Militant atheism

[Hot Pepsi]

The COE isn’t really “a religion.” It’s a national church. Episcopalianism, the COE descendant in the US, is a ”denomination.”

[Nocturnal Submission]

CofE is our preferred abbreviation.

Cheers.

[Patrick Thistle]

Of the criticisms you could make of Hitchens and Dawkins, saying the religion they left behind wasn't extreme enough to really rebel against is a new take ime.

Reminds me a lot of Dara O'Briain's gags about being an atheist but still catholic.

[G-Man]

Of the criticisms you could make of Hitchens and Dawkins, saying the religion they left behind wasn't extreme enough to really rebel against is a new take ime.

It's an interesting thought, though. Can you imagine either of these two, or their wind-up monkey Bill Maher, being theists? They'd be equally insufferable polemicists (as Peter Hitchens is fir the CofE side).

[Patrick Thistle]

I think you might be right there. Ultimately I think religion is just a conduit/amplifier for people's nature. I don't think it changes them much.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The COE isn’t really “a religion.” It’s a national church. Episcopalianism, the COE descendant in the US, is a ”denomination.”

It's barely a church. There's a phrase in irish that my father was quite fond of, and I can't remember who originally said it, but it essentially translates as "It's a belief whose foundation stones are the broken testicles of Henry VIII" It's more a "Loyalty to the crown" test than anything else really. I mean, one road crash before 1982 and its current head would be prince Andrew. It has been helmed in the past by characters as diverse as George IV, Edward VII (Both of whom were intimately connected with Cahir, Lord Cahir was a close personal friend of George, and Bertie left a kid there) but also Edward VIII.

Also you can tell it's not a real religion, because it can be headed by a woman! I mean Talk about missing the whole point! Nah, in order to qualify as a proper church round here you have to be something that Celts take far too seriously. Presbyterianism Now there's a religion with hair on its chest. Real joy destroying madness filled with ordinances banning all fun. My Grandfather had left methodism long before he fell into the Ne temere trap. My Dad left Catholicism before vatican II.

Nah Dawkins and hitchens are a pair of jokes. Who seemingly missed much of the point about atheism. but it's not really about religion really is it? It's just the inevitable playing out of a certain personality type, where every move is tragically predictable long in advance, and self awareness is in tragically short supply. If it wasn't religion, it would just be something else with them.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

It's an interesting thought, though. Can you imagine either of these two, or their wind-up monkey Bill Maher, being theists? They'd be equally insufferable polemicists (as Peter Hitchens is fir the CofE side).

They're anti theists. It's basically the same thing. It's the oppositional thing to be. Also Bill maher seems to have made hallucinatory levels of smug self regard his god.

[Patrick Thistle]

There would be a technical point about "anti-religionist" being more accurate than "anti-theist" given the crit in Satchmo's post that resurrected (hoho) this thread

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

They call themselves anti theists though. To distinguish themselves from common or garden atheists

[Patrick Thistle]

Yes I know what they call themselves.

I've seen the term "apatheists" as well. They don't care whether there is a god.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

They really care though. They really care that someone, somewhere might believe in god

[E10 Rifle]

Yeah you suspect that the phrase "each to their own" is one that has never, ever passed Dawkins's lips

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The other thing is having been born an atheist in a very conservative part of a very religious country, and lived through a religious mass extinction event, when people give up on religion, a lot of them just find something else to fill that slot. Not all of it is good. Some people are just religious with a small r.

[Patrick Thistle]

Brexit ticked most of the boxes of a religion. Motivated more by emotion than anything else which is why true believers couldn't be reasoned with.

Q-Anon is getting close to qualifying too.

[Hot Pepsi]

The other thing is having been born an atheist in a very conservative part of a very religious country, and lived through a religious mass extinction event, when people give up on religion, a lot of them just find something else to fill that slot. Not all of it is good. Some people are just religious with a small r.

That is definitely true.

The worst are the people who imagine their religion is Reason, but somehow find that reason requires them to embrace all the normal assumptions and prejudices of late-capitalism.


The Church of England was not founded just because Henry VIII wanted a divorce. It’s because he wanted to take the wealth and power from the Church. He could have had 20
legitimate sons and loved his wife and that ancient power struggle, which also fueled the reformation more broadly, was going to come to a head in England eventually.

The Church had just become too greedy and powerful.

[Lang Spoon]

Dissolution of Monasteries and squirelling away the treasures and lands was something English monarchs and fhe church hierarchy had been doing before Henry or his even more grasping Dad (most often supressing evil French linked abbeys), he just used the break with Rome to do it utterly flagrantly and at scale.

[Hot Pepsi]

Brexit ticked most of the boxes of a religion. Motivated more by emotion than anything else which is why true believers couldn't be reasoned with.

.

There is not complete agreement on what makes a religion a religion, but I don’t think anyone who studies it would say that is a good definition.

Ultranationalism, on the other hand, definitely checks all the boxes of just about any checklist for a religion you might want to make - ideas, practices, community identity, etc.



A lot of people supported Brexit, not out of raw emotion, but just a misunderstanding of its consequences, possibly fueled by misinformation. That’s not a religion. That’s just being wrong.*

And there’s nothing unreasonable about emotion. Without emotion, life would be empty and pointless. It may be anyway, but a lack of emotion does not make us reasonable, or vice-versa. We just have to be clear about our own priorities.

And believing something wrong in the face of evidence is not a religion either. That’s just a prejudice. They are related, but not the same. It every prejudice is a religion, the latter word would lose meaning.

Functionally, religion doesn’t necessarily require anyone to stick to a particular belief or beliefs, irrational or rational, except the belief that it’s worthwhile to continue to show up and participate in that community and practice the way it practices. That can actually require a lot, but it allows a lot more diversity than one might imagine coexists within a given religious community.


* It is hard to falsify, isn’t it? Has Brexit been bad because the European Union is inherently a superior structure, or has Brexit been bad because it would be impossible to find a worse group of people to lead such a complicated transformation? Both, probably, but it’s hard to pin down the counterfactual.

[Hot Pepsi]

Dissolution of Monasteries and squirelling away the treasures and lands was something English monarchs and fhe church hierarchy had been doing before Henry or his even more grasping Dad (most often supressing evil French linked abbeys), he just used the break with Rome to do it utterly flagrantly and at scale.

Right, but that was probably going to happen sooner or later anyway. There was just too much power and wealth at stake for the Pope and the monarchy to peacefully get along.

Of course, they did in other European countries. For a time, at least. But it eventually turned ugly in France, Spain, Italy, etc.

[Patrick Thistle]

Yeah you suspect that the phrase "each to their own" is one that has never, ever passed Dawkins's lips

A lot of this depends on how people practice their religion. I guess if someone is prosytelising then they aren't following "each to their own". A general perception of religions* is that they don't hold back on telling people what they should do, regardless of whether they are in the religion or not.

I don't know if I really believe "each to their own" when it starts to impact on others, whether that's politics, covid denialists or people who think tragedy chanting is funny.


*I'll pre-empt HP and say I know this isn't how serious students of religion would characterise it

[Patrick Thistle]

There is not complete agreement on what makes a religion a religion, but I don’t think anyone who studies it would say that is a good definition.

Ticks a lot of tbe boxes. Not a comprehensive definition.

A lot of people supported Brexit, not out of raw emotion, but just a misunderstanding of its consequences, possibly fueled by misinformation. That’s not a religion. That’s just being wrong.*

I think your assessment is wrong here. The pro-Brexit arguments were almost all designed to appeal to emotion and stir up anger. There were a lot of angry gammons.

The pro-EU side tried to reason with people, not realising that "you can't reason someone out of a position they werent reasoned into".

And there’s nothing unreasonable about emotion. Without emotion, life would be empty and pointless. It may be anyway, but a lack of emotion does not make us reasonable, or vice-versa. We just have to be clear about our own priorities.

Emotion is a very poor basis for big political decisions though. And can have a very negative impact on any decision. There's a reason why it's a bad idea to compose an email while snarling.

And believing something wrong in the face of evidence is not a religion either.

Almost literally St Paul's definition of "faith".

Functionally, religion doesn’t necessarily require anyone to stick to a particular belief or beliefs, irrational or rational, except the belief that it’s worthwhile to continue to show up and participate in that community and practice the way it practices. That can actually require a lot, but it allows a lot more diversity than one might imagine coexists within a given religious community.

Are you sure? Many religions have creeds. Islam has its first pillar. Calvinism specifically says you have to persevere to the end. And then you get hermits who withdraw from the world in lots of religions.

* It is hard to falsify, isn’t it? Has Brexit been bad because the European Union is inherently a superior structure, or has Brexit been bad because it would be impossible to find a worse group of people to lead such a complicated transformation? Both, probably, but it’s hard to pin down the counterfactual.

There's no one reason. It's a clusterfuck. But I'm not sure what your point is here.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

As regards brexit, I think it's better to say that being pro or anti Is like a religion for some people rather than trying to say its like that for everyone. People who are religious (with a small r) can make a religion out of literally anything. Favourite band, favourite team etc

I was always under the impression that Henry expected the pope to just bang out a run of the mill annulment and everyone could move on. Unfortunately he was trying to get him to say that his marriage to Catherine trastamara was a nonsense in the sight of God, while her nephew was essentially holding the pope hostage. So timing was against him. If he'd got his annulment, he'd have stated with Rome until he went looking for a second annulment, which would have happened sooner rather than later

[Lang Spoon]

The sack of Rome by angry nephew Charles V (and Henry not being aware of it till his negotatiators were out there) is key, i think.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Catholicism, you just can't beat it for drama and melodeama

[Lang Spoon]

I dunno, Byzantine iconoclasm and violent swing contra is a helluva thing the reformation looks like a poor echo of.

[Hot Pepsi]

Ticks a lot of tbe boxes. Not a comprehensive definition.




I think your assessment is wrong here. The pro-Brexit arguments were almost all designed to appeal to emotion and stir up anger. There were a lot of angry gammons.

The pro-EU side tried to reason with people, not realising that "you can't reason someone out of a position they werent reasoned into".

I guess it depends on what we mean by “a lot.” I talked to a few people who thought the UK will be better off in a few years. There is/was a lot of dissatisfaction with the EU because there will always be dissatisfaction with a government. It’s not irrational to hope there could be a better way, even if it may be impractical. Irrational isn’t the same as impractical.

And maybe there could be a better version. Not with the Tories/austerity fanatics in charge, of course.

Emotion is a very poor basis for big political decisions though. And can have a very negative impact on any decision. There's a reason why it's a bad idea to compose an email while snarling.

Yes, in that context. Emotion can cloud our judgement. But without emotion, life would have no meaning. So we have to factor emotion into our decisions.

Almost literally St Paul's definition of "faith"

Are you sure? Many religions have creeds. Islam has its first pillar. Calvinism specifically says you have to persevere to the end. And then you get hermits who withdraw from the world in lots of religions.

I don’t think it’s that simple. Even if it were, Christian ideas about faith cannot be extrapolated to other traditions.

Lots of reform Jews, for example, don’t really “believe” in anything in that sense. But they keep showing up. It’s about the community and the tradition and, to some extent, the law. It’s not really about God for them.

Quakers, Unitarians, and a few others aren’t in agreement so much about theology but about how they will run their operation and treat each other. My church is like that too although we still go through the motions on the creeds. People who don’t agree on lots of things will sit next to each other in the pew every Sunday for 50 years.

I don’t recall the original question.

There's no one reason. It's a clusterfuck. But I'm not sure what your point is here.

Is Brexit fundamentally a clusterfuck or is it just the terrible execution of it coupled with austerity and an aggressively racist immigration policy that makes it a clusterfuck? It’s an academic question now, I guess.

And, I would argue, the people who imagined they were voting for Brexit for sound, non-gammony, reasons were still being irresponsible. Because no matter how bad you think the EU bureaucracy is, it’s better than these dipshits, Brexit gave more power to the dipshits, and that was all entirely forseeable even if one chose not to see it.