Probably.

The classical metaphysical arguments have been overwhelmed by developments in physics and logic, but it is hard to see that amongst the regulars on these fora, where opinion supersedes argument.

Atheism of course is by it's nature a reaction to theism. It is a return to attempts at rationality after it's abnegation with the fall of the Western Empire. A return to independence from scripture.

The discussion is to a large extent a proxy for ethical issues - the ubiquitous presumption of theists that it is they alone who engage with morals. Hence the need felt by Lewis and Chesterton and Newman.

Any thesis is significant to its antithesis and vice versa for a simple reason: they contradict each other. In terms of the ideaverse, the mental counterpart of the physical universe, two opposing ideas/philosophies can be construed as two different alien species coming into contact with each other. I guess the conflict that characterizes such encounters is actually (good) practice - how we resolve our differences becomes important - for future interaction with real ETI.

Theism is significant to many atheists because too many damn theists proselytize and/or inject magical thinking – superstitions – into their explanations or arguments, even in nonreligious contexts (e.g. politics, commerce, science, ethics). Mostly, atheism is an intrinsic threat to theism because it is always a live option for (thinking) theists like potential defectors from a blinkered, totalitarian regime.

I sometimes reflect on the asymmetry between atheism and theism. — Wayfarer

The asymmetry is conspicuous. On one hand, every theist is also an atheist with respect to deities s/he rejects whereas atheists consistently reject all deities (at least for the reason the theist inconsistently reject all but one / some). And on the other hand, in the modern era, atheism is a second-order belief that 'theism is not true' whereas theism is a first-order belief that 'g/G is real'. Practical & theoretical asymmetries, respectively.

What about the category of ‘the sacred’? Is that also rejected?

Origen and Augustine both condemned fundamentalism in the first and fourth centuries AD, respectively. Nowadays, it's mainly a revolt against the unprecedented range and speed of change in modern culture.

I expect that anyone who believes in life everlasting would not be materialistic, for instance, yet Christians, at least in the US, seem quite ordinary in that regard. — praxis

I expect that a good number of conscientious Christians don't spend a lot of time arguing.

I expect that a good number of conscientious Christians don't spend a lot of time arguing. — Wayfarer

Yes, that too sounds ordinary, and I imagine the same is true for conscientious atheists.

Did you mean to write "and the theists do not try to proselytize"? Otherwise I can't make sense of your statement. — Janus

Yes, Sir, that's what I was trying to figure how to spell. Thanks for helping me out.

The debate over atheism thus seems to me to be one engaged in only by those whose view of God is narrow and personal. That's not to say that atheists should be silent when challenged or attacked, but only to comment on the limitations of the dispute. — Ciceronianus

Your OP is very coy. Oh...why would anyone object to the things that atheists say about religion. It ignores the fact that our culture, and this forum, are full of atheists who aggressively attack religious beliefs and show disrespect for religious institutions. They are not passive. They are self-righteous and bitter. Many clearly are reacting to bad experiences with religion in their youth.

Which is fine. Just don't act all surprised when religious people respond back. The atheist's attacks on religion are more than that. They are often also political attacks on traditional culture and spiritual values masquerading as rational argument. I am not a theist, but I am interested in atheism because I think it is generally a mean-spirited, irrational, and generally poorly argued sham.

Atheism is not a thought system. — god must be atheist

It doesn't have to be, but the aggressive type I am talking about, and that we often see here on the forum, usually is.

Atheists don't form clubs because there is not much to discuss about atheism. "Are you an atheist, too?" "Yes, I am." "Me too." And that's where the conversation ends. — god must be atheist

This is absurd.

To answer the OP: atheism is significant to atheists as much as theism is significant to theists; and atheism is significant to theists as much as theism is significant to atheists. In my opinion, anyway. — god must be atheist

I appreciate that you're so straight ahead about this. You lay your position out on the table, unlike @Ciceronianus's cutie pie faux surprise.

It doesn't have to be, but the aggressive type I am talking about, and that we often see here on the forum, usually is. — T Clark

By “thought system” do you by chance mean science? Science is probably better described as a method.

By “thought system” do you by chance mean science? Science is more of a method. — praxis

:up: Like philosophy is one.

They are often also political attacks on traditional culture and spiritual values masquerading as rational argument. — T Clark

As @Tom Storm pointed out, that'll be because of conservative christian attacks that prevent policy improvement.

I suppose fundamentalist christians have the advantage of not even pretending to rationality.

They are not passive. They are self-righteous and bitter. Many clearly are reacting to bad experiences with religion in their youth. — T Clark

Yes, that and the current state of a significant part of the religious world around the planet, from the Trump phenomena, to Modi's Hindu nationalism and all nasty shit done in the Middle East on behalf of Islam.

I think maybe atheism can be dividend into two groups anti-religionists and antitheists. I think I have sympathies for both groups.

“When any human group decides that they can define God, the outcome is always predictable. The “true faith,” once defined, must then be defended against all critics, and it must also then be forced upon all people—“for their own good, lest their souls be in jeopardy.” - Bishop John Shelby Spong

Indeed.

What about the category of ‘the sacred’? Is that also rejected? — Wayfarer

Not necessarily. Spinoza categorizes logic (i.e. laws of nature / natura naturans) as "divine" and understanding logic this way (via scientia intuitiva) as "blessedness". As a naturalist freethinker, this interpretation of "the sacred" appeals to me.

Name names. Which TPF members do you think "aggressively attack religious beliefs and show disrespect for religious institutions ... not passive ... self-righteous and bitter ... clearly are reacting to bad experiences with religion in their youth"?

As Tom Storm pointed out, that'll be because of conservative christian attacks that prevent policy improvement. — Banno

So... It seems you are acknowledging that it's primarily a political conflict rather than an intellectual one.

By “thought system” do you by chance mean science? Science is probably better described as a method. — praxis

I wasn't thinking about science in particular. Ciceronianus said this:

Theism breeds all sorts of convictions, demands, wishes, conclusions, dreams, hopes, institutions, strictures and emotions (not to mention wars and other forms of violence). — Ciceronianus

I think it's reasonable to apply something similar to the atheistic worldview.

atheistic worldview — T Clark

There's no such squared circle.

Yes, that and the current state of a significant part of the religious world around the planet, from the Trump phenomena, to Modi's Hindu nationalism and all nasty shit done in the Middle East on behalf of Islam. — Tom Storm

I see that as a pretext like the whole religious war thing. As if atheists aren't just as capable of genocide, massacre, and total war as religious believers.

Name names. — 180 Proof

No thanks.

atheistic worldview
— T Clark
There's no such squared circle. — 180 Proof

I disagree.

So... It seems you are acknowledging that it's primarily a political conflict rather than an intellectual one. — T Clark

The discussion is to a large extent a proxy for ethical issues - the ubiquitous presumption of theists that it is they alone who engage with morals. Hence the need felt by Lewis and Chesterton and Newman. — Banno

"Intelectual". :rofl:

Flat earthers "disagree" that Earth is round. Just sayin' ...

Just to be sure, ethics is political.

:rofl: Absolute evil is the reflection/mirror image of Jesus in Christianity and the Buddha of Buddhism. Moses and Muhammad, although good, were quite ambiguous, speaking from the standpoint of modern ethics, oui?

Hadta post this somewhere! :lol:

Fair point, but Spinoza says many things which I don't expect I would see from the pens of atheists. Besides, whilst he was often accused of atheism, he denied it. In the Ethics, Spinoza finds lasting happiness only in the “intellectual love of God”, which is the mystical, non-dual vision of the single “Substance” (I think 'subject' would be better here') underlying everything and everyone. The non-dual nature of this vision is clearly announced by Spinoza when he says that “[t]he mind’s intellectual love of God is the very love of God by which God loves himself” (Ethics, Part 5, Prop. 36). Since, for Spinoza, God is the Whole that includes everything, it also includes your love for God, and thus God can be said to love Itself through you.

Absolute evil is the reflection/mirror image of... — Agent Smith

according to some doctrines, evil cannot be absolute, for it comprises the privation of the good.

Nowadays, it's mainly a revolt against the unprecedented range and speed of change in modern culture. — Wayfarer

Have you read The Battle For God: A History of Fundamentalism by Karen Armstrong?

I must admit, it was one of those books I bought, or was given, but still sits unread on my shelf. But I understand the point is pretty central to her thesis. Of course hankering for the past is not something I would encourage, but it's an understandable attitude. But I also wonder if fundamentalism is not actually a personality profile - the desire for the certainty of view, of being on the right side, and so on.

according to some doctrines, there evil cannot be absolute, for it comprises the privation of the good — Wayfarer

Somehow I believe you. :up:

Yeah, he clearly wasn't just a (positive) atheist. Spinozism, I think, is much more consistent with both acosmism (sub specie aeternitatis) and pandeism (sub specie durationis) than with "pantheism", etc.

Well it's an optimistic attitude. Actually it was advocated by Augustine, although it's fallen into disfavour since.

Interesting. That wiki article on pandeism says in part:

Weinstein examines the philosophy of 9th century theologian Johannes Scotus Eriugena, who proposed that "God has created the world out of his own being", and identifies this as a form of pandeism, noting in particular that Eriugena's vision of God was one which does not know what it is, and learns this through the process of existing as its creation. In his great work, De divisione naturae (also called Periphyseon, probably completed around 867 AD), Eriugena proposed that the nature of the universe is divisible into four distinct classes:

1 – that which creates and is not created;
2 – that which is created and creates;
3 – that which is created and does not create;
4 – that which neither is created nor creates.

The first stage is God as the ground or origin of all things; the second is the world of Platonic ideals or forms; the third is the wholly physical manifestation of our Universe, which "does not create"; the last is God as the final end or goal of all things, that into which the world of created things ultimately returns to completeness with the additional knowledge of having experienced this world. A contemporary statement of this idea is that: "Since God is not a being, he is therefore not intelligible... This means not only that we cannot understand him, but also that he cannot understand himself. Creation is a kind of divine effort by God to understand himself, to see himself in a mirror." French journalist Jean-Jacques Gabut agreed, writing that "a certain pantheism, or rather pandeism, emerges from his work where Neo-Platonic inspiration perfectly complements the strict Christian orthodoxy." Eriugena himself denied that he was a pantheist.

(Presumably because to have affirmed it would be to court heresy, which I think he was suspected of and which in his time amounted to a death sentence.)

Dermot Moran has a book on the influence of Eriugena on German Idealism (via the medieval mystics).

see that as a pretext like the whole religious war thing. As if atheists aren't just as capable of genocide, massacre, and total war as religious believers. — T Clark

You've done this philosophy thing longer than me but isn't that just an equivocation fallacy right there? It does nothing to address the point about the horrendous continued human rights abuses, bigotries and other crimes all around the world brought to us by specific religious responses.

And if you're saying religion and atheism are equally dreadful then you still seem to be saying religion has nothing better to offer than no religion.

And besides, I am yet to hear of a single case of an atheist war, one where everyone killed, blew up buildings and subjugated their enemies in the name of 'no god'. Political wars certainly. Even several that had atheism in the mix. I am as suspicious and doubtful of political parties as I am of religions.

But come at me again with a witty and scathing riposte and we can leave it there as this kind of argument is old and neither of us will change our minds on the issues. :wink:

Well it's an optimistic attitude. Actually it was advocated by Augustine, although it's fallen into disfavour since. — Wayfarer

I like it nevertheless.