godelian wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 6:48 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 6:20 am
What is your understanding why other people don't believe it?
Widespread atheism originally grew out of opposition to the Catholic Church culminating into the French Revolution. The Catholic Church was the guarantor for the privileges of the French nobility. Getting rid of a class-based society required destroying the power of the Catholic Church. Destroying buildings and staff, i.e. clergy, was not particularly effective in destroying the power of the Catholic Church. It had to be achieved by discrediting their teachings.
Even though I agree with the French revolutionaries that the Catholic Church was an impediment to removing the legal privileges of the nobility, I also like to point out that no other mainstream religion besides Christianity has a centralized Church. Furthermore, no other religion ended up as a main tool to maintain the legal privileges of a nobility. This is a Christianity problem and not a general religion problem.
Religion as "opium for the masses" does not exist outside Christianity.
Your above view is too narrow and bias.
Non-theism was there long long ago
[Psalm 14:1] The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Note this was during 500BCE, i.e. >2500 years ago
Do Buddhist believe in god?
No, we do not. There are several reasons for this. The Buddha, like modern sociologists and psychologists, believed that religious ideas and especially the god idea have their origin in fear. The Buddha says:
"Gripped by fear men go to the sacred mountains,
sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines". Dp 188
https://www.buddhanet.net/ans73.htm
I believe there were already non-theists [atheist] long before 500BCE i.e. >2500 years ago.
see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#History
The term 'atheist' was a derogatory term coined sometime during the 1600s psychologically as defense mechanism against the threat from those who do not believe in God.
Religion [theistic or non-theistic] as "opium for the masses" is realistic and still effective at the present as a relief to the terrible mental pains and angsts due to the inherent [DNA-ed] cognitive dissonances arising from an existential crisis.
Your understanding of why other people do not believe in God is wrong.
A belief in God [theism] is a psychological issue as described above, and non-theism [atheism] is an indifference to theism due to various reasons, i.e. based on a rational, intuitive belief there is no God or just couldn't care less about theism.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 6:20 am
While theism provide instant relief to the cognitive dissonance of the individual, it has the disadvantage by the holy texts and believers of Islam in exterminating the human species where nuclear deterrent has no impact; it is a lose-win situation for the Muslims because they are assured of a place in heaven regardless of what happened to all humans on Earth.
The fact that I do not care about things like nuclear war, is not something that can be generalized to all Muslims. I am quite confident that some Muslims do care.
OK, I agree most Muslims [as normal humans] do care but in this case, they are not 99% true believer because they are ignorant of their obligation as a true believer.
My point is, their religion itself [as per the holy texts] do not care and encourage all believers not to care.
All true believers must comply with all the doctrines in their constitutional holy text.
Note even if only 10% of believers are 99% true-believer, that is >150 million
of them.
For this >150 million, given the option, since they are not deterred by MAD, they will definitely press the red button.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 6:20 am
The problem is it will take time for majority of theists to graduate to non-theism but there are already progress since 100 years ago as indicated by the increasing % of non-theists at present.
Atheism is widespread in the West but not outside. Non-Christians do not see their religion as a tool of oppression by a centralized Church, if only, because their religion does not have such centralized Church.
You got it wrong. At one time non-theistic Buddhism was widespread throughout Asia and it is still is around the world at present.
Note my explanation on the origin of atheism above.
also see:
History of Atheism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#History
Furthermore, if you eliminate the moral theory of religion, there will still be a moral theory. In that case, it will be the ruling mafia that will invent one. You can clearly see that in the West. The ruling mafia in the West complains about the fact that Muslims put Islam above the laws that the ruling mafia invents. However, this is exactly what religion is supposed to do. Religion has an important role in protecting against oppression by the ruling mafia.
I pride myself on using the laws of Islam against the ruling mafia, because that is exactly what the laws of Islam are here for. That is also why I find the complaints of the ruling mafia to be utmost laughable. The ruling mafia really believe that all that they have to do, is to invent new rules and that we will simply jump higher.
We are two billion believers. If you look at the small number of rather unmotivated soldiers in their mafia armies, you can see that the ruling mafia's survival depends on us believing that they have the right to invent and enforce new laws. We do not believe that. We will never grant them that right. Instead, we are making use of each conflict and each other opportunity to develop the detailed knowledge on how to neutralize their armies. The ruling mafia cannot invent new laws because Allah has invented all the laws already. If Allah does not even exist, then so much the better.
All humans 'DNA wise' has an inherent moral functions represented by a physical neural algorithm in their brain and body which is in varying state of maturity.
I define morality as the management of evil to facilitate its related good.
Because humanity is in its very early stages of moral evolution, morality was hijacked by religion which is net positive and optimal based on existing psychological constraints.
In terms of rating of religion in terms of its moral competence, I would rate as the mainstream as follow;
1. Buddhism
2. Christianity
3. Others
4. Islam [evil laden] based on its doctrine is the worst.
Your God laid down the most evil commands for believer to commit.
Your religion sanction killing of non-believers upon the slightest threats [fasadin]. This is so evident, e.g. killing of non-believers even the drawings of cartoon as commanded by God in the main holy texts.
As I had stated, all the above boils down the [necessary & currently] messed-up psychology of the individual[s].
Your counters to the above.