How can you be a militant atheist?

[Caskhades]

[ansuchin]

[Caskhades]

[CgDs]

[I am ST]

CogDistoib,

I am flattered that you still recall our conversations. If you recall, I was calling for the Descent of Red Parrots merely as a ploy to illustrate my basically Spinozist approach that there are no miracles, and that the universe/god is no two-bit carpenter that needs to change and patch its design mid-way through the project. The point was that religious people who need to believe in miracles to believe in god are worshiping a diminutive god, an interventionist little tyrant. Of course, once I got that far, it's only a step to admitting, with Spinoza, that the Bible is simply a historically-bound account of man's understanding of man's relationship to the universe/god, a spiritual history manual, not a divine command book. And indeed, any open-minded person will see that the god of Genesis/Exodus and the god of John's Gospel are, um, mildly different in how they are described and in the nature and depth of ritualistic interaction they prescribe. This evolution can be chronologically traced across the OT.
If you want to understand my mindset, ponder the fact that I read the Bible, Nietzsche, Russell and Spinoza, in that order.

Caskhades,
The Pew Survey is a fascinating report that I had forgotten about, I could pour over this for days. I know you promised to stay off this thread per Ansuchin's very feminine intervention, but I can't help but wonder how the fact the 43% of Hindus and 46% of Jewish adherents in the US earn more than USD 100,000 square with the Atheist triumph (a mere 28% of which earn more than 100,000)? If I were defending Atheism, I'd put it down to selective migration from the top of the Indian social pyramid for the Hindus, and for both groups age distribution, since 37% of Atheists are in the 18-29 age group, while under 15% of both Jews and Hindus are in that age group, and thus older and more likely to have a higher social position.

A few tables down, 37% of Atheists are listed as "Never Married" -- does not sound like the most evolutionarily successful strategy from a cross-generational standpoint, does it? By contrast, 19%, 14%, and 12% of Jews, Hindus and Mormons are "Never Married." While 90% and 83% of married Hindus and Mormons choose partners within the faith, only 69% of Jews do. Of all religions, Buddhists are most likely to have an unaffiliated spouse, suggesting that Buddhism is the faith most accommodating to dealing with unbelief (or nearest to unbelief, depending how you look at it). 28% of people raised as Buddhists lapse into nonbelief, the highest rate of all religions. An interesting way of shedding some light on how/why China, Korea and Japan are relatively agnostic.

Moreover, Hindus (84%), Jews (76%) and Mormons (70%) have the highest retention rates for children raised in that faith. This could be an artefact of immigration patterns for Hindus, but it suggests that at least Jews and Mormons have some sort of magic juice that makes them unusually resilient to modernity, when compared to Christians. Sadly, the Atheist retention rate is muddled by the Pew's conflating of "Religious Unaffiliated" into "Unaffiliated," when the religious unaffiliated are the ripest target for conversion. I'll be downloading the dataset and playing with it a bit. Will report back. {edit: after a bit of stats on the Pew dataset, it looks like people who report being atheists as children have a measly 38% retention rate, with 20% becoming evangelicals, 10% catholics, 14% other protestant, 3% buddhist. Part of it could be evangelical "I was a sinner" stuff, hard to tell.}

Ansuchin,
Let me repeat Caskhades' plea. I would love to know more about Buddhist praxis, since I tend to share his view that it's about sitting on a mountain and thinking about the sound of one hand clapping. Please tell us why that ain't really so.

[CgDs]

[Ibrahim]

Looking at the OP, it seems that a "militant atheist" is simply anyone who tries to impose atheism on others, by force if need be. There is no major religion or belief system that has not had "militant" expressions at some time or another, regardless of what their ideology actually says about violence.

[ansuchin]

[Ibrahim]

[Pantagruel]

Buddhism and monasticism are connected in a few ways:

1. Historically, the Buddha was a member of the distinctive Indian recluse culture. Many of his followers lived ordinary lives, but others were drawn from competing sects of recluses, and others yet were inspired to leave their homes and join him.

2. Institutionally, the monastic order has been the voice of the Buddha's teachings and a center of faithful Buddhist practice.

3. Technically, the highest and most subtle levels of Buddhist practice depend on mental states that are difficult or impossible to attain while habitually involved with sensual pleasures and worldly concerns.

[Tinker]

[Tinker]

[Apollonius]

[Tinker]

[Ibrahim]

[Apollonius]

Yes, I know. "Minor" is undoubtedly the operative word.

In Canada, it's even less possible. In Inuit society old people went off alone, not to meditate, but to die.

[Ibrahim]

[CgDs]

[Caskhades]

[Rhapsody]

I was Buddhist once, for about a month when I was 15. Then it occured to me that those recipes don't work for me probably because I can't cook from a recipe either. Same with playing the piano from scores: it never stuck to me, I loved much more to improvise. My oldest sister is a piano teacher, always a perfectionist and very able to play from paper. I always envied her for that, but her play is also somehow lacking that soul and naturalness (she won't read this ) that rises above technical pefection; it tends to sound mechanical and artificial. She in turn envies me for being able to improvise and having the right touch. Difference is she developed into a professional whereas I gave up, lacking the discipline/patience to bite through the exercises and technicalities which basically prevented me from developing further. Then you start a family and music drifted out of my focus.

Guess that everybody functions somewhere on the line between creator/improvisor and imitator/parrot. Maybe people have different needs and skills. Some are lucky enough to fly once they crawled out of the egg, others need some training and examples to imitate. Same may be true for the religious life styles.

[Colonel Sun]

How can you be a militant atheist?

Re: Soviet Union and Maoist China.

[Ibrahim]

[Caskhades]

[Ibrahim]

[YMix]

Russian Communism borrowed heavily from Orthodox Christianity.