Simply calling theists stupid or ignorant is too simple. Sure, we're a dumb-ass species. But we're not that stupid. I refuse to believe that belief in God isn't psychologically useful somehow. I'm talking use. Not a crutch. The belief acting as a tool in order to strengthen the believers life somehow. If not, I can't see how this belief could have possible survived.
Calling theists stupid is like calling a lonely man gullible for believing a pretty women on the internet is in love with him. Theists like lonely men are desperate for hope, and when people are desperate, they act in ways they don't normally act.
Thanks for providing an excellent example of atheistic smug arrogance.
That was not my intention. I was actually defending theists pointing out that they're not generally stupid but are looking for hope. My defense of theists was evidently not good enough!
No, you're not defending them. What you are is patronizing.
I don't agree that being theistic is a sign of weakness.
But we all have weaknesses and seek strength to overcome obstacles. I have known many people who have told me they need their faith in God to get by. I'm just reporting that fact. If you find that fact objectionable, then you should take it up with the people who avow that they need faith in God.
Translation, they've found God to be a useful tool for them to make life work, and they haven't found any other tool that doesn't require faith in God.
The most strident atheists I have known (like my younger self) are also quite emotionally shut off and struggle with being emotionally vulnerable. Something theists tend to be quite good at. So I don't buy it at all.
Yes, many atheists are troubled emotionally. But that fact isn't very relevant to theists seeking strength in whatever God they believe in.
Everybody is a small lost child at heart, just trying to fool the world they're in control of stuff. That's true for every human who has ever lived and ever will live. Some people are in denial about this (narcissists for example). We're all hurtling full speed into uncertainty. We're playing a game (life) we know we will ultimately lose (death). Life is fundamentally horrific and traumatising.
EVERYBODY IS TROUBLED EMOTIONALLY
We're a social species and we all need tools not to be crushed by the stressors of life.
Christianity teaches us that we're all children at heart and if we just turn off our brains and trust in Gods plan, we can stop worrying. The project of secular liberal education of the Enlightenment was to replace this with facts. If you feel insecure about life we'll give you more facts. Eventually you'll have so many facts that you will figure it all out and you will be empowered feel great about life.
There's nothing wrong with a secular liberal education as such. It's great for helping us be materialy productive members of society. The problem is that it doesn't fix the problem Christian teachings were meant to solve. Secularism isn't an emotionally nourishing replacement for religion. Secular liberal education gives us no tools for this.
All the secular movements after the 1950'ies, I see as exactly this. All of them. It's attempts to replace religion. Everything from rock'n'roll, socialism, techno, hippies, therapy, Scientology, sports, knitting clubs, nationalism, volonteerwork, environmentalism, etc. We all need to feel like we're bigger than something than ourselves. Be part of a group.
The nice thing about Christianity is that they've already figured out the component parts. Like it or not, Christianity is efficient. They've streamlined religion to be the perfect tool for emotional comfort. Instead of attacking it, we're better off trying to copy it with something that has less repugnant moral teachings. But we all need something like this.
I think religions tend to be quite good at helping us develop emotionally.
How so?
Answered above.
The problem is of course that any powerful tool can be a powerful tool for evil as well as good. But just turning our back on the tools developed over mlllenea to help us grow emotionally is just dumb IMHO.
I think the following analogy is just as apt as your analogy: Religion is like a deadly weapon which can be used as a powerful tool to do good if a person chooses to do good with it. So we should recognize that some theists have managed to use religion for good.
Good vs Evil is a Christian concept. It was something that was introduced into western thought from Zoroastrianism via Plato (or perhaps Pythagoras). Before this (yes, even in Judaism) the dichotomy was between order and chaos. Christian philosophy was strongly modelled on Platonism (or rather neoplatonism). It's interesting that even you, being so strongly anti-theist can't help but model your thinking on Christianity.
This was the main argument of Alain de Bottons book "Religion for atheists". A book that changed my life for ever. It made me a lot more compassionate towards theists and made me annoyed with arrogant (in their own heads) superior atheists. Atheists who think that the only reason people are theists is because of personality flaws and weaknesses are delusional.
In the course of objecting to a stereotype of theists you club atheists with a stereotype of your own. How is that an improvement? It appears that your book gave you a very negative outlook on atheists many of whom are not arrogant or cruel.
Atheism is a religion like not-playing-tennis is a sport. I suspect most atheists aren't strident arrogant assholes. It's just that this type of atheists are perhaps more than average attracted to secular discussion boards.
Or as my militantly atheistic yoga teacher friend put it "Yes, I believe in all the bullshit New Age mumbo jumbo while doing yoga, because it helps me get into the right frame of mind. After the session I scrub my brain of all the nonsense"
So he doesn't like religion. Is he obligated to like it?
You're missing the point. He uses the tool of religion to help him in his life. He can separate emotional management from epistemology.
If people, men in particular, can use religion to manipulate people, then there are great potential rewards for those men. The rewards include money, political power, and exclusive access to women for sex. That's why many of the Biblical patriarchs were polygamists who so virulently forbade adultery. They wanted to sexually monopolize as many women as they could. And what better way to do it than to posit an "alpha-male God in the sky" who commanded all other men to stay away from those women or suffer terrible punishment?
I'm talking about religion in the bottom up sense.
In that case the sexually monopolized women were consoled by believing that their sexual servitude to their husbands who often had other wives was the will of an all-powerful God.
So the meaning of life is to put your penis in as many women as possible? Is that what you are saying?
Uh--no. I just pointed out that religion often facilitates men's efforts to sexually monopolize women. So you're barking up the wrong tree. If you object to that practice, then take it up with the polygamists in the Bible who kept "herds" of women for sex and childbearing.
What? If this isn't what you meant, then why did you bring it up?
That might be true for a teenager.
It was evidently true for Yahweh. According to the Bible, God laid down tough laws to protect powerful men's privilege to put their "penis in as many women as possible." We are told that any man or woman who violated that privilege was to be executed. So God was very concerned about what penis went into what vagina. He is like one of those teenagers you mention.
The historical books of the Torah/Old Testament is nationalistic/ethnic propaganda. In those books the Jews are just a tribe like any other and their God is just one god among many gods. Those books are written to justify the actions of the (morally dubious) Jewish kings. It's all spin. They're about as factually correct as Putin's current news bulletins.
But more importantly, these books are pagan, and stridently ethnocentric. So they operate on a radically different level than the New Testament. The Jews spread over Judea by ethnic cleansing of the men and children, and the women are taken as concubines and slaves. This was quite normal in the bronze age.
What later became Judaism is Jewish theologians trying to make sense of the contradiction of the Bible saying the Jews was the chosen people (ie the master race) when the Jews kept getting reamed in the ass by their neighbours. Ie, even though they continually get fucked over in the mortal realm, it doesn't matter because they'll still be winners in the future/afterlife.
You're talking as if the Bible is written after the fact, and is a neat story that is supposed to make sense. The Bible is illogical. It's self-contradictory in a multitude of ways.
So what is the benefit from holding this false belief? The actual benefit.
If truth is too objectionable, then ignorance seems blissful by comparison. Belief in Gods can be a way to endure hardship for those who think they cannot endure that hardship any other way.
Again, more smug atheistic arrogance. I don't buy it at all.
Again, take it up with the many theists who say they need God to endure hardship. I'm just reporting the facts.
It looks like you painted yourself into a corner criticizing theism when attempting to attack atheism.
I'm not attacking atheism. I'm an atheist. What I am attacking is the idea that being an atheist is in any way superior, or that atheists have it all figured out. I've most of my life lived and worked in Scandinavia. It's extremely secular and atheistic. How do we endure hardship? Through socialism. When Scandinavia secularised we systematically replaced Christian institutions with socialist ones. I'm not saying this is worse. I'm not saying it's better. Socialism has it's own set of delusions. My point is that even though Scandinavia abandoned theistic religion (Christianity) we replaced it with atheistic religion (socialism). We never did escape religion.
If you have managed to escape religion all that means is that you've replaced the functions of religion with a secular alternative. Or perhaps, alternatively you live your life on Prozac?
