The Gaming Den

So. I am an atheist. An evangelical atheist, one might say. I am nto only convinced of the nonexistence of god and the supernatural, but convinced that all or most people will be better off if they, too, accept the nonexistence of God. I am also keenly aware of the massive destruction and nitwittery that religious organizations have unleashed upon our society. But, I have to admit, religion isn't and hasn't been entirely bad. Or maybe I should say that *churches* haven't been entirely bad. They've historically been very good at doing the following things:

1: Social Activism. Yes, religious people are not particularly more moral than nonreligious ones. And obviously, they don't always agitate for the right movements. New England Churches had their Prohibitionists as well as their abolitionists. And believe, I'm aware of the work done by secular humanitarians. Even so, if you want to get a charity or social campaign off the ground quickly, a church is a good place to start.

2: Community. Church membership comes with membership in various social units or varying sizes. On a large scale being in a church makes you part of a tribe which has traditionally been a very bad thing for society at large. But being part of a parish is actually really a good thing. Baptisms, Marriages, and funerals really do serve a vital function of presenting new members of a community, to a community, drawing families together in times of need, etc. Modenr society needs a lot more of that.

3: Support. This blends into the other two, but churches provide a place to send kids where they are (hopefully) out of trouble, supplemental education that would ideally patch holes in our public education, etc.

So I'm basically pro-church, anti-religion. There are at this point two suggestions you're likely to give me:

Preamble

1: That stuff can and should be handled by appropriate secular institutions, not by church. Fix the school system and give necessary religious history instruction there; add public daycare services; build community centers, and start an ethical society. Donate to non-church-affiliated charities.

To which I answer -- that's all well and good for some, but... well, I'm lazy enough to hope there could be a kind of one-stop shopping center for all the good thins that I need. But more importantly, despite being a committed atheist, I actually love religion. I love myths and legends and tall buildings and intimidating decor and fiery sermons. Especially I love giving sermons. I actually really want to grow up to be a minister. That would be kick-ass.

Likely counter-argument two: There is already a church that welcomes atheists, where you could even become a minister, and that is the Unitarian-Universalist Church. And believe, I've considered it. There are two major problems with this plan:

1: While the UU church welcomes atheists, it also welcomes Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and everyone else. This means it has limited utility as an origin point for public service, since one of my envisioned public services would be the promotion of atheist ideas in the public sphere.

2: UUs don't have quite the aesthetic I'm going for. You would think, being able to draw on so many world traditions, their decor and liturgy would be incarnate awesome, but this is not the case. The desire to pander to all religious crowds leads to endless wrangling over the precise wording of their hymns. People can't even settle on "he" or "she" let alone do something like use a "name" for god. ANd pansy Pseudo-atheists address prayers to the "spirit of life/creation," whatever that means. Since my church will be entirely atheistic, if we want to have a prayer to Shiva, or Yahweh, we can just freaking have a prayer to Shiva, no introspection required.

Next Post Reserved for Proposal.

So Basically I propose that we found the Church of the Noble Fiction . At a basic level, we would:

Meet once per week, in a church-like building with suitably awesome decor. We can have whatever really, it's pretty arbitrary, but to get any brand traction we need some motifs and symbols. I like fire, so we'll start there, with fire-shaped pillars and other similarly fiery stuff. We'll say it represents "promethean flame."

Give Sermons, each containing a brief discussion of the reasoning behind atheism or the benefits of atheism, followed by a more generalized lesson on moral or scientific philosophy.

Offer Sunday-school lessons with two available curricula, one based on the Christian bible (someone's got to read it), one based on world religions and on historical facts the mainstream has suppressed.

Organize a variety of charitable efforts, with church-based tax benefit.

Other stuff?

So basically, nobody has ever been able to convince me that there's any reason not to be Utilitarian, so we're going with that as the basis of our ethics. The awesome thing about this is that utilitarianism has absolutely no hard-coded definition of the good, so you can emulate literally any other ethical system as a module you run on your utilitarianism. Seriously, you can be a utilitarian Kantian if you really want. Merry Christmas.

I'm well aware, of course, that pure utilitarianism doesn't work. It's the reason we have Rule Utilitarianism. But even Rule Utilitarianism has run into problems. The solution, I think, is twofold. First, we need rule-aware utilitarianism, that takes into account the effect of rules on society. Problems like the apparent ease with which utilitarianism justifies illegal activity, for instance, is usually correctable by attaching a value to "predictablity" or "public order" that outweighs the effect of an individual unjust action.

Second, we need a reflexive utilitarianism that evaluates the amount of effort it's worth spending evaluating the value of actions. For instance,I do not believe in an absolute right of free speech. There are things you can say that make the world worse, saying them is immoral, and it would probably in some cases improve the world to censor them. But identifying proper targets for censorship is so difficult and so contentious, and investing anyone with the power of censorship is so dangerous, that I choose to take the right of free speech as axiomatic rather than try to evaluate it case-by-case.

This still leaves us with the problem of what "the good" is, which I believe is a matter of faith. There simple is no evidence-based argument which can convince or not you that a given choice, like legalizing gay marriage, is good or not good, without appealing to other values that you have ultimately, taken on faith. Seriously. I say this as someone who values things like material comfort, encouragement of romantic love, equality in society, and other things which I think are pretty swell but can not make any rational argument for.

That doesn't mean it can't be discussed, just that those discussions are going to be nonrational. I also hesitate to appeal to the so-called "moral sense," which tends to be based on either societal prejudices or on inherited biological disgust.

I feel that the standard of value by which we measure an outcome has got to be emotion, but I don't think we can just define certain emotions as "good" and others as "bad" and add them up. That gives us absurdities like Brave New World as a highly ethical society. No, the optimal world is a world in which emotiosn are *appropriate*, which means that morality is essentially another word for "aesthetics."

So morality becomes the project of transforming the world to be "beautiful" according to our own personal artistic visions. this makes alot of sense to me, since my *personal* visions places huge emphasis on "the arts." I *have* to, to justify the amount of energy I spend writing fiction rather than, say, volunteering with hurricane survivors. I personally think that artistic expression is the purpose of life, and all else is a means to the end of producing good books/paintings/music/whatever.

But I don't intend to make that a requisite doctrine of m church. Indeed, I think everyone will and should have their own individual morality, which is good because people with different priorities can work on different problems. Someone who feel that averting sickness is the most important thing will go distribute medicine in Africa, which is good because then I don't have to. So basically, as long as anyone's morality is compatible with mine, and they pursue things I recognize as values, they'r e on my side.

So pretty much my epistemology mostly consists of running around ninja backstabbing people with linguistic analysis. I guess if I had to commit to a system I would say I was a Pragmatist (with a big "P").

So pretty much Descartes' deceiving demon can go right out the window. Anyone who takes that crap seriously can go read "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" over and over until they get or until they scream, "the wedges... the Ur-Viles... OH GOD" and claw their own eyes out.

Either way.

So "existence" gets defined really simply as "contributing explanatory power to a reasonable model of the world." Since no "god" has ever been detected, and no phenomenon is made easier to explain by introducing a god, no god exists.

Note that some people will assure me that evidence of god does exist, because they have defined god as something we do have evidnce of. The two big camps who do this are deists who define "god" as "the unvierse" and quasi-theists who define "god" and "good stuff." I would say that those people are correct that their gods do exist, but that they are in fact atheists, and that for political reasons they should adopt the atheist label and join the atheist front.

Note also that I am a big fan of fiction, and the suspension of disbelief. I think it can be appropriate at times to believe in things we know aren't real (tarot card,s guardian angels, what-have-you) when they serve a useful psychological purpose. Sometimes I *do* believe that God is the totality of the universe and that we are all part of the expression of the divine mind. I don't think this is incompatible with atheism, because it doesn't change any of the predictions that my model makes. Some days I call th universe the universe and toher days I call it "god."

The important is that everyone involved understand the difference between delusion and metaphor. I think exposure to large amounts of fiction, as well as participation in theater and good fiction analysis training, is really a good armor against harmful supersition.

So. Obviously we'll need a logo, and we'll need several other visual motifs.

choosing a symbol is really hard. Making up some totally bullshit symbol is too new-agey, and in any event, will have no traction. We need to provoke a strong response to get people to buy in. But basically every existing symbol with enough resonance is the symbol of some religion. While we could glom onto the symbol of some other religion, I feel that would come across as satanic. Satanists can be very nice people, but I don't want my church associated with them.

So It's a problem. One symbol I think we can get away with using is fire. Maybe not for the logo, but for a visual motif. Fire has been used a symbol by a fucktonne of religions, so at this point I think it's a pretty generic symbol. Also it is awesome. And a result of that, it's been used to represent pretty much every side fo every issue. Nobody can accuse me of getting it wrong.

In particular, I think we'll call our fire the "promethean flame," and say that it represents science, artifice, and technology, as well as creativity, art, and theomachy.

OH, please don't be a unitarian. They spout hypocritical things at all turns. They sound great at in theory but in practice they just do and say the most retarded of things.

Doesn't sound like there's much chance of a unitarian thing happening. It's pretty clear Boolean isn't interested in their mythology, methodology, or results. His plan seems much more Frank-design like: decide what you have in your church and what you don't, and don't bother trying to please or include everyone.

Still, this confuses me:

Boolean wrote:Since my church will be entirely atheistic, if we want to have a prayer to Shiva, or Yahweh, we can just freaking have a prayer to Shiva, no introspection required.

Why would an atheist church have or allow a prayer to anything? Seems to sorta defeat the whole point of denying the existence of the supernatural. Or are you pushing for a church of agnosticism instead?

TarkisFlux wrote:Doesn't sound like there's much chance of a unitarian thing happening. It's pretty clear Boolean isn't interested in their mythology, methodology, or results. His plan seems much more Frank-design like: decide what you have in your church and what you don't, and don't bother trying to please or include everyone.

Still, this confuses me:

Boolean wrote:Since my church will be entirely atheistic, if we want to have a prayer to Shiva, or Yahweh, we can just freaking have a prayer to Shiva, no introspection required.

Why would an atheist church have or allow a prayer to anything? Seems to sorta defeat the whole point of denying the existence of the supernatural. Or are you pushing for a church of agnosticism instead?

Think of it like a man expecting an explosive bomb but gets a flashbang. All sound but no boom and craziness?

Be ready to fend off the crazies.

All of the organized atheist organizations have had their leaders found somewhere not breathing or not found at all.

-Crissa

There are a lot of flaws with your plan and the reasoning behind it.

After all ultimately if you want a social club, well, you can just have a social club and if you want a political movement you can just form a political movement/party/action group. People seriously do that sort of stuff ALL THE TIME.

But I think Crissa nails the big one.

People kill organised atheists. Your gatherings will be potential targets for slaughters, your leaders for assassination and in the event of theocracy your membership lists will be the tools of a genocide.

There are reasons even in this day an age atheists are somewhat reluctant to openly advertise and have on record their atheism.

I was going to found the Apathian church (the church of apathy and procrastination) but I never got a round to it because I couldn't be bothered.

Well, I'm not saying prayer would be a regular fixture of our services. But absolutely I intend to draw on religious source material for some sermons, hymns, etc.

First of all, while people who make this argument usually greatly exaggerate the percentages, even things like the Christian Bible do have some legitimately inspiring stories that *are* genuinely moral.

But prayer can be thought of a type of apostrophe-- a speech directed at a nonexistant speaker. In that respect it becomes like an oath or credo. I think there's a genuine value in setting time aside for reflection and in articulating clearly our goals and needs. So I'm not opposed to prayer as a concept.

Like Niebuhr's Serenity prayer; I think it's pretty awesome without even believing in a God. That's beside the point. Similarly, if I found a prayer to Shiva that reflected a sense of humility, or determination, or some other virtue relevant to the lesson, absolutely I would include it in a service.

"So. I am an atheist. An evangelical atheist, one might say."

Bugger that. Atheists are the minority. This means you go for hit and fade tactics, guerrilla warfare. Slapping on an atheist hat just gives people a target for counter argument. What you want to do is turn the moderate theists (the majority) against the fringe weirdoes. If you polarise it into theist vs atheist you'll just have a very large block of people supporting scientology and the fucktarded shit Palin believes.

Draco_Argentum wrote:"So. I am an atheist. An evangelical atheist, one might say."

Bugger that. Atheists are the minority. This means you go for hit and fade tactics, guerrilla warfare. Slapping on an atheist hat just gives people a target for counter argument. What you want to do is turn the moderate theists (the majority) against the fringe weirdoes. If you polarise it into theist vs atheist you'll just have a very large block of people supporting scientology and the fucktarded shit Palin believes.

Atheists may be the minority, but they're not *as much* of minority as they might seem. Especially since phase one of the plan is to recruit as many deists and secular jews as possible (maybe agnostics too). As I'll explain when I get to our epistemology, I don't think deism is incompatible with atheism, so there's no need for deists to give up their beliefs to join the atheist movement. And obviously secular jews are for the most part atheists.

Additionally, moderate theists are frequently allies of convenience when it comes to social progress, but a hegemony of moderate theists is in no way mission accomplished. First of all, to one degree or another, even moderate theists are going to be too easily swayed by people in pointy hats, and are preacknowledged to come with on or more issues they've given up evaluating rationally. More importantly, the existence of a herd of moderate theists provides cover for authoritarian wolves to hide in. Scary religious conservatives have gotten way too good at gliding through otherwise-reasonable religious circles.

No. We need to advance rational and scientific principles in the social discourse. The more atheists come out, the more acceptable atheism will be.

Symbol Discussion Up.

I'm fond of the hexagon. It can symbolize productivity and cooperation. And it is made by bees.

And it's easy to draw, and not taken.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:I'm fond of the hexagon. It can symbolize productivity and cooperation. And it is made by bees.

And it's easy to draw, and not taken.

-Username17

I like my symbols like I like my coffee -- COVERED IN BEES!

epistemology up

Boolean wrote:Atheists may be the minority, but they're not *as much* of minority as they might seem.

Correct, especially in the US the far right fringe is very good at making themselves seem the most popular.

You won't make atheists by shouting at theists sufficiently loudly. To win you'd need to take the education system over. Ban homeschooling and private schools (start by removing funding). Set a curriculum that teaches both scientific knowledge and method. Add a history of world religion class.

Importantly all of that can be portrayed as pro-social equality and pro-education. You need to get theists to vote for it afterall.

Oh, and shut down Fox news.

You DO know atheists already have organisations and symbols and political movements... don't you?

Re: Homeschooling: I must confess I'm not very objective on the issue. *I* was homeschooled, it was pretty kick-ass, and my friends would be very put-out if I got the practice outlawed. At the same time, I'm as scared of Patrick Henry as anyone...

Re: organized atheism.

I'm certainly aware that atheists have organized political movements before: I'm not aware (thought I concede I may be ignorant) of atheistic community-building efforts of the type I'm proposing.

Also, atheistic movements I've read about before never seemed very... fun. Being the voice of reason and insisting on hard mechanism is... not actually very exciting. We need to face up to the fact that spiritual/religious experiences are real. Not that gods are real, of course, but that people experience "otherworldly visitations" "divine inspiration" and what not. We need to provide spiritual experiences in an atheistic context, or we're always going to lose out on a certain market segment of visionaries and drug users.

Given that I'm Atheist too and might as well have been homeschooled by myself for all I learned at school (OK, I wouldn't have learned how to fight for a couple extra years ...), I'd have to issue with that too.

Atheist spiritual experience: first, no, people aren't proven to have spiritual experience - in fact, they're often proved to be just drugged. So, no place for that on Atheism (at least if you define it as a philosophy reliant on science, which AFAIK most people do), unless you wanna have a drug cult, in which case I ask for your physical address so that I can kill you.

Moreover, sure, I acknowledge that religions have some totally awesome symbols, but prayer? How are you going to do that without implying some kind of creed? Lastly, the idea of calling something a sermon might be an issue in the formation of freethinkers, I'm afraid most people don't wanna be freethinkers (not saying someone wants to be a slave, but being a lust-based hypocrite's a lot easier than actually thinking), and: why focus on Christianity and not on anything else? For starters, that's the one the Western already sorta know, and lots of them actually already have some problem with it; focus on the history of religion - is there a quicker way to show nothing of that's more than human fiction?

To create a monolithic education system for the purpose of preventing parents from hiding truth from their kids, yes homeschooling needs to go. If it doesn't the problem parents will all homeschool their kids. Why would I leave a loophole that allows for an opt out?

Bigode wrote: Atheist spiritual experience: first, no, people aren't proven to have spiritual experience - in fact, they're often proved to be just drugged.

I think we're talking past each other. I'm not saying that supernatural forces are really. I'm saying that people really *do*

-- hear voices in their heads
-- feel "at one" with universe
-- receive sudden flashes of inspiration
-- have dreams which are or appear to eb significant

etc.

Yeah, a lot of them are the result of drugs or other abnormal physical states. But look, just because someone hears "the voice of god" is no reason not to be an atheist.

Moreover, sure, I acknowledge that religions have some totally awesome symbols, but prayer?

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

-- Reinhold Niebuhr

(there's more, but it gets objectionable)

How are you going to do that without implying some kind of creed?

Creed:
n 1: any system of principles or beliefs [syn: credo]
2: the body of teachings of a religious group that are
generally accepted by that group [syn: religious doctrine,
church doctrine, gospel]

We most certainly shall have a creed.

why focus on Christianity and not on anything else? For starters, that's the one the Western already sorta know, and lots of them actually already have some problem with it; focus on the history of religion - is there a quicker way to show nothing of that's more than human fiction?

You'll notice, I proposed having two curricula available: one on Christianity, one of the history of world religion. So we're in violent agree.

I live in America, where I think understanding Christianity is a pretty important deal.

But more than that, I love Christianity. Really, I do. I mean, Christians can sometimes be douchebags (and sometimes be very nice people).

But the Christian Bible, Christian apocrypha, Christian music/literature? I'm a huge fanboy for that stuff.

Seriously, I appreciate Christianity the way I appreciate anime -- it might not make that much sense, but it's full of over the top awesome.

In fact, I have a script lying around where I adapted Christianity into a sci-fi anime. Fun times.

Boolean wrote: In fact, I have a script lying around where I adapted Christianity into a sci-fi anime. Fun times.

http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=16188

Gratuitous.
And very unfortunate that it didn't continue.