The Happy Atheist

[tanthrix]

My life is my own. There is no one silently pulling strings in the background, controlling my fate and destiny. Because of this I do things because I think they are right, not because I’m supposed to. I help create an ethical world because I wish to live in such a place, not because I fear what will happen to me if I don’t. My morals, and I have

Comments

[romulusnr]

wheres the buttons to press to mod a post up? :)

[kittybean]

oh i hear you. people think atheism is like a bleak hole. like it's a scary thing to not have a 'rulebook' & a 'boss' to follow. thinking for yourself is mighty frightening, ain't it? ;)

good to hear from you, mister.

[natowelch]

The subject of reason and atheism are hot topics, mostly due to Dawkins' book.

After some critical thought & discussion, I got stuck on what decisively separates rationalism from every religion, in some other sense than the obvious "it's different". Different is fine, but that's the same argument that religions can use to distinguish themselves from one another, too.

The obvious difference is that rationalism insists on starting with observation. "Faith comes through hearing," meaning it's essentially GOSSIP. Scientific reason is based on the observation of the senses.

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell that foundation from dogma. That was the problem.

In thinking about this, I had to come up with a way to distinguish rationalism from religious faiths based not on intrinsic properties, but on how they all RELATE to one another.

The answer is that every religion uses reason, but reason uses no religious dogma.

Everyone is an Atheist; Some just believe in one less god than others.

[tanthrix]

I think you're definitely right about that, but I think we can be a bit more specific. I think of it like this

[natowelch]

Personally I'm convinced that faith is ultimately detrimental for societyI'm not sure I'm there quite yet. I think it's important to have a certain level of tolerance for faithful beliefs of ANY kind. So long as that tolerance is not for faithful beliefs in democratic government, which has a duty to synthesize and preserve the private freedom of religious belief at the same time it must operate on strictly rational terms in its public capacities. Freedom of belief - even faithful belief - is, I think, rightfully enshrined in law. It is the freedom of action (or, rather, of consequence through punitive deterrence) that is limited. You can believe Cthulhu is coming all you want, but when you start up with the human sacrifices, your religious freedom is suspended. I think this tolerance is important for generating a memetic diversity that is important to our culture - the more diverse, the more resistant we are to class breaks in our ideas. Some future crisis may well wreck our dominant worldviews. At that point, it will be important to

[tanthrix]

Freedom of belief - even faithful belief - is, I think, rightfully enshrined in law.

I completely agree, and I hope you don't think I was suggesting anything different! I instead believe children should be taught from a young age to question everything instead of the traditional spoon feeding approach.

When instead people are taught like I, that the act of non-thinking called faith is a great thing ("The more evidence against God that you disregard the stronger your Faith, the closer you become to God!" And I went to a fairly liberal Catholic school...) it's no wonder progress (in the sense of positive social change such as abolition, women's suffrage, and hopefully acceptance of homosexuality soon) occurs so slowly. Can you imagine what the world would be like if from a young age rationalism was taught with the same fervor as religious faith?

Lots of scientists can get dogmatic about scientific theories, adhering to "Scientism" even without admitting it.I think this is a bit of a case of attacking the straw man in the same way