I stumbled across this:
http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Ron_Paul
For presenting itself as a Wiki and standing for freethought (as in, being reasonable), the article comes across like a Democrat talking-points bulletin. This got me to thinking about "freethought" generally and if you go to their homepage, right on the front, it claims that 'in a world without religion [the WTC] would still be standing' which is not only not a reasonable thing to say, it's downright ridiculous.
The suggestion is that religion is responsible for wars and killing because some religions believe and teach untrue things about the physical world as an integral component of their theology. To begin with, this is a wholly West-centric view of religion. Many religions are very self-conscious about the fact that their tales of the gods and the origins of the physical universal are decidedly mythical. Many Hindus, Buddhists, Eastern Orthodox and certain sects of Islam are "enlightened" in their handling of their origins-myths and other myths.
Also, even among those who take religious myths seriously, there is among non-Western (non-Roman Catholic/Protestant fundies) religions a greater emphasis on praxis (ritual) over doxis (beliefs). They are less concerned with the contents of your mind than with your actions and participation in religious ceremony. And even in the West, over the last century, there has been an exodus out of Roman Catholic and Protestant fundamentalism to more tolerant, enlightened views.
Taking a wider view of religion quickly shows that these "freethinkers" are not really rebelling against religion per se but against a fairly narrow subset of religions, in particular, Roman Catholic and Protestant (and, to a smaller extent than Americans generally believe, Islamic) fundamentalists. But what is the root issue? The root issue is that these fundamentalists teach children false things about the physical world and human history, that these false things serve as a crutch to the making of war and the rationalization of killing in war.
But hold on, here, aren't the "freethinkers" granting carte blanche to the organization which is cynically making use of the brainwashed children of religion to actually prosecute the wars?? The worst offense of religious fundamentalists is that they are lying or, to make it as severe as possible, that they are lying to a captive audience (their children). But however bad that is, surely the act of killing and making war is worse! And if lying to children is evil because it enables war, then isn't the act of engaging in war itself the root evil from which lying to children derives its status, by association?
I take a pretty cynical view of things, overall. I believe that the "leaders" of the "freethinking" movement have a hidden agenda: to shift the blame for murder and killing in wars by the State onto "religion" which isn't anybody in particular, it's everybody... it's "the religious people" who, of course, can never be held individually liable for their incremental contributions to the wars in the world. But we definitely can't hold George Bush or George Tenet or Paul Wolfowitz or Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney or Barack Obama or Robert Gates or David Petraeus (on and on and on) liable for war-mongering and murder. No, they had no control over the situation, the religious fanaticism of the "Muslims" who crashed into the WTC started all this, the Islamic fundamentalism (lol!) of Saddam Hussein contributed to his insane amassing of weapons of mass destruction and, if America could have taken a more diplomatic approach, the inability of these leaders to hold back the dogs of war is down to the religious fanaticism of Americans themselves! The leadership is never to blame and those standing behind the leadership, funding the wars so they can profit off them don't even exist, they are a figment of the fevered imagination of borderline paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theorists such as myself.
Freethinkers. Sheesh.
Clayton -
I've found that most people who are vehemently anti-religion are actually devout followers of Statolatry. They are deeply religious, but they don't realise it.
There are plenty of statheists who have a gripe with religion in and of itself, but it is mostly political. Israel/Palestine is political. The "War on Terror" is political. Evolution in schools is political. Abortion is political. So if they say they don't have a political agenda, they're kidding you.
What these statheists do is they think creationists are idiots. Most creationists are Republicans. Most Republicans kinda support free markets and are anti-"science". Therefore, free markets are dumb because many dumb people support it. Liberals are more "sciency" and are the rational ones. Of course, these are the same people that, upon stumbling upon Mises or somebody because some leftist blogger on Slate or Salon makes an ill-informed critique of him, think that supporting a theory of a priori rationalism makes one "dogmatic."
Sounds almost exactly like "Rational"Wiki's take. Couldn't agree with you more on the hypocrisy of the "freethinkers" (anyone else get an Orwell vibe from the combinatory nature of that word and it's usage opposite to what it implies, rigid adherence to a dogmatic movement), and a lot of them just seem like whiny Boomers/Gen Xers wanting to get back at their religious daddies.
It's actually pretty damn funny, because when you look into it, their whole leftist belief system basically originates from Millennial Protestantism, Pietism and the Social Gospel, in spite of the fact they aren't so much atheists as people with some kind of grudge against Judeo-Christianity. Their whole holy war with the "creationists" is also highly amusing to watch, not only because both sides are so full of themselves but because, generally, neither side actually believes in evolution when it contradicts egalitarian dogma.
Frankly, things like legal positivism and social-contractism seem far more ludicrous to me than any story about storm gods turning into bulls and fostering mutant bastard children or the Sun being dragged around by a man in a giant chariot. I'll take a 10% tithe any day over a government that consumes 65% of GDP.
"Most creationists are Republicans"
Can you substantiate that assertion? Abortion isn't political, it's moral.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx
92% of Republicans polled are creationists, 52% of that group are Young Earth Creationists. 80% of Democrats polled are creationists but only 34% of that group consider themselves YEC. The YEC group is the kind that statheists tend to focus on (creation museums, Kent Hovind, Answers in Genesis, etc.).
So if something is moral it can't be political? They want it legalized, Christians, for the most part, don't want it legalized and the stathiests view fundamentalist Christianity as the biggest stumbling block. The Republican party is what they see as the main political movement restricting a women's right to choose.
That doesn't really prove your assertion. What about other types of people who aren't Republican or Democratic? What are the sample sizes? Etc. etc. Anyways it doesn't matter that much really I just thought it was a dumb point. For people against abortion, it's not political.
I just think relying on anecdotal evidence should be good enough. Do evangelical groups typically pine for more regulation because of the evils of freedom and more welfare because the poor can't make it on a free market? No. Even if Democrats identify as creationists, they are typically much less militant about it and, as that Gallup poll indicates, the amount of YEC seems to be much lower compared to Republicans.
Anyway, people being against abortion is absolutely political and it is moral. It can be both. They don't simply say abortion is immoral, they say it should be illegal. The way you put it, you make it sound like the two are completely different. People are opposed to differing political ideologies because that is subsumed under an umbrella of a moral outlook.
Eric080: I just think relying on anecdotal evidence should be good enough. Do evangelical groups typically pine for more regulation because of the evils of freedom and more welfare because the poor can't make it on a free market? No.
I just think relying on anecdotal evidence should be good enough. Do evangelical groups typically pine for more regulation because of the evils of freedom and more welfare because the poor can't make it on a free market? No.
http://www.sojo.net/
Most "free thinkers", AKA young, cocky, arrogant atheists, don't have a clue what they are talking about. Read a few books from some mainstream atheists and they think they can dismantle all religion because they refuted some myths in the Bible. I've come across some of these types, and a lot of them didn't have much criticism of the State. I wouldn't find it uncommon that a lot of these atheists who think in a "scientific" way think central planning can solve the world's problems.
I've discussed this with other people, and it seems that the focus of people like this is on the Abrahamic religions, they don't step outside of that, and can't if they want to seem like they are right. They are good at deconstructing their own construct of what a god is, and claiming they are right. That religion is useless (but couldn't explain thousands of years of civilization and history), and take the Bible literally to debunk it. I think that amazingatheist guy on YouTube falls into this category.
For example, on a monotheistic level, it comes down to what came first, a god or the cosmos? They debunk that a god couldn't have done it, and somehow the rest of the argument is irrelevant. Though, in Norse myth, the gods were created from the cosmos. If both parties are in agreement that it was something else, but not a god, what does the atheist have to rely on? (I can speak for myself and some others that anyone involved in Heathenry accepts the myths as myths. They have a role in preserving and explaining a set of beliefs, views, attitudes, and behaviors with a representation of gods. I don't it literally that Odin and his two brothers fashioned the world out of Ymir's skull and body, but I can't refute their being a subconscious archetype or a real spiritual being/god that we give that name to.)
I just know those types of being annoying and arrogant, and are quick to parade themselves as "free thinkers" when they're done reading the suggested and required reading by their atheist peers.