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Originally Posted by InfiniteNow
A very authentic, sincere, and thought-provoking post, my friend, and I appreciate your openness tremendously.
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Thank you, and I also appreciate your thoughtfulness in response. I should probably add for the causal observer that we are surely far more likeminded here than it might superficially appear. I am arguing on the extreme boundaries of what it is I accept and believe. That’s just how I test my own beliefs, and I’m sure it can easily be misjudged for arguing the opposite of what I do in fact believe, but, oh well, I’m sure I’m about to do it again
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Originally Posted by InfiniteNow
This is why I personally tend to (readily) dismiss the idea of militant atheism. I'm just not familiar with large groups atheists out there declaring that we should kill folks with a high degree of religiosity or belief in deity based on nothing more than faith. Admittedly, maybe once or twice in a moment of weakness and exasperation I may have made such a declaration myself about our need to just "shoot all religious people in the face," but that comment from me was not demonstrative of my true feelings on the matter, nor was it informed by any "ideology," just a temporary moment of frustration on which I would never act nor advocate action. Adding to that, since atheism itself is neither an ideology nor a worldview, it's rather difficult and specious to suggest that this "label" of atheism (which people use to describe those who lack belief in god) could even possibly inform a decision to advocate or engage in militancy. I think this is partially why you keep switching to the topic of Humanism... which actually IS an ideology.
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Indeed. I essentially said the same along the lines of “atheism can't be militant because it's not a belief system”. People who think anyone openly saying that there is no god is militant... well, those people are ignorant and that’s not what I’m talking about. Also, you’re correct, that’s exactly why I’m talking about Humanism.
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Originally Posted by InfiniteNow
My general point (for which I'm admittedly struggling to find voice) is that it's justified if the militancy is judged to be for a net good across ideologies... If it can be judged as a good thing to do and is not dependent on localized ideology, then it is, in fact, a good thing to do. My example about using the military to remove a dictator who is killing his people and preventing them from receiving food and medicine seems to meet this "across ideologies it's regarded as objectively good" criteria. However, if the action can only be judged as good by those who cling to the ideology, and other third party observers find that action inherently wrong, then it's much less likely to be a "good" thing. For example, killing of all Jews is good to the ideology of the Nazi or the fundamentalist Muslim, but not to others who do not accept/live by those worldviews...
Either way, if the outcome of the warring action can only be deemed a net "good" by those following/accepting that ideology informing it, then it probably is much more deserving of critique and possibly rejection by the global community. However, if the outcome of the warring action can be deemed a net "good" by the larger global community, and is not contingent on some localized worldview, then chances are much better it truly is a collective net good.
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Right. I agree with you to an extent. Before waging war on some far-off people we should see what the rest of the world thinks about the idea. Clearly. And, that is, itself, a very humanist idea. It is the essence of Humanism to think that the proper judged of what is good for mankind is man. So, who else to tell you something is good or bad, but the rest of humanity? There are no divine books, stone tablets, or fairy princesses in the sky to tell us, so we can only trust our own collective judgment. But this line of reasoning breaks down as soon as you realize that most of the world rejects that atheistic, humanistic reasoning. They are judging what is good or bad on an entirely different standard—one that I cannot personally accept and, in fact, reject very strongly.
Can you really, then, defer judgment about the morality of something like military action based on the opinion of belief systems you reject wholeheartedly? I don’t think I can and I don’t think you could either. Christians and Muslims (making up more than half the world’s population) are maybe both happily seeking armageddon and look at the war leading up to it with glee, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to judge my support of war on their judgment of the morality of that result. I just couldn’t do it.
So, we’re back where we started. Humanism is an atheistic belief system in which it sometimes seems good and logical to kill whole bunches of people. As a belief system, it can be very militant. I could give you a humanist argument right now that concludes nuking North Korea is a good idea. Killing up to a quarter of their population could be seen as a positive result on the whole of humanity averaged over the next century. I could make that argument logically and flawlessly. And, people have believed those arguments in the past. Stalin did indeed frame his arguments in atheistic, humanistic terms. His comrades saw the logic and bought into it. I know that’s not something atheists like hearing (let alone saying), but it’s true.
I’m just saying, there
can be something very rotten in the state of Denmark. There can be militant, atheistic belief systems which seem very moral according to that belief system but are nonetheless absurd. It’s that very belief system which led me to support the war in Iraq, and has led others to do very awful things. I don’t have a solution. I
do not have a better alternative, and I would
strongly support Humanism if this were the occasion to do so—especially over religion! I’m just saying that it worries me. It’s not something that I shrug off lightly, and this whole idea of militant atheistic ideologies is actually something that troubles me somewhat.
~modest
