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Atheists to attend pope's talks with religious leaders

World Oct. 26, 2011 - 01:12PM JST ( 13 )

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13 Comments

1

Elbuda MexicanoOct. 26, 2011 - 02:03PM JST

This sounds like a good start, also try getting Catholics and Protestants to see eye to eye on say, women in the church and priests being allowed to get married etc..you know, just for starters. PEACE!
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jforceOct. 26, 2011 - 02:09PM JST

I like how this is is curbed to the church leaders opening up to welcome all beliefs. Well, Atheism isn't a belief. It's reality. I wonder what that'll be like when the 4 atheists sit down at that halloween party. Too funny.
0

Johannes WeberOct. 26, 2011 - 03:37PM JST

@jforce:

Atheism is a kind of faith. Since it has been proved that neither proof nor disproof of anything divine is possible, it is a choice to believe in the existence of the divine or in its non-existence. There no superiority in neither of both. Sigh ... fundamentalists of any kind are stupid. Such a dialogue is a good thing.
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Elbuda MexicanoOct. 26, 2011 - 04:54PM JST

Isn't it funny, if say 500 years ago somebody in Europe was accused of being an atheist, they would have been burned at the stake, beaten to a pulp, and or drowned until they converted, or maybe this was only back in Spain??
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plasticmonkeyOct. 26, 2011 - 04:55PM JST

Should be interesting, but ultimately a waste of time.

Christianity in essence is not capable of discarding the a priori assertion that its basic tenets are true, and that faith picks up when the path of reason runs dead. Atheism asserts that such belief is a human construct and demands empirical evidence for why a person should put their faith in an inconsistent scripture that was written long ago.

@Johannes: I agree that one cannot prove the existence or non-existence of anything (including Peter Pan). However, if Christianity (or any other religion) is expected to be taken seriously as a stairway to heaven or a positive moral force-- politically, socially, or personally--the burden of proof should be on the adherents to make some efforts to explain why their beliefs are true. Atheists may tend toward overconfident shrillness, but at least they make such efforts. Christians usually just put it all down to faith and then clam up.
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Johannes WeberOct. 26, 2011 - 06:25PM JST

@plasticmonkey:

-the burden of proof should be on the adherents to make some efforts to explain why their beliefs are true.

I beg to differ. There is no need to proof anything since proof wouldn't have any consequences for human morale. As Immanuel Kant (the philosopher who proved the impossibility of aforementioned question) later revealed, the world with a beneficial god would be the best of all worlds. And the moral tenets by which we should live do not depend on the question of the existence of (a) god.

Atheists may tend toward overconfident shrillness, but at least they make such efforts.

What kind of efforts do you speak of? Most atheists that insist on being atheist try to convert others to their atheism. That is as annoying as Jevoha's witnesses. People should not bother others with their own beliefs in the public sphere. The world would be a better place.
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plasticmonkeyOct. 26, 2011 - 08:45PM JST

There is no need to proof anything since proof wouldn't have any consequences for human morale.

This makes little or no sense. It is philosophical word play, and bad word play at that. I do not expect Christians to prove anything, but considering the power Christianity has in the world, I would hope that they go about their business based on something more than blind assumption or fantasy. 40% of Americans believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that evolution is a dubious theory. That is not an inconsequential belief, considering the military and economic clout of the US. And when a sizeable percent of the population believing prophesies about imminent end times is mixed with a nuclear arsenal . . .

What kind of efforts do you speak of?

Attempting to see the world in all its complexity, and with as much balance, objectivity, humility, and compassion as possible. At least without basing one's worldview on bronze-age writings (and then laminating them with meaningless philosophical "proofs").

People should not bother others with their own beliefs in the public sphere.

Amen. Tell that to the pope. If he compares atheism to Nazi tyranny, he's got a few screws loose. Name atrocities committed in the name of atheism (and don't tell me totalitarian communism). Then name atrocities committed in the name of Christ or Mohammad (where should we begin).
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donkusaiOct. 26, 2011 - 10:40PM JST

This seems like a good idea as atheism (the movement rather than than the state of mind) is in essence just another religion. Very little in science in "provable" in the sense that is observable, recordable and repeatable. There's a heck of a lot of what we believe in the world today that would not be considered scientifically provable, rather it is our best understanding based on the knowledge we currently have. Science is littered with failed theories, and this is a good thing as it allows us modify and improve our understanding.

The problem with fundamental atheism is that it takes the same fundamental belief system that religion does. A true atheist rejects religion based on their own personal beliefs in the same way a religious person embraces theism. As science deals with the physical, anything beyond that (ie. the supernatural/spiritual) is by definition beyond science. As the famous philosopher David Hume said on meeting the leading French philosophers of the time, he had never seen such acts of faith as from these atheists. To make the world a saner place, we need all people of faith (theists and atheists) to accept that their view is not the only potentially valid view on this planet.
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donkusaiOct. 26, 2011 - 10:48PM JST

plasticmonkey: Name atrocities committed in the name of atheism (and don't tell me totalitarian communism).

Why not mention totalitarian communism? It's a great example. Unfortunately, far more more people had been killed in the 20th century by movements of which atheism is a fundamental basis such as the Nazis, Communists and Khmer Rouge than by any religious movements. Unfortunately, thanks to radical Islam, the 21st century is leaning back the other way. What is the moral to this story? It is fundamentalism in general that is the problem, whether it is theist or atheist.
1

Johannes WeberOct. 26, 2011 - 11:05PM JST

@plasticmonkey:

This makes little or no sense. It is philosophical word play, and bad word play at that.

This isn't a wordplay. There is a universal tenet of morale derived by Immanuel Kant which is known as the categorical imperative. This is independent of any kind of faith or culture and is all that a human needs to create a proper morale setting for herself.

40% of Americans believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that evolution is a dubious theory.

Counterpoint: more than 70% (wild guess) of Europeans are Christian (protestant, roman catholic or orthodox) and the majority of them trust in science and evolution. Don't blame religion or Christianity for a failing education system in large parts of the US. US Christianity (especially the US evangelicals) and European Christianity are completely different matters. It's like a comparison of the average European Islam am Iranian Islam.

Attempting to see the world in all its complexity, and with as much balance, objectivity, humility, and compassion as possible.

They do the exact opposite by calling people who belief stupid or superstitious. This is neither balanced nor objective nor humble (though it might be compassionate in some cases). I think humility and compassion are probably the strongest in people who believe in a higher cause, no matter if they call this faith or the will to create a better future.

Einstein, by far one of the most intelligent humans ever, was convinced of god's existence. And not only him. Those scientists, who reach towards the boundaries of human knowledge realise that science cannot have answers for everything (I am physicist, so I know what I talk about). Many questions do not have meaningful answers in a scientific context. That leaves room for faith. Whatever that might be. If You think that atheists have scientific answers to all questions - then describe the state of the world before the Big Bang, before time started.

Tell that to the pope. If he compares atheism to Nazi tyranny, he's got a few screws loose.

The pope is human. He has a few screws loose. Quite a few Catholics think that he has odd opinions. Humans make mistakes. He offers his perspective. His point of view is affected by his experiences when he was young. When the Nazis where the prominent atheists in his country. He generalises. We all do. No reason to go crazy about.

Then name atrocities committed in the name of Christ or Mohammad (where should we begin).

No need to do that. Any social group used religion (or race or language or what have you) as a tool to subdue outsiders.
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plasticmonkeyOct. 27, 2011 - 12:59PM JST

@Johannes: some good comments you made, but again I disagree on some important points.

Einstein, by far one of the most intelligent humans ever, was convinced of god's existence.

If you are a physicist, then you should know better about Einstein: that his use of the word "God" (generally in the context of what "God" can and cannot do) referred to yet imperfectly understood laws of the universe. Here are a couple of quotes:

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

and

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

So we can use the word "religion" or "God" for many different things, but they are not equal in their qualities. You may call atheism a religion because of the zeal by which many atheists assert their opinions, but that is not equal in character to Christianity. Likewise, just because science cannot conclusively answer all of life's mysteries does not by necessity legitimize adopting mythology as a stand-in. All people conjecture or predict or theorize in times of uncertainty, but to claim an old Middle-Eastern narrative (written when there was little rational explanation for the world) as a certainty is preposterous. This is not a mature response to uncertainty.

Atheism does not claim to have all the answers. It simply seeks to clear the debris that clouds people's abilities to discuss our situation constructively. That atheists think this is important does not make it a religion or a faith.

@donkusai

Atheism is not a fundamental basis for totalitarian Communism, Maoism, or Fascism. All of those movements adopted atheism because they saw (some) organized religion as a threat to state power. Stalin did not murder his enemies in the name of atheism.
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techallOct. 27, 2011 - 01:09PM JST

Kinda like someone who is tone deaf going to a composer's convention.
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donkusaiOct. 27, 2011 - 11:57PM JST

plasticmonkey: Atheism is not a fundamental basis for totalitarian Communism, Maoism, or Fascism.

I beg to disagree. Movements like Soviet communism and Maoism certainly have political and philosophical aspects to their manifestos, but they also have defined religious views (that being of the atheist persuasion). Most of this can trace its roots to the enlightenment and to the century of revolutions that followed. It's interesting that by the late 1800's, the enlightenment was considered a failed movement that was considered to have resulted in violence and bloodshed across Europe. Today, we gloss over the negative and seem to think of the enlightenment as some sort of dawn of sanity without realizing that there were many aspects of it that rivaled the Spanish Inquisition in terms of brutality.

What does this tell us of history? That fundamentalism, whether political, religious (or anti-religious), or racial, can only ever end badly. If you want to group it all together under a label, then it would be "intolerance". I can't stand religious intolerance any more than I can stand irreligious intolerance. I look forward to the day where people can say to each other "I don't agree with what you believe, but I respect the fact that you believe it." If both theist and atheist can wrap their heads around this idea, the world would be a much, much better place to live.