[kyser_soze]

Will have to check back to old Dawkin's threads...might take some time cos I'm off site all day...

 

[toggle]

Similarly, you wouldn't believe me if I told you that I'm a secret agent sent from the future to kill David Aronovitch, despite a lack of evidence that I'm not.

I would if you told me you were doing it in the name of the flying spaghetti monster.

 

[Fruitloop]

Will have to check back to old Dawkin's threads...might take some time cos I'm off site all day...

Okeydokey.

 

[kyser_soze]

Similarly, you wouldn't believe me if I told you that I'm a secret agent sent from the future to kill David Aronovitch, despite a lack of evidence that I'm not.

I might.