billw55, on 2013-October-10, 09:05, said:
Fluffy is a non-native English speaker; you should not be so literal. It is obvious to me that he meant "fanatic atheists want to expunge religious belief" rather than expunging the actual human beings ...
You may well be correct, and I hope you are. However, I think it is arrogant for you to assert that he didn't mean that which his words clearly appear to convey. We need fluffy to say whether, being now aware of how his words read in English, he meant something else. I hope he did and that your interpretation is the correct one.
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I don't see where Fluffy said atheists cannot create beauty.
And I don't see where I said he did. Do you?
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So far, I would score you as the more arrogant.
I am disqualified from scoring since I am biased
Let me, however, posit a situation for you.
Some (not all, I am sure) believers assert and appear to believe that a group of 'others' (atheists), by reason of their lack of faith in a god entity suffer two problems in life and another, presumably far more important in their view, problem 'after life'.
Atheists, due to their lack of the moral guidance afforded by religious faith, have no reason not to rob, rape, steal, or even kill if they think they can get away with it. Believers, by virtue of the teachings of their faith, know not to give in to these (presumably universal?) desires.
Atheists, altho capable of enjoying beauty and art, and to some degree of creating the same, are less able to do so because, after all, so much beauty and art was inspired by or produced for the purpose of glorifying 'god'. So we are stunted.
Now, I am sure that many believers would say that they don't believe one or both of the foregoing, but the next problem must dwarf the first two.
Atheists, and here we are merely a subset of a far larger part of humanity, are doomed in the (very, very)long run. The details vary from faith to faith, but should we die without recognizing the correct god (out of so many choices! It's worse than going to Baskin-Robbins for an ice cream cone), we are at the least denied the opportunity to go to heaven or whatever glorious après-life experience is said to await the lucky/wise few. For many religionists, our fate is not merely a loss of a great opportunity but far worse: terrible, unimaginable pain and torment for eternity.
By contrast, I know of no atheist who suggests that any believer is going to face eternal punishment of any kind, and certainly not that the believer will suffer while the smug atheist luxuriates. Btw, what kind of amoral monster could bask in the glory of a god without feeling some shame that so many other humans have been condemned to suffer/denied this glory by their god? Edit: some later posts have criticized this, and I suppose I have to fall back on a sort of bill55 explantion: I meant no criticism of believers who feel that they are going to heaven, or wherever, and others aren't, during their life: at least I certainly don't consider such as amoral monsters! What I meant was that it occurred to me that if I were basking in the glory of my god, it would, I hope, occur to me to be horrified that so many were not merely being denied my joyous experience but were being subjected, at the behest of that being that I was worshipping, to unimaginable, never-ending torture. How, I wonder, could any decent 'soul' feel happy about that? End of Edit.
Nor do I know any atheist who argues that religious belief inevitably leads to atrocities or crimes. Yes, we argue, and have compelling evidence to support us, that religion is often given as the cause of or justification for acts of extreme cruelty. Mycroft and others correctly point out that other 'isms' can lead to similar results and that in many cases of apparent religious extremism, religion may be being used as a motivational tool rather than being the true cause. Valid tho those arguments appear to be, there seems to be no escaping the fact that religion is one of the most powerful sociological tools yet discovered by humans for the creation of the basic and horrific divide between 'us' and 'them'. We are inclined to be nice to 'us' and relatively unkind to 'them'.
Get rid of religion, and one of the most pernicious tools for the inspiration of hate will disappear. I don't, for a moment, think that this would be a panacea, but so what? Should we cling to this barbaric view of humanity only because it isn't the only barbaric view?
Nor do I know of any atheist who doesn't acknowledge that many of the great works of beauty produced by the human species weren't inspired or influenced by religious belief. Of course, religion can destroy beauty as well....witness the Taliban destruction of the Buddha's in Afghanistan, and the destruction of much religious art in Europe during the Reformation, when the more extreme Protestants sacked many Catholic churches because of the 'idolatory' nature of the art therein.
However, it appears, from my limited understanding of the nature of artistic genius, that an artist will be driven to create by internal imperatives, and that external factors (cultural) will influence the media used and the topic of the art, but that art will out...and my personal view is that there is so much in the world that ought to inspire us and fill us with awe that swapping religious faith for an appreciation of the world as it (apparently, so far) is, would lead to as much, if different, humanly produced beauty and art as would have been or will be produced in the name of faith. I can't prove that, of course
But it is my opinion.
So tell me this: as someone who is very careful to try to avoid being identified as a believer or as an atheist, which group appears to be the more arrogant in terms of their views of the other?
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari