Richard Dawkins on Militant Atheism

A few years ago, Richard Dawkins made some very clear points about a reasonable stance to have on religion. This presentation he gave, is part of TED Conferences, and focuses on several aspects that defend the militant atheism stance.
If you have 30 minutes and crave a challenge, press play:

I thought this speech was a very good way to make a 30 minute point for militant atheism. It also highlighted very clearly, some of the problems and contradictions of religion. Some of those will be covered in this blog.

Faith and Doubt events - Part V - week 2

Week 2:

This session had the effects of Christianity in world history as the center of topics.

The whole idea behind all topics covered, was to convince the audience that Christianity was the source of a lot of good, and that the deaths caused by religion were a lot less in numbers when compared to modern atheistic regimes (Stalin, Mao, etc...), and that a lot of the morals and altruism of civilized societies found their roots in Christianity.

Although I do not disagree completely, there were problems:

Critical thinking is hard to accomplish. It is as hard as it is important.

One of the obviously put numerical arguments, in favor of religion, was the fact that in the past, the number of people killed divided by all those centuries of religious oppression, would end up with a very low daily casualty rate when compared to modern wars, specifically, those involving atheistic regimes.

This is an incorrect conclusion.

The reason for this faulty conclusion is simple: it was never taken into account that the technology involved in killing people today is far more lethal and efficient than it was back then.

If the Christian Crusaders of back then were suddenly to pick up the pace they once had, how would the casualties be like if they had access to, for example, a nuclear weapon when invading Arab lands when attempting to convert them?

Exactly. Hiroshima would have happened back then.

As with the first event, there was a surprise factor in this event as well.

After acknowledging the responsibilities of religion in past crimes, an apology was encouraged of all Christians when faced with such historical facts. This was a very rational attitude on their part.

However, one thing needs to be put into focus in this case: history is not the tool to determine who killed the most or the least, neither is that body count the ethical ground on which religion or atheism based their intentions on. The reasoning behind the killings is what was missing here.

The first commandment was certainly put in a very deep drawer that day, month, year, century... centuries...

That is not Christian at all. But in a religion with its share of contradictions, I guess one more won't hurt.

Faith and Doubt events - Part IV

At the end of the event, this is how complex things got:

Consider Exodus 31:14 and Genesis 3:16.

How hard is it to make God look bad with these texts alone?

One makes him cruel and intolerant, the other makes him sexist.

It is hard to hear, yes, but I would say it is as easy for religious people to be shocked at the texts showed in the presentation, as it is for me to look at these 2 that I picked, and accept that sometimes God wakes up to the wrong side of the bed. Without any context, that would always be the conclusion I would arrive to.

In the interest of fairness, there are militant atheists that are more extreme than others, some that are unfair even, but there are others with good reasons for agreeing with: abortion, the removal of religion and creationism from public schools (not from religious related courses, nor history courses), from public government buildings and procedures, from the money we all carry, and the abolition of tax breaks for religious institutions.

Are these claims and its reasons simple to follow or the same for all militant atheists? Of course not. I wish.

Do they make religious people want to understand them before disagreeing with them?

That is why the reasons aren't here now, they are too long, and too many.
But until we know them, we will never know if our conclusions about any atheist or class of atheism carry any truth or value.

Faith and Doubt events - Part III

The 1st day at the Faith and Doubt event.

After the surprising effect of that first quote, mentioned in our last post, the real interesting part of the speech began. One could almost say it matched the very definition posts about atheism that this blog contains, specifically, the ones that are labeled under definitions, and that covered, theism, atheism, agnosticism, and so on...

It was with satisfaction and some excitement that I witnessed a totally accurate description of that all these terms mean.

Unfortunately, it all changed when the the quotes of atheists were brought into the spotlight.

As the speaker would bring each carefully chosen quote of the most popular atheists, the highlight was on the words that would describe Christianity in the worst possible way. All the reasoning leading up to such adjectives and claims were totally left aside.
Was that inevitable or intentional? Perhaps. After all, showing some good reasons in support of religion's failures would probably defeat the whole purpose of preaching for it in the first place.

Still, the chosen quotes did stir a negative sentiment towards atheists, and specifically, the militant ones.

At this point, I expected nothing else other that seeing all militant atheists being painted as a real threat to religion. Some of them are such. Some aren't. And that is exactly what it should have been said.

Atheism is an individual achievement.

Even though Faith can be too, Religion can't.

A Religion and its followers are bound by a set of beliefs, therefore we can expect accuracy in describing some behaviors and/or beliefs when grouping people by faith.

Atheism does not have a belief set, nor a set of reasons that all atheists share (or are supposed to share) to support their disbelief.

Therefore, one cannot expect a good enough precision in grouping atheists as one can expect when grouping religious people.

In this event, portraying all atheists fairly was not only very hard with the amount of time available, but it was impossible. I was in a church after all.

Too bad Peter never asked his followers to also ask Atheists about the reasons for their lack of faith. :)

He just asked Christians to be kind and respectful to those who inquire about the reasons for faith.

I took that quote seriously, and I did point out a few things to the speaker afterwards.

Let's just say that the next post will show how hard and complicated things can really get.

Faith and Doubt events - Part II

How was my first trip to the event about faith and doubt?
I was caught by surprise from the start. In my experiences with religious people and the fiery debates that come from the usual conflict between religion and atheism, I am used to resistance, and in some unfortunate cases, disrespect and aggressive stances towards atheists.
This time it was going to be different. It started with a quote from the Bible:

"…Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,
always be prepared to give an answer
to everyone who asks you to give the reason
for the hope that you have.
But do this with gentleness and respect."
1 Peter 3:15

Be gentle and respectful when anyone questions your faith. Seriously? I was impressed. I immediately got those images in my head of the most extreme of Christians. Those who preach by yelling, those who preach with a closed fist and loud voices, and would call me Satan, or devil, just by asking the wrong question. This didn't happen here. But it was right after listening to Peter's quote that I glanced at the concentrated look of my friends and decided: "I am going to see this through".

Faith and Doubt events - Part I

A couple of weeks ago, religious friends of mine asked me to go to some event that their church organized.
The reason for the invitation is pretty obvious:
I am an Atheist, and the event was about faith and doubt.

We went, we listened, and we came home to talk about it.
Unfortunately, Atheists were not very well portrayed, and I left under the impression that every religious person in that room now likes atheists a bit less after having heard what we did.

Let us just say that the explanations about what we represent were accurate, the quotes of popular atheists were too, but the conclusions were pretty offset by the emotions of faith.

As such, and after stating my opinions to my friends, I was invited back due to the event being a 4 week presentation on Faith and Doubt, to see it all through, and now the presenter knows they had and will have an Atheist in their midst. I told him on their website.

More details soon, here, on the Religious Faith Challenger.

[Definition] Atheist

Atheist is probably the less precise definition about non religious people due to being somewhat generic, but then again, so is labeling someone "religious".
Atheism can be defined as the lack of belief in god(s), or the belief that there is none.

• Implicit Atheism:
• An implicit atheist has not thought about belief in gods.
• Explicit Atheism:
• An explicit atheist has made an assertion regarding belief in gods;
• such an individual may avoid believing in gods (weak atheism),
• or assert that gods do not exist (strong atheism).

The Atheism Concept:

Image found here.

In the more generic conversation about religion, the safest assumption (in other words, the one that seems more likely to be correct) is that when one claims being an atheist, they are claiming they believe gods not to exist. Although this assumption is a personal choice, it is no more correct than the one that claims Atheists as the ones that do not have a belief in gods.
However, not believing in gods (strong atheism) or deities, is the definition that this blog will chose to use when a more precise term is not used, or when the definition is simply "Atheist".

Strong Atheism's categories:
Strong Atheism contains yet another definition not shown on the diagram above: the anti-theism.

Anti-theism:
The act of being an atheist while being against religions and their gods.

• Militant Atheism
• Being anti-theist and actively and openly discussing it with others.

• Evangelical Atheism
• Being anti-theist and taking action to promote your stance.

Some of these definitions will be covered in dedicated posts.

More information on atheism here.