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Atheism has any value in terms of humanism ?

Medusa

Medusa

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lets discuss.I dont want to read posts such as ' atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions ' .thank you
 
Medusa said:
lets discuss.I dont want to read posts such as ' atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions ' .thank you
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Why should it have more or other apriori value than any other religion? I don't see it.
 
joG said:
Why should it have more or other apriori value than any other religion? I don't see it.
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my question goes to the atheists.
 
Medusa said:
my question goes to the atheists.
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You mean thinking that it is silly to try to determine, if there is a God does not count?
 
Medusa said:
lets discuss.I dont want to read posts such as ' atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions ' .thank you
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Please rephrase the question. I'm not sure what you mean by "value in humanism."
 
pinqy said:
Please rephrase the question. I'm not sure what you mean by "value in humanism."
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try to understand.its a simple question for atheists WHO believe religions have no humanistic value
 
Medusa said:
lets discuss.I dont want to read posts such as ' atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions ' .thank you
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atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions.

/thread :2razz:
 
Medusa said:
lets discuss.I dont want to read posts such as ' atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions ' .thank you
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Hi Medusa:2wave:

Your OP statement is rather non nonsensical.
I think it demonstrates a lack of understanding for the meaning of 'atheism'. So before answering could you please define 'atheism' to make sure we are discussing the same thing?

EDIT
In reference to post #6, what do religions have to do with atheism/theism? More evidence that your understanding of atheism is not that the same as most atheists.
 
Medusa said:
try to understand.its a simple question for atheists WHO believe religions have no humanistic value
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Are you seriously that arrogant that you cannot conceive that YOU might be the one that's unclear? Saying who the question is for, doesn't explain the question. I have no idea what YOU have in mind when you say "humanistic value." I cannot read your mind, so no attempt to understand it would be successful unless you explain what you mean.
 
RogueWarrior said:
Hi Medusa:2wave:

Your question is rather non nonsensical.
I think it demonstrates a lack of understanding for the meaning of 'atheism'. So before answering could you please define 'atheism' to make sure we are discussing the same thing?
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hi ROGUE
I know what it means and thats why I dont want to read ' its not set of rules ' nonsense.any fascist can be atheist (positive or negative ) ,any communist or any conservative or any gay or hetero can be atheist.now lets try to understand what any atheistic philosophie can give to the society.but I can say I know religions were derived from morality .THATS FACT
 
Lets not pretend to misunderstand my posts.we all know what atheism and humanism mean
 
Medusa said:
Lets not pretend to misunderstand my posts.we all know what atheism and humanism mean
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No, I have no idea what YOU mean by those terms. You do not seem to be using them in the standard sense. Get over your arrogance and explain your terms.
 
Maybe I can help.

There's a pretty robust strain of atheism running through 19th and 20th century humanism. People like Jean Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, etc. were all humanists at one time, and all atheists, and they regarded the latter as absolutely necessary to the former. Religion was conceived as a means whereby people are keom genuine self-expression. Putting the focus on a God takes away from focus on human beings. And to the extent that some religions, especially Christianity, say that human beings are essentially worthless without divine favor and grace, those religions are viewed as anti-humanist.

The problem with this view, which has since lost all the ground it ever gained, is that the first humanists were decidedly religious. Within the views of Pico Della Mirandola, Erasmus, Mosheh Maimonides, Ibn Sinna, Dante Alighieri, or even Rene Descartes and G.W. Leibniz one finds a fairly seamless integration of humanism and religion. An idea central to western religions is that human beings are somehow special, and of special concern to God. From there, it's a short distance to reason that human beings are worthy of special study and that human values are of primary importance.

I am not a humanist, but it seems to me that humanists don't really need to be atheists.
 
To quote Pratchett: "if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive." (Good Omens)

Or a comedian: "When I was a little boy, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised, the Lord, in his wisdom, doesn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked Him to forgive me." (Emo Philips)

Atheism isn't anything like a unified movement with a specific (or even general) creed, so it's hard to get any unifying good out of people's mere absence of belief. But if anything I would argue that the absence of an afterlife focuses attention on the here and now. There aren't going to be any consequences in the super-long run; which means that the only thing that matters is what we do today and the people that those actions affect. It leads to a more permissive/liberal attitude morally (eg "I personally wouldn't get a tattoo/have an abortion/marry another man/etc but it's OK if you want to as long as you're not doing any harm") and focuses people on the immediate impact of their actions.

I would hope that a more rational outlook also leads to a lower level of gullibility, but maybe that's naïve in itself...

EDIT: As for morality; you can derive altruism etc as a logical benefit. Morality is not rooted in religion.
 
Medusa said:
hi ROGUE
I know what it means and thats why I dont want to read ' its not set of rules ' nonsense.any fascist can be atheist (positive or negative ) ,any communist or any conservative or any gay or hetero can be atheist.now lets try to understand what any atheistic philosophie can give to the society.but I can say I know religions were derived from morality .THATS FACT
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Saying you know what it means, does not make it so.
If you want a meaningful discuss, we need to be talking the same language (no pun intended)

Several of your posts so far, tell me that your understanding of atheism is not the same as most atheists.

Things like:
'atheistic philosophy'
or implying that religions are unique in having a morality especially what you state it as FACT without providing evidence. NOt saying you are wrong, just please do more than preach please!
 
I would say that atheism isn't necessarily ADDING anything to humanism, more that it simply doesn't SUBTRACT from it, like most religions do.
 
To put this another way, if most major religions act to be DEHUMANIZING at times, then a belief (disbelief?) system that does NOT dehumanize is indeed ADDING value to humanism.
 
Medusa said:
lets discuss.I dont want to read posts such as ' atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions ' .thank you
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"atheism" is a neutral term. It doesn't imply anything about humanism or suggest any particular morality. In practice it tends to mean "not religious", especially "not Christian". For some it means "anti-religious", but not necessarily.

I'd say that most atheists are humanists in that they attach primary importance to human matters and tend to be optimistic about human nature, emphasize common needs, and see intrinsic value in people.
 
iangb said:
As for morality; you can derive altruism etc as a logical benefit. Morality is not rooted in religion.
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You can also derive selfishness and self-centeredness as a logical benefit with equal facility.

The most ordinary and every day form of morality is rooted in the need for socialization and society. The moral traditions that evolve out of that need tend to be couched in religious terms.
 
LowDown said:
"atheism" is a neutral term. It doesn't imply anything about humanism or suggest any particular morality. In practice it tends to mean "not religious", especially "not Christian". For some it means "anti-religious", but not necessarily.

I'd say that most atheists are humanists in that they attach primary importance to human matters and tend to be optimistic about human nature, emphasize common needs, and see intrinsic value in people.
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in the practice of religious theists, it might mean 'not religious' or 'anti-religious'. This indicates a lack of understanding of their part.
Only christians might think atheism is 'anti-christian'.
muslims might think atheism is anti-muslim but they are both wrong.

atheism is independent from religion.
 
LowDown said:
You can also derive selfishness and self-centeredness as a logical benefit with equal facility.

The most ordinary and every day form of morality is rooted in the need for socialization and society. The moral traditions that evolve out of that need tend to be couched in religious terms.
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Well, that's because there are benefits to a certain degree of selfishness and self-centeredness. Otherwise you would give all of your money to the poor and give your house to the homeless.

Religion is a way of codifying and enforcing morality, but it's disadvantage is that morality is subjective and changes with the times, whereas religion tends to be absolute and (therefore) left behind by a changing society.
 
Medusa said:
lets discuss.I dont want to read posts such as ' atheism isnt set of rules that dictates your lives or it doesnt kill people unlike religions ' .thank you
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Atheism, as a philosophy, in my opinion, is best summed up by someone like Ayn Rand. These people consider themselves realists and live strictly in a material world that brook no argument for anything related to an etheric sense. I would suppose that this; reasonable argument... comes from the utter control and destruction brought about by absolutism throughout human history. A study on atheistic history might prove interesting.
 
jet57 said:
Atheism, as a philosophy, in my opinion, is best summed up by someone like Ayn Rand.
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But there is no "Atheism as a philosophy." There's nothing to base a philosophy on. Theism is not a philosophy either.
 
Medusa said:
hi ROGUE
I know what it means and thats why I dont want to read ' its not set of rules ' nonsense.any fascist can be atheist (positive or negative ) ,any communist or any conservative or any gay or hetero can be atheist.now lets try to understand what any atheistic philosophie can give to the society.but I can say I know religions were derived from morality .THATS FACT
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Religions were derived from primitive people who believed in volcano and thunder gods, etc.
 
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