Do atheists or agnostics have an orthodoxy?

"Orthodoxy" generally means a set of approved or "correct" dogmas and conceptions which are actively promoted and defended by the respective followers.

I mention this because--and it may be just me--but it seems to me that in many threads on religious topics, the atheists and agnostics are at least as vocal and insistent on "the truth". So am I--I don't mean this as a criticism. But take S4MadMan's thread polling people on their religion. Last time I checked over half of it was from atheists and agnostics. It's as if I said "Fishing enthusiasts in here please" and got a whole bunch of people who weren't fishermen or fisherwomen at all, but who wanted to get in on the conversation where it overlaped with their areas. Such as a mechanical engineer entering the discussion and posting all sorts of stuff about water and it's properties.

Or take Peter Gransee's post in the Arc forum on Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ." That was taken almost completely over by people who hadn't seen the movie and who were arguing about science and religion.

I don't think that this is wrong behavior and I am not trying to imply anything negative or to insult anyone, atheists or otherwise, but it certainly is curious to me. Usually religious people are the ones who are stereotyped as being out to make converts. They are stereotyped as the people who turn every conversation towards God and their attitudes and opinions about God.

I have steered way clear of most of the recent discussion on science and religion, mostly because I have been too busy with my modding projects to go there. So maybe I'm wrong on this. Anyone have an opinion or comment? Do atheists/agnostics preach too? Do they have their own orthodoxy? Are there a set of "right" attitudes an atheist or agnostic should have about science and the world? Or is it like anything else, a big mix of different opinions--as many as there are peple?

[Edited to make thread title more apropos and clarify a few sentences]

Re: Atheists, agnostics, and their orthodoxy

well, is there really a close bond between Atheists and Agnostics?
i personally don't think so..

Re: Atheists, agnostics, and their orthodoxy

Hello Jim,

I believe everyone "preaches" by example. If you want to know someone, listen to what they say AND watch how they live.

I would be careful about drawing conclusions from statistics taken from a thread on a particular philosophical topic. I find the observations interesting, but the relevance of its significance may require further study.

Tom

Re: Atheists, agnostics, and their orthodoxy

BlindedByTheLite,

I don't know! What do you think?

Tom,

Actions are a truer indicator than talk, to be sure. Do you think my post is unbecomming or inappropriate?

Do you think this qualified observation is even worth further study?

In any event, if I have drawn any conclusions, they are very much meant to be tenative and preliminary. I meant to open up discussion and not to draw conclusions. Hence the "it seems to me" phrases above.

Perhaps religion is so universal as a subject--in the sense that it encompases so much--that anyone can and probably will be drawn to participate or have a comment to make?

Re: Atheists, agnostics, and their orthodoxy

When was the last time an Athiest or Agnostic knocked on your door and tried to make you see the errors of your ways?

When was there ever a war fought in the name of Atheism or Agnostism?

I doubt that these 2 groups of people are the most vocal, i just think we happen to be the majority of CPF'ers.

Re: Atheists, agnostics, and their orthodoxy

I am an atheist.
I do not know what an agnostic should be.
I do not pray nor preach.
I do not believe in anything at all, especially not good or evil.
I do not care for your religion, only when it will interfere with my life will I become active and defend myself. Or when you ask me to join the discussion like you did here.
I do not want to convert you, I envy you.

I see that religious people have great difficulties to accept that someone has no religion or dogma or whatever-you-call-it at all. But it is the case with atheists. Believe me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

In the above mentioned thread I think the author expicitely asked atheists to join the discussion. In the religion/science thread it was a natural terrain for atheists as well.
There are no atheists imposing their views on you religious guys. Keep relaxed.

bernhard

Re: Atheists, agnostics, and their orthodoxy

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
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Lebkuecher said:
With over 200 religions and several Gods currently being worshipped on the planet, I always thought it would be neat to start thread here to see how many religions are being represented on the CPF...
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Since we're on the topic of science and God, I figured I would start a new post on religion.

I am a Bible Christian, non-denominational aka "The Local Church" via Living Stream Ministry (www.lsm.org)

AMEN!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

This is what S4MadMan posted in his "What's your religion?" thread. I found this and re-read it, and it still seems to me to address itself to those who would call themselves "religious". Others obviously read it differently.

Bernhard!

Glad to have you here. I did specifically invite atheists and agnostics. From what I know of your positions on things, I would definitely place you in the agnostic camp because you do not say that there is no God, but only that you do not know and thus do not believe. I remember that you specifically said to hawkng11 regarding a believer that "he could be right, and we (you and hawk) could be wrong." This was in the big discussion of whether or not the moderators were biased towards the right in political matters.

I am trying to keep relaxed and I'm sorry if my post came across otherwise.

I have no difficulties in accepting that you have no religion or dogma. I believe you, Bernhard.

I do not know anything about the "religion and science" thread. I never read a single post of it. I'm sure with a title like that, that it WAS natural terrain for ANYONE!

I did not mean to imply that atheists and agnostics were "imposing" their views on me or anyone else. The CAFE is all about discussion, and as long as it's civil, I say the more the better.

All I really meant to say or bring up was that it is curious to me that it seems that non-religious people often contribute to specifcially religious threads and topics, even more so than religious CPFers.

I may be way off base. Maybe S4MadMan's thread is a-typical. Maybe PG's OT thread on The Passion in the Arc forum was obviously controversial and it was only to be expected that it would attract any and all commers. Perhaps this thread is going to be way too controversial?

Re: Atheists, agnostics, and their orthodoxy

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kakster said:
When was the last time an Athiest or Agnostic knocked on your door and tried to make you see the errors of your ways?

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Well, this happened to me more than once in college! Seriously. And--this is really funny--I did it to people myself (I was an atheist then). I mean, I didn't out and out knock on someone's door unsolicited, but I did jump in on conversations. But never on religious conversations for whatever reasons.

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When was there ever a war fought in the name of Atheism or Agnostism?

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Perhaps this is not what you were thinking of, but Communist countries such as the USSR and China were--to say the least--profoundly anti-religious in their policies. If we expand "war" to include "civil war" there may be a few examples. Not sure.

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I doubt that these 2 groups of people are the most vocal, i just think we happen to be the majority of CPF'ers.

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Hmm. I didn't mean to make a general statement about how vocal they were relative to the religious. I meant to make a tenative observation about how vocal they were in specifically religious threads, and I gave two examples. And said I could be wrong and invited opinions.

So given this limited context, would you still say the same thing?

I think that everyone on both sides has a point of view -- which makes anyone a potential evangelist. I have known atheists and agnostics who were very vocal, just as I've known many religious folks to be the same way. I've also known members of all three camps who were still quite a mystery to me after years of talking to them.

The medium lends itself to those who have either a desire or a need to be heard. That is a blessing and a curse. It can be interestting and enlightening, but only to a certain extent. The respondents always seem to skew the overall demographic.

When Kiessling said (of the believers):
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...I envy you.

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He hit it right on the head for me.

And when kakster said:
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When was the last time an Athiest or Agnostic knocked on your door and tried to make you see the errors of your ways?

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All I could think of is that they don't have to -- they live in your TV and they've already got most of the nation's kids locked down for six hours a day in government schools.

I understand that we all won't agree on this. Even as an athiest I still tend empathize more with the believers than not.

Sub_Umbra,

Thanks so much for your insightful reply! This is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping would come of my question.

As for the media and the nature of its content, I tend to agree with you, but I wonder if you have any comment on the increase in religious shows such as "7th Heaven" and "Touched by an Angel" and aren't there others out there now? I wouldn't know. I don't watch much TV.

It's odd, too, because I know a couple of atheists who are also what would be called "left wing" and they insist vehemently that the "Bush Christian Right" is in control of the government and its institutions and the media.

Point taken about the Communist oppression of religion, particularly with regards to my homeland China's treatment of Tibet. Now that IS a clear case of Agnostics forcibley imposing their point of view on an unwilling civillian population. Regardless of my own beliefs, other people have the right to live by their own belief systems. In retrospect my choice of the term "War" was wrong.

With regards to the media coverage...could it be simply the fact that religious shows dont get enough viewing figures? I have no way of proving this, but i think the Media tend to give the public what it wants above all else, regardless of the personal beliefs of the media bigshots or even wether the shows have any value at all beyond drawing in viewers. Thus we have TV schedules crammed full of pap like Pop Idol, Big Brother et al instead of religious programming or decent scientific/factual shows.

[ QUOTE ]
js:
As for the media and the nature of its content, I tend to agree with you, but I wonder if you have any comment on the increase in religious shows such as "7th Heaven" and "Touched by an Angel" and aren't there others out there now? I wouldn't know. I don't watch much TV.

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I have never seen either of the shows, but IIRC at least one of them was a huge financial success that went on for years. If that is the case it says not only a lot about the audience but also the advertisers and others connected with the endeavor.

While Gibson's PASSION does not appeal to me, since it hs made a lot of money, it obviously strikes a chord with a HUGE demographic. To me, the most interesting thing about PASSION is what it shows about the movie biz in general. No one would touch it. Gibson had to put up all of the money himself. EVERYONE in the industry said he would fail. To me this shows that the industry, as a whole, has a stilted, myopic view that is incapable of even seeing vast parts of its potential marketshare. These people who will do ANYTHING for money do not know that the people who go to Gibson's movie even exist. I think that the industry would have gone after these dollars if they weren't so busy denying their existance. It really shows where they're at.

Last night I was at a lecture by the Hungarian Philosopher/Historian Thomas Molnar, who I am lucky enough to see a few nights a year. He made the point that FASHION plays a much larger role in all societies than most people realize. He wasn't talking about clothes. Most people want to seem pretty much like everyone else. Even if they don't understand what they are doing, they want to appear that they do. Political ideas go in and out of fashion. The same is true of religion and science. I'm not trying to trivialize religion OR science here, only point out that trends of behavior and belief ebb and flow with time and fashion. I find this disturbing because it seems to rise and fall like the tides -- but with no discernable regularity, at least to me.

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js:
It's odd, too, because I know a couple of atheists who are also what would be called "left wing" and they insist vehemently that the "Bush Christian Right" is in control of the government and its institutions and the media.

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I hear that ALL the time and it really bothers me. Aside from Ashcroft's absurd 'nipplephobia', I don't think that the Religious Right is any danger to my freedoms. Contrary to the current unending, shrill accusations, history has shown them to be the opposite, even tolerant, by and large.

Most forget that in the States, in the beginning, there were NO government (public) schools. They were ALL religious. ALL of them. My question to the Left is that if they are sure that the Religious Right is only interested in asserting control over everyone -- why did they ever let go in the first place, when virtually everyone who learned to read in the early years of the States did so in a religious school?

This has caused me to conclude what is often labeled as 'rigid Christian indoctrination' is FAR more tolerant than the Left would admit. I'm not saying that a religious education does not have a 'nutty' side to it (for me) or that it is ALWAYS more tolerant -- but in this case history is very clear and it does not support the notion that Christion fanatics are out to take over the country. They already had a lock on it. Over the decades they allowed other viewpoints to flourish not because it was beaten out of them -- but because of their inherent tolerance. I think that in this regard Christians have, do and will continue to get a bad rap.

My 2 cents. YMMV

There is another category here...that of Humanism. Religious humanism is involved with the sharing of wisdom from many religions. Secular humanism generally rejects religion as based on superstition and opposed to science and reason. Being a humanist, agnostic, or atheist does not imply that one has no spiritual feelings toward the universe but that those spiritual feelings are not based on the notion of a personal god. Secular humanists often feel that the category of atheist or agnostic is too narrow.

I would consider myself a secular humanist and am a political independent. I embrace science, reason, and the optimism that humans can solve our problems by the rational effort. No kneeling, praying, or humiliating myself in front of an imagined deity. Political and intellectual freedom are very strong values to me and I am ready to defend that freedom from threats- from the religious right or the politically-correct left.

Sub Umbra, I disagree that religious fundamentalists are tolerant and not a threat to anyone. 9/11 alone should be proof of this. I would give you a quote from a letter from President John Adams to Thomas Jefferson in 1817 to contemplate-

[ QUOTE ]
President John Adams

"Oh, Lord! Do you think that a Protestant Popedom is annihiliated in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the ecclesiastical strifes in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these people cannot whip and crop, and pillory and roast as yet in the U.S.! If they could, they would."

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USA's home-brewed fundies would have our Constitution repealed and make all of us tithe, heavily, to their particular clique - if we let them.

I like Stu's points of view and believe we should all "live & let live".

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StuU:
...I disagree that religious fundamentalists are tolerant and not a threat to anyone. 9/11 alone should be proof of this.

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I was speaking of the history of Christians in the context of the States. The posts reflect that.

In you're broader sense, do you really think we should send Delta Force to deal with Jerry Falwell? While I'm not a Falwell fan, I think lumping ALL of the worlds Fundies together is a bit much. Just what is the Falwell death count up to now?

Atheist: There is nothing but the Physical (sounds alot like orthodox Science in the USA). Outright rejection of anything nonphysical.

Agnostic: I don't believe in Religion(s)' definitions. However I am open minded. Strong distrust of Dogma. Actually more Spiritually oriented, than either Atheist or Religionist.

In the Bible, you will see statements of "The Lord our God." So, if I say something like 'god d a m n', I am not taking the name of God in vain. (A point often lost on people.) 'God' is a generic word symbol. So who says that since different names in all those different languages are used, that they are NOT the same 'God'???

[ QUOTE ]
jayflash:
USA's home-brewed fundies would have our Constitution repealed and make all of us tithe, heavily, to their particular clique - if we let them.

[/ QUOTE ]

You certainly have a right to assert that point of view, but that does not address the fact that in the entire history of the States the opposite has happened, century after century, decade after decade, and it continues incrementally as I write.

Believe what you like, for whatever reason you like. YMMV

[ QUOTE ]
Charles Bradshaw:
Atheist: There is nothing but the Physical (sounds alot like orthodox Science in the USA). Outright rejection of anything nonphysical.

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Atheist= Someone who does not blieve in god.
A=no, theist=god.

Other nonphysical are irrelivent to this definition.

Just to throw in a little point of clarification, there is really no such think as an "agnostic".

Agnostic, from the dictionary: "a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable"

Atheists "don't know" if there is a god or not, but do not believe there is. Theists "don't know" if there is a god or not, but believe there is. Agnostics just "don't know" if there is a god or not. Well, that describes everybody!

It's a matter of belief, not knowledge. Hence why religions are called "beliefs".

Either you are an atheist or you are a theist. You believe or you don't. "Agnostic" is just a watered down word for "Athiest" that is considered more socially acceptable since "Atheist" is often associated with being immoral or lacking a moral code, which is grossly inaccurate. I've known a few atheists in my time and they were much more moral than many theists I've met.

More clear or more confused?

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

And no, I don't think they have an "orthodoxy" per se., but I may not be the best source for such an answer.

[ QUOTE ]
Quickbeam said:
Agnostic, from the dictionary: "a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable"

Agnostics just "don't know" if there is a god or not. Well, that describes everybody!


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Carl Sagan described himself as an agnostic- tho he did not believe in a personal god. Sagan felt that the term "atheist" was just a bit too rigid and did not acknowledge the possible appearance of new evidence to the contrary. Many people describe themselves as agnostic as more an acknowledgment of human fallibility than an expression of "I really don't have a clue!"