https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/new-style-atheism-can-counter-christian-nationalism-decline-religion-n1297611

An energetic atheism can tackle the twin crises of creeping theocracy and the death of conventional religion.

By Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC Opinion Columnist
There are two pressing crises tied to the state of religion in America today. A new style of atheism can help answer both of them.

The first crisis is rooted in an excess of religion. Christian theocracy is not far-off specter but an emerging reality in America. Fueled by a radically reactionary Supreme Court that is two-thirds Catholic, Thomas Jefferson’s already-dilapidated and graffitied “wall of separation” between church and state is crumbling. The overturning of Roe v. Wade means the lives of women across the country are being held hostage by a conservative Christian conception of life. Kennedy v. Bremerton permits school officials to publicly pray and make students feel pressured to join in. Carson v. Makin allows taxpayer dollars to be used to fund religious education. And at the state level, Republican-led legislatures have invoked Christianity as they pursue a systematic assault on transgender rights, while “abortion abolitionists” convinced some Louisiana lawmakers that people who get abortions should be charged with homicide.

Atheism can address the social and spiritual vacuum emerging in the wake of the slow death of mainstream organized religion.
Scholars of the religious right are also sounding alarms over the emergence of Christian nationalism, a QAnon-addled authoritarian political movement whose champions breached the U.S. Capitol and prayed on the Senate floor on Jan 6, 2021. “The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church,” Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a leader of the diehard Trump wing in the House, said at a church in her home state recently. “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.” She received a standing ovation from her audience.

My belief is that an energetic, organized atheist movement — which I propose calling "communitarian atheism" — would provide an effective way to guard against the twin crises of intensifying religious extremism on one end, and the atomizing social consequences of a plunge in conventional religiosity on the other.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Anything with the word, ‘Commune’ in it is a tough sell in America, which is still suffering from a bad case of Red Scare.

      That was very Black & White oratory, but at least it’s a start.

      What would any of us do if we saw a short, slim 12-year-old girl beating a two-year-old blonde girl with a yardstick in an aisle at your local grocery store?  I want to believe that not one of us would simply pivot 180 degrees and hurry off.  I choose to believe that each of us would do SOMETHING!  Two-year olds should not be beaten in public.

      Okay, same scenario, but the two-year-old is being beaten by a very buff 6’2” tall gang-tatted Lamanite wearing gang colors and with a buck knife in a sheath, on his belt…  Hard to blame those of us who would do the 180 degree turn, but at least some of us would tell a cashier...or mention it on social media!

      I’m pretty sure that all of us would want to ease the pain the two-year-old was feeling, but the circumstances, and our personal resolve, would determine our involvement.

      Now transfer the feelings you have for the unfortunate two-year-old to a fetus; this is what anti-abortionists have done, mostly, say I, because it looks good on paper.  For the majority it just amounts to taking a position that puts them in sync with the people they want to impress.  With these people, if you told them they could save a fetus if they gave up having a beer over the weekend, they’d have the beer…

      America doesn’t need a new kind of atheism, it just needs people to mind their own business.  Of course it helps if you don’t imagine that a fetus is animated by a ‘spirit’ sent by ghawd, so that it has a special status, a status that seems to disappear once the baby is birthed into poverty, neglect, misery, hunger and squalor, etc.

I agree.
I think ‘communitarian atheism’ is a worse idea than ’New Atheism’ which died a sudden death after the leader they conscripted, against his will, into their movement, gave a speech called, ”The Problem With Atheism” and the New Atheists couldn’t answer the questions he raised about this "New Atheism".
So they all just went back to being plain old atheists,
with no chosen leader,
no organization and
no representation in any branch of the US Government.

Declaring yourself an atheist in America is political suicide,

Not to mention, why willingly self identify as a member of the most distrusted group in America?

Especially when it’s not even a real GD identity!

It’s not a religion, or a philosophy or a world view.

It only exists in opposition to something that’s not even real in the first place.

It’s like going around identifying yourself as an Anti-Tooth Fairyist after you grow old enough to do the math, and figure out the Tooth Fairy isn’t real!

I much prefer something real and affirmative, like, Humanitarian or Pragmatist, which we need a whole hell of a lot more of in this world right now!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2022 11:55PM by schrodingerscat.

in OPie's world ~



humans could make everything in the world better ~



if humans could just leave god out of it ~

Why try to make got a part of something that he doesn’t wanna be a part of?

If he’ll take out the garbage just once I’m on board.

ziller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> in OPie's world ~
>
>
>
> humans could make everything in the world better
> ~
>
>
>
> if humans could just leave god out of it ~

Where was your God on 9-11?

God left Himself out on 9-11. And every other day.

God is an arrogant delusion of grandeur, that makes naive believers think they're going to survive death, just because their 'God' is better than any other God and loves them above all 'others' who're going to be tortured for eternity in the pit of hell, so why not expedite the process? Might as well make their lives hell on Earth by stripping away rights women have enjoyed for 50yrs. Hell, make 10y.o. rape victims give birth to their rapists baby, because we all know a clump of cells is far more important than a little girl's life.

Yeah, I think we'd be a lot better off without subscribing to delusions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2022 12:28AM by schrodingerscat.

Yeah that’s what threw me was the name.

after the 1917 revolution ~


the new russian bolshevik communist government acted decisively ~


its intention was to ditch everything “old” ~


the regime ~


religion ~


the economy ~


and the language ~


an it did not work out well ~

And that's the reason Americans still suffer from the Red Scare.
That's not going away.
Americans will probably associate atheism with genocidal communist dictators, forever because of Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao, to name just a few.
Why they don't associate 'Christian Nationalism' with Fascism, I don't know. Americans are mostly delusional.
Most Americans, 70%, are Christian.
Not a word was written about Christ contemporaneously, in history books, in census data, in any records, until 50 years after his death. There is no reliable record he even ever existed. Most of the New Testament was written by Paul who never saw Jesus, except in a vision. Christ was probably an amalgamation of popular myths in the Roman Empire at the meridian of time, used in an attempt to unite the empire around the emperor, and get his subjects to pay taxes the same way they paid tithes to the church.
It worked spectacularly.
And it is still working spectacularly.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from killing the rich." Napoleon

A total B.S. article.
I'll keep my old Atheism, thank you.

I think you are missing the nuance here, David. On the one hand the new new atheism differs significantly from the old new atheism and until you're fully versed in the former it would be a mistake to lump it in with the latter. On the other hand, you're also missing the connection between the new new atheism and Spinoza's pantheism.

And on the third hand--Lakshmi here--how can you overlook the profound connections between the lack of an organized atheism and the Iranian bomb? You old atheists, even the young ones, are disappointingly lacking in imagination.

New Coke instead of Classic Coke. Should sell like hotcakes.

I wonder what the noise to signal ratio is one this one?

De Botton's TED talk and his book are both excellent.

"What aspects of religion should atheists (respectfully) adopt? Alain de Botton suggests a "religion for atheists" -- call it Atheism 2.0 -- that incorporates religious forms and traditions to satisfy our human need for connection, ritual and transcendence.

"What if religions are neither all true nor all nonsense? Alain de Botton’s bold and provocative book argues that we can benefit from the wisdom and power of religion—without having to believe in any of it.

He suggests that rather than mocking religion, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from it—because the world’s religions are packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies. De Botton looks to religion for insights into how to build a sense of community, make relationships last, overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy, inspire travel, get more out of art, and reconnect with the natural world."

https://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0?language=zh

https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Atheists-Non-believers-Guide-Uses/dp/0307476820



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2022 09:15PM by auntsukey.

I find the argument curious.

De Botton and others like him seem to assume that cats can't be happy until they organize as a dog pack. But cats don't want to be in packs. They want solitary freedom.

Put differently, if a person decides she does not want to be defined by her relationship with God, forming an atheist association of some sort is no solution. For God is still the organizing principle just as certainly as "theos" is the root of "atheist."

If people want post-religious community, they can choose from a plethora of options: book clubs, quilting groups, soccer teams, chess clubs, community volunteering, etc. There is no reason to continue defining oneself in terms of God.

Thanks for responding, L's W.

I assume you only read the blurb, but did not listen to his TED talk, nor read his book.

Your response, with which I mostly agree, does not accurately reflect de Botton's premise. He is not suggesting organization, nor a definition of oneself in terms of God.

Book clubs, quilting groups, sports are fine and dandy, but they do not fulfill the longing or needs which de Botton describes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2022 11:18PM by auntsukey.

Hi auntsukey,

My concern is merely that when people leave religion, they often presume that they need some kind of replacement faith or social organization. Everyone's different, of course, but I don't think that's true as a general rule.

If we look at the atheistic nations of northern Europe, they report among the lowest levels of crime and the highest levels of personal happiness in the world. And yet they have no such quasi-religious (not meant as a pejorative) organizations of the sort de Botton advocates. That suggests to me that humans can do perfectly well without a surrogate that performs the functions and values of formal religion.

I therefore quarrel with the underlying assumptions. It may well be that for people who have not been programed to need organizational support, there is no such need. Then book clubs and the like are all that that one requires for a fulfilling moral and social life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2022 12:05AM by Lot's Wife.

Atheism is the answer to one question: Do you have a god belief? Answer: no.

What it is not is anything else (a world view, a philosophy, a moral code, a color, etc.). What the author really means is the world needs "Secular Humanism" to employ the same means to spread as religion has, as it offers a more robust and logical code of ethics, morals, and possible group support.

HH =)

I concur

. . . Play it as it lies, except as otherwise explained.

Does this apply to Ivanka?

... Free drop, no closer the hole...

Golf at trump's golf course and not only can you get a hole in one but you can also get a hole for one.

Make America's holes great again.

…talk about getting buried in a sand trap!

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Golf at trump's golf course and not only can you
> get a hole in one but you can also get a hole for
> one.


Golf at Trumps golf course and you can sink a putt into his dead wife’s black hole.

in this thred ~



exmos are better off with less god ~



an more humanistic atheism ~



which is working out great ~



in the atheistic nations of northern europe ~

Hey ziller, if you want to challenge something I say please feel free to reply directly to me rather than hiding passive-aggressively at the bottom of the thread.

But if you do so, it may be wise to put on your thinking cap first. For example, if I say that "the atheistic nations of northern Europe report among the lowest levels of crime and the highest levels of personal happiness in the world," you'd make more of an impact if you challenged the actual assertion--you know, with facts and stuff--rather than just tossing dust in the air as you do here.

And remember that time a few weeks ago when I linked to an Iranian woman whom I consider a hero? You reacted, again passive aggressively, by hiding two critiques of the Iranian government elsewhere in the thread (which otherwise had nothing to do with Iran) as if I were somehow praising the Mullahs.

If you'd gone the next step--seeing what sort of Iranian I was praising, you'd have noted that she is a presenter for Voice of America, broadcasting attacks on the Iranian government into that country. You might also have learned that when working as a political reporter at the age of 19, she was arrested for exposing corruption in the government and then banned from political reporting altogether.

You may have discovered that she has organized a mass movement against the repression of women in Iran; that she has been imprisoned, her brother has been imprisoned, her sister has been interrogated and forced to renounce her on TV, and that her elderly mother has been subjected to repeated interrogations by the Iranian police. That's why Masih moved to London and then NYC.

Did you know, furthermore, that a few years ago Teheran tried to lure her to Istanbul, where Jamal Khashoggi met his demise; that the FBI foiled an Iranian attempt to kidnap her in Brooklyn a year ago; and that last week the authorities captured a man casing her home with an AK-47 and other weaponry? Because it's kind of silly to suggest that she is a Muslim extremist and that I, by praising her, am likewise on the side of the Iranian government.

Unless, of course, you recognize that the enemies of extremist religions aren't really on your side. Because they are unlikely to reject militant Islam just to adopt the militant, anti-vaxxer, anti-abortion, my-way-or-the-hell-way religion you're constantly preaching. If that's your analysis, I congratulate you on your insight.


-----------------
Meanwhile, for those who care, here's more on Masih Alinejad, one of the Iranian regime's foremost enemies and targets. After her imprisonment, harassment, and flight to the West, she started a protest movement by urged women to remove their headscarfs, their hijabs, and demand equality. Tens of thousands did that. Dozens were arrested and punished. And then you know what happened? When the morality police accosted people for going without hijabs, people off the street started gathering to protect the women and in some instances shoved and even beat the police away.

The next stage was asking women on one day a year to wear the same color hijabs. That occurred last in mid-July--the 12th, I think. What we saw on that occasion was thousands of women, including elderly conservatives who insist on wearing the hijab, wearing the suggested color. Why? Because even many religiously conservative Iranians think it should be every woman's choice. That's been followed most recently by a movement of "men in hijab" going out in public in headscarves to show solidarity with the women.

I daresay, ziller, that Masih Alinejad, the woman with the irrepressible hair, has done more, and paid a greater price, for the freedom of others than you or I will ever achieve in our relatively trivial lives.



https://www.mystealthyfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/fg-1024x555.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49BFGvBNImI



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2022 08:26PM by Lot's Wife.

please post links to pics of the hair ~



and the AK-47 ~



and other weaponry ~



for research purposes ~



thx ~

What's the point?

Looking for substance in ziller is like searching for the nut at the center of an union. You peel back the layers, one by one, until you reach the core and find there is nothing left.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2022 09:24PM by Lot's Wife.

pealing back the layers of a piller of salt ~


is like searching for nothing in particular ~


until the exmo comes to that last indivisible particle of salt ~


an throws it out to be trod under foot ~


because the salt has lost its savor ~



edited 100 time(s). Last edit at 8/5/2023 7:49 AM by ziller ~

~ I know you are but what am I?

~ ziller iz playground jeanyus

~ in b4 praise jebus an pas the snakes ~