Famous Atheist Quotes

Punisher1984 · Jan 8, 2009

Wessex Man said:
Nothing on this scale.

The only thing that makes the scale greater is the fact that we have deadlier weapons - if we gave those same weapons to people living in the Dark Ages, their wars would be just as bloody.

Wessex Man said:
That is one period and wasn't done by humans. I'm talking about humans.

Yes, but life SURVIVED it: no matter how much destruction is brought upon the environment, something will always come out alive and establish a new ecosystem.

Wessex Man said:
That is because you do not understand man or society. Man alone is not great, he is powerless and weak.

That what society wants us to believe anyway...

Wessex Man said:
Man gets a lot of what makes him man and what makes him great from society and association.

Because he is conditioned to do so - train him to be more self-reliant and those limitations will disappear like morning fog.

Wessex Man said:
I think the state has rarely had so much power.

At least it's not a "divine right" monarchy where all must submit to the will of the king or be destroyed - like what many governments used to be...

Wessex Man said:
I meant social atomisation; the breakdown of associations and society like family and community leaving only isolated, weak and powerless social atoms on one hand and the all powerful state on the other.

Well, I guess that the last institution to be demolished will be a big one then...

Wessex Man said:
Death to Jacobism and Bolshevism!

I never cared much for Marxism or socialism anyways - most of my political philosophy comes from Stirner, Bakunin, Nietzsche and Rand. To hell with any ideology that exhaults any collective authority as being superior to that of the individual!

Wessex Man · Jan 8, 2009

Punisher1984 said:
The only thing that makes the scale greater is the fact that we have deadlier weapons - if we gave those same weapons to people living in the Dark Ages, their wars would be just as bloody.

Actually it wouldn't. We have total wars they wouldn't of dreamed of.

Yes, but life SURVIVED it: no matter how much destruction is brought upon the environment, something will always come out alive and establish a new ecosystem.

But not necessarily humans. Did you know, according to my IR textbook, that it would take 3 earths to give the whole world the first world's standard of living?

Because he is conditioned to do so - train him to be more self-reliant and those limitations will disappear like morning fog.

I note you use the word train, hardly very self-reliant.

It is rubbish anyway, man is a social creature society and its associations partly determine his freedom, order, meaning and personality.

Take man out of society and you don't have a noble savage, you have a brute digging in dirt with his hands for roots.

At least it's not a "divine right" monarchy where all must submit to the will of the king or be destroyed - like what many governments used to be...

Actually few gov'ts where like that and that grew up in the early modern period with the rise of he forces you cherish so much. You need to leave you liberal, cliched views of history behind.

I never cared much for Marxism or socialism anyways - most of my political philosophy comes from Stirner, Bakunin, Nietzsche and Rand. To hell with any ideology that exhaults any collective authority as being superior to that of the individual!

I was an anarchist and am close still but Stirner and even Bakunin have little on Proudhon, Kropotkin, Landauer and Bookchin in my opinion.

Stuu · Jan 9, 2009

Wessex Man said:
Indeed, they have retarded your dreams haven't they comrade.

'Retarded' is a word that does belong in the same sentence as 'conservatives' all too often...

I don't know, I doubt it. We(the world.) suffer from disease in our century as much as they did and technology has little to do with your liberal schemes.

Channel 4 did the programme, and it was the C14th, not the C13th that was worst. Britain was at war for most of the century and the population was devastated by the black death. Lots of remedies, some more useful than others were tried. Note in this account the utterly pointless conclusions the church made regarding the plague. Exactly the same blaming of sin for epidemics and natural disasters can be viewed on daytime TV to this day. Perhaps you are right, the grip of religious fantasy is still on us and therefore we have not progressed greatly in some quarters:

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/a-b/blackdeath.html

Stuart

Punisher1984 · Jan 9, 2009

Wessex Man said:
Actually it wouldn't. We have total wars they wouldn't of dreamed of.

Because we have bigger, better weapons - put that kind of killing power in the hands of people in any age and you'll see a bloodbath.

Wessex Man said:
But not necessarily humans.

So? There was life before people and there will be life after people are extinct. Either way, it's ultimately of no consequense.

Wessex Man said:
Did you know, according to my IR textbook, that it would take 3 earths to give the whole world the first world's standard of living?

Yes I did, but what eludes me is a reason to care about that...

Wessex Man said:
I note you use the word train, hardly very self-reliant.

Training can be done by one's own self - ever heard of self-taught skills?

Wessex Man said:
It is rubbish anyway, man is a social creature society and its associations partly determine his freedom, order, meaning and personality.

We are only social because we are conditioned to be - meaning, purpose and even the much-vaunted idea of "freedom" are just concepts invented or coopted by society to act as control mechanisms.

Wessex Man said:
Take man out of society and you don't have a noble savage, you have a brute digging in dirt with his hands for roots.

I reject both ideas - both the noble savage and the brute are charactures based on the a priori value judgement that humans have some kind of intrinsic value to the: one assumes a positive value, the other a negative one. I find it more likely that man would simply assert his own will to power over the world he finds himself in and make some order from chaos (whether that order is "noble" or "brutish" depends soley on the value judgement of the observer of it).

Wessex Man said:
Actually few gov'ts where like that and that grew up in the early modern period with the rise of he forces you cherish so much. You need to leave you liberal, cliched views of history behind.

1. I'm not a liberal (at least in any conventional sense of the word) - nor am I a conservative: I consider myself a political Nihilist.

2. "Divine Right" monarchies can be traced back to the days of the Egyptians (the Pharohs weilded near-absolute power and used "divine" authority as their justification for having it - like most monarchs in the past have done).

You're the one that needs to do his history homework.

Wessex Man said:
I was an anarchist and am close still but Stirner and even Bakunin have little on Proudhon, Kropotkin, Landauer and Bookchin in my opinion.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it - but I find some of your influences (Bookchin in particular) to be still to collective-minded for my tastes...

Wessex Man · Jan 9, 2009

Punisher1984 said:
Because we have bigger, better weapons - put that kind of killing power in the hands of people in any age and you'll see a bloodbath.

No the difference between the Napoleonic wars say and the war of the Austrian succession was more than a change in weapons, it was a great change in the way wars where waged and how this effected nations and civilians in the wars.

So? There was life before people and there will be life after people are extinct. Either way, it's ultimately of no consequense.

My argument is about humanity and its survival. We are damaging the enviroment on a scale humans never have before.

We are only social because we are conditioned to be - meaning, purpose and even the much-vaunted idea of "freedom" are just concepts invented or coopted by society to act as control mechanisms.

No we are social creatures because that is what we are. Man has never existed outside of society in any meaningful sense.

1. I'm not a liberal (at least in any conventional sense of the word) - nor am I a conservative: I consider myself a political Nihilist.

You are not a liberal perhaps but you carry some dangerous ideas about gov't, society and man.

2. "Divine Right" monarchies can be traced back to the days of the Egyptians (the Pharohs weilded near-absolute power and used "divine" authority as their justification for having it - like most monarchs in the past have done).

You're the one that needs to do his history homework.

Divine right doesn't mean much but you linked it to absolutism. I more had European history in mind, exactly why one would talk about divine right otherwise or how gov'ts used to be is hard to understand. In Europe, post-Rome, absolute gov'ts were largely a product of the early modern times. In many other places of the earth this is probably true as well but I do confess the gov't of say ancient Peru or Japan is not my speciality.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it - but I find some of your influences (Bookchin in particular) to be still to collective-minded for my tastes...

Yes but you don't believe men are social creatures so it wouldn't be wise to follow your ideas on individualism.

Wessex Man · Jan 9, 2009

Stuu said:
'Retarded' is a word that does belong in the same sentence as 'conservatives' all too often...

Ah a man of whit I see.:dead:

Channel 4 did the programme, and it was the C14th, not the C13th that was worst. Britain was at war for most of the century and the population was devastated by the black death. Lots of remedies, some more useful than others were tried. Note in this account the utterly pointless conclusions the church made regarding the plague. Exactly the same blaming of sin for epidemics and natural disasters can be viewed on daytime TV to this day. Perhaps you are right, the grip of religious fantasy is still on us and therefore we have not progressed greatly in some quarters:

t

Well the late 14th century was so bad mainly because of the black death. Everyone made similar "pointless" conclusions. Your ideas of Jacobinism being the main force in making the 21st century better than this one or the church making this one worse aren't proved by that program.

Punisher1984 · Jan 9, 2009

Wessex Man said:
No the difference between the Napoleonic wars say and the war of the Austrian succession was more than a change in weapons, it was a great change in the way wars where waged and how this effected nations and civilians in the wars.

And do you know why wars changed they way they did? Because the technology existed to make those changes possible. I'm fairly certain that folks like Napoleon would have slaughtered ridiculous numbers of his enemies populations had industry and technology been the lifesblood of warfare in his day rather than agricultural products like grain and textiles.

Wessex Man said:
My argument is about humanity and its survival. We are damaging the enviroment on a scale humans never have before.

Well, there are a lot more of us now and we do have the technology to strip resources faster than before - I guess that such technology could pose a significant threat to the future survival of what we think of as human life. But why does that really matter?

Wessex Man said:
No we are social creatures because that is what we are. Man has never existed outside of society in any meaningful sense.

"Meaning" itself is just a concept - without an individual or social order willing into being it does not exist. As far as I'm concerned, it is - by and large - an illusion.

Wessex Man said:
You are not a liberal perhaps but you carry some dangerous ideas about gov't, society and man.

I know that they're dangerous - in fact, I'm counting on them being dangerous!

Wessex Man said:
Divine right doesn't mean much but you linked it to absolutism. I more had European history in mind, exactly why one would talk about divine right otherwise or how gov'ts used to be is hard to understand.

I brought it up to point out that (in some ways) the power of the government has been diluted - of course, if our society progresses along the track its on now that may be reversed...

Wessex Man said:
Yes but you don't believe men are social creatures so it wouldn't be wise to follow your ideas on individualism.

Why not? To say that something is "unwise" presupposes a value judgement concerning that idea - so what values cause you to perceive such ideas as "unwise?"

PlastikBuddha · Jan 9, 2009

JustinFoldsFive said:
Plastik, our of curiosity, what led you to Christianity? If I remember correctly, you used to be one of the more outspoken atheists (or agnostics?) at TOL.

The possibility that there might be a reason for all of this and a willingness to see if I could dare to believe that there was.

Stuu · Jan 9, 2009

Wessex Man said:
Well the late 14th century was so bad mainly because of the black death. Everyone made similar "pointless" conclusions. Your ideas of Jacobinism being the main force in making the 21st century better than this one or the church making this one worse aren't proved by that program.

Not everything suggested was pointless. The mere act of making an earnestly positive hypothesis about how to stop the terror of Black Death in itself had a point. Blaming disease on sin and telling the people they were all sinners is about the most negative response anyone could have made. Nothing unusual about that in christianity though.

I never used the word Jacobin. I think it says more about you, and possibly your religious views too that you need to pigeonhole me in black-and-white terms as a revolutionary, I assume in your mind just for the sake of revolution. Are there any other strawmen you would like to make of me while we are at it? I look to the Enlightenment mainly. Please tell me how many human beings Locke, Hume, Haydn, Kant, Paine and Lavoisier put on the rack between them. It was the French Jacobins who put Lavoisier in the guillotine. There is the contrast with your view of me.

I would like to see the Roman Church disappear, but I would not advocate the Cult of Reason as a means of getting rid of it. Christianity is dying anyway although the Catholic church is possibly the most resistant because of their efforts to convert third world countries where there is less educated awareness and opposition to their evil empire building, but it too will go the way of Mithras I predict.

Stuart

Wessex Man · Jan 9, 2009

Punisher1984 said:
And do you know why wars changed they way they did? Because the technology existed to make those changes possible. I'm fairly certain that folks like Napoleon would have slaughtered ridiculous numbers of his enemies populations had industry and technology been the lifesblood of warfare in his day rather than agricultural products like grain and textiles.

It was certainly not technology alone. There was a great change in political ideas. The levee en masse grew out of the French revolution.

Well, there are a lot more of us now and we do have the technology to strip resources faster than before - I guess that such technology could pose a significant threat to the future survival of what we think of as human life. But why does that really matter?

Yes I'm not here to play nihilist games such as why I should care about the human race being wiped out.

"Meaning" itself is just a concept - without an individual or social order willing into being it does not exist. As far as I'm concerned, it is - by and large - an illusion.

Right.....to be honest the "transcendentality" of that meaning is not important to conversation.

I know that they're dangerous - in fact, I'm counting on them being dangerous!

Dangerous to liberty? Because that is what these modern day Jacobins are.

I brought it up to point out that (in some ways) the power of the government has been diluted - of course, if our society progresses along the track its on now that may be reversed...

Gov't has reached an overbearing state and a level of general interverence and importance in the individuals life that it has had before.

Why not? To say that something is "unwise" presupposes a value judgement concerning that idea - so what values cause you to perceive such ideas as "unwise?"

Yes, I have no desire to delve into the realms of your morbid subjectivity.

Wessex Man · Jan 9, 2009

PlastikBuddha said:
The possibility that there might be a reason for all of this and a willingness to see if I could dare to believe that there was.

Do you remember me? I used to go by the name Nugnostic.

Strange to see your a Christian now and I'm a libertarian-conservative and borderline Catholic or Anglican. My how the mighty have fallen.

Punisher1984 · Jan 9, 2009

Wessex Man said:
It was certainly not technology alone. There was a great change in political ideas. The levee en masse grew out of the French revolution.

The change in ideology you allude to came from the change in technology - prior to the development of weapons that could allow armies to easily destroy foes many times their size caused a dramatic shift in stategic thinking about who to win wars. The idea of warfare then became to stifle the ability of an enemy to produce those weapons: thus the targeting of the civilian populations on unprecidented levels (civilians often worked in weapons plants - kill the laborers, destroy the weapons was their line of thought).

Wessex Man said:
Yes I'm not here to play nihilist games such as why I should care about the human race being wiped out.

Which just tells we that you accept the survival of a particular species as given - unsupported by any underlying logic or reason.

Wessex Man said:
Right.....to be honest the "transcendentality" of that meaning is not important to conversation.

It is when you assert that an individual has no meaning apart from his society - but if the "meaning" itself is an illusion your point becomes moot.

Wessex Man said:
Dangerous to liberty?

Liberty? You think that's what we have? We have a society that's a parody of everything it once stood for!

"Freedom of speech" used to gurantee a man the ability to say what he wanted when he wanted, now it's resticted to what's acceptable to the brain-dead masses (and now even government institutions - particularly the FCC - reserve the power to penalize speech they disapprove of). The "right to bear arms" used to equip the citizen with the means to destoy the government should it become uncontrollable, but now it's little more than a hunting permit as society keeps its citizens away from firepower that could threaten its monopoly of force.

I could go on, but rest assured that I see little "liberty" to be dangerous to...

Wessex Man said:
Because that is what these modern day Jacobins are.

Again with the Jacobins... look, I'm not one of them! I find the idea of the "nanny state" socialists would establish to be just as repulsive as the social order we've got now.

Wessex Man said:
Gov't has reached an overbearing state and a level of general interverence and importance in the individuals life that it has had before.

I'll agree with you that government today is overbearing, but it's not unprecidented in human history.

Wessex Man said:
Yes, I have no desire to delve into the realms of your morbid subjectivity.

Why? Because you're afraid that you'll see that your value judgements are based on little more than your desire for mores and values to be the "truth?"

Seydlitz77 · Jan 9, 2009

Punisher1984 said:
The change in ideology you allude to came from the change in technology - prior to the development of weapons that could allow armies to easily destroy foes many times their size caused a dramatic shift in stategic thinking about who to win wars. The idea of warfare then became to stifle the ability of an enemy to produce those weapons: thus the targeting of the civilian populations on unprecidented levels (civilians often worked in weapons plants - kill the laborers, destroy the weapons was their line of thought).

Well you're right once we move into the American Civil War and beyond.

Napoleon's Levee en Masse and the concept of the total destruction of an opponent's military capacity (as later popularized by Clausewitz) does not fall into that category however. They were new concepts which used military technology that had been present for well over a century in fact the majority of weapons issued by all sides had been in use for well over 50 years. New weapons existed and were being used but in very few numbers. The only time Napoleonic armies decided on attacking civilians was in cases of defeating civilian resistance in an already militarily defeated nation (such as Spain).

noguru · Jan 9, 2009

Wessex Man said:
Right.....to be honest the "transcendentality" of that meaning is not important to conversation.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

JustinFoldsFive · Jan 9, 2009

PlastikBuddha said:
The possibility that there might be a reason for all of this and a willingness to see if I could dare to believe that there was.

How do you balance that with the possibility that there might not be a reason for all of this?

noguru · Jan 9, 2009

Wessex Man said:
Do you remember me? I used to go by the name Nugnostic.

Hello sir, how have you been?

"Welcome back my friend to the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!
There behind a glass is a real blade of grass
be careful as you pass.
Move along! Move along!

Come inside, the show's about to start
guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you'll get your money's worth
The greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth.
You've got to see the show, it's a dynamo.
You've got to see the show, it's rock and roll ...."

Wessex Man said:
Strange to see your a Christian now and I'm a libertarian-conservative and borderline Catholic or Anglican.

Welcome aboard.

Wessex Man said:
My how the mighty have fallen.

But like the pheonix they will rise again from their own ashes.

PlastikBuddha · Jan 9, 2009

JustinFoldsFive said:
How do you balance that with the possibility that there might not be a reason for all of this?

I acknowledge that possibility, I just don't find it a fulfilling philosophy to live by. If it turns out I am wrong, that the substance of things hoped for turns out to be empty, than I've lost nothing and gained perspective and stability.

PaulMcNabb · Jan 9, 2009

Granite said:
I like my signature. Not sure how "famous" it is, but it certainly works.
So far as I can remember, there's not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

--Bertrand Russell

Well, some of us have praise of intelligence in our scriptures...

"The glory of God is intelligence."
D&C 93:6

"Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come."

D&C 130:18-19

JustinFoldsFive · Jan 9, 2009

PlastikBuddha said:
I acknowledge that possibility, I just don't find it a fulfilling philosophy to live by.

It's not a philosophy, but an acceptance of our uncertainty regarding the cosmos. The philosophy is what develops out of the understanding of our lack of understanding.

PlastikBuddha said:
If it turns out I am wrong, that the substance of things hoped for turns out to be empty, than I've lost nothing and gained perspective and stability.

If you need religion to develop perspective and stability, then you may not be cut out for atheism. At its very core, atheism is a very cold and sterile position; not because it proclaims that humans are free to act as animals or that any atrocity is justifiable, but because it makes absolutely no proclamations about anything at all [yes, strong atheism posits the non-existence of supernatural deities, but I don't prescribe to that viewpoint so I really can't address it]. Many people, however, cannot deal with this void. They yearn for warmth and understanding. They want to be loved, and cared for, and watched over, and saved. And despite the fact that whatever set of beliefs or ancient religious texts that gets them to this point can, in no demonstrable way, be proven to be superior to any other competing (or yet unknown) set of beliefs, they maintain their faith in their religion of choice because not only does it fulfill their needs for this life, but, as an added bonus, it even promises an infinitely pleasant afterlife. BAM! Does it get any better than that?

Well, yes. The problem with religious faith is that in the process of obtaining this warmth and understanding, we delude ourselves into believing we know things that we really do not. We end up sacrificing this life for a collection of faith-based propositions that, for all we know, may be no more accurate than those of the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, or Native Americans. We love to think that our faith-based propositions are more accurate than these ancient "superstitions", and we even invent silly wagers to support our belief [while seemingly overlooking the fact that it is very possible that we have chosen the wrong belief and will, as a result, burn in Hell for an eternity at the hands of another God], but we just can't seem to get over the immediate comfort and "understanding" that comes from faith in ______.

Ultimately, I support intellectual honesty. I am willing to admit that which I do not know, and I do not find any reason (other than temporary warmth, comfort, and faux-understanding) to pretend otherwise. I would rather accept my ignorance and forge a path toward understanding than presume understanding and forge a path toward an orthodoxy of this presumed truth.

Vaquero45 · Jan 9, 2009

edited

-nevermind-

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