America is Tragically Soul-Sick

[NathanHawks]

Okay, I kind of get what you're saying, but again with the atheist bashing. I'm not insulted, hammer away, I just find it confusing. I agree that especially in highly religious countries, being atheist is very hard and finding community and support can be different. This could understandably cause some people to lose hope somewhat. But from my experience, this is far from a general case. I've seen and heard plenty of atheists standing up and being counted, and I've noticed a significant trend in my life that the less religious someone is, the nicer they are. That's simply my experience over 37 years (most of which I wasn't shitting in my own pants).

No bashing here. I am an atheist and I know self-reflection and mutual discourse are the only things which keep any group of people, honest. I'm not calling atheists the source of any problem - I'm calling atheists out for stopping at being "nicer" instead of plowing forward to be better people - or, indeed, for becoming less-good people, on accident, as an unhealthy artifact of the contextually-necessary healing process.

People who grew up with religion and relied on it for nearly everything are going to find a big void, and it can be hard to craft your own future and routine. Also indoctrination often leaves mental scars which may take some time to heal.

Sure, if religion didn't exist, we wouldn't even need the word atheist. Even if religion was relegated to the hokey superstitious nonsense that it is, comparable to avoiding black cats or whatever, we wouldn't need a word or to fight for our rights.

I'm sad to see you experience has so far been negative, but on the whole I have not seen things to be as bad as you describe. But then I live in a very liberal country where religion isn't a big deal, so that's probably the reason. Where do you live? Sorry if I missed it.

I live in the second most terrifyingly-brainwashed violent theocracy on the planet; a paranoid engine of religious terrorism which we inflict on ourselves and the rest of the world. United States.

I agree atheists need to band together when isolated, and support each other through religous withdrawal and persecution. And if we don't push back against religious oppression, it's not likely to stop. The internet is a God send (hahah!) for atheism, since a 5 year old can now do a quick google and find out that the bible and Quran are utter garbage, and find all religion's dirty little secrets. It also makes it easier for atheists to communicate.

I agree, but that's only the beginning. Churches provide a community - they instill a habit of being a community. Atheists need, in my opinion, to embrace some communal habits. So when you say "need to band together when isolated" I say "are isolated by default until they choose, and do, secular ways to band together, and specifically ways which include the whole community, in the same way churches attempt to do". Otherwise the communities will become insular and clannish, and that's a real-life, really-happening horror story I don't even want to talk about right now.

So I think there will be a period of post-religion adjustment for any society that is heavily built around it, but I feel fairly confident that the good people will keep being good. And the arse holes, well, they'll probably still be arse holes.

There's certainly a degree to which this is true, but I also think there's a degree to which (please forgive me) that using this position as a conclusion, amounts to an attempt to do exactly what I'm calling out here - an attempt to hide from moral obligations to humans, to avoid or recast those conversations that call us out of our self-sufficiency bubbles as suddenly irrelevant to us because we are atheists.

That is exactly my point. "We're atheists - don't talk to us about moral obligations, community imperatives, or the implications of our attitudes." This does not follow at all. Atheism is the rejection of gods - yet some want to act as if it is, by extension, also the rejection of community, solidarity, discourse, or civic responsibility.

[robvalue]

I have to say, I have not once encountered an atheist who says any of those things at the end. I feel sad that you must have encountered some really beaten-down atheists. I can't imagine what it's like living in the nut house of xianity though. Maybe you could start an atheist support group for other local sane people?

I'm not trying to say you're wrong, just that my experience has been almost the opposite. Which is good, right? And sure, I wasn't encouraging long periods of adjustment after religion, just saying I can understand how it could affect someone. I'm still mentally damaged from my childhood, not from religion, but I can sympathise.

[NathanHawks]

PS @robvalue, this thread is me working out a thing in my perceptions of people, not me accusing you of being some exemplar of harm. I don't mean to pounce on you like that might have seemed at the end. And on that note, if we're from totally different countries, a lot of our contributing perspectives will obviously disconnect and some of what one will say, just won't be as immediately relevant to the other, as befits a fully engaged conversation. I appreciate the welcoming amount of time you've given my thoughts

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I have to say, I have not once encountered an atheist who says any of those things at the end. I feel sad that you must have encountered some really beaten-down atheists. I can't imagine what it's like living in the nut house of xianity though. Maybe you could start an atheist support group for other local sane people?

I'm not trying to say you're wrong, just that my experience has been almost the opposite. Which is good, right? And sure, I wasn't encouraging long periods of adjustment after religion, just saying I can understand how it could affect someone. I'm still mentally damaged from my childhood, not from religion, but I can sympathise.

It is virtually illegal to be an atheist in my country. My generation (I'm 38) thought it was getting better, but then we became an evil theocratic empire, and atheism is once again becoming thought of as the terrorist side of the liberal spectrum. So, "beaten-down" does not begin to describe.

[robvalue]

You bet! No, don't worry, I'm not taking things personally. I understand your experience, and would expect it to be different to mine, perhaps I'm living in what would the future of the U.S. in maybe 60-80 years time.

I know you're not bashing me, that's clear from your posts. I don't make atheism my identity, anyway, so I don't much care what people say about it, except for very public, harmful propaganda (which I'm not accusing you of. I mean churches telling everyone we're satan worshippers).

[Alex K]

However, here's why I come to these conclusions (and please be aware, in the list below, that I am deliberately choosing the words "I don't see" because I am aware the greatest problem here might be a continued fear of exposing myself to communities of humans).

- I don't see atheists working to teach their children about being "good Samaritans"

I can't confirm that

- I see a generation who demands logical proof before they will dignify sympathy and empathy as virtues; relatedly,

Yes, I observe this is a problem of parts of the vocal internet atheist crowd, who is partly made up of "Straw Vulcans" who will throw empathy under the bus for a cheap appeal to "logic". Many here will say that these people do not speak for them, because atheist is a broad and unspecific label which does not tell you much about the qualities of a person - which may tell us that it is impossible to form a meaningful "atheist community".

- I see atheists comfortable giving informed consent to human rights abuses, and philosophizing that civic responsibility is a flawed concept - in a complete reversal of the traditional trend where education is a liberalizing force, I see atheists dryly accepting harsh realities and confused why they should object

Here we have the problem that atheism alone is not something that gives you much in the way of guiding principles - it's simply not an alternative worldview to Christianity or whatever, it's, more or less, the absence of belief in God. You can have atheist social justice heroes, and you can have atheist authoritarian slave drivers. That's not a problem of atheism per se, atheism alone simply is not enough.

- I see atheists who seem more afraid, not less afraid; who are objectively less driven, not more; who rationalize amoral and antimoral stances toward social responsibility more skillfully, where a Christian would simply spout something which is barely recognizable as a sentence, an atheist will explain in dry, historically-valid, deterministic, bastardized-Nietzsche-flavored apathy.

Well, then you have come to the right place for some counter examples.

oh...

On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse. Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of Turin. What happened remains unknown, but an often-repeated tale from shortly after his death states that Nietzsche witnessed the flogging of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms up around its neck to protect it, and then collapsed to the ground

But spurious anecdotes aside, I know what you mean, though I think your reading of Nietzsche is a bit too superficial here. He didn't advocate a society of ruthless selfishness.

In short I see atheists as having self-fulfilled the threats insinuated into their minds by their presumably Christian brainwashing -- that a life without faith will be a lonely life where souls do nothing but burn and cry out to nobody.

I've never had real Christian brainwashing, nor have many other people here. But then again, I'm not American. Many who had Christian brainwashing have reported here to have found great joy and freedom in their lives after getting rid of the mental shackles of religion.

[robvalue]

I'm sorry to hear things have taken a down turn in your area. On the positive side, every time I have heard about figures, atheism or at least irreligious is the fastest growing group.

[Alex K]

It is virtually illegal to be an atheist in my country. My generation (I'm 38) thought it was getting better, but then we became an evil theocratic empire, and atheism is once again becoming thought of as the terrorist side of the liberal spectrum. So, "beaten-down" does not begin to describe.

Though I'm the first to decry these tendencies in the US, a country I am very fond of, I don't think describing it as a theocracy is valid. Delusions of imperialism can't be completely denied.

[NathanHawks]

I think your reading of Nietzsche is a bit too superficial here. He didn't advocate a society of ruthless selfishness.

I was talking specifically of bastardized-Nietzsche-flavored thought; meaning, Nietzsche filtered by the process of being spat out of a Nazi's mouth.

Other thoughts-in-reply likely to follow.

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It is virtually illegal to be an atheist in my country. My generation (I'm 38) thought it was getting better, but then we became an evil theocratic empire, and atheism is once again becoming thought of as the terrorist side of the liberal spectrum. So, "beaten-down" does not begin to describe.

Though I'm the first to decry these tendencies in the US, a country I am very fond of, I don't think describing it as a theocracy is valid. Delusions of imperialism can't be completely denied.

Look into all the ways in which tax money is given to faith-based organizations which then parlay that money into successful big-money lobbying. Oligarchy or corporateocracy are both inadequate words; I don't think we have an adequate word for the intersection of fascistic influences at work (and currently very dominant) in my homeland.

[Alex K]

Look into all the ways in which tax money is given to faith-based organizations which then parlay that money into successful big-money lobbying. Oligarchy or corporateocracy are both inadequate words; I don't think we have an adequate word for the intersection of fascistic influences at work in my homeland.

Are you talking about the tax-exemption for churches? I'm not aware that outside of that, very large sums are directly given to faith-based organizations, but maybe you know more.

[NathanHawks]

Look into all the ways in which tax money is given to faith-based organizations which then parlay that money into successful big-money lobbying. Oligarchy or corporateocracy are both inadequate words; I don't think we have an adequate word for the intersection of fascistic influences at work in my homeland.

Are you talking about the tax-exemption for churches? I'm not aware that outside of that, very large sums are directly given to faith-based organizations, but maybe you know more.

Well, for starters, a huge portion of our GDP and tax dollars - a huge portion of that 50+% chunk of our lives, which is devoted to building a military - goes to supporting Israel for no other reason than because the Bible tells us to.

A single example from a nice mainstream website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/28/opinio...rches.html

A slew of examples from a risky, independent website:
http://www.theocracywatch.org/

How much we can talk about this, depends on how detailed we're going to get. One could summarize and sound like a nutter talking with no context; one could also copy/paste whole bodies of select books. I just discovered theocracywatch.org in answering your post, but seeing that its reports about Zionism do not contain anti-Semitism, I feel tentatively comfortable using it as a shortcut to answering your prompt.

And finally, the huge elephant in the room:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/ameri...xtremists/