Confronting Militant Atheism

I've provided a quote from Dewey that illustrates the syntagm "militant atheism" (labeled there also "aggresive atheism") not atheism. There are plenty of books on the atheist propaganda in Soviet Russia and its satelites illustrating the same syntagm. No matter what I invoked you have ignored and your alleged unsuccesful search sounds so disingenous when Google returns more than 20,000 hits on it, also over 600 hits in books and also over 600 hits in articles. Even a Wiki article (which you seem to have consulted) shows the syntagm (exemplifying also with organizations, like that Soyuz Bezbozhnikov I already mentioned) but makes little difference in meaning, rather that is term is used today by "some theists" ("sometimes used pejoratively") and by "some atheists" (such a succession of complementary terms makes the intended differentiation a useless one). Even the Wiki article is an insufficient material on the question, those Google hits should provide you with enough to search and chew for several days if you're truly interested in the topic.

Edited by Chilbudios - 22-Jan-2008 at 16:27

Hmm.... Non atheists....  by definition... are people who have belief systems............ So they need to develop atheists into belief systems.,,,,,,, Militant atheism just seems to me to be a belief system developed by non-athiests.

Edited by Paul - 23-Jan-2008 at 10:24

Originally posted by Cezar I concur. With one slight difference: irefutable proof. How many times have you encountered the phrase "There is proof that God exists, only you non believers don't see it"?

This double-standard is specific to a dogmatic flavour of atheism, held with religiousity. There's no irefutable proof in science, there's no irefutable proof in any branch of knowledge concerning us or the world around us. The only irefutable proofs are in mathematics and logic and the proofs are valid only from a given set of premises (talking of which, there were already in this thread presented succesful ontological arguments, i.e. from a given set of reasonable premises it was concluded that God, an entity defined to display "godly" attributes, necessarily exists). Someone saying "I'll believe in God only if you bring me the irefutable proof of it" when electromagnetic theory is not irefutably proven yet relied on daily, can be only someone who doesn't want to believe in a God.

Cezar, on militant atheism you're continuing the same strategy (I still consider any argumentation on atheism and not on militant atheism as a red herring). I wonder on what criteria have you emphasized a part of that Wikipedia article. Have you not noticed the The active antitheist stance is sometimes called "militant" atheism with the footnote: Baggini, Julian (2003). Atheism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 101. ISBN 0-19-280424-3 (a reference which is not invoked again neither in this paragraph nor elsewhere in the article, thus very likely this "sometimes" does not refer to the following "some"-s and "sometimes"-es)? Have you not noticed the Despite the term's pejorative status, some atheists choose to self-identify as militant? (with some examples in the footnote). And I honestly can't believe someone discussing this topic for days and confessing an unsuccesful search he could find a Wiki article but missed materials like the following (it took me ~30 minutes to compile this list):

Alberto Hidalgo, "Philosophical Materialism"
( http://www.revistadefilosofia.com/Phylosoph_Materialism5.pdf )
The ontological materialism support a militant atheism against the new wave of fundamentalism. For this is not enough the Enlightenment theory about the priestly deception, nor the Marxist idea about the "people's opium". According to G. Bueno throughout his evolution man was accompanied by religion, not for having a divine gene or one sacred faculty inside, but for having been he come in contact with the Pleistocene big predatory animals, which he could hunt, but which he could become a prey. Gods are not anthropomorphic projections of consciousness (Xenophanes, Feuerbach ...) but materials Numens shaped by man in wild beasts own image. Ethology is the new Theology. It is essential to atheist materialism claim that many cultural facts usually related with the spiritualism and idealism  (zodiacal signs, sacrifice) are materialistic events. Is the Spinoza's strategy.

David B. Myers, "Marx and the Problem of Nihilism" in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 37, No. 2, p. 193 ( http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205(197612)37%3A2%3C193%3AMATPON%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 )
Marx had despiritualized Hegel's view of nature and history; his philosophy took shape during the rebellion of the Young Hegelians, against the abstractions of Hegel; Marx along the Young Hegelians began by embracing militant atheism.

Sydney Hook, "Marx and Feuerbach" ( http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/hook/1936/04/feuerbach.htm )
In Marx�s eyes, the whole theoretical tradition of Western European philosophy with its apotheosis of Reason, its conception that thought has an underived and independent history, its identification of theoretical activity with divine activity, and when divinity was no longer fashionable, with the �highest� type of human activity�all this represented a religious pattern of behavior. This was the ground for his contention that the Young-Hegelians, despite their world shattering phrases and militant atheism, were religious, and that the battles they fought were sectarian episodes in a common religious tradition which they shared with their opponents.
[my note, this is very similar with Dewey's note that militant atheism shares with supernaturalism an overemphasized focus on man]

Louis Francis Budenz, The Techniques of Communism, 1977 (Google Books)
p 66:
Thus, Lenin in 1922 wrote strongly on behalf of "militant materialism". He declared that the Bolsheviks must be committed to "militant atheism" expressed through "untiring atheist propaganda and an untiring atheistic fight."

Ethan Theodore Colton, Four Patterns of Revolution: Communist U.S.S.R., Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, New Deal America, 1970 (Google Books)
p. 59 (under the section called "Militant Atheism"):
An interview given [...] in 1932 by Yaroslavsky, executive chief of the Society of Militant Godless [...]:
"We were always the foes of religion. We were atheists, revolutionary followers of Marx and Lenin. Our militant  atheism is absolutely related to our revolutionary world-view."

James Thrower, Marxist-Leninist "Scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism in the USSR, 1983 (Google Books)
p. 119:
In an article [...] in 1922, entitled "On the Significance of Militant Atheism", Lenin urged Soviet intellectuals to continue the philosophical struggle with religion by researching deeper into the materialist tradition - particularly the materialist tradition of the European Enlightenment - and by studying the writings of contemporary, but non-Marxist, materialists.
p. 135:
Although some serious work in religious studies was produced prior of the outbreak of war in 1941, it was not until after the war that the study of religion and atheism began in earnest. In the pre-war period the emphasis was on "practical atheism" - the more so as Stalin, the sole arbiter in such matters, had made not a single theoretical pronouncement on religion or the study of religion - and 'practical atheism' meant schools for the propagation of atheism, the administrative elimination of the clergy, atheist museums housed where churches had once stood, and a continuous stream of hate-propaganda designed to terrorise the faithful into submission. This, of course, was in line with Lenin's policy of militant atheism, as was the emphasis on education as means of eliminating religious beliefs and practices - a policy pursued in the early period of Soviet Power by Lenin's widow Krupskaya, as well as by Lunacharsky, Kalinin and Skvortsov-Stepanov.

Nikolaus Lobkowicz, Theory and Practice: History of a Concept from Aristotle to Marx, 1967 (Google Books), p. 364
[...] atheism (the militant atheism of the Left Hegelians as well as of Feuerbach that is) postulates man's dignity by rejecting God [...]

Aren't all these sources speaking about militant atheism? Are these authors theists adressing pejoratively atheism (am I a theist? - I am using this term, too)? Is "militant atheism" term a non-existing one? (what are these people talking about then?) Is "militant atheism" synonymous with "militant atheists" (cf. your definition "militant atheism is militant atheists")? Let's try a substition to check this out: Bolsheviks must be committed to "militant atheists" expressed through "untiring atheist propaganda and an untiring atheistic fight." - it doesn't make any sense to me, so no, the terms are not synonymous, your definition is not operative.
I don't understand the need for an explicite and documented definition. Have you found dictionary/encyclopaedia definitions for "yellow Sun", "round Earth", "green grass" or do you confess lack of understanding in all these cases? Do you deny the existence of "positive atheism", "strong atheism", "weak atheism", similar syntagms working in parallel with "positive atheists", "strong atheists", "weak atheists"? In none of the latter cases the -ism is not equal with the sum of the -ists, because obviously, the -ists are those who believe, while the -ism is the belief (or system of beliefs). And that in the case of militant atheism the system of beliefs is actually a doctrine has been proved all over this thread (organizations, propaganda, campaigns, etc.)

If you consider the term inapropriate this thing may say more of you than of the term. But instead of saying things you may find insulting, I will prove how a typical militant atheist discourse is nothing but empty propaganda, same message with different key-words. I will pick for my little demonstration that manifesto of a militant atheist you have linked in this thread ( http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/bash.html ) and I've earlier concluded it obviously has a doctrine, an ideology of militant atheism serving as a cause. Let me show you how this doctrine looks like and how it relates with other known doctrines. The substitions are just examples, several substitions can apply and provide various nuances, but the background idea remains the same: doctrine and propaganda.

1) Militant atheist discourse:

Helping today's university students become indignant over the absurdities of religious dogma is an essential part of persuading them to consider a secular alternative. If we don't start, very soon, to replenish our ranks with young people, out future will be dim.

There is definitely a time and place to make religion look as ridiculous as it actually is. There is also a time and place to emphasize the opportunities awaiting a person who lives a life free of superstition. Overall, however, one cannot be done without the other. We cannot just approach college students and members of the general public by preaching the virtues of a life free from supernaturalism without giving examples of how and why religious beliefs are absurd and divisive.

2) Communist discourse (substitutions: religious/religion = capitalist/capitalism, secular = Communist, superstition = oppression, supernaturalism = material inequality, beliefs = ideas)

Helping today's university students become indignant over the absurdities of capitalist dogma is an essential part of persuading them to consider a Communist alternative. If we don't start, very soon, to replenish our ranks with young people, out future will be dim.

There is definitely a time and place to make capitalism look as ridiculous as it actually is. There is also a time and place to emphasize the opportunities awaiting a person who lives a life free of oppression. Overall, however, one cannot be done without the other. We cannot just approach college students and members of the general public by preaching the virtues of a life free from material inequality without giving examples of how and why capitalist ideas are absurd and divisive.

3) Fundamentalist Christian discourse (substitutions: religious/religion = secular/secularism, secular = religious, superstition = nihilism, supernaturalism = godlessness, beleifs = ideas)

Helping today's university students become indignant over the absurdities of secular dogma is an essential part of persuading them to consider a religious alternative. If we don't start, very soon, to replenish our ranks with young people, out future will be dim.

There is definitely a time and place to make secularism look as ridiculous as it actually is. There is also a time and place to emphasize the opportunities awaiting a person who lives a life free of nihilism. Overall, however, one cannot be done without the other. We cannot just approach college students and members of the general public by preaching the virtues of a life free from godlessness without giving examples of how and why secular ideas are absurd and divisive.

The list of examples could continue as well with Nazism, Nationalism and many other doctrines. Militant atheism just takes its well-deserved place, as these similarities show.

 

Edited by Chilbudios - 23-Jan-2008 at 12:54

Reginmund you're right only if you regard the things from the perspective of a certain type of knowledge, the empirical one (the one that makes you an agnostic). But many theists (if not most of them) justify their fundamental beliefs in a non-empirical way, invoking their own experience of transcedence (or perhaps they have other justifications, but I guess personal experience is always emphasized as a good reason for belief). So far it was impossible to prove them all wrong (maybe one was hallucinating, maybe one had schizophrenia, but most of them were not in such cases), which leads to what Brian is saying - currently there's room for god-beliefs. As a decent non-religious person (and truly a free thinker) one should respect that, otherwise he will become a mirror of the fanatism he apparently abhors.

Cezar, the word irrefutable does not carry the connotations you imply, though you may have had them in mind. There's no evidence accepted by everyone, otherwise we'll have only atheists or theists or liberals or socialists or ... or .... There are today people believing the Earth is flat or various things we find dubious if not entirely dumb! Mathematics and logics actually provide irrefutable proofs (like it is the recent proof of the Great Theorem of Fermat) and any theorem or statement can be refuted by denying its underlying axiomatic foundation (e.g. many Euclidian geometry theorems and principles are refuted in non-Euclidian geometries, however that it doesn't mean the proofs as formulated within the context of Euclidian geometry are no longer valid).
You can have any opinion you want - it doesn't mean you have justification for it or, better said, that you can justify it to someone else in order to persuade him, as similarly, others cannot persuade you to believe in their gods. I think I offered many enough sources (you have offered none, but few sites on atheism which rather missed the point of our debate) and arguments to show that militant atheism (you can choose another name for it, if it's only the name you find inapropriate) is a legitimate concept and it has an underlying doctrine (you can review my last parallel between militant atheism, Communism and religious fundamentalism).

Edited by Chilbudios - 25-Jan-2008 at 11:13

You can't prove them wrong, but that's not necessary as there is nothing to suggest they are correct in the first place. To invoke Dawkins here; I assure you I just now saw a flying spaghetti monster outside my window, eating leprechauns, then it disappeared. I claim it as my own personal experience of transcendence and you cannot disprove me. The idea that this absurd fantasy should be recognised by my peers simply because they're unable to test it is preposterous. So far leprechauns and spaghetti monsters haven't been proven to exist, whereas hallucinations and all kinds of mental maladies certainly have, and hence it is more reasonable to conclude I was suffering from the latter rather than experiencing the former. However, if my delusional spaghetti monster has told me he can provide eternal life and absolute justice in the universe, what I want to believe might prove stronger than what it is reasonable to believe, especially if my peers believe it too, and thus religion is born.

You cannot prove you saw a blooming flower yesterday, having no witnesses and photo camera with you. Even if you'll show me the flower today you can't prove you saw it yesterday. Your own experience justifies you to believe you actually saw a blooming flower yesterday but for everybody else in the world the only available evidence is to believe you. I'm sure there can be as well hallucinations making people to see blooming flowers, yet I cannot dismiss your testimony based on this single fact. On the contrary, I will remember that I once saw a blooming flower myself and thus, though you bring no evidence but your own sayings, I will consider your testimony rather reliable, based on what I have experienced myself once. Similarly, if several people have the same or similar religious experience, they will trust even more their own experience as well the experience shared by other people. The principle of justification works exactly the same.

Originally posted by gcle2003 That Christopher Hitchens is an atheist is enough to make me want to believe in anything handy.

Would you like undeniable proof better? Unquestionable? Unequivocal? Unambigous? No, drop the last one, it's unapropriate. Irrefutable is the kind of evidence everyone accepts because is hard or impossible to negate/dispute. There are evidences accepted on this basis by everyone so a proof can be considered irrefutable as long as nothing/nobody comes up to show the opposite. Faith is considered by some an irrefutable proof of God. Atheists do not take faith as proof, they are bringing arguments against it. Their arguments are not irrefutable though. Since their belief is focused on material proof it's obviously that this is the kind of evidence they espect for God's existence.

 I answered to this once. Electromagnetism is not irrefutably (undeniably, unquestionably, etc.) proven. No scientific theory is (and that is somehow by definition, a theory is scientific if and only if is refutable, questionable, deniable, etc.). Since electromagnetism is widely accepted without an irrefutable proof, asking irrefutable proof for a god is rather a sign of ill-will than of reason (and this analogy works beyond the realm of science, most, if not all of the things we hold about the world around us are not undeniably proven - see Brain-in-a-vat or Matrix scenarios which hold that everything we know is an illusion, while we are the prisoners, if not even toys, in a game transcending any imaginable possibility, since our imagination is also a product of this game).

must disagree with you Chilbudios. Electromagnetism is unqestionably proven. Actually I think you might say that a theory is to be proven irrefutably to be accepted. Any (new) theory is indeed questionable therefore is not accepted/adopted unless proven. The "level of irrefutability" of the proofs is what makes a scientific theory practical/useful. From an atheist point of view, at least, asking for an irrefutable proof of God is natural/consistent.

You disagreed in many with me, the debate however is focused on arguments. There's no unquestionable proof of electromagnetism or any scientific theory for that matter just because you say it is (please show me that unquestionable proof, if it is as you say it is, obviously I won't be able to question it, which I doubt it ). A certain level of acceptance does not mean it's not questionable.

You claimed that electromagnetism is questionable. Well, what are the arguments?

Huh? Let's try the classical criticism against incomplete induction. There were performed a number of experiments (let's say 82,516,254,561) which confirmed the current theories on electromagnetism. However, this does not prove at all the current theoretical framework is true, only that it succesfuly predicted 82,516,254,561 cases (in case you're familiar with mathematical conjectures, like Euler's sum of powers, you understand that no number of confirmed cases, no matter how large, cannot replace the complete induction). That's why electromagnetism doesn't have the same degree of certainty like 2+2=4 (under the classical axioms of arithmetics, of course).