Atheism Without Reason

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Lil Mike, Jan 10, 2025.

  1. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Interesting substack by Sarah Haider, atheist and ex-muslim, on the collapse of movement atheism.

    Atheism Without Reason

    While they are saying goodbye to FFRF, I think it might be a good time for me to say goodbye to organized atheism altogether.

    This is not, to be clear, a goodbye to atheism. Despite the reports of famous re-conversions of former-atheists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, I cannot find God in my heart (or even a “God-shaped hole”). The switch has flipped; the myth has fully unraveled and been replaced by an understanding of the world that sits firm in my mind (far more comfortably than faith ever did). On this point, I don’t believe there is a way back for me. (I nearly wish I could manage some wiggle room here, if only so that I can understand what it is that my newly-religious friends are feeling and accepting. But no such luck.)

    Still, I have become friendlier to the idea of religion as a social good as of the past few years, and now (more controversially), I even feel that there are intellectual benefits to faith too–or at least, to some forms of it. Much of this is informed by my experiences working within the atheist activism space, and by my resulting intellectual drift.


    The gist is that Atheists are just as susceptible to irrationality as theists, even though atheists make a special claim to rationality.
     
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  2. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Would you have a possible place in your heart or mind for a Being of Light of near death experience fame if you felt that they were determined to save your children.... your grandchildren.... your great grand children and even your grandparents all the way back to Adam and Eve assuming the validity of Applied Multiverse Theory, [applied by the Being of Light of near death experience fame that is]?


    I wrote this up in a blog several years ago.

    www.CarbonBias.blogspot.ca/


    https://www.allaboutchristian.com/spirituality/index.html


     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2025
  3. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    From the article:

    I could be wrong, but I presume the "unscientific dogma" that contradicts "core principles of reason and science" is what James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose explored in their book Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody.

    Here's the intro to the book at Amazon:

    Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only white people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed so quickly to challenge the very logic of Western society?

    In this probing and intrepid volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Today this dogma is recognizable as much by its effects, such as cancel culture and social-media dogpiles, as by its tenets, which are all too often embraced as axiomatic in mainstream media: knowledge is a social construct; science and reason are tools of oppression; all human interactions are sites of oppressive power play; and language is dangerous. As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs present a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself.

    While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how this often-radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalized communities it claims to champion. They also detail its alarmingly inconsistent and illiberal ethics. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas, they conclude, can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this harmful and authoritarian orthodoxy—in the academy, in culture, and beyond.

    https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories-Scholarship-Everything-Identity_and/dp/1634312023

    In a nutshell, the "woke" dogma/nonsense that the author of your article confronts, "a woman is whoever claims to be one", etc., is rooted in the Postmodern theories (or "Theory") of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and others, and probably could be traced back to some of the disastrous ideas promoted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau concerning Man and his environment, which have been embraced by the radical Left since the French Revolution (Lindsay and Pluckrose don't go that far in their book).

    It's an interesting work that does well to explain the irrationality and incoherence that is prevalent throughout the "critical" theories and Postmodern thought that has become fashionable on the Far Left these days. Unfortunately, as the title of the book suggests, while we may laugh at the irrationality and incoherence of these theories and their language, they actually do have a harmful effect on society. For example, Wyatt Tee Walker's criticism of Critical Race Theory:

    WTW MLK.jpg

    The Civil Rights Legend Who Opposed Critical Race Theory

    ..."Today, too many ‘remedies’ -- such as Critical Race Theory, the increasingly fashionable post-Marxist/postmodernist approach that analyzes society as institutional group power structures rather than on a spiritual or one-to-one human level -- are taking us in the wrong direction: separating even elementary school children into explicit racial groups, and emphasizing differences instead of similarities.

    The answer is to go deeper than race, deeper than wealth, deeper than ethnic identity, deeper than gender. To teach ourselves to comprehend each person, not as a symbol of a group, but as a unique and special individual within a common context of shared humanity. To go to that fundamental place where we are all simply mortal creatures, seeking to create order, beauty, family, and connection to the world that -- on its own -- seems to bend too often towards randomness and entropy"...


    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a..._who_opposed_critical_race_theory_144423.html
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2025
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  4. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    What we have here is a conservative atheist bitching about "woke" atheists. Never mind there are many more liberal atheists because they have more of a problem with authoritarian belief and tradition for tradition's sake than conservatives. She has the opinion that these atheists are "more likely than the religious to hold this particular unscientific dogma" in reference to a piece in Freethought Today on the definition of "woman" and a rebuttal piece that was taken down. This caused some very high profile members to resign in protest.

    The opinion piece was not a scientific definition of a woman that the author wishes. It wasn't about XY chromosomes. Not everything needs the scientific definition without being anti-science. This is more about subjective public perception and an individuals right to to define themselves. Her problem is calling a trans woman a woman is "unscientific". Forget about common curtesy and respecting the wishes of others.
    That being said there is no good reason, I guess, why the rebuttal was taken down (but I didn't read it).
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2025
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  5. yardmeat

    yardmeat Well-Known Member

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    I was sympathizing with the way the position was described at first in the OP, but this context helps clarify it a lot. She's basically on the Dawkins anti-trans train it seems.

    I've grown more sympathetic toward religion and spirituality over the years, but I can't stand TERFs.
     

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