You, sir, are talking nonce sense
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I think itâs much more likely not to have doctrine than theism, but you are perfectly capable of having a much narrower or more political variation of atheism that does have doctrine. I think fundamentalists tend to believe that only they are right; while believing in a deity that doesnât exist doesnât stop you from having many valid opinions, rejecting belief in all gods (if that is correct) doesnât necessarily make you right about anything else. I donât think the label fits as well with atheists at all, but I do think itâs possible to hold to an atheistic understanding of the world in a fundamentalist way.
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Carl Sagan in A Demon-Haunted World (I think â lost my copy, canât be sure) said something similar, the gist of which was that society will accept people who say that God talks to them (for a vague enough definition of âtalkâ), but if someone claims that God taps out morse code with raindrops on their window, theyâll get committed.
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Fundamentalism does not require âdoctrineâ, precisely, all it requires is a prescribed, right way of seeing things. The fundament of much atheism is an obsession with scientific proof. Science is a specific kind of worldview predicated upon âmetaphysical naturalismâ aka âscientific materialismâ. This outlook often does deal with fundamental axioms of truth such as âThere must be a rational explanation for this!â, and then works backwards from this position to fill the gaps. Anything which doesnât fit the prescribed model of reason is ignored.
Hardly! What you are describing are petty personal crusades. Criticising others for not being scientists does not make anyone a better scientist. Debates about whether or not religious ideas âexistâ is beyond irrelevant. There are many common ideas which do not at all jive metaphysical naturalism, and most people donât find them controversial. My pet peeve is the colossal monkey turd which is economics. There is no scientific âproofâ that money is worth anything, people persist in asserting that it does because this belief is convenient for them. It is easy to resent people who expect others to go along with muddled thinking, but there is more benefit to making more modern social structures rather than arguing over particular beliefs.
The industrial, mass-production society was never âtooledâ to have masses of intelligent people. They have been conditioned to be smart enough to be useful, and are mostly gullible. Fix this problem and the rest takes care of itself.
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I had heard that fundamentals believed in five âfundamentalsâ
- the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, 2) the virgin birth of Christ, 3) the substitutionary atonement of Christ, 4) the bodily resurrection of Christ, and 5) the historicity of the biblical miracles.
And this was all discussed in the book The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (1910-1915). But, it seems that although the book, and the âFive Point Deliveranceâ appealed to [roughly the same audience]((Who Were the "Fundamentalists"? | Christian History | Christianity Today) they were in fact two different traditions.
An example of such âfundamentalsâ is here
There are five fundamentals of the faith which are essential for Christianity, and upon which we agree:
- TheDeityofourLordJesusChrist(John1:1;John20:28;Hebrews1:8-9).
- The Virgin Birth (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:27).
- TheBloodAtonement(Acts20:28;Romans3:25,5:9;Ephesians1:7; Hebrews 9:12-14).
- TheBodilyResurrection(Luke24:36-46;1Corinthians15:1-4,15:14-15).
- Theinerrancyofthescripturesthemselves(Psalms12:6-7;Romans15:4; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20). 1
And those who disagree with any of the above doctrines are not Christians at all. Rather, they are the true heretics.
So disagreements are perfectly acceptable within the confines of Christianity, because our salvation does not hinge upon doctrines other than the above fiveâŚ
So when you speak of âfundamentalist atheistsâ, you are invoking the spectre of doctrine that really doesnât exist. There doesnât seem to be a creed sworn by atheists that allows them to cast out other atheists-- âthou art a hereticâ.
One of the advantages, (mimetically speaking, of course) of the fundamentalist doctrine is that itâs fairly simple, yet all encompassing definition of what it means to be a Christian from the fundamentalist perspective. There doesnât seem to be a doctrine that defines what it means to be an atheist, and what it means to be a heretical atheist.
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This all hinges upon using such a Christian definition as a benchmark, which is in no way necessary to assume. The term is thousands of years old. Fundament is a foundation, and in a conceptual sense as we use to describe religion or other thought/belief systems, means the systemâs bedrock of reality. What we may assume, despite all of our opinions and prejudices (as if!) is The Real Deal. Basically a way of enforcing a - ususally domain-specific - sort of consensus reality.
Even though people might be accustomed to associating the notion of fundamentalism with Christianity, there are definitely quite similar types of orthodoxies which go in and out of fashion with other disciplines, such as economics, political philosophy, medicine, law, teaching, etc.
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Iâm not saying that but can you show me an example of a politician who has said to follow them blindly and with out thinking? Of course politicians would like that but Iâve never heard one say it. They may use fear, lies, and misdirection but what does that have to do with it? I was talking about the fact that this cleric and people like him would not be listened to without religion. People listen to politicians because they wield a form of legal power over others. In many systems they choose them. So, when one makes stupid statements based on political agenda which defies science, the ones who elected them will rabidly follow them in order to justify their prior choices and not because they are members of some cult which teaches people that thinking is wrong and will lead to eternal damnation⌠but I thought that was obvious.
The scarecrow was made of straw too. All he wanted was a brain.
No one is doubting that. Iâm saying that without religion no one would be listening to this cleric. And I compared the 3 religions from the middle east and found them to be much the same. I have no idea what you are trying say other than you think that the story of this cleric has nothing to do with religion but rather about controlling people - which is kinda a big part of organized religion⌠but ok.
This is just representative of a huge push in Sunni Islam against âwestern educationâ and culture. Boko Haram, for instance, basically means âagainst western educationâ or âwestern education is forbiddenâ.
Not entirely new, but there is a new huge push I keep seeing in reports on Sunni Islam.
What is noteworthy here is that they feel offended that Americans landed on the moon, as they went âaboveâ everyone else to get there, and they - in a sense - entered âHeavenâ. This is something worth trying to disprove, to somehow find proof that fundamentalist Sunni culture is truly superior, morally and intellectually.
Intellect is involved in morality, though many who attempt to take the road of higher morality may disdain many areas of intellectual activity. This is because the capacity to reason is core to the capacity to find the moral high road, and people tend to find some inkling of understanding of that even if they do not overtly espouse the belief.
Outshining people and outwitting them are not two drastically different things, but very related.
So, what, then, is Sunni Education giving anyone? You can be sure they are not happy. Western culture can be downplayed, but the lifestyle in the West is many leagues above the lifestyle in predominant Sunni Muslim areas. It is hard, substantially, for them to plausibly claim superiority â even if such things as moon landings and television and fresh milk and well working toilets and centralized air conditioning and so on and so on are just fluff and ultimately speak nothing of the virtue of those who have it.
Unfortunately, the tie in to rising, stronger movements of condemnation of western knowledge and ways is also tied into stronger movements of wanting Islamic globalization.
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Leung Chun-ying made the appeal in his lunar new year message to welcome in the year of the sheep, which begins on Thursday.
Tensions continue to simmer after the protests ended in December without Leung, the cityâs chief executive, having offered any concessions to the student-led demonstrators.
âSheep are widely seen to be mild and gentle animals living peacefully in groups,â said Leung, who has been nicknamed âthe wolfâ by critics who see him as cunning and untrustworthy.
âLast year was no easy ride for Hong Kong. Our society was rife with differences and conflicts. In the coming year I hope that all people in Hong Kong will take inspiration from the sheepâs character and pull together in an accommodating manner to work for Hong Kongâs future,â Leung said.
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Itâs not explicit, but I think that âyouâre either with us or against usâ (Bush, post-9/11) follows that idea pretty closely. Questioning (thinking) put many people in the âagainstâ category, for a wide swath of the political spectrum.
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My usual answer is âIn that case, I am against youâ.
Unexpected, and sometimes elicits interestingly angry reactions.
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Again with the economics. Money, like names and the âmeaningâ of words, is at best, tentatively a convenience.
We all agree, for the same of social discourse, to accept certain things as a rough approximation.
What is money worth? What people will exchange it for. Sometimes food, sometimes a watch, sometimes (social) intercourse.
Iâm not interchanging anything. But since you so dickishly asked, which part do you need a citation for?
Creationists still not willing to concede heliocentrism: http://www.icr.org/article/geocentricity-creation/
About 40-something percent of Americans are ostensibly creationists: http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx (Although if you look at the surveys, individuals will agree with completely contradictory statements when theyâre are phrased differently: http://ncse.com/blog/2013/11/just-how-many-young-earth-creationists-are-there-us-0015164 ) Since the percentage hasnât really changed in the last 30 years, that indicates old creationists are being replaced by equal numbers of young creationists.
In terms of Moon-landing conspiracy theorists, âWhile polls had consistently shown that only about six percent of the public as a whole questioned the Moon landings⌠among Americans between 18 and 24 years old â27% expressed doubts that NASA went to the Moonâ
http://www.smithsonianconference.org/apollo/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Denying-the-Apollo-Moon-Landings.pdf
25% of Americans believe the Sun orbits the Earth, but are generally clueless about science questions: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says
But Iâm pretty sure Buzz punched him with his strong arm.
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I was going to go with, âGod doesnât exist and of course I know that but obviously if new evidence arises that makes it substantially more likely that God does exist than that he doesnât I will then know that God does exist and there is nothing contradictory about that because thatâs the only useful way to talk about âknowingâ things.â I think Iâm antignostic. Make that transgnostic.
He was speaking about other countries.
So telling people to take a queue from the way sheep behave during the celebration of the year of the sheep is the same as telling them that thinking is a sin and will lead to eternal damnation?
Social discourse and the meanings of words seem to offer far greater pluralism of meaning than money, while control is also comparatively decentralized.
My point was to explain that there are many things in daily life which are âobjectively trueâ through consensus belief and participation. I could add to the list the emergent independent reality of human organizations, property, and territory. These also exist in a mostly metaphysical sense. Even science itself exists only as a âmade-up ideaâ amongst humans. It might be about the world at large, yet the world at large does not use it or work according to its principles. Some people get quite defensive about this. Talk of religion seems to attract people who are eager to apply materialist proofs to metaphysical ideas when they imagine it to be convenient, but who are perfectly willing to accept many other metaphysical systems and constructs with hardly any examination.
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Well, there is a further qualification, though, and that is that the thing exists and is the kind of thing you think it is. The value of money is socially constructed and agreed upon, but I know it is socially constructed and agreed upon. The scientific method is basically a mode of communication, but I know it is basically a mode of communication. Thereâs nothing threatening about the reality of the scientific method to the scientific method as conceived in my head.
But to many believers in one kind of god or another, there is something very threatening about the reality of gods to their idea of gods. Gods simply donât function the way that many of god-believers think that gods functions. The concepts of gods that people walk around with bear as little resemblance to what is actually going on with gods as the concept of impetus bears to actual momentum - possibly less.
I agree that many people have magical views of money and science that are akin to magical ideas of gods, but I would wager that for the most part our ideas of money and science are much closer to the reality than our ideas of gods are. People who revere money may or may not realize that the worth of their money is entirely dependent on the trust people have in the society and damaging that trust is endangering the value of their money, but upon realizing this I think most would still be pretty happy with their money. People who revere science may really not understand how science functions or its limits, but upon realizing the limits of science their cell phones will still work. I think most people who revere gods would be so soundly disappointed in the reality of those gods that itâs probably more accurate to say that the gods donât exist than to say that the gods exist but in a different form than they imagine them.
Iâm also not sure that science does exist only as a made-up idea between humans. It might, but it could be that all this time weâve been seeking knowledge throughout history weâve actually be searching to understand a real thing (just like impetus was trying to grasp at momentum or inertia or something like that) and science is just our most recent description of that thing. The same is true for gods, but, again, it there is a thing weâve been mutually trying to understand by talking about gods, I think people who take holy texts seriously would be pretty disappointed by what that thing would turn out to be.
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Either I expressed myself very badly, or you intended to reply to the same post that I was replying to.
I agree with everything you say, and was trying to say much the same myself; but you did it better.
âFundamentalismâ (and âfundamentalistâ) only date to 1923, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
âFundamentâ, via Latin âfundamentumâ, may date back as far as you suggest, but hasnât always had the sense of âfoundationâ: if I remember my Chaucer correctly, in Middle English it meant, roughly, âarseâ or âarseholeâ.
So one literal rendition of âfundamentalistâ could be âanalistâ, which seems appropriate.
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