@lack New thread. This one isn’t a question of why you are an atheist - different question. Why has atheism never (really) been a thing until recent history? Surely there were philosophical and scientific geniuses in prehistoric civilization and in the ancient world - they discovered fire, invented writing, invented the wheel, discovered how to cultivate plants and domesticated beasts of burden. They did this while performing excruciating manual labor, under constant privation (by modern …
@lack @lack standards). No other #intellectual achievements of the past 500 years come anywhere near close. That’s why #Newton, who invented #calculus and founded classical #physics, said that he “could see far by standing on the shoulders of giants”. #science #debate #inspirational #quote #quotes
@lack Atheism didn’t really become a thing at the civilizational and cultural level until the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution and the Cult of Reason. Even then, the Cult of Reason went out of fashion quickly, and they brought in a Cult of the Supreme Being (basically, Enlightenment Deism, Watchmaker creationism without any messiah or prophets) as I understand it.
@lack Atheism sort of took off with the various #communist revolutions in Eastern Europe (Latin American #leftists usually were more partial towards liberation theology of the “#Jesus was a #socialist” sort) and there was suppression of superstition in #China but even now, the #Chinese attitudes can’t really be called atheistic. They tend to believe in reincarnation and karma, and view #Buddhism favorably.
@lack what I’m saying is that widespread atheism tends to be politically motivated, during periods of social unrest and the #revolutionary moment, but it tends to die down quickly after the war fever.
@b_chocolatey @lack
Seems like the whole push for atheism has been nothing more than a social engineering psyop to install the new faith if sciencism and consumerism
At the top of the power structure there are few (possibly no) atheists. They may "worship" the light of knowledge (apex of modern science technology etc), deities, or one god. But they "worship" something.
But if someone doesn't bow at some alter or another, the gubmint will gladly fill that "higher power" gap
@MtnStateNomad @lack that may be true to an extant, but the Current Thing seems to have moved on from atheism to what can better be called the #woke #religion. There is only so much mischief you can do with atheist NPCs. “Hate whitey, loot Walmart, stop using normal words, cut your dick off” doesn’t quite fly with engineering grads, for the most part. Atheist true-believers from the upper class actually like math, logical debate, freedom of speech, and object permanence
@MtnStateNomad @lack the woke religion likes to mobilize sympathetic churches leaders and religious organizations towards their preferred in-group whenever possible. They gain nothing by making a principled, internally consistent, unpopular argument for no-god-because-dinosaurs. The Current Thing has already moved on
@b_chocolatey @MtnStateNomad could it be as simple as the fact that ideas, like technology, take time to develop?
Why wasn't the transistor invented in the 1400s? Because the things that had to be before it hadn't happened yet.
@lack @MtnStateNomad Materialism isn’t actually an extremely difficult concept to figure out! There was an obscure Greek philosopher back in the day who said that the gods were imaginary and that the wind and rain are random events. Why didn’t it catch on? Why did the Greek pantheon have such staying power - and evolve into the Roman pantheon, until the time of Theodosius?
@b_chocolatey @MtnStateNomad Does the fact that an idea is popular or unpopular impact whether it's actually true?
@lack @MtnStateNomad not really… but if an idea is obviously true and the opposite is obviously false to any reasonable adult, surely it would have caught on, somewhere, in the historical record.
@lack @MtnStateNomad and aside from that other obscure Greek, Socrates was accused (perhaps wrongfully) of conspiracy against the Athenian state; because he had secretly taught his younger students that the sun is just a ball of fire and not a god (he denied this at trial)
@lack @MtnStateNomad and the Athenian belief of “the sun is a god, the sun shines on us because it loves us” differs from monotheism only because monotheism teaches that the sun-god is also the moon-god and the maker of the entire universe. The Sermon on the Mount: the sun shines on us because God loves us! All of us!
@lack @MtnStateNomad so godless materialism is something that the Athenian prosecutor denounced, also something that the Buddha denounced as the opposite of Right View. “And what, monks, is Right View? Right View is that one hold that there is Father and Mother, monks and saints, holy-days and offerings, good and bad action, good and bad karma in this life and the next…”
@b_chocolatey @MtnStateNomad Anyone can say that an idea is the Right View. But how do we find out if it actually is?
@lack @MtnStateNomad the Buddha himself addressed this very question in numerous sutras. “And if a man holds to Wrong View, will he abstain from alcoholic and intoxicating drink, from the shedding of blood, from gambling, from unlawful intercourse with other men’s wives, from telling lies?”
@lack @MtnStateNomad like dude, you didn’t even read the brochure! He already addressed this obvious question. Do you have a counter-argument?
@b_chocolatey @MtnStateNomad What do you mean? A counter-argument to what exactly?
@lack @MtnStateNomad my observation here “you didn’t even read the brochure” is the exact, diametrically opposed position from Newton’s standing on the shoulders of giants. It is actually the sort of thing that #Nietzsche had in mind prophesying of the Last Man. “We have invented happiness, they say, and they blink”
@lack @MtnStateNomad “and whoever disagrees goes voluntarily to the madhouse. In the former days, all the world was mad, they say… and they blink”
@lack @MtnStateNomad “when one holds to Wrong View, monks, at the breakup of the body, he enters into a bad destination, a lower world, in hell…”
@b_chocolatey @lack
Current thing - woke - consumerism are practically the same low tier.
Obsessed with material items. Look at pop culture. It's practically idolatry.
Parallel to evangelical zealots trying to save you. Knowing something other don't. Cult mentality.
The fact that the two often conflict (consume vs yet save the planet) doesn't matter, since its low brow. The lack of religious/moral beliefs leaves an empty chalise that's easily filled with supplements
@b_chocolatey @lack higher up the intellectual ladder, you have the "worship" of science and tech, in the broad sense. Whether it's today's modern incarnations or more ancient versions of phylosophy and old sciences. Same vein.
But when you get down to it, it equates low grade luciferianism .. light being knowledge, Lucifer being the light bearer, presenter if apples from the tree of knowledge.
Science and tech is an extension of knowledge or light.
Due to materialism
Yet due to materialism, the mid tier ppl don't understand this, and focus squarely on the material aspect the knowledge has garnered. It's not so much the "worship" of having knowledge, but the product that it has produced.
A little higher up, more intellectual types focus more on the underlying mechanisms, such as the literal science, mathematics.
Yet it's only the higher tier that understand why they hold these things in high esteem.
@MtnStateNomad @lack knowledge puffeth up… charity edifieth
At the highest tiers, they have a full grasp of the lower tiers being the product of "the light" given by Lucifer. That's why the highest degrees tend to worship the light bearer.
The lowers are just the useful idiots who are unwittingly helping the top tier by being atheist, which is inherently counter to the religions worshipping God. Just like how low level masons are taught that the lodge is just a charity to benefit the profane.
Dupes get duped
Hard conversation to have in small microblog bytes. But there's nothing new under the sun/son. Just modern 'skinning' of the same old things that have been around forever. Times change, the 'faces' and terms change to match. Been the case since antiquity
@b_chocolatey those are some big claims that i'm not sure i believe.
but even assuming every person believed in the same super natural being (which they don't), it feels to me like the likelier explanation is that early man was scientifically unsophisticated and tried to explain the world around him in terms he was familiar with. also its generally not a good idea to go against the tribe when you depend on them for survival, especially if "god" has decided the punishment for apostasy is death.
@wagesj45 1. The very point I was trying to make earlier was that the sharpest #scientific minds of the current age are absolutely pitiful compared to their 25000 BCE equivalent. Surely somebody would have “discovered” #atheism relatively early on, but belief in the paranormal and supernatural has been the norm among the #literate classes since the invention of #writing.
@wagesj45 2. the punishment for apostasy was also death in seventeenth-century #France, and twentieth century #China. Why was there never an #atheistic tribe before that time? Surely they, too, would have punished apostasy with death.
@wagesj45 Come to think of it, the very first #Christian was also punished, by death, for apostasy. That didn’t prevent #Christianity from emerging as the prevailing culture
@wagesj45 And, the fact that they didn’t believe in the same supernatural being suggests that atheism/materialism seemed equally implausible to non-overlapping civilizations separated by geography, culture and language
@b_chocolatey @lack "Atheism as it is common nowadays is a relatively recent phenomenon in the Euro-American world, so much that one risks to postulate that it is a result of the Enlightenment, of Positivism, of the success of Science etc. A glance at South Asia shows that this is not the only way atheism can find its place in the history of philosophy...Atheism might have been the rule...in South Asian philosophy until the end of the first millennium." http://indianphilosophyblog.org/2018/06/23/alternative-theisms-and-atheisms-part-1/
@lack standards). No other intellectual achievements of the past 500 years come anywhere near close. That’s why Newton, who invented calculus and founded classical physics, said that he “could see far by standing on the shoulders of giants”.