From which we can conclude that these Atheists are male self-involved misogynists, Sharia flavored totalitarians, anti-Semites, anti-Christian, pro-slavery, pro-jihad in one form or another – or they are totally ignorant of what they support, and they support it out of hatred for Christianity. Or both of those.
9 comments:
C'mon, are you serious?
Though.... this confirms something that I've been thinking for some time now. So much of contemporary religion and anti-religion talk is fundamentally cultural and political, not spiritual, rational, or even philosophical.
The Twentieth Century has often been labelled the age of ideology. There's no sign that the 21st will be much different.
For some reason, the picture reminded me of something I heard once on a program called the Michael Coren show (some episodes of which are uploaded on youtube, which is where I watched it) where Islamic fundamentalists was a topic in the conversation, and I will always remember how one of the guests put it ... " this ongoing, slobbering, love affair between the left and the radical Islamists..."
(I realize that atheists are not necessarily liberals, and many atheists are far from being sympathetic to Islam. But those atheists out there who are sympathetic -- I see that as so incredibly curious.)
But yes, there is a trending cultural bias against Christianity and for Islam.
There is a carrot/stick phenomenon at play with a great many Atheists. The stick which drives them is rebellion against ecclesiastic controls and authority in general. (Rage against the Man). The carrot is that an Atheist can design any ethic he wants, thereby justifying any behaviors he chooses for himself (the Freedom of Atheism).
Blind rebellion is the currency of juvenile maturity levels; total freedom means rejection of any dependency upon Truth, which is not derived by personal agendas.
Rebellion and anarchic thought processes are both non-rational.
Question. Practically speaking, does deism have more in common with naturalism than it does with theism?
Interesting site- deism.com
I would say deism is closer to atheism/naturalism. Its really just an atheist acknowledging a god exists. Other than that, its completely the same with defining your own truth/ethics.
I would also say arminianism has comparable traits to deism. It is like God winds up a clock with the Laws of Nature and man's supposedly free will, sets it off, then sits back and watches hardly being active with his creation.
hmmm....
Couple questions come to mind.
The US Founding Fathers proclaim that inalienable rights are endowed to us by our creator. Is a deist conception of God sufficient to justify the irreducible worth of the individual?
Is the existence of God, deist, or theist for that matter, necessary for the coherence of classic liberal principles? The modern "religious right" would certainly say so.
However, in contemporary politcal discourse, many people seem to regard religion/worldview and the "culture wars", in general, as an ancillary matter.
I've harped on this before, but I struggle to achieve clarity on this subject. Case in point, there are numerous citizens who are staunch opponents of the "liberal" left, but who hold to a fundamentally naturalistic worldview.
For me, the big question is: what is the true relationship between Christianity and the Enlightenment. Friends or foes?
Chris said,
”The US Founding Fathers proclaim that inalienable rights are endowed to us by our creator. Is a deist conception of God sufficient to justify the irreducible worth of the individual? “
Deism merely addresses the cause for the universe without admitting to further interference from the creating entity. So anything that happens in the universe is both material and accidental. Life, including human life, is not special in any discernable way from the existence of rocks, quarks, etc. It is not possible to derive special worth from deism.
”Is the existence of God, deist, or theist for that matter, necessary for the coherence of classic liberal principles? The modern "religious right" would certainly say so.”
Yes; there is no other way to derive exceptional value for humans (such as unalienable rights), especially if the value is to be set by other humans as it is in secular, non-absolutist philosophy
”However, in contemporary politcal discourse, many people seem to regard religion/worldview and the "culture wars", in general, as an ancillary matter.”
There are many levels of intellectual maturity; not all of them can be valid. Viewing culture wars as ancillary is a worldview which translates into political viewpoints.
”I've harped on this before, but I struggle to achieve clarity on this subject. Case in point, there are numerous citizens who are staunch opponents of the "liberal" left, but who hold to a fundamentally naturalistic worldview. “
As I have said, I previously was one of those. However, my worldview was couched in neglect, philosophical sophomorism and intellectual immaturity. When I determined to complete my education, I found it necessary to keep conservatism and to discard naturalism. This is common: older people frequently become more conservative and less naturalist. The young attribute this to senility, but it is they who are uneducated, inexperienced and philosophically illiterate.
”For me, the big question is: what is the true relationship between Christianity and the Enlightenment. Friends or foes?”
This question has to be refined in order to be answered coherently. What is meant by “Christianity”, for example? Catholicism? Calvinism? Presbyterianism? Or possibly only the red print in a specific bible? Christianity as an ecclesiastic religion is not a coherent entity because it is infected with a multitude of diverse and contradictory dogmas which have been added by humans.
(continued below)
This applies to “Enlightenment” also and in spades. The Enlightenment produced two contradictory ideas: liberte’ and egalite’. The American Revolution produced liberty with equal access; the French Revolution produced a bloody path to the dictatorship of Napoleon, under the aegis of equality and brotherhood, while liberte' meant killing off the ancien regime' and anyone else who might look at them wrong. Napoleon said, two out of three isn’t bad (or some such).
The Enlightenment under Atheists also resulted in rejecting all non-empirical knowledge, which in turn led to the philosophies of Comte, Nietzsche, and to Darwinian related eugenics which still exists today as abortion, largely focused on blacks. But empiricism blossomed under the Enlightenment release from religious dogma, and science came into its own right with its many benefits to mankind.
On its own, the Enlightenment and its products cannot justify any objective natural rights for humans. But the Enlightenment did produce a non-dogmatic approach to producing more accurate knowledge of the physical universe, thereby allowing for increased human control of their environment. Some elements are bad, some good.
Even though your question can’t be answered directly yes or no, it can be seen that there are elements of each category (Christianity and Enlightenment) that can be compatible with the other category. But one has to slice into each one to find which elements are which. And then one finds that there are elements of each that need to be rejected, also.
Follow up discussion on modern civilization, the Enlightenment, and worldviews.
from "Metaphysics or Politics: The Clash Between Two Orthodoxies"
Despite all attempts to unmask reason, science and secularism as a few among the many possible narratives that may or may not capture some truth about our human world, the discourse of politics is still hostage to what Focault once expressed as the "blackmail of being 'for' or 'against' the Enlightenment".
For contemporary political thinkers still find it exceedingly painful, if not impossible, to overcome the dubious and nefarious dichotomy of 'politics' and 'metaphysics'. They are both unwilling and unable to renounce the Enlightenment's claim that only the modern man, who has acquired the gift of self-consciousness and who creates his own values and goals, is fully human.
Politcs, accordingly, may not be grounded in any trans-rational and transcendent vision of the ultimate, its focus must be the historical rather than the metaphysical, its temper rational rather than emotive, and its spirit secular rather than religious.
Any claimant to historical order, must therefore abandon the transcendent moorings of its theology and purge its political rhetoric of the metaphysical dross of the medieval times, if it is to be accorded permission to join the modern, 'civilized', world.
Is this characterization of the Enlightenment accurate? If true, I would argue that the modern left and right are both essentially liberal. How can contemporary conservatives resist the atheo-left when their own politco-socio-economic principles are pervaded by relativism and scientism?
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