How are these things social issues?

amok wrote:How are these things social issues?

I don't have an atheist convictions on social issues, in fact I try to avoid 'convictions' on anything bar pragmatism

amok wrote:How are these things social issues?

Weddings are social gatherings. Or something like that.

Strontium Dog wrote:1. Would you marry/spend your life with a person of a different religion? If yes, would you participate in your spouse's religious rituals as a form of tolerance, or would you firmly oppose performing such rituals, considering them hypocritical acts?

1a. Hell yes. Anyone who says no has obviously never slept with a Catholic schoolgirl.

Hear, hear!

Strontium Dog wrote:[b]3. Would you pretend to not be an atheist/agnostic if there was a perceived monetary or social gain for you?

Without question.

It's a question of costs and benefits, is it not? If the cost of being honest outweighs that of being dishonest (e.g. in some countries being dead or being alive, in others being liked by those two religious weirdos in the neighbourhood or not) then I guess most of us would lie like there was no tomorrow. Which in some countries would be the case. Others are of a stronger moral fibre and probably wouldn't. Those would be the sort of people who ended up under the Guillotine in the Third Reich. Admirable, but still dead.

Those would be the sort of people who ended up under the Guillotine in the Third Reich. Admirable, but still dead.

This is the sort of thing that gives history teachers a bad name.

So I see some people have started posting that agree with me on question 3. That's very interesting.

Lentes wrote:Hello everyone,

So these questions are posed to atheists and agnostics in this board.

Clearly you have a well-defined position in the philosophical discussion of the possibility of the universe being created by some set of creators.

I haven't been convinced that it's possible.

Does that qualify as a well-defined position?

Lentes wrote:However, your philosophical position implies nothing other than the position itself. In light of this problem, I would like to see your answers to the following social problems that may arise. Particularly, I urge you to read my question 3, which in my opinion is the main one. I will also provide my answers as a fellow atheist/agnostic:

1. Would you marry/spend your life with a person of a different religion? If yes, would you participate in your spouse's religious rituals as a form of tolerance, or would you firmly oppose performing such rituals, considering them hypocritical acts?

Like with any other difference of opinions, it depends.

It's kind of like asking these questions about Democrats and Republicans. If both people care more about each other than those differences, it shouldn't be much of a problem. If there is belittling or one looks down upon the other because of those differences, it probably isn't going to work.

As for participating, I wouldn't mind on occasion any more than I mind occasionally going to see a movie that she wants to see that I have no interest in.

Lentes wrote:2. Do you feel as if your atheism is a defining trait for you? By this I mean, do you consider your atheism as one of your main characteristics? Having answered the previous question, do you think that other people would say that your atheism is a defining trait for you?

It is only as defining a trait as others make it.

When I'm around people and religion never comes up, they would never know.

If I'm around someone being obnoxious with preaching or proselytizing to the point that I decide to disagree (or argue) with them, people would probably say that it is a defining characteristic.

Lentes wrote:3. Would you pretend to not be an atheist/agnostic if there was a perceived monetary or social gain for you?

It entirely depends upon the situation.
If you're talking about it being a basis for committing fraud and harming people, then no.
If I were living in a religious community where my atheism could adversely affect my (hypothetical) children, then yes.
If I were in prison, I would become "born-again" within a matter of months (can't do it too quickly, you want the prison chaplain to believe that he converted you).

Lentes wrote:So I see some people have started posting that agree with me on question 3. That's very interesting.

I think that it would be far more interesting if you had a uniformity of answers given by atheists to a question like that.

Lentes wrote:

hackenslash wrote:

Lentes wrote:Clearly you have a well-defined position in the philosophical discussion of the possibility of the universe being created by some set of creators.

Clearly?

However, your philosophical position implies nothing other than the position itself.

What position?

In light of this problem,

What problem?

I would like to see your answers to the following social problems that may arise. Particularly, I urge you to read my question 3, which in my opinion is the main one. I will also provide my answers as a fellow atheist/agnostic:

The spidey-sense is tingling.

1. Would you marry/spend your life with a person of a different religion? If yes, would you participate in your spouse's religious rituals as a form of tolerance, or would you firmly oppose performing such rituals, considering them hypocritical acts?

Fallacy of the complex question. Lets' address the two questions separately.

1. Leading question and somewhat question-begging. A different religion? Atheism isn't a religion. Would I spend my life with somebody of religion? Certainly. Not marriage though, which is an institution I do not support.
2. Also commits the fallacy of the complex question, so let's address those separately:
2a. No, I would not participate in my partner's religion.
2b. No, I would not oppose performing rituals.
2c. No, I do not consider them hypocritical (although I would view my own participation as such).

2. Do you feel as if your atheism is a defining trait for you? By this I mean, do you consider your atheism as one of your main characteristics? Having answered the previous question, do you think that other people would say that your atheism is a defining trait for you?

No, I don't consider atheism to be a trait. The word itself should tell you why this is, because the word is a privative. As to the second part of your question, quite probably, because most people erroneously view atheism as a trait, and I'm certainly not quiet about it.

3. Would you pretend to not be an atheist/agnostic if there was a perceived monetary or social gain for you?

Absolutely not.

Wow, people call me pedantic. But anyways,

LOL.

Welcome to RatSkep!

MrFungus420 wrote:

Lentes wrote:So I see some people have started posting that agree with me on question 3. That's very interesting.

I think that it would be far more interesting if you had a uniformity of answers given by atheists to a question like that.

That would be more like impossible. But up until yesterday it seemed like everybody disagreed with me, but now we get a better range for question 3.

surreptitious57 wrote:

hackenslash wrote:
Not marriage though which is an institution I do not support

Are you therefore being colloquial when using the title Mrs Slash

[ I only mention it because it struck me as an odd thing to say ]

Living over the broom for 25 years.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Those would be the sort of people who ended up under the Guillotine in the Third Reich. Admirable, but still dead.

This is the sort of thing that gives history teachers a bad name.

The Third Reich was very keen on the guillotine- it was used to execute thousands!

My atheist convictions? "Gott mit uns"...oh wait.......

Lentes wrote:Hello everyone,

So these questions are posed to atheists and agnostics in this board.

Clearly you have a well-defined position in the philosophical discussion of the possibility of the universe being created by some set of creators. However, your philosophical position implies nothing other than the position itself. In light of this problem, I would like to see your answers to the following social problems that may arise. Particularly, I urge you to read my question 3, which in my opinion is the main one. I will also provide my answers as a fellow atheist/agnostic:

1. Would you marry/spend your life with a person of a different religion? If yes, would you participate in your spouse's religious rituals as a form of tolerance, or would you firmly oppose performing such rituals, considering them hypocritical acts?

My answer: Supposing I wanted to marry, then yes, religion wouldn't be a problem. Also to my second question: Yes, except for the stuff that is way too drastic, such as not eating beef or pork, etc.

2. Do you feel as if your atheism is a defining trait for you? By this I mean, do you consider your atheism as one of your main characteristics? Having answered the previous question, do you think that other people would say that your atheism is a defining trait for you?

My answer: No to the first question, yes to the second question. I tend to be quite outspoken about my position whenever such a situation is presented, and because of this, I think a lot of my religious friends/family think of me as a "stereotypical" atheist.

And most importantly:

3. Would you pretend to not be an atheist/agnostic if there was a perceived monetary or social gain for you?

My answer: This is the hard one for me, because even though I personally value honesty very highly with respect to my own pursuit of truth and knowledge, I will not pretend as if I wouldn't conceal (or outright lie about) my true beliefs to obtain some personal gain. Does this make me a hypocrit? In the past, I certainly would have considered myself highly immoral for this, when I used to be a lot more Kantian. But these days I feel like such judgements are so trivial and ill-conceived from the get-go that I don't really care about such paper morality anymore. I care most about the consequences these days I guess, and I know that a couple years ago I would think somebody as myself would be highly immoral, selfish, and robotic even. Oh well.

So what are your answers?

1. No, I very much doubt a relationship with a religious person would last long enough to get to the marriage question. I just don't think I could be tolerant enough. I absolutely wouldn't be joining in with woo-shit

2. No, my atheism is not a defining trait (I'm not keen on your use of 'trait' but I think I know what you mean). I have however been compared with the fundie religious though because I find I often can't let things go unchallenged. IMO there's stilll far too much 'respect' given to other people's silly ideas, it can cause real discomfort when their ideas are challenged. This gets me called a fundie atheist.

3. I can't even conceive of being in a position that I'd have to hide my atheism so I can't really answer this. In the UK generally no one gives a shit and it'd be highly unlikely to stand in the way of promotion or the like. I'd like to say that the answer would be no though, I'd like to think I'd have the strength of character to stand firm. Real harm to my family would be an exception.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Those would be the sort of people who ended up under the Guillotine in the Third Reich. Admirable, but still dead.

This is the sort of thing that gives history teachers a bad name.

Pardon me? If you mean that I somehow mixed up the French Revolution and the Third Reich you would be very wrong. As Ian Tattum said, the Nazis did like them some old school beheadings. Famous members of the resistance group Weiße Rose, Sophie and Hans Scholl, for example were beheaded with a guillotine. As were members of Stauffenberg's conspiracy and several thousand others.


Do inform yourself before you get snarky, mate.

Steve wrote:

Briton wrote:I did lie about my lack of belief for financial gain when I went to Saudi Arabia. Mind you, it was that trip that that made me a militant secularist and I wouldn't do it again (barring exceptional circumstances).

But were your beliefs in anyway relevant to your job? I am struggling to come up with a scenario where it matters. So I would have no problem letting them believe what ever they like.

I was told I wouldn't have been given the job had I put atheist on the application form.

Lentes wrote:
1. Would you marry/spend your life with a person of a different religion? If yes, would you participate in your spouse's religious rituals as a form of tolerance, or would you firmly oppose performing such rituals, considering them hypocritical acts?

Mrs. N and myself are pretty the same religion; long-lapsed cradle-Catholics. We're both happy to go to religious services that honour particular people out of respect for those people, but neither of us have time for religion per se. She indulges my posting on RatSkep as a hobby.

2. Do you feel as if your atheism is a defining trait for you? By this I mean, do you consider your atheism as one of your main characteristics? Having answered the previous question, do you think that other people would say that your atheism is a defining trait for you?

I wouldn't say it was a defining trait. I'd like to think that curiosity and open-mindedness were defining traits. I have no idea what other people would say. I tend to keep my views on religion to myself, unless the subject happens to come up, or it's a forum specifically about religion.

3. Would you pretend to not be an atheist/agnostic if there was a perceived monetary or social gain for you?

Depends on the exact circumstances. If it meant the difference between life and death, or keeping a roof over my head and being destitute, then, yes, I guess I would. If it was making money out of something I knew was a lie - I would like to think not, but that particular form of temptation hasn't arisen yet.

MrFungus420 wrote:

Lentes wrote:3. Would you pretend to not be an atheist/agnostic if there was a perceived monetary or social gain for you?

It entirely depends upon the situation.
If you're talking about it being a basis for committing fraud and harming people, then no.
If I were living in a religious community where my atheism could adversely affect my (hypothetical) children, then yes.
If I were in prison, I would become "born-again" within a matter of months (can't do it too quickly, you want the prison chaplain to believe that he converted you).

I'd agree it's situation-dependent, and quite a lot depends what one considers 'social gain'.

I could keep quiet about my views on the lack of evidence for the existence of deities in a similar way to how I might keep quiet my views on politics, sports, nationalities, etc.
Typically that would be in situations I found myself in where I'd be trying to avoid causing unnecessary offence and/or for self-preservation and/or because I couldn't be bothered arguing with someone.
In reality, I find such situations (involving religion) are very few and far between in my life - few of the people I deal with are overt believers, and only a fraction of those who were might be likely to assume I was a fellow believer. I'd find such situations far more common in the case of things like politics or sports fanaticism or people assuming I cared for laddish culture.
Even when situations do arise where I'd bite my tongue regarding religion, it tends to be more along the lines of avoiding upsetting some well-meaning older believer, compared with avoiding pointless or dangerous arguments with some political/racist/sexist/nationalist/homophobic bigot or sports fanatic.

I'd be unlikely to scheme to pretend I was something I wasn't to achieve some positive gain, but again I wouldn't see religious belief in that context as being different to any other opinion. If I were a salesman, I wouldn't set out to pretend I was Catholic to make a sale any more than I would pretend to be a Chelsea fan.
That said, if it was clear that all I stood to 'gain' was equal treatment, I wouldn't see anything particularly morally wrong in deception to achieve that gain even if I might still feel reluctant to engage in it.

That I am an atheist means I have a particular stance, but how I choose to project that stance is nothing obviously to do with my atheism, and I wouldn't see someone with a different approach as being a 'better' or 'worse' atheist.

1.) I don't know. I am currently in a relationship with a religious person and i is stressful and eminent demise is likely. The problem seems you never know how it is going to go. I guess you could say that about any relationship though. When we got back together, she seemed to accept me for me, but as time past she got to the point where now she wants me to go to church with her. I resist that, because it will just lead to her wanting me to become more involved in her religious activities/etc. I don't think I can marry a religious person, nor would I want children, as it would complicate raising them greatly.

2.) I'm not defined by that. I am probably more defined by my hobbies and such. That being the case, I do consider analysis and reason to be important, and I do speak out about things a times.

3.) I'd rather not pretend, as I don't think I could pull it off for very long. However, my brother and I are in the process of starting a new religion, Pigeonism. We worship the Angry Bird and give praise by singing the official hymnal The Bird is the Word.

Ian Tattum wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

Those would be the sort of people who ended up under the Guillotine in the Third Reich. Admirable, but still dead.

This is the sort of thing that gives history teachers a bad name.

The Third Reich was very keen on the guillotine- it was used to execute thousands!

I stand corrected.