Well, I do care
Posted on: February 19, 2009 - 9:35pm
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Well, I do care
This is a response I sent to someone's YouTube comment via YouTube in-mail:
Respond if you want, just thought I'd express myself.
Quote:
A reply to your comment on the video "MythBusters: Does God exist?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9izVu_TtAE&feature=related
You said:
"if you are athiest and you think that religon is wrong,
WHY DO YOU CARE?
why do you try to prove religon wrong?
Are you dumb and cant mind your buisness? or is it that you know you are wrong and just dont want to atmit it? "
Why I Care
Here's the problem with your last sentence. If I knew I was wrong, and I really thought there was a God, admitting I was wrong would be a far cry short of burning in hell for all eternity, so I wouldn't worry too much. I'm a naturalist. I admit I'm wrong when I have evidence to suggest that I'm wrong. But you ask if we know we are wrong. How could I know I'm wrong? Wouldn't someone have to prove it to me? And if they show that proof, what would be the point of not admitting it and changing my ways?
I care about religion. Understand something. There are a lot of atheists in the world, but not all of them are active. Only some, like myself. You don't know about the atheists that aren't active (that is, they don't really do anything with there belief like try to convert others to atheism), because, well, they're not active. You'd never know they were atheists unless you asked them.
But I'm an active atheist, and I care. There are a lot of reasons why active atheists have the tendency to be active. Most of them are related to infringments that religion has placed on our freedoms, like blue laws, the placement of "In God We Trust" on our currency, the words "Under God" in our pledge of allegiance, and the attempt for Christians to teach creationism as a science in our public schools. But in truth, I don't really care that much about these.
I care a LOT because of what religion has done for us in our history, and what it will continue to do for us in the future, which is nothing good at all. Religion has got us nothing in all of world history. Science has gotten us everything that we have. It has saved millions of lives. And if we had more resources and time, it could save us all from so much more in the future. But since the beginning of philosophy, religion has suppressed and rebuked science. It has accused us of false teachings. It has robbed us of our freedom and resources. The amount of man hours, resources, and attention that religion has received since the beginning of our social world has be wasted so hazardly when all of that couldn't have been better spent on improving our race and our technology, rather than suppressing it.
If we'd have spent all those resources on science and discovery, by now, we'd have AIDS cured, cancer cured, global warming and climate change solved, travelled to other solar systems, harnessed the energy provided by cold fusion or even the sun, solved every genetic and nerve disease you can think of, and so much more. If possible, we may have even been able to cure old age. Think of it, eternal life.
But every single individual since humans began existing has died and will continue to die until we solve these issues. And the suppression of science by religion is the one responsible, therefore I hold religion responsible for the death of every one of the billions of human beings that has ever lived and died.
Truely, I care for the sake of caring. Because I see Christians spending their lives in a lie, and I care about my fellow man and don't want to see that happen. I can show you something better than a make believe God, and I want Christians to drop their lie and be better. If you saw someone believing something that wasn't true, and living their life about it, wouldn't you care?
I care, because I'm a good person. We, as atheists don't try to prove religion wrong. We've already proven it a thousand times over. It's just very difficult to get religious people to accept it. Because your religious due to blind faith. Which means it doesn't matter how much proof we have, you're going to believe no matter what. Without caring about the evidence against it, without listening to the arguments. You're going to believe blindly.
But let me ask you a question. Why DON'T you care?
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*Facepalms*
Alison, one step at a time:
What was Hoxha's ideology?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Acutally YOU said they weren't conducted by Al Quada
You first
So priests WERE killed which was my point. I don't think they shot themselves
It was Communism, not Shara law WHICH WAS MY POINT.
How many times do I have to say this?
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THE IDEOLOGY IT IS AS LONG AS IT'S NOT IRAN'S WHICH WAS SHARA LAW SINCE I AM COMPARING THE ACTIONS OF THE REGIMES, NOT THE IDEOLOGIES!!!
HOXHA'S COMMUNISM WAS NOT SHARA LAW WHICH WAS THE POINT. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT WAS MARXIST OR MAOIST OR WHATEVER AS LONG AS IT WAS NOT SHARA LAW!!!
Say it with me Kevin.
That's correct. And the article agrees with me; the groups were, as I posted...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/madrid-bombers-were-inspired-by-bin-laden-address-423266.html
...inspired by Osama. Not an actual Al Quaeda cell (the BBC article uses the term 'linked to', which is a somewhat confused way of saying, 'Not Al Quaeda, but with similarites/ties to them'.
1) You were off by a factor of a few thousand, which is a petty greivous error regardless.
2) The sectarian violence was, again, not supported by the government. Hoxha himself publicly damned the outbreaks of violence.
Then you have no point.
You just said it yourself - it was communism. It was the dogma.
It was not simply 'human nature' that the oppressive regime was based around.
You're incorrect.
You'd have to point-out an example of a country that became an oppressive authoritarian regime without adhering to a dogmatic belief system. If you want to point out that Sharia law can be traded-out in favor of another theocratic or otherwise repressive system and no real improvement will be made, well thank-you for declaring the obvious.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Kevin, I'm saying these dogmatic regimes are attractive because of human nature.
We're not the only animals to kill for power, the only difference is I've never seen wolves with machine guns.
We are selfish by nature, we're attracted to the dogmas not because of the dogmas themselves, but the power and control they offer.
That's why I attribute it to human nature.
Next
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1004984.stm
1967 - Violent clampdown on religious activity. Albania declared the world's first atheist state.
The whole point of this whole argument on priests and such is that you said religion wasn't banned. It was.
Anyway, even if I was wrong on the priests, he still executed/imprisoned disocents.
The Sigurimi took notes from the NKVD, MGB, and KGB and we know how nice those people were.
But this is only half correct. Yes, of course, humans are largely selfish (like all animals) - but remember that, paradoxically, this also is what has lead us to living altruistic lives. It is beneficial to you or I to be altruistic as it increases our chances for successful reproduction (which is what our genes are really after; not gains strictly for your own benefit).
Take your wolf example: Why is it that wolves violently force each other out of packs, claim or invade territory? Breeding rights.
Animals kill each other for food or for mates. Wanton violence without any cause is a myth.
We see in Albania what we have seen time and time again with police states: inevitable revolt (though Albania's was not as dramatic as most) and reformation. It's a predictable pattern. If what you're saying is true, and humans simply clamor over each for strictly for personal gain as a built-in part of their genetics, then we should see that nearly all exchanges of power are through violence; that any given state will simply go from one despot to the next.
We don't see this at all.
If you violently overthrow the governing agency, you're inviting the next warmonger to come and overthrow you. If, on the other hand, you can change the zeitgeist and demonstrate that there are better ways of cycling leadership, you're almost ensured to be left as the administrator for your due term without a real looming threat of insurrection - as everyone else will know that they can, potentially, get their own turn in the big man's chair.
(If you want a textbook example of this, research the last few decades of South Korea's history).
Religion, however, can change the rules a little bit. The codifications of the divine are, by definition, unquestionable. This is what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has to his advantage; Sharia law was not written by him, afterall. It is, according Muslim tradition, the law of the creator. Here we can actually see a very problematic difference even from a Stalinistic dogma: it is not actually the leader of the country who is imposing this codification on the people. It is being imposed on them by default.
It doesn't matter who the leader of Iran is so long as Sharia law is what's being enforced. Mahmoud could die tomorrow, but as long as the religious law is not abolished within the cultural zeitgeist exactly the same oppression will continue to hang over the nation.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Getting closer.
What if you don't have to be nice?
Stalin didn't have to be nice to get his wheat. He can just take it, he had no reason to be altruistic.
The NKVD and the KGB agents had more privalges than the average citizen, they were feared for a reason. They didn't HAVE to be nice so they weren't.
If a Canadian cop pulls what the KGB pulled, he would be in prison, hence has a reason to be altruistic.
Imagine if you and I met. Would you have any reason to be nice to me? I wouldn't really see any reason to be nice to you unless you were packing a .45 colt. Than I'd be VERY nice.
We're motivating by other circumstances, I'm not saying we'd all turn into NKVD scouts, but others will.
No, but look at the U.S presidental ad campaign. They don't HAVE to use violence, when they can just lie out their ass. Ya think they lied and smeared for a certain reason?
Plus violence will get you arrested rather than elected.
But I'm not saying we all have a killer FARC soldier inside all of us, it's that some of us do. Some more than others.
The reason they use violent police state is because they don't want to share the chair!
They seem to have the philosophy that if brutality isn't working, you're not using enough of it.
The more they kill uprisers, the longer they can stay in power. The Soviet Union took 70 years to collapse.
Hussien disbanded Sharia law [except for injury claims or something like that] and that didn't work out too well for Iraq.
God only knows what Pres Iran will cook up to stay in power. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But I'm quite sure he'll try.
'Getting closer' ? What the Hell?
So you're an expert on the subject of human nature then, obviously? Since the established principles I'm discussing are only 'closer' to the real, fundamental answer that yu must've discovered on your own, as the statement implies?
Care to link me to the thesis you surely must've published on the matter, then?
And 'What if you didn't have to be [altruistic]?' is a bogus question. Every organism must be altruistic, because lacking this quality leads to immediate extinction.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
It's called reciprical altruism. We help people in our society because those people provide for us. If we help them, they'll help us.
[EDIT]
This is what I was saying earlier. In the regimes, you don't need to be nice to other people to get what you want.
[/EDIT]
As for us always being altruisitic, ever hear of the bystander effect[The more people who see an emergency, the less likely someone will help]?