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The Intellectual Snobbery of Conspicuous Atheism

DiscoBiscuit

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Some good food for thought.

From The Atlantic: The Intellectual Snobbery of Conspicuous Atheism

Beyond the argument that faith in God is irrational—and therefore illegitimate

...... All of this leads to Watson’s conclusion: Religious belief is simply insufficient to explain the complexity of the modern world. It has led to violence and intolerance, yes, but more fundamentally, the idea of God—a unifying, singular lens for understanding everyday life—has been debunked, six ways to Sunday. Or, to mix metaphors: Modern people can pick their poison for killing God. But die He must.

***

The problem with Watson’s argument is not that it lacks evidence—there’s a lot of history crammed into his book. Rather, it’s that Watson assembles anecdotes into a scatterplot that undeniably points toward the impossibility of God in the modern world, or so he claims. And this is where the intellectual snobbery comes in: Watson assumes that because a group of smart, respected, insightful people thought and felt their way out of believing in God, everyone else should, too. Because intellectual history trends toward non-belief, human history must, too.

This is problematic for several reasons. For one thing, it suggests that believers are inherently less thoughtful than non-believers. Watson tells stories of famous thinkers and artists who have struggled to reconcile themselves to a godless world. And these are helpful, in that they offer insight into how dynamic, creative people have tried to live. But that doesn't mean the average believer's search for meaning and understanding is any less rigorous or valuable—it just ends with a different conclusion: that God exists. Watson implies that full engagement with the project of being human in the modern world leads to atheism, and that's just not true.

We know it's not true because the vast majority of the world believes in God or some sort higher power. Worldwide, religious belief and observance vary widely by region. It’s tough to get a fully accurate global picture of faith in God or a “higher power,” but the metric of religiosity serves as a helpful proxy. Only 16 percent of the world’s population was not affiliated with a particular faith as of 2010, although many of these people believe in God or a spiritual deity, according to the Pew Research Center. More than three-fourths of the religiously unaffiliated live in the Asia-Pacific region, with a majority (62 percent) living in China. In other regions, the percentage of those who say they have no religious affiliation are much smaller: 7.7 percent in Latin America; 3.2 percent in sub-Saharan Africa; 0.6 percent in the Middle East.

Arguably, Watson wasn’t writing for the whole world—he stuck to Western thinkers and artists. But even if we focus on Europe and North America, his implicit argument isn’t supported by statistics. Eighteen percent of Europeans are religiously unaffiliated, but again, many of those people believe in God—30 percent of unaffiliated French people do, for example. And even though Christianity is growing fastest in Latin America and sub-Saharan African, as of 2010, Europe was still home to a quarter of the world’s Christians—the largest population in the world.

In America, which sociologists often describe as a uniquely religious country compared with the rest of the Western world, a vast majority of people have faith. According to Pew, 86 percent of Millennials, or people aged 18-33, say they believe in God, and 94 percent of people 34 and older say the same. It’s true that a growing group say they’re “not certain” about this belief, and it’s also true that affiliation with formal religious institutions is declining. But in terms of pure belief, self-described atheists and agnostics are a small minority, making up only six percent of the population.

The Western world in particular is probably less religious than it was 150 years ago, and the dynamics of belief and observance have certainly become more complex—the growing number of people who are unaffiliated with a specific religion is especially fascinating. But if the age of atheism started in 1882 as Watson claims, most people still haven't caught on.

The Age of Atheists will likely stay confined to certain intellectual circles: The casual philosopher, the dogmatic non-believer, the coffee-table book collector. But insofar as its argument represents a broader pathology in contemporary conversations about belief, this book matters. Most people form their beliefs and live their lives somewhere in the middle of the so-called "culture divide" that outspoken atheists and believers shout across. The more these shouters shout, the more public discourse veers away from the subtle struggle of the average person's attempt to be human.
 

Alea_iacta_est

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Militant Atheism is problematic, and about as just as the spread of Christianity to Africa and Asia under Imperialism. Tolerance is paramount, in all forms, for we have little evidence to discredit any belief system or lack of belief system.
 
W

WALMART

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I converted my agnostic friend into an atheist last night.

Took about two sentences.
 

Mole

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What a laugh!

Mbti cuts across our humanity.

Mbti reifies seven and a half thousand million people into sixteen types.

MBti turns us into objects in order to find the right person for the right job.

Mbti gives us a brand of four letters so we can be easly sorted.

Mbti commodifies us so we can be sold to the highest bidder.

And mbti is part of the New Age religion.
 

Mole

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we have little evidence to discredit any belief system or lack of belief system.

We have lots of evidence to credit or discredit any belief system.

We simply ask what are the fruits of that system.

If the fruits of that system are violence, the subjugation of women, the abuse of children, and an inability of self criticism, then we know the fruits are rotten.
 

cafe

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Most of the time the atheists make a lot of sense to me. More than a lot of religious folks do. I can enjoy them even knowing they'd think I'm a loon for being religious most of the time. And most of them aren't obnoxious about it. Unlike a lot of my co-religionists.
 

BlackDog

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What a laugh!

Mbti cuts across our humanity.

Mbti reifies seven and a half thousand million people into sixteen types.

MBti turns us into objects in order to find the right person for the right job.

Mbti gives us a brand of four letters so we can be easly sorted.

Mbti commodifies us so we can be sold to the highest bidder.

And mbti is part of the New Age religion.

This doesn't make sense. You're taking a particular use of a series of definitions, and attributing action to the definitions rather than to the user who takes the action/uses the definitions for a particular purpose. MBTI may well be used for this purpose; any series of definitions can be.

If I decided to divide the world into people who can lift 25 lb.s to shoulder-height for a minute, and people who can't, I have just created a measurable distinction that can be used to aid in division of labour. We could call the people who can lift the weight L, for 'lifters', and NL, 'not lifters' can be assigned to the people who can't lift the weight.

In any industry where the ability to lift 25 lb.s to shoulder height for a minute is relevant, L vs. NL could be an important tool. Likewise with MBTI.

Nevertheless, if it is wrong to label people this way, it is wrong to function in society. All of us make distinctions in order to live. Giving an orderly terminology to these distinctions is amoral.
 

Mole

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La Lutte Continue

struggle of the average person's attempt to be human.

From the moment of conception we are homo sapiens, that is, we are human beings.

Naturally some of us struggle to be human rather than zebras. I myself have had a lifelong struggle to be human rather than a Mole. And as you can see, la lutte continue.
 

Mole

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Nevertheless, if it is wrong to label people this way, it is wrong to function in society. All of us make distinctions in order to live. Giving an orderly terminology to these distinctions is amoral.

And if it is wrong to label people as Aryan, Negro, Asian, Slav, Aboriginal, and Jew, it is wrong to function in society.

These labels are simply tools we use in order to live.

So giving an orderly terminology to these distinctions is neither moral nor immoral, simply amoral.
 

Forever_Jung

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it suggests that believers are inherently less thoughtful than non-believers. Watson tells stories of famous thinkers and artists who have struggled to reconcile themselves to a godless world. And these are helpful, in that they offer insight into how dynamic, creative people have tried to live. But that doesn't mean the average believer's search for meaning and understanding is any less rigorous or valuable—it just ends with a different conclusion: that God exists. Watson implies that full engagement with the project of being human in the modern world leads to atheism, and that's just not true.

We know it's not true because the vast majority of the world believes in God or some sort higher power.

I don't necessarily disagree with the point, but the argument for it doesn't really hold water for me. Just because a lot of people believe in God, doesn't mean those people are fully engaged with the project of being human. A lot of people are religious, just cuz. Indoctrination, laziness, etc. They believe in God, but they're not particularly engaged with making sense of the world.

As annoying as some atheists are, I do find their beliefs to be a bit more accountable to real criticism. I also resent the way the Catholic Church tries to be all smiley with Jesus strumming folk tunes on an acoustic guitar, whenever they're criticized for being dogmatic/opressive/etc. It's disingenuous. In debates, Religious people just try to shrink their territory to something so small and unobjectionable, that it becomes difficult to take them down. But as soon as you let up on them and give them power, they start being oppressive dickwads. They remind me of the bad guy at the end of the film who gravels and makes excuses for all his past misdeeds, and as soon as you spare his life, he stabs you in the back and takes over the world.

I don't know what to think anymore, I find religion/spirituality very appealing, and a valuable source of wisdom, but it comes with so much baggage.
 

Magic Poriferan

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The majority of people have often been incorrect. The correct belief always has to start as a minority. That minority has a tendency to begin amongst some kind of intellectual elite for what I presume to be obvious reasons.

Historically the general society has latently followed along with the intellectual one. What's more, the number of people who are religious is declining slowly but surely, and in terms of conversion religious to atheist are more typical than atheist to religious.

That's that.
 

BlackDog

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And if it is wrong to label people as Aryan, Negro, Asian, Slav, Aboriginal, and Jew, it is wrong to function in society.

These labels are simply tools we use in order to live.

So giving an orderly terminology to these distinctions is neither moral nor immoral, simply amoral.

This is a different objection from your first objection. Your original remarks nowhere implied this.

Now you seem to be saying not that MBTI is wrong because it makes distinctions as such, but because these distinctions can be equated with a mixture of racial and ethnic distinctions, some of which have Nazi connotations, and all of which are generally considered today to not have an objective basis in reality, except to the extent that we give them a basis by allowing our actions to be directed by them.

So, presumably you believe that MBTI has no significant basis in reality, and for this reason it is neither useful nor moral?

I don't think you have good reasons for believing this. Unlike racial distinctions, which involve putting onto another person a label we have constructed based on arbitrary physical features, typology distinctions are supposed to be based on something that has some sort of impact on behavior. No one agrees on whether it is directly based on behavior, or merely influences perceptions leading to influences on behavior, but either way, I think your analogy is flawed.

Distinctions based on behavior are neither moral nor immoral; they are amoral and we need them to function in society. I would classify MBTI as one of these; take it or leave it based on whether you find it useful. Distinctions based on race have no basis in behavior and are therefore not needed to function in society except to the extent that we must recognize our society believes in them (and thus acts on them, leading to behavioral changes due to illusory racial differences).
 

Mole

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So, presumably you believe that MBTI has no significant basis in reality, and for this reason it is neither useful nor moral?

In seventy-five years there has not been one random double blind experiment done on mbti.

If mbti were fair dinkum there would be thousands.

So what do you take me for?
 

SD45T-2

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Where's [MENTION=20856]grey_beard[/MENTION]? :D
 

skylights

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IMO it doesn't really matter in this sort of discussion what the beliefs in question are, just how those involved decide to treat other people. Some atheists are snobs and some theists are snobs. It doesn't make atheism itself inherently snobby, nor does it make theism inherently unintellectual. Being compassionate, patient, genuine, tolerant, and respectful can (and certainly seem to) be honed completely independent of belief structure.

As for the course of history, while we can probably agree that many things have changed for the better in terms of how we perceive quality of living, most things have just changed. Belief is really no different. Without being able to know the truth to an extent that we can all clearly and openly reach a unanimous agreement, making the call that we're moving towards atheism as a more enlightened state of being is just an inductive guess. Personally I'm more inclined to see movement towards philosophical communities that are open to many systems of belief operating peacefully and even synergistically in tandem with one another as real progress, but that's just my personal opinion.
 

grey_beard

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In seventy-five years there has not been one random double blind experiment done on mbti.

If mbti were fair dinkum there would be thousands.

So what do you take me for?

A troll. There are many reasons you don't have the experiments.

Qualitative measures without closely-mapped physical attributes.
Imprecise definitions of the qualitative measures.

Regulations on Human Subjects Testing.

And on and on.

So the standard techniques of science are too fine-grained to get a handle on MBTI.
Big deal.
 

Mole

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A troll. There are many reasons you don't have the experiments.

Qualitative measures without closely-mapped physical attributes.
Imprecise definitions of the qualitative measures.

Regulations on Human Subjects Testing.

And on and on.

So the standard techniques of science are too fine-grained to get a handle on MBTI.
Big deal.

And we can say the same for any religious belief or superstition.
 

Mole

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Facile quip but untrue.

C'mon, for instance the discovery of the Trinity would be the greatest and most important discovery of humanity, but so far there is no evidence whatsoever. Same with mbti.

And let me tell you that it is only animals that live on the surface that are facile. Mole, along with Badger, dig deep and live in the depths, unfortunately so do rabbits, weasels and stoats.
 
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