Meliorism - The rise of neo-atheism and the fall of reason

[frz]

Another one calling atheists religious. Again. Bah! Whatever!

I guess this is their way of trying to figure out how to be friends with us, like alcoholics always trying to offer the person next to them a little drink.

[LastPoet]

If atheism is a religion I want tax exemption, damnit!

[ManMachine]

The good thing, mister machine, is that the scientific method and technology will continue to reveal facts and be useful whether you believe it or not...unlike religion.

'mister machine', goodness no one calls me mister unless it's my mother and I'm in trouble.

It is not a question of wether ro not somethig is 'useful' (although there is a debate to be had there) it's wether or not it's should be considered progress.


MM

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Another one calling atheists religious. Again. Bah! Whatever!

I guess this is their way of trying to figure out how to be friends with us, like alcoholics always trying to offer the person next to them a little drink.

An atheist calling other atheists religious. Actually, no.

I'm an atheist pointing out the religious nature of some modern atheism (or neo-atheism) through exploration of the origin of the notion that human action leads to the illusion of progress.

Your use of division to identify yourself as part of the 'us' that you have decided that I am excluded from comes across to me as a rather questionable way of discrediting my debate. Try engaging with me, you might find it interesting, probably infuriating but isn't that part of the fun?



MM

[thesummerqueen]

Being useful IS progress. If it allows us to do things "better" or "more efficiently" or "cheaply" it is progress, whether you like the progress or not.

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Carefull Summer, fr0d0 might come in telling you have a materialist worldview

I'd have to give a fuck what fr0d0 thought about my worldview first.

[Tonus]

So convinced of the absolute inviolability of modern science, the neo-atheist behaves like a fundamentalist in their defence of their belief. Offering up misinterpretations and meaningless quotes stripped of context to maintain purchase on their belief, attacking reasoned enquiry like cyber-crusaders lopping off the heads of anyone who dare violate the first commandment of neo-atheism – Science is a jealous god and thou shalt not have any other god before it.

I think this is just the realization that a person's belief system doesn't change them as much as we like to think it does. We are who we are, and as much as we like to define others in simple terms (while reveling in our own depth of personality), people are a mixture of conscious and sub-conscious beliefs and behaviors that we don't understand anywhere near as much as we'd like to think we do. A person who becomes an atheist is still, on many levels, the person he was when he was a theist, and vice-versa.

[thesummerqueen]

A person who becomes an atheist is still, on many levels, the person he was when he was a theist, and vice-versa.

Holy fuck, THIS.

[ManMachine]

Being useful IS progress. If it allows us to do things "better" or "more efficiently" or "cheaply" it is progress, whether you like the progress or not.

To use a crass example, an atomic bomb is useful for killing large numbers of people, is this progress?

Even if we find a way to say this is progress, progress against what?

My point (and I made it in my OP) is that the notion of progress requires a teleological thought process and particurlarly in modern science, an explanation that relies on teleology must be avoided lest we invoke some kind of supreme being or force to give design and purpose to the universe.



MM

[thesummerqueen]

I should call James Randi and demand that million dollar prize for every time I know 'psychically' that someone is going to use nukes or nazis in a thread.

You are confusing 'subjective' progress with 'objective' progress. Certainly, the bomb was a progression in our abilities in warfare. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant to that fact.

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As for your OP, it sounded like a bunch of empty words complaining about atheism based on comments found on Youtube - little else.

[ManMachine]

I should call James Randi and demand that million dollar prize for every time I know 'psychically' that someone is going to use nukes or nazis in a thread.

You are confusing 'subjective' progress with 'objective' progress. Certainly, the bomb was a progression in our abilities in warfare. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant to that fact.

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As for your OP, it sounded like a bunch of empty words complaining about atheism based on comments found on Youtube - little else.

I did say it was a crass example, I deserve some credit for recognising the kind of statement I was making. In retrospect it was probably not a good way into my point. We live and learn.

You seem to assume that I have feelings towards wether or not something is subjective or objective progress, I can assure you, I don't, but I am interested in the fact you think I am confusing subjective and objective progress (whatever they are?). Can you demonstrate why you think I am because I don't see it.

I see you seem to have adopted the idea of greater killing yield per bomb as progress of our abilities in warfare. I fully accept warfare has changed but change is not progress, what have progressed against?

I definitely mentioned teleology in my OP, check and see. My prose was a little colourful but that was deliberate on my part, flowers and bees and all that.




MM

[thesummerqueen]

Perhaps you should explain to me why "greater" doesn't equal an objective sort of progression, and why change doesn't equal progress (for it does, at the very least, some of the time), for I seem not to understand your position. I don't want colorful, flowery prose. Stating a position should be done in accordance with maximum effort at clear and concise communication, not what sounds pretty.

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Going back to your OP.

It’s becoming clear to me that there is a new kind of atheism. It stems from the cut n’ paste vox-pops puppets who think Dawkins’ greatest contribution to atheism is his ill-conceived disasterwork, ‘The God Delusion’ and who wouldn’t recognise a Selfish Gene if it broke into the bedrooms and stole their laptops.

I didn't realize there was a "kind" of atheism. Atheism is a blank slate. What you stand for or against gives you another label. This is why we rail against those Atheism+ fucks. Everything is a plus from atheism, as you're adding something to the blank slate. Are you talking about a particular kind of anti-theist?

People who are characterised by an atheist philosophy not born of critical thought and diligence but congealed out of a conflation of sound-bites from youtube clips of proselytising egoists and ratings-driven public access panels of smug half-educated, half-wits with half-baked notions of the absolute truth and authority of science delivering what they consider to be progress.

There is no atheist philosophy. There might be atheisTIC philosophies - that is, philosophies which have no god-belief inherent in them.

But since you provide no examples beyond Dawkins as to who you consider a half-wit or an egoist, I maintain that you're making empty words again.

This neo-atheism would be quaint if it were not so dangerous.

How cute.

The central theme running through neo-atheism is meliorism. The notion that science and technology, specifically as a result of human action, brings progress (and equally that and backward revision is retrogressive) is, in my experience dealing with neo-atheists, so central to their thinking it has become the priori on which their philosophy (if it can be called that) is predicated.

So these atheists believe that science and technology can lead us forward and have. And you don't like it. Big whoop. Again, that doesn't change the fact that it has. Perhaps you need to explain why you think it's a bad thing, instead of railing on about how wrong we are.

So convinced of the absolute inviolability of modern science, the neo-atheist behaves like a fundamentalist in their defence of their belief. Offering up misinterpretations and meaningless quotes stripped of context to maintain purchase on their belief, attacking reasoned enquiry like cyber-crusaders lopping off the heads of anyone who dare violate the first commandment of neo-atheism – Science is a jealous god and thou shalt not have any other god before it.

Example? I have never seen an atheist treat science like god. This is a misinterpretation by theists who have no understanding of science as both a noun and a verb.

Plus, you need to explain to me why science is "flawed."

The eighteenth century dream of human progress is alive and well and masquerading as neo-atheism. Any notion of progress or regression can only make sense within a system of teleological thought. Teleological thought has embedded itself into the neo-atheist psyche so deep it has become the embodiment of reason.

[jerking off motion]

But this is easily exposed as a myth. When we look back from any given state to the state of things in the past it is fair to use the terms development and evolution in a neutral sense. From this point it is easy to identify the process that led us from one state to the next, but we must guard against confusing change with improvement or progress. There is no progress against concrete goals, the general notion of progress and improvement is measured against a change in state, it simply doesn’t stand up to critical examination. The term progress is nonsensical when applied to a comprehensive world view.

You're just making alphabet soup here.

To compound the matter neo-atheists assert human action as the agent of this progress.

Well, humans have to actually make things and use things.

The danger with Neo-atheism, as I see it, is that it has absorbed pseudoscientific anthropocentrism and the delusion of progress, and has rapidly become fundamentalist in its defence of these mistaken beliefs.

[more jerking off]