The rise of the the atheist right

[No Robots]

The article states the following:

A recent poll of American evangelicals found the number of respondents who agreed with the statement “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God” rose from 30% in 2020 to 43% in 2022.

 

[pood]

A century ago, the social gospel unified socialism and Christianity. Divided, they fall.

That’s nice, but today we have a bunch of MAGA evangelical Christians who don’t go for this at all.

And they need to be attacked for fundamentally misrepresenting the nature and meaning of the doctrines they purport to uphold.

Now one could interpret the quotes put in Jesus’s mouth by later writers as a call to socialism or love they neighbor or whatever. But that obviously still wouldn’t the validate Christian claim that Jesus was divine and was resurrected. But possibly one could be a Christian atheist, as Dostoevsky appears to have been, and accept some of the New Testament ethical precepts without believing in the truth of divinity.

Pretty much. I would say, however, that a true universalism has no problem acknowledging the divine in all things, and its special manifestation in the life of the saintly individual.

Here we go with silly definitional equivocation games again. What does “divine” mean to you?

Why can’t one believe in universalism, egalitarianism and injunctions to peace without believing in superstitious BS?

Christianity is in essence not superstitious at all. It is a doctrine of acknowledging and manifesting the divine in man.

See above about “divine.”

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Even if the claim was true (it isn't) it wouldn't matter, as the atheist philosophy has little power in American politics. This points to another flaw with this claim in that it is America-centric, whereas major social movements are worldwide. We already know what societies that are less religious are like, as we have the Scandinavian nations and many others. The USA is the outlier when it comes to Christianity and government, as the rest of the West is not so afflicted with far right Christian influence, and they are not atheo-fascist "hellholes" as a result of less Christianity.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Silly me I forgot to put No Robots on ignore.

 

[lostone]

Ayn Rand, an idol for many Rightists, did claim to be an atheist. But, as much as I dislike her ideas, she was not a fascist.

 

[No Robots]

Here we go with silly definitional equivocation games again. What does “divine” mean to you?

Divine is existence itself, Being in its totality. To acknowledge the divine is to simply acknowledge the unity of the whole of existence. To make this unity manifest is to live as a superman, with reason, moral autonomy and the intellectual love of the whole of nature.

 

[pood]

Ayn Rand, an idol for many Rightists, did claim to be an atheist. But, as much as I dislike her ideas, she was not a fascist.

Rand was basically what today we would call a Libertarian, though she attacked Libertarians as having ripped off her Objectivism or some such. She wanted to call Objectivism Existentialism, until she discovered the term had been taken. She loathed Ronald Reagan and no doubt would have been appalled by Trump. She inveighed against racism but opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as statist. Although an atheist she had doubts about the theory of evolution and its implication that we are born with a suite of animal instincts, since that was opposed to her theory that we are entirely self-made. Although she was an atheist she deplored homsosexuality as “immoral.” She was pretty strange.

 

[pood]

Rand also first loved and then disowned Nietzsche as “mystical.”

 

[No Robots]

Ayn Rand on Christ:

Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the nonideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used.

The principle of the ideal man sacrificing himself for the benefit of the masses is a well-understood principle in Judaism. It is the doctine of the tzadik. In order to advance the whole of mankind, the righteous individual must sacrifice himself.

 

[Angry Floof]

Authoritarian followers are always convinced that everyone else thinks like they do, with the same authority worship, the same way of getting their beliefs and principles from authority figures, the same level of self serving bias, lack of forethought, ex post facto justification, etc., etc.

 

[pood]

Here we go with silly definitional equivocation games again. What does “divine” mean to you?

Divine is existence itself, Being in its totality. To acknowledge the divine is to simply acknowledge the unity of the whole of existence. To make this unity manifest is to live as a superman, with reason, moral autonomy and the intellectual love of the whole of nature.

So it is or is not supernatural, and there is or is not a supernatural deity?

 

[No Robots]

Divine is existence itself, Being in its totality. To acknowledge the divine is to simply acknowledge the unity of the whole of existence. To make this unity manifest is to live as a superman, with reason, moral autonomy and the intellectual love of the whole of nature.

So it is or is not supernatural, and there is or is not a supernatural deity?

Nothing is supernatural. But nature itself is more than just the phenomenal realm of extended matter. It is also the transcendental realm of thought and ideas.

 

[pood]

Divine is existence itself, Being in its totality. To acknowledge the divine is to simply acknowledge the unity of the whole of existence. To make this unity manifest is to live as a superman, with reason, moral autonomy and the intellectual love of the whole of nature.

So it is or is not supernatural, and there is or is not a supernatural deity?

Nothing is supernatural. But nature itself is more than just the phenomenal realm of extended matter. It is also the transcendental realm of thought and ideas.

What do you mean by “the transcendental realm of thoughts and ideas”? Is this an argument for metaphysical idealism? If so, present it.

 

[No Robots]

What do you mean by “the transcendental realm of thoughts and ideas”? Is this an argument for metaphysical idealism? If so, present it.

It is an argument for true monism. It has been well developed by Harry Waton in his book, A true monistic philosophy; comprehending the absolute, God, existence, man, society and history. Basically, Waton updates Spinoza and explicitly links to Jewish thought, especially Kabbalah.

 

[pood]

What do you mean by “the transcendental realm of thoughts and ideas”? Is this an argument for metaphysical idealism? If so, present it.

It is an argument for true monism. It has been well developed by Harry Waton in his book, A true monistic philosophy; comprehending the absolute, God, existence, man, society and history. Basically, Waton updates Spinoza and explicitly links to Jewish thought, especially Kabbalah.

So why don’t you just go ahead and explicate the argument in your own words?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

What do you mean by “the transcendental realm of thoughts and ideas”? Is this an argument for metaphysical idealism? If so, present it.

It is an argument for true monism. It has been well developed by Harry Waton in his book, A true monistic philosophy; comprehending the absolute, God, existence, man, society and history. Basically, Waton updates Spinoza and explicitly links to Jewish thought, especially Kabbalah.

So why don’t you just go ahead and explicate the argument in your own words?

He never can. All he does is quote dump and pretend it's an argument.

 

[pood]

What do you mean by “the transcendental realm of thoughts and ideas”? Is this an argument for metaphysical idealism? If so, present it.

It is an argument for true monism. It has been well developed by Harry Waton in his book, A true monistic philosophy; comprehending the absolute, God, existence, man, society and history. Basically, Waton updates Spinoza and explicitly links to Jewish thought, especially Kabbalah.

So why don’t you just go ahead and explicate the argument in your own words?

He never can. All he does is quote dump and pretend it's an argument.

Yep. But let’s see if he confutes our ecxpectations.

 

[bilby]

The basic argument is that Christianity restrained conservatives and right wingers in the past to some degree.

Which is just the kind of laughable claim Christians make all the time.

Christians are inherently better and nicer people than non-Christians, so just think how much worse it could be if atheists were in charge. Imagine how unpleasant the Spanish Inquisition would have been, if the inquisitors had been atheists!

If you subscribe to the premise: Christians are inherently better and nicer people than non-Christians, then the worries expressed by the article are compelling and terrifying. If you don't, then it's a sick joke.

The Fascists want to take over, put people into camps, eliminate freedom, impose draconian rules, impose harsh punishments for anyone who deviates from their image of human perfection, and generally make everyone except the chosen few suffer - but it's going to be OK, as long as they aren't atheists.

While I don’t subscribe to the argument in the article, I don’t think the article’s argument generates the conclusion in your last sentence. If I understand it correctly (a big if), i think the argument would say the degree of punishment would be less harsh, fewer freedoms eliminated or constrained, etc…. That doesn’t make it okay.

Sure, that's the argument; But it's no less wrong for the removal of my slight exaggeration that it would be "OK", and the replacement of "it would be less harsh" - either conclusion is unwarranted, and for identical reasons.

Adding Christianity to the performing of evil acts at best does nothing whatsoever to mitigate those acts, and at worst makes them more harsh, as the actors feel the certainty that they are doing God's work, and are therefore less likely to question their morality.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

What do you mean by “the transcendental realm of thoughts and ideas”? Is this an argument for metaphysical idealism? If so, present it.

It is an argument for true monism. It has been well developed by Harry Waton in his book, A true monistic philosophy; comprehending the absolute, God, existence, man, society and history. Basically, Waton updates Spinoza and explicitly links to Jewish thought, especially Kabbalah.

So why don’t you just go ahead and explicate the argument in your own words?

He never can. All he does is quote dump and pretend it's an argument.

Yep. But let’s see if he confutes our ecxpectations.

I've been posting on forums since 2006 and it almost never happens.

 

[robnisch]

Divine is existence itself, Being in its totality. To acknowledge the divine is to simply acknowledge the unity of the whole of existence. To make this unity manifest is to live as a superman, with reason, moral autonomy and the intellectual love of the whole of nature.

So it is or is not supernatural, and there is or is not a supernatural deity?

Nothing is supernatural. But nature itself is more than just the phenomenal realm of extended matter. It is also the transcendental realm of thought and ideas.

To me nature=evolution. How do thoughts and ideas effect that process?