Anarchy: Is It A Force For Good In The World?
I suppose that this post won’t quite live up to that title, but that is what came to mind as these thoughts were coursing through the spectacular prefrontal cortex that I possess. A possession that we hairless apes seem to use as little as possible some times. I often think while driving to work that many of us keep them safely locked up in the basements of our homes to prevent theft.
What’s the point already!
Anarchy doesn’t have to mean complete breakdown of society and in this case I don’t mean it that way. The lack of centralized organization and rather much any organization at all for the growing number of people that self identify as atheists is a kind of anarchy.
The question is whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe it doesn’t really matter much at all. There are several national organizations for non-believers and these are the folk that the MSM generally consults on questions of non-belief although some have started to consult with youtube atheists (TheAmazingAtheist vs. William Lane Craig).
Side Note: I do not understand how they intended to get anything out of WLC. It generally takes him 5 minutes to introduce himself and what he wants to talk about.
I don’t think this will be the last time that a youtube atheist is consulted by the MSM. As time moves on I expect to see more of this. I have been clear on this blog that I do not represent other atheists and they don’t represent me. The only thing that can be said to be in common between myself and other atheists is that we do not believe in gods. Outside that point we can be completely incompatible personalities.
This is part of that anarchy. The theistic world wants to lump us all together but that is much like herding cats:
or something like this:
Atheism is a world view like this is interior decorating
The kind of anarchy that this represents is to my mind a good force in the world. I say this for more than one reason.
If and when the majority of the world population are non-believers, non-belief would be a really bad method of organizing people. It would be akin to saying you belong the elite group of people who wear clothes.
For many of the same reasons that one world government is not a good idea right now, organizing a group of people and trying to put ALL people in it is not a good idea. We hairless apes are not one-size-fits-all thinkers. We need our freedom to be ourselves.
Yeah? And so?
So … I don’t relish the thought that we might go from monotheistic world problems to monolithic government world problems. We don’t need to replace religion’s grip on world governments with anti-theist grip on world governments. Philosophy, when it is used to guide governments, should be a shared philosophy accessible to all people. We might call it truth. Critical thinking is the way to get there. We need to teach people to think critically and be skeptical.
The path to the future for those in the rumored atheist community is not organization, but education. We need to teach others how to break out of their bronze age thinking. The world will be better for it when we don’t divide ourselves along theological lines. We need to reach for the stars, not the holy texts. Lets organize around education and equality rather than philosophy.
Yes <face palm> I know you can call that a philosophy. Okay! Let’s organize around the philosophy of education and equality and work together. Earth 2.0 is not that far away. We can get there. We can become more than we are now.
Okay, now does anyone have any good ideas on how to educate those that don’t seem to want to learn?
myatheistlife 
We need to keep talking about it regardless of how futile it feels. The approach does not matter as long as its non-violent. Eventually, politicians in the United States will start taking calculated risks and coming out as non-believers. Once atheists get in public office in the United States, God & religion of any sort will slowly start to slip into cult status. (I mean … after 20-200 years or something 🙂 …
There’s an over-simplification for ya.
Yes, but not a bad one. Que the song ‘Division Bell’ by Pink Floyd
We must cultivate a functional level of delusion in ourselves — which we are aware of and don’t allow to exist unchecked — but does allow us to approach every day like the goal is attainable in our own lifetime.
Is that really a delusion then? To declare it a delusion I would need some evidence of why we can’t get to Earth 2.0 in my lifetime. I would need evidence of why for anything I’m told no about. Yeah, I was that kid that touched the hot stove burner. A great percentage of believers are only believers because they have not been educated appropriately. If you don’t get some math training it’s probably going to be difficult for you to do any useful calculus. This is not about indoctrination or anything like it. It’s about bring the level of knowledge up to a point where we can get past the problems that ignorance and superstition put in our paths.
Calling it a delusion from the beginning is helpful for me — takes the sting out of doubts. Bertrand Russell would say it a lot better 🙂
There is no doctrine for it to be indoctrination.
It’s almost a pity that we are unwilling to play the pity card. I don’t hear a lot of atheists coming forward about how utterly fucking lonely and oppressed they feel.
We need to convince people that we are not an inherently evil & powerless creatures.
If you had a race of inherently insecure, humble, servile, social creatures which you needed to control — what would be the PERFECT LIE to propagate — that they are born EVIL!!! And, that without the love and help of AN INVISIBLE NOTHING — they will self-destruct, because they are nothing without God!! FUCKING BRILLIANT!
Because, what IS THAT going to do to an inherently insecure, humble, servile, social creature??? Drive it fucking nuts!! Make it question itself, hate itself, distort its perception of EVERYTHING … create internal conflict, cognitive dissonance which manifests as external conflict … with the very creatures which its DNA begs it to love!
No one small group of us is ever going to be forced to lived on a fucking island; there’s too fucking many of us!! And, Lord of the Flies does not happen when basic needs are taken care of …
It’s such a crock of shit that we are born evil.
The most important thing to human beings is social acceptance.
Get rid of God, and we’ll take care of each other.
Yes… Mock them. Seriously, make it so embarrassing that they dare not speak up with their god shit. Shame them into learning. Never underestimate the power of mockery 😉
This week I’ve used the following:
“if your religion was actually true you wouldn’t have to defend it all the time … 2+2=4 never needs defending”
“jesus needed judas to betray him because he was nobody and did nothing and couldn’t even piss off the pharisees enough to get hanged”
NIce, especially the first. I used this little gem, “So, let me get this straight: your God sacrificed himself, to himself, to save humanity from himself….. Sounds legit.
It sounds like a Jay n Silent Bob movie plot actually!
(either of you feel free to help me expand on this speech)
We were not born evil.
We are born innocent and completely dependent on our species to survive.
How long does it take for a newborn human being to starve to death?
We are born helpless. If another human being were not around, we would die of starvation.
How long does that take? How long does it take for a newborn human being to starve to death? Does ANYONE know the answer to that question? Is there ONE psychopath out there that might have some first hand experience with this?
If we knew of a single human being who had watched as a newborn human being starved to death over the course of days … or possibly weeks … how would we feel about that person?
Would we be eager to call IT friend? Brother? Sister? Could we even grant IT the word “human”?
If we are so upset by … the thought of such a thing … then what would lead us to believe … that a newborn human being … is born evil?
Some thoughts:
We punish those who neglect children… because children are innocent and must be cared for. Even religions have what Christians call ‘the age of reason’ or an age when children are old enough to make decisions for themselves about gods, and age when they stop becomming innocent and must accept the religion or suffer eternal damnation. No religious person will tell you that a stillborn child goes to hell, they won’t even say that an infant who dies of crib death will go to hell. The very religious folk who claim we are born evil will not condemn a child and twist their thinking so that children who die young are not damned to eternal hellfire.
Yes, go to their holy texts for the answers. Here’s a shit load of them which show that even the Christ thought them innocent and gifts from god – why would a perfect god gift you with evil? http://ministry-to-children.com/bible-verses-about-children/
In my mind, all morality is subjective and through evolution we have arrived at the law of reciprocity as the basis for our social structures. In this an infant is unable to harm you so harming a child/infant is to violate the golden rule (law of reciprocity). Infants cannot understand the commandment to honor their father and mother and so are not capable of sin, born innocent.
The concept of original sin is given new life by the Christ but originated with YHWH because he was unable to forgive nor parent and with compassionless vengence lied to Adam then kicked him out of the garden. The concept of original sin is based on the willingness of a deity to eternally damn his creation for being tricked while an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent deity pretended to be unaware of the snake – or more in line with my thinking, while that deity disguised himself as a snake to trick Eve so he would then have a manufactured excuse to punish all of his creation.
The real trouble with that snake bit is that on what day did the deity create Lucifer and the other heavenly hosts? Hint: it wasn’t till after Adam was kicked to the curb, yet there he was to weave evil into the garden. It’s a continuity error. The author of Genesis hadn’t thought things through “correctly” so ‘they’ corrected it in a later book. Still, you have to ask yourself why an omniscient god who knew what would happen would have put the tree there in the first place? Was he unable to not put it there (not omnipotent) or did he not know what would happen (not omniscient), or did he know but put it there anyway (not omnibenevolent), or did he do it because he wanted that outcome (not compassionate nor just). There is no valid reason that god would need to have put the tree in the garden. With that in mind it is fair to conclude that this deity really does want a lot of people to burn forever and that makes such a deity the primary source of evil in the world of humanity. Note here that the jews do not belive in hell because it is a concept introduced by the Jesus guy and his intimate successors.
So you can attack the current ideals of morality held by believers but you can also attack the foundational notion of original sin.
Excellent thoughts. Thank you.
damn it, I can’t find a single picture of a starving white baby.
What does that tell you about the world?
precisely. look at this fucking shit. What human being would not be disturbed by this? I don’t say that to simply get people to give money to charity … but ask ourselves … Do we LIKE to abandon each other? If we didn’t have God: would we? Really!!!?
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=starving+white+baby&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=4REWYFzFfubUUM&tbnid=fRjo9x-VdUD-OM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.maximizingprogress.org%2F2011%2F07%2Fmihag-gedi-farah-face-of-east-african.html&ei=b7koUfSuBcq70QGkvIDgBw&bvm=bv.42768644,d.dmQ&psig=AFQjCNGk5b6VmHEk1fPznXCx5ragJIUPRw&ust=1361709772947123
I won’t be offended if you unapprove of this reply with the link hanging all off like that.
Dude, this is a place to discuss. The Internet cannot be used without linking… it’s a thing. I would only get iffy if there were tons of links to your own site. That link is completely relevant to the discussion.
Is the link shooting out off the page for you? Maybe it’s just my screen … the link goes out of the thread all the way to the scroll bar
no, it wrapped nicely for me… you only need a small part of it to use it LOL
The answer is that we do not, would not, could not. Saying that a god gives us such morals is complete ignorance of the facts and an abberant understanding of human nature. Most other animals will not do this. They will kill without remorse but will not suffer seeing a weak or frail member to suffer if they can avoid it. It only takes some time on animal videos to understand that many mammals will suckle young from another species even. To say that without a belief in gods people would become amoral is to understand that the person who says this is a psychopath.
Or they are deeply embedded in a lie … so much so that they deny their own glimpses of meaningful human awareness … if not conscious denial … then their neurons are not conditioned to make the connection between those glimpses and their own sense of self. If those “flashes” of truth DO make it to their consciousness in the form of words, then they are quickly rebuffed by some bullshit quote they heard at Church that Sunday.
Uhmmm what is the difference between what you have described and a psychopath?
Not much by clinical standards.
However, the believers in question are being exploited by narcissists. Their own nature is being used against them. I can’t help but feel pity … not just frustration and alienation.
I have no way of knowing if my lack of belief was all my doing or if there was some luck involved. I refuse to take full credit for it in the hopes of maintaining some empathy for those who are still stuck.
That’s not to say that I’m going to be quiet. It inspires me to be the type of person who I wish I had encountered sooner … to help those in pain (like I was) to have the courage to confront mortality & perplexity without God — and stop wasting time.
I often think what kind of person would have had enough influence on me back in those times to get me set straight. I think most people have to figure it out on their own so the best we can do is keep explaining over and over again hoping that they pick up pieces they are ready to hear. I remember when Madelene Murray Ohare made the news in my youth. In my house she was considered possessed by the devil or something. I probably wouldn’t have listened to anyone that did not say they believe in a god. Sad but true.
What I would and did listen to was science! 2+2=4 and you can run a car on alcohol and so on. Science, that’s what I would have listened to.
I think perhaps people like me broke me down, and people like you built me up. And, after I accepted that the BIGGER MISTAKE was allowing the back-up plan of an afterlife to diminish my sense of urgency … I realized I didn’t have time to become someone like you … too many neurons to rewire.
I’d prefer not to take the humorous approach … as it is impossible to avoid the pendulum … you can’t have a good laugh if you haven’t had a good cry in a while … And, I have more respect for the wise … but, time is a wastin’ …
Do we need more guys like this coming out or what?
Yes. Not just in the army, but everywhere. I subbed.
Clarify “subbed” … my brain is slow and no meaning is popping up on this one.
subbed = subscribed
Awesome. So, I’m not crazy AND not cool.
sorry about my link doing that.