Fundamentalist Atheism

Penelope · Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject:

Dear Ophelia - I don't like flags, but the European Flag is acceptable.

When I went to the British Museum, it struck me that the Goddess Isis in the Egyptian Section and the Virgin Mary in the Christian section, both that the twelve stars around their heads....... Smile

If the symbol is good enough for those two.....it's good enough for me.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 7:45 pm Post subject:

Penelope · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject:

OK Robert - in future I am going to re-christen you Bob-the-Boffin.

But I am very interested in what you say.....and I need to read and study it carefully...therefore I will print off your last post.

Then get back to you when I have absorbed it....or not....I may be asking you questions later. ....thank you for being so patient....

Dissident Heart · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject:

If by fundamentalist you mean: someone compelled to define for all persons, in all places and at all times...what is essential, integral and fundamental about any/all God, gods, or goddesses...who thinks there is simply nothing more to learn, improve upon, or change her mind about...every angle, all perspectives, or any insight regarding all things godly, divine, holy or sacred is already settled, finalized and completely understood...and, most importantly, her idea is the correct one, the best and most accurate among all others- the others not being simply mistaken, but downright wrong, stupidly mistaken, dangerously naive, maliciously idiotic and fundamentally deluded.....then I think there are more than a few fundamentalist atheist.

Nihilism, I think, is dangerous stuff: it is acid to the soul, demoralizing and debilitating. When understood as something more than simply chic intellectual posing...it fuels pitiful self-loathing and hateful disregard for others...it is a poisonous kind of distrust that breeds paranoia and fear...an all pervasive malaise and disgust of self, other, and life in general...actively, it inflames the worst sorts of sociopathic violence and terror...passively, it turns the soul against itself, internally decomposing into self-destructive despair and impotent hopelessness.

Penelope · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:06 pm Post subject:

Dissident Heart....did you really compose this post?

It is excellent, and compellingly written.

Thank you.....

If we define fundamentalism first...maybe then we can discuss it.
I understand it as meaning - people who accept the Bible as absolute fact.......or Muslims who accept the teachings of the Ayotalah as absolute truth. Unquestioning.

I see these people as upholding their book, or their leaders or doctrine as 'the ultimate' truth. And not upholding.........God....I can't think of a simpler way of expressing it.

How clear their absolutes appear and how intangible mine seem in comparison. But intangible doesn't mean wrong.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:26 pm Post subject:

DH has done us a good service in defining the method of fundamentalism as independent of its content. The irony is that scientists and atheists have a method which is non-fundamentalist in essence, in that it is based on enquiry and evidence. However, their views often become encrusted by political and cultural factors. For example, refutation of simple creationist arguments is invalidly assumed to also refute more complex and coherent spiritual perspectives. This encrusting - by which I mean that the worldview develops an impervious crust which even valid outside ideas cannot enter - is the path of fundamentalism.

DH's comments on nihilism present quite a challenge to atheism. The assumption central to much atheism, that there is no intrinsic meaning and purpose in life, leads to inability to formulate a coherent theory of values. Arguing that values are merely subjective is well down the slippery slope of nihilism, in my opinion. I can't see how you can have an atheism that is not nihilistic, except by giving ground to theism and equating the universe with God.

Frank 013 · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:37 am Post subject:

Frank 013 · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:55 am Post subject:

Dissident Heart · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:13 am Post subject:

Frank: When DH complains that we do not respect his religious belief what is he saying?

I am not complaining that Frank's royal "we" disrespects my religious belief. I am offering a description of fundamentalism that starts with crude reduction, flagrant overgeneralization, obtuse satisfaction...and ends with blatant intolerance, self-righteous grandiosity and occasional acts of violence and terror. I think there are many Atheists, and Frank leans in this direction, who reflect much of this attitude and approach, although I certainly have no desire to label him a violent terrorist. I will say that there are elements of his approach to religion that, I think, make the job of religious extremists all the easier: i.e., helping them make the case that the violent and abusive dimensions of scriptures and religions are the real truth of the text and traditions...and that interpretations that provide a more progressive, merciful, forgiving, caring, justice seeking and peace making conclusion: are ridiculous attempts at revision not to be taken seriously.

DWill · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:18 am Post subject:

Frank,
Your Sept. 25th post is a very good piece of work, and there's not much in it I can disagree with. My quibble is with your charcterization of atheists' attitude toward religious people as basically one of live-and-let-live. At least if we judge by the current "famous four" atheist authors, don't we see a rather more aggressive stance towards religion, an offensive against religion? Atheists are no more likely to lack firm values than are the religious, I agree. But isn't their agenda also an "anti" one, by the very fact of their name? In this connection, I heard that Richard Dawkins propsed that atheists re-name themselves "brights," to lend a more positive flavor.
DWill

jaywalker · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:54 am Post subject:

Tulip-I'm sorry but Atheists don't 'Have a method''. They are NOT a society nor do they band together nor have a Common belief. They just don't have a God in their lives. This is the reason I'm against the use of this and other Greek words-they need constant re-definition.

Frank 013 · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:22 pm Post subject:

GentleReader9 · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject:

Now this is what I call a discussion. I can't tell you all enough how thrilled I am to have found this site and gotten to read what you all have to say. If more people with different views would talk to one another the world would be a better place and I would just plotz in ecstasy and go up in the rapture. But since it's like this, has anyone here read Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh? She is an atheist and it is a really interesting work of fiction that shows pretty well where she is coming from in a way that makes it easier for people who aren't atheists and like personal stories to understand and empathize with that point of view. Maybe we could read it for fiction together? It is important not to treat one another's arguments as straw men that are just so stupid and dangerous and formed in alien ways, but rather to look at the highest and best expressions, ways that are most like our own ways of thinking to see one another as more rather than less than we are and leave other people space to see us that way too. (I also like to use a "Royal We," Frank.)

Dissident Heart · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 8:56 pm Post subject:

Frank: If you want to reinvent the word fundamentalist that is your business but I will not follow along.

Which means you are taking the more fundamentalist stance towards a definition of fundamentalism...and, it becomes even clearer, as your definitions of fundamentalism express, that you share the fundamentalist approach to religion as well....I mean, you don't believe that what they say is true about their religions or scriptures: but you agree with them that the appropriate way to approach their traditions, beliefs and scriptures is via literal interpretations and strict adherence to doctrines with great distrust towards novelty or revision.


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