Mises and "New Atheism"

[moorobot]

That doesn't explain why people believe something when it has no benefits for them. Furthermore, smoking as well has benefits, although they may seem absurd to non-smokers (e.g. taste, enjoyment of the drug effects on the brain, fitting in with a social group/alleviating peer pressure as a youngster, a way to fulfill one's oral or manual fixations, etc.).

[vhawk01]

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That doesn't explain why people believe something when it has no benefits for them. Furthermore, smoking as well has benefits, although they may seem absurd to non-smokers (e.g. taste, enjoyment of the drug effects on the brain, fitting in with a social group/alleviating peer pressure as a youngster, a way to fulfill one's oral or manual fixations, etc.).

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Which leaves us at the tautology that people do things because they want to do them. True, but not very useful.

[SNOWBALL]

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That doesn't explain why people believe something when it has no benefits for them. Furthermore, smoking as well has benefits, although they may seem absurd to non-smokers (e.g. taste, enjoyment of the drug effects on the brain, fitting in with a social group/alleviating peer pressure as a youngster, a way to fulfill one's oral or manual fixations, etc.).


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NOPE!

Smoking creates all the problems that it fixes. It is only relaxing because it's a relief from the withdrawal pangs. It only seems to taste good because the smoker has acquired that taste, and learned to associate it with pleasure.

The reason all of this seems absurd to nonsmokers is that they haven't become addicted. Smokers are all under the illusion that they are enjoying something nonsmokers are missing out on.

Same thing with religion. I'm not missing out on anything really by being an atheist. I don't need heaven, because I don't fear hell. The christian conception of the atheist is that he gravitates towards the devil by rejecting god. We sidestep the whole question entirely by not believing in imaginary entities.

[adios]

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How do you characterize the "old brand" of atheism?

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I guess when you would get burned at the stake for atheism, old atheism was not believing in god an not liking being told that you were a bad person for believing that. New atheism is telling other people they're bad people because they believe in god. The ironing is delicious.

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Ummm...you don't see a bit of difference between "burning at the stake" and "vociferously disagreeing"? There is no irony to be found here.

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Yes, I do, I kid.

But seriously, from the view as communicated by the OP, the "new" atheism involves openly attacking the true believers. Old atheism was about seeking accpetance of a minority view, which is a defensive position.

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So the "new atheism" is just much more intolerant of other points of view regarding god, etc. than the "old atheism" was. Not surprising actually.

[mosdef]

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So the "new atheism" is just much more intolerant of other points of view regarding god, etc. than the "old atheism" was. Not surprising actually.

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No, not surprising. Considering that the intolerance present in most religion has been a driving force to the spread of atheism, it is perhaps interesting to observe the same intolerance in atheism.

[BCPVP]

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So the "new atheism" is just much more intolerant of other points of view regarding god, etc. than the "old atheism" was. Not surprising actually.

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No, not surprising. Considering that the intolerance present in most religion has been a driving force to the spread of atheism, it is perhaps interesting to observe the same intolerance in atheism.

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Seems to me that religion has gotten less intolerant overall, not more so that doesn't seem like a very convincing reason.

[mosdef]

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So the "new atheism" is just much more intolerant of other points of view regarding god, etc. than the "old atheism" was. Not surprising actually.

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No, not surprising. Considering that the intolerance present in most religion has been a driving force to the spread of atheism, it is perhaps interesting to observe the same intolerance in atheism.

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Seems to me that religion has gotten less intolerant overall, not more so that doesn't seem like a very convincing reason.

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Really? My not particularly thought out interpretation is that through intolerance and bullying religion grabbed a foothold in society, which eventually led to significant rejection of the religion, which made bullying tactics less effective, which led to attempts to stem defections by putting on a friendly face ("we really aren't that bad!") rather than the old school bullying face ("you'd better find faith in Christ or you're going to hell!").

[Taraz]

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You list an alternative, science, and then abruptly dismiss it. Why?

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First of all, your quote doesn't propose that science take the place of religion. And it's my contention that science can never take the place of religion. Religion and God serve an incredibly diverse set of needs and desires.

Most importantly, IMO, God and religion provide answers for things that science fundamentally cannot answer or at least cannot answer yet. If you've talked to any theists who deny evolution they always ask, "who created the universe if not God?" and they often say that they can't accept that something came from nothing. We are simply not advanced enough in our scientific thought to answer some of the seemingly impossible questions of life.

I think it would be much more fruitful to simply show theists where science can answer the claims of religion. Instead of asking that theists abandon God we should show them where God is unnecessary to explain things. We should attempt to massively reduce the size and scope of what God has "magical" control over. Eventually many theists would probably realize that their God is unnecessary for what they need Him for.

Basically I am advocating that we seek to educate without asking that people abandon the way they previously organized their lives. Religion provides an incredibly important social function and simply telling people to stop because it's wrong or dumb isn't going to work. We shouldn't claim that you have to be an idiot to believe in God. We should say, "oh, you don't need God to explain X . . . We actually learned that Y is explained by such and such mechanism . . . God isn't an adequate solution for problem Z because . . ." You don't have to attack religion or God as a whole, you simply have to aim smaller and strip away at it bit by bit.

So instead of doing away with God and religion at the outset, people will slowly realize that God doesn't hold any explanatory power for many things. Eventually they might decide that God is unnecessary. But we shouldn't make the mistake of suggesting that science holds all the answers because it clearly doesn't.

[Taraz]

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Although I think Taraz means that Dawkins and co hate religion and are on a crusade to "unconvert" people

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I think they would claim 'educate"

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I would agree to some extent, but you can't educate people if you call them names at the outset. If you label someone dumb they will learn poorly. I also think it's a mistake to advocate the abandonment of religion as a whole. Why can't we educate without even making mention of God? All it does is put people in a defensive stance. If someone truly understand evolution for example, it becomes painfully obvious that God is unnecessary for the process (except possibly for a first cause).

[Taraz]

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Replace religion with thought. This is pretty clear with everything Dawkins, et al., writes about. As for the role that religion plays in ceremonies, it would be horridly presumptuous for Dawkins or anyone else to come of with a uniform replacement. Replace it with whatever satisfies your mind. Hell, keep the priest and the church for your marriage if you want. It's all up to you. If you want to replace baptism with a horseback ride, fine. If you want to replace the priest/pastor at your wedding with a beatboxing MC, great.

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This is exactly my point though. We shouldn't suggest that people abandon religion, just that they abandon the more ridiculous parts of their religion. You don't need to "replace" religion with thought because if you teach people how to think a lot of the religion will fall away naturally. And there are some parts of religion that have nothing to do with thought. Those parts aren't really a threat to anybody and I don't see why we should force people to get rid of them.