Religion is threatened less by atheism than by other religions

Before I'm accused of fomenting discord among religions, I'd better explain myself.

There have been atheists ever since there has been religion. No doubt atheism has gained ground over time as scientific knowledge has grown, and theories such as that of evolution have been proposed. But whatever the level of argument against religion, ultimately it comes down to the fact that you either believe or you don't.

And, come to think of it, there have never been wars between religion and atheism. All the wars have been between different religions. Fledgling religions have been persecuted because they threatened the older gods, be they idols or mythological gods.

Coming to the threat to religion from other religions, my statement is based neither on the history of religious wars nor on the modern-day religious terrorism. I'm thinking rather of each religion having to acknowledge other religions which are based on markedly different tenets.

Take the situation of a monotheistic faith having to live in peaceful accord with a polytheistic religion, as well as an atheistic religion. Do the followers of one religion think of the others as misguided? If they don't think so, and they're willing to grant that other religions are also true for those who follow them, what does that say for the truth of their own religion?

 

If you got a group of religious leaders together, and talking, I'm guessing almost all would be accepting and respectful of each other and of each other's beliefs. I doubt the same can be said for religious followers though, in that while some are accepting and respectful of other religions, others are less so... that a greater percentage of the followers, who are less learned in general about various faiths than their respective religious leaders, find other's beliefs less tolerable.

 

Nothing can "threaten" religion except people deciding that it does't make sense to them and that based on the evidence that they've seen they can't believe in it. Religion generally speaking is I think far more threatening than threatened.

 

When you say religious leaders, and some of the learned followers, would be accepting and respectful of others and their beliefs, this is surely meant as a courtesy. Or should I say diplomacy? Yes, we don't start cutting each others' throats any more just because we belong to different faiths. But, in our thoughts and beliefs, we know ours is the true religion, and all the others, unfortunately, are lost souls. They won't be joining us in our paradise.

You cannot seriously accept another religion as being true in any sense. Religion is an all encompassing world view. There is a whole mythology upon which it is based. If your religion says there is only one god who created this world in a certain way, and there is another religion that says there are multiple gods, how can you be accepting of it, except out of politeness? How can you accept a religion that does not believe in god or soul or the afterlife, except to say that that is not really a religion but a culture?

In saying that religion is threatened by other religions, what I'm saying is that religion cannot anymore have the unified world view that it formerly did before the world opened up to bring different religions into contact with each other. In fact, every religion must learn to live with the fact that it is one mythological view among many.

This is good news, in my view. But I'm wondering how many believers would agree with this view.

 

Karim, do you actually think that there is any chance at all of this happening on any significant scale? I mean, seriously, when any major religion believes that it is the sole repository of revealed divine truth, then I think that the possibility is remote.

 

What I want to know is why atheists insist that they know better than people who have faith and why they feel as if they can be nasty, ugly, and critical without any repercussion. For people who talk about how superior they are because their lives are based on reason and how they don't need God to lead kind and decent lives, it seems mighty funny that atheists can go right on ahead and be hurtful to other people with their belittling words. Karim, how many of these threads do you have to open?

Religion bashing should be termed another form of hate speech, because that's all it is.

 

When you say that the only threat to religion is people deciding it doesn't make sense to them based on the evidence they've seen, you're referring to atheists, I assume. Or it could be you include in this group followers of other religions as well. This makes perfect sense in both cases, for after all religion is nothing more, or less, than the people who follow it. This ties in with the second part of your statement, that religion is more threatening than threatened, for, again, what is threatening about religion is really the followers of religion. Religion left to itself, without the followers taking upon themselves to play god's vicegerents on earth, would in fact be more interesting and enlightening from a mythological point of view.

Do I think that the followers of religion will be prepared to take their own religion as one myth among many? No I don't, though I wish it would happen. It is laughable when I hear my own mother still remarking that it's unfortunate that the other religions stopped partway, and never attained the final truth that our religion teaches.

But this brings me back to the original thought I began with. Either no follower of any religion can sincerely accept the truth of other religions, in which case there is no hope, or accepting other religions as valid has to have the result of diminishing the exclusivity of their own religion, which would be threatening in a sense.

 

It's called creating a hostile environment. You may consider religion to be nothing more than an intellectual enterprise, but what you are actually doing is demeaning other people's beliefs and lives.

 

HollysMom, why does opening a thread for discussion has to have an agenda?

Are we to never discuss these issues for fear that the followers of religion will take them to be religion bashing?

If atheists agree to stop discussing religion, will the followers of religion agree to not bring religion into discussions on abortion, euthanasia, teaching evolution in schools, gay marriages, and so on?

 

Atheists will never agree to stop discussing religion, Karim, because they have too much fun acting superior and pretending that they are somehow morally superior to people with religion. The problem with your little laundry list is that people with faith use their beliefs to inform their decision-making process about them. But the absolute hatred and lack of concern for other people's perspectives that I see coming from atheists each and every time they discuss religion is disgusting to me. If for one second you could understand how hateful you are actually being when you belittle religious beliefs as being "mythological" in nature, or whatever, you wouldn't do it. But that makes the assumption that a single atheist has any concern about offending anyone with religion. I've never seen it happen and I fully believe I never will.

I've tried to be fair-minded in religious discussion and have tried to engage in even-handed discussion about religion, but it's like water dripping, drop by drop, on my head. To mix metaphors, you can only expect to poke a bear with a stick so many times before the bear fights back.

 

Okay, HollysMom. Point taken. You're right. What for me might be a mere intellectual enterprise, as you say, for believers is a belittling of something that is their life, and the reason for their existence. Just a moment ago I ridiculed my mother's comments on other people's religions. But I wouldn't dare do it to her face. So then why do I feel I have the right to do it to strangers? This is my final comment on religion. You may take full credit for it.

 

I'm not trying to shut you up, Karim, but I would like the discussion to be a bit more respectful. I'm glad that you take my point, though, because my next step would have been to make a counter-post to every pro-atheist post you made, proselytizing, praising God, and saying how mentally deficient and deluded atheists are because they have no faith. (I don't take that perspective, btw, but fair is fair, right?)

 

This whole conversation would be vastly different if we as a culture didn't try and put our ideas of the mysteries of the world into pissing contests with each other. The funny thing about it is that the religions that are most likely to assert their "superiority" over all the other ideas us hairless monkeys have came up with about the unknown are the three that are the most similar to each other. Also I have issue with OP saying atheistic religion. Isn't that tantamount to talking about an anti-capitalist investment brokerage? Or to quote Penn Jillette "saying atheism is a religion is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby".

 

He said, "an atheistic religion," which is a perfectly acceptable thing to say. Buddhism is an atheistic religion. Pure Buddhism doesn't have the concept of a creator god, or any god, at its core. Of course, everywhere Buddhism goes someone tries to make their gods fit into the concept. The Hindu did it. The Chinese did it. The Japanese did it. The Tibetans over did it. Religion is just another philosophical point of view in which the god concept may, or may not, exist.

Just to specify for HollysMom. I don't have a problem with religion as long as it isn't used to hurt people. Then I have a problem with it.

 

Religion and the religious are so deferred to and coddled in this country... I mean seriously. Christianity or if you prefer, The Christianities, is/are the de facto state religion here. I don't think you know what a hostile environment is until you've spent years on the receiving end of a barrage of religious condemnation and self-righteousness flung at you by members of the vast Christian majority.

 

Just a few comments from one of the resident atheists…

Certainly on a personal level I try to be respectful of people’s religious beliefs when they come up in my interactions with them. I prefer it when they don’t. But while I try to respect the person I am if pressed not going to pretend that I view their beliefs as anything more fantasies that I cannot take seriously. Rather the same way I expect to be treated on the subject of the faeries that live under our deck. And if they insist on talking morality and Hell and The Living God and “personal relationships” with me and I can’t politely get them to shut up then as far as I’m concerned they deserve whatever I’m able to dish out.

Anyone who tries to restrict the rights of others based on his or her interpretation of some holy book or tries to use the state as the enforcer of parochial rules and prohibitions is an enemy. This is the basis for my major beef with religion, which in our society means numerous versions of Christianity.

I think that non-believers understandably get a bit testy when religious people condemn them, tell them they are immoral, that they are bound for Hell, that they are un-American, not fit for public office, and a general threat to society. And even worse treat them with condescending pity. All based certain interpretations of ancient writings which are in turn based on visions and revelations which are in their turn based on nothing. IMO of course.

Karim said, “Religion left to itself, without the followers taking upon themselves to play god's vicegerents on earth, would in fact be more interesting and enlightening from a mythological point of view".

Truer words were never spoken.

 

I still don't see where the OP was creating a hostile environment. Perhaps you could explain.

 

I think most of the major faith's leaders are more accepting of other religions that are not too dissimilar to their own, and therefore less accepting with more radical departures from their core beliefs. The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths are not that dissimilar... and peaceful leaders in all three groups are, in general, very accepting of each others beliefs. In this case, all three believe in a singular god, who behaves essentially the same in all three faiths. Other faiths, that believe in multiple gods, are less tolerated... since the core belief is quite different.

 

Here's some food for thought: What exactly is religion?

I have argued before that religion (or faith, if you prefer) is ANY belief system. Even one that argues logic proves there is no god. Those who would trust only in what could be proven to them would elevate their own intellect to god-hood, and would , if their thought processes were followed to the logical conclusion, have to deny the truth of anything they didn't understand. And just because I don't understand the fullness of the theory of relativity or string-theory, doesn't make them false.

In short, for me at least, atheists are just as religious as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, whatever.

 

Very true KJL. It would seem that many atheist seem to forget that they too have adopted a belief system that they believe to be true to which they have built core values and a lifestyles around just as many religious people have. I've come to recognize that many atheists can be just as dogmatic, close-minded, and belligerent as the theist sects that many atheist so vehemently oppose and have ironically captured the role as oppressor, which theist held for many centuries, under the guise of "free thinking".

As a theist, I personally don't believe that any other religious system is a personal threat to my own. I believe that to say that my own belief system perfectly and completely encapsulates an all powerful and all encompassing deity/deities would be nothing short of folly. But rather each religious approach is another unique perspective of some divine nature that pervades through all things and that as seekers of some divine truth we can learn from each other instead of forcing these barriers between ourselves to make one religious belief more dominant than another. Everyone's searching for something to believe in, whether it's constructive or destructive.