What Kind of Atheist are You?

[RobbyPants]

Anyway, that's me. What are you?

Liberal agnostic atheist who likes Borderlands, Doom-modding, beer, and tacos. You know, the awesome kind.

[Red Economist]

Nobody is arguing against Communism being a complete worldview. It is but you cannot claim to be a form of atheism. Atheism by itself is nothing but a lack of belief in gods or God. Any number of worldviews may incorporate it. My own particular worldview has little in common with your's outside of atheism. Neither of us may claim atheism as if it belongs to us. Any idiot may claim the universe was created by the lizard spawn of Tom Paris and Catherine Janeway but those fools may not claim kinship with us.

That is fair. There is no single atheism, but it is somewhat treated differently; Liberals are secularists and therefore can separate politics from atheism and atheism is therefore a personal belief, whereas communists can't and end up with an atheist state; their views on religion/philosophy and politics are closely connected that they produce a state which resembles a theocracy-just minus the god bit.

[Dystopia]

I disagree - The reason why atheism is a lack of belief in gods is because it says so in the dictionary and some people proposed the definition. 100 years ago it was the positive denial of gods. Things change. Anyone who forms an atheist association or organization or ideology that proposes atheism as a core requirement is deliberately creating a new branch of atheism because you connect the lack of belief in god with other forms of thinking. This is true specially if the lack of belief in gods is the most fundamental requirements - Atheist clubs are an example. You may have a group of atheists, but they probably share something in common like anti-theism or secularist principles or even hatred for theists

[AFTT47]

Nobody is arguing against Communism being a complete worldview. It is but you cannot claim to be a form of atheism. Atheism by itself is nothing but a lack of belief in gods or God. Any number of worldviews may incorporate it. My own particular worldview has little in common with your's outside of atheism. Neither of us may claim atheism as if it belongs to us. Any idiot may claim the universe was created by the lizard spawn of Tom Paris and Catherine Janeway but those fools may not claim kinship with us.

That is fair. There is no single atheism, but it is somewhat treated differently; Liberals are secularists and therefore can separate politics from atheism and atheism is therefore a personal belief, whereas communists can't and end up with an atheist state; their views on religion/philosophy and politics are closely connected that they produce a state which resembles a theocracy-just minus the god bit.

Yes, you have two different issues. The founders of the U.S. wisely made it a point to separate religion from public policy. I don't see how Secular Humanism and Communism have any different status under this system. You may espouse Communism here as a policy apart from atheism. You're problem is that while Communism sounds good ideologically, in practice it hasn't been effective at spreading wealth equally: Its effect has been spreading poverty equally. You need to address that before worrying about religious bias.

[Red Economist]

That is fair. There is no single atheism, but it is somewhat treated differently; Liberals are secularists and therefore can separate politics from atheism and atheism is therefore a personal belief, whereas communists can't and end up with an atheist state; their views on religion/philosophy and politics are closely connected that they produce a state which resembles a theocracy-just minus the god bit.

Yes, you have two different issues. The founders of the U.S. wisely made it a point to separate religion from public policy. I don't see how Secular Humanism and Communism have any different status under this system. You may espouse Communism here as a policy apart from atheism. You're problem is that while Communism sounds good ideologically, in practice it hasn't been effective at spreading wealth equally: Its effect has been spreading poverty equally. You need to address that before worrying about religious bias.

overall, I don't try to expose Communism mainly because it's a great way to "lose friends and alienate people" so I have no hopes of getting people to agree with me simply by my being here but I'm happy to add another dimension to a discussion that people may not have thought of. I think people can gain something from that. From experience I know that contact with communist ideas does not equal a person becoming a commie; it doesn't "spread" easily as it depends on the person in the same way atheists don't become religious by being knowledgeable about religion.

Secular humanism is a philosophy which is compatible with liberalism, but Communism has a much more difficult relationship because it is collectivistic and adherence to atheism is a necessary part of the collective identity and shared values of a social organization. Dystopia is right in pointing out that it is a positive form of atheism as a world view, rather than a negative one which is single statement of personal belief. This relationship between politics and atheism may actually be a good case for saying that communism does constitute a different form of atheism, but I'm hesitant. (I'm new and don't feel like pi**ing people off just yet until I know the lay of the land).

For what it is worth, Marxist forms of Communism do not support "equality of outcome" in terms of equalizing wealth distribution. There were some Communists who had this view in the French Revolution as I recall, but it has never really gone beyond a handful of people. That kind of conception of equality is fairly closely related to religion and absolute ethics which are difficult to sustain as it is. In 1931, Stalin gave a speech in which he insisted that income inequality was a necessary part of incentivizing people to work and to increase labour productivity in the economy. This position is virtually identical with capitalists, except that 'moral incentives' are supposed to take precedence in the end when society achieves an abundance of goods; work then becomes intrinsically valued as a way of expressing creativity and individuality through art and science, etc. The Communist definition of equality is more like 'equal access' to goods and services based on common ownership based on need rather than people being excluded from it due to private ownership, but in practice the retention of money and markets in the Soviet economy meant it was unequal even in this sense.
Atheism is important in this because the duality between spiritual and material worlds makes it theoretically impossible have have the level of knowledge to develop a planned economy as there is always a 'spiritual' realm which is unknowable and beyond human control and understanding. the relationship between atheism and politics is therefore unusual in this sense.

[robvalue]

What do you mean by a spiritual realm? If it's unknowable, how do you know it exists?

Apologies if it's not you making this claim but you're referring to someone else. Politics is hard for simpletons like me.

[Red Economist]

What do you mean by a spiritual realm? If it's unknowable, how do you know it exists?

Apologies if it's not you making this claim but you're referring to someone else. Politics is hard for simpletons like me.

No, it's cool. I'm not making that cliam, as its more a cliam I'm making of others particuarly people who are religious.

the dualistic seperation of the body and the mind becomes the dualistic seperation of matter and consciousness/spirit into different realms of existence. In seeking to find explanation for how the world works, if you argue that pheneomena is caused by the mind or consciousness, you then end up needing a "first cause" to start everything in existence, i.e. God. Materialism is based on the assumption that consciousness is a property of matter/the brain as part of the body, and that matter is primary; therefore the existence of supernatural pheneomena is an illusion. it is monistic in that all things are material as opposed to dualistic. In Marxist philosophy, consciousness itself is not material, but is a product of matter (e.g. the nuerological connections in the brain).

The reason this is important is that dualism leads to strong agnosticism; if there is a world "beyond", "behind" or "above" the material one, it is therefore beyond sense-perception, and therefore scientific evidence/knowledge. Marxism is a 19th century philosophy which relies on treating science as an ideology ('scientism: that natural science is the best method for establishing truth/knowledge) and so rejecting dualism and therefore strong agnosticism means there is no inherent limit to human knowledge and nothing is unknowable, merely unknown.
This view (scientism) fell out of favour in the 20th century because of the implications of scientific cliams of understandings of history in both communism and national socialism; the former said history is characterised by class struggle and the latter racial struggle. What they share in common, is that treating natural science as a method for understanding society has radical implications on ethics and as "knowledge is power" the old adegde "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" into play. If society is understood scientifically it gives the people (or more worryingly the state) the power to control society and with such knowledge society can be improved and made into a utopia. this is central to communist ideology and to a lesser extent national socialism in terms of eugenics.

The flip side of this is that it also gives a different standard for "objective" ethics. this is dangerous because without a belief in a universal or enteral law of ethics (common to Christianity and Liberalism) the state can measure a persons value based on what they contribute to society and in the name of efficiency "eliminate" those who it thinks do not help their cause. the tricky question is whether this is an inherent qualitity of communism, or something that can be overcome by futher development.

(edit: The idea that there is a spiritual realm is implied as a way of explaining how the world works, but with the advance of science and the human ability to replicate natural pheneomena for our own purposes, we no longer need religious explanations. Science therefore shows that religion is an illusion; but overcoming religion completely means being in conscious control not only of nature, but also by having scientific knowledge of and applying it to the planned development of society. )

[robvalue]

OK, thanks for explaining that

Personally I'm a methodological naturalist, so I feel no need to deny the existence of that which we can't measure.

I asked my wife yesterday if I was stubborn (not randomly, it was part of a conversation) and she says not normally, but I can be when it comes to things like ghosts. Of course, she is confusing being stubborn with being sceptical. I don't claim there are no ghosts either.

Consciousness really is the fly in the ointment for little piss ants like me. I have to admit it very much feels exactly like some sort of "extra" thing, existing in its own place. I feel helpless to try and properly explain it using science, to say "where" it is, or if I'm even asking the right questions. With this, there are a lot of alternatives which I don't rule out, and I feel much less confident about smoothing it over with science as I do ghosts and religion. I have to resort to "No idea". I can only offer guesses. I don't even know what the default position is, as the only evidence I have about it appears to contradict any scientific position I put forward. I can't pretend there is no evidence like I can say about other things, just that I cannot properly assess the evidence.

[Hatshepsut]

For what it is worth, Marxist forms of Communism do not support "equality of outcome" in terms of equalizing wealth distribution...

Amen. I've been waiting for someone to bypass the Dick and Jane Go to Young Pioneers level of understanding.

Consciousness really is the fly in the ointment for little piss ants like me. I have to admit it very much feels exactly like some sort of "extra" thing, existing in its own place...

It is for me too. I think that in fact it is an extra thing. We should be androids if we were in a universe where matter is the only reality.

[Red Economist]

OK, thanks for explaining that

Personally I'm a methodological naturalist, so I feel no need to deny the existence of that which we can't measure.

I asked my wife yesterday if I was stubborn (not randomly, it was part of a conversation) and she says not normally, but I can be when it comes to things like ghosts. Of course, she is confusing being stubborn with being sceptical. I don't claim there are no ghosts either.

Consciousness really is the fly in the ointment for little piss ants like me. I have to admit it very much feels exactly like some sort of "extra" thing, existing in its own place. I feel helpless to try and properly explain it using science, to say "where" it is, or if I'm even asking the right questions. With this, there are a lot of alternatives which I don't rule out, and I feel much less confident about smoothing it over with science as I do ghosts and religion. I have to resort to "No idea". I can only offer guesses. I don't even know what the default position is, as the only evidence I have about it appears to contradict any scientific position I put forward. I can't pretend there is no evidence like I can say about other things, just that I cannot properly assess the evidence.

Consciousness is the hardest problem in philosophy, so I don't think you should feel bad about not being able to understand what it is. The development of Neuroscience gives us the possibility that questions can now be scientifically asked; but it's still deep in Neurophysiology that we're going to have to establish that answers can be found. Materialism is my best guess as I'm reluctant to say it is objectively true because of how much would unravel if that were the case. Historically speaking, We are still only at the dawn of scientific knowledge so there are probably lots of surprises in store as we figure out who we really are in a more scientific way.