RE: An interesting read concerning atheism in america.
December 31, 2021 at 1:21 pm
(This post was last modified: December 31, 2021 at 1:38 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
The list of which superstitions we do or don't use to assert normative principles changes more often than the normative principles do. They're truth statements in search of validation.
Insomuch as people assume that a given validation being invalidated harms the normative assertion, they lose their shit. Tons of threads on this board by the faithful to that effect.
"How can you X without gods?" is just another way of saying "How can this important thing be true if this other unimportant thing isn't?" Secular humanism (and humanism of any kind) succeeds in that it offers the answer to those questions, even in the hypothetical case where the superstition is true, but irrelevant to that answer. Ala, if there are no gods, how can there be right or wrong? Well, here's how..but even if there are...that's still how, and how some god belief is, plainly put..not only factually inaccurate and contextually irrelevant, but morally vacuous or even unacceptable. When or if a person asserts or believes that the proper focus or organization of human society or law is human interest and authority the justification for that holds even if there are gods and even if those gods are powerfully aligned against those interests and even if those gods punish the disobedients and reward the sycophants.
More than anything, the anxiously faithful are uncomfortable with the unbelieving because their justifications and even their very existence preempts their arguments and reduces their gods to obsolescence. This thing that means so much to them that their own identity is bound to it becomes a thinly veiled farce. No one handles that well.
Insomuch as people assume that a given validation being invalidated harms the normative assertion, they lose their shit. Tons of threads on this board by the faithful to that effect.
"How can you X without gods?" is just another way of saying "How can this important thing be true if this other unimportant thing isn't?" Secular humanism (and humanism of any kind) succeeds in that it offers the answer to those questions, even in the hypothetical case where the superstition is true, but irrelevant to that answer. Ala, if there are no gods, how can there be right or wrong? Well, here's how..but even if there are...that's still how, and how some god belief is, plainly put..not only factually inaccurate and contextually irrelevant, but morally vacuous or even unacceptable. When or if a person asserts or believes that the proper focus or organization of human society or law is human interest and authority the justification for that holds even if there are gods and even if those gods are powerfully aligned against those interests and even if those gods punish the disobedients and reward the sycophants.
More than anything, the anxiously faithful are uncomfortable with the unbelieving because their justifications and even their very existence preempts their arguments and reduces their gods to obsolescence. This thing that means so much to them that their own identity is bound to it becomes a thinly veiled farce. No one handles that well.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
