Cads

[Kuya]

This continues on that topic of 21st century enlightment.

What do you think?

[Kuya]

bump until cads sees it

[Krye]

Nobody cares Gaya the only thing you're good for is queerbait dick or get the fuck out

[Kuya]

Everything i say is important and valuable for every existence, krye

[Krye]

Everything you say is important for making my dick hard

[Kuya]

this video is better than theist debates about purpose

[Kuya]

Although i am not sure if Cads will like her position on religion. Which can be summarized as: we should respect religions and not be militant atheists about it. I generally agree with that position, but i know that a lot of atheists don't.

[Kuya]

Cads is not beckwin though.

[Alleya]

I'd be all for leaving religion alone if the minority of them would just stop trying to impose their twisted values on everyone else.

[Kuya]

I think that's a tad too much to ask.

[Kuya]

Besides, i don't think we're supposed to leave them alone, strictly speaking.

[Mertron]

but they want us to be saved, and deep down we all want to be saved, i welcome their intrusions

[Antithesis]

Saved from what exactly?

[Mertron]

kuya

[Cadsuane]

Okay, watching the video.

[Abandon]

[tyven]

i am excite for cads's opinion. i value his intellect

[Cadsuane]

Although i am not sure if Cads will like her position on religion. Which can be summarized as: we should respect religions and not be militant atheists about it. I generally agree with that position, but i know that a lot of atheists don't.

I generally agree with that position as well, because I think there may be a grain of truth in a previous (probably somewhat satirical) thread you made in spam about the necessity of religion, and other reasons which we might end up discussing at some point.

However, in this interview the idea isn't so clear. The point against anti-clericalism gets raised after a brief allusion to the difference between the idea of freedom as autonomy, leading to hedonistic self-interest and consumerism, as opposed Socratic self-awareness, plus the historical observation that autonomy and individualism are products of 18th century anti-clericalism as well as social principles that have been held aloft in western society since the 18th century enlightenment. I think this argument and historical narrative is pretty compelling, but I'm not sure how we go from this to the conclusion that anti-clericalism is arrogant or anti-thetical to modern civic life, aside from maybe that it's an apparently noble and pleasand sounding sentiment.

I think we recoil at that conclusion mostly because we have trouble reconciling pluralism with our hatred of relativism. Line broken for emphasis.

[Cadsuane]

Also we talk alot about this idea of a social society, wherein individualism is an antiquated ideal and empathy is primary, and wherein policy reflects these new attitudes. I don't think there's much we can say to one another on that subject that hasn't been said before.

Except! What do you think about Taylor saying that the public needs to place more trust in public institutions?

[Kuya]

Well, my stance on that is that being too antagonistic towards religious people themselves doesn't really convince them out of religion. I don't think that people who weakly/strongly attach themselves to dogma are coerced by militaristic narrative. I think that it is far more effective to raise the standards of living and promoting critical thinking (which is a major point the discussion brings up). However, the same atheists who agree with strongly confronting theists often also agree with me that education and social reform is important, but that we should also, in their words, "not give a free pass to religion".

In my opinion, that stance doesn't rise out of a rigorous apraisal of the situation. That is, i think that their reasons supporting militaristic atheism is:

1. They feel antagonized by theism, so they wish to respond in kind with antagonism. Particularly because they perceive theists as more aggresive, and atheists as more passive which they might also perceive as weakness. So being more militaristic equals being stronger.

2. Atheists probably put more currency in the critical search for truth, so when in confrontation with theists their intent seems to be to prove who is right and who is wrong. They feel that they just can't let ideas that are false just run around unchanllenged and that it is their duty to attack religious ideas.

Yet inside of both of these considerations there is no real assessment of what methods effectively change theists into atheists (or at least into deists).

In other words, i disagree with being civil for the sake of it. I think in this instance, being civil is useful because i feel that people who are weakly religious have a tendency to attach themselves more to their beliefs when challenged in a certain way. And that those who are strongly religious become more fundamentalist. I am not saying that civility is wrong, but i don't much care for it.