Deist? Humanist? Realist...
The hottest philosophical debates these days are basically a conflict between those who follow a Christian Religion and those who are Atheist. At least, in the US, that's how it seems to me.
There are other debates. Just a few examples: many Christians believe that all Muslims are "trapped" in the Crusades, still fighting the old religious wars to eradicate the "scourge" that is Christianity (I actually had someone say that to me, never mind that we, as a Christian nation, and working supposedly in God's name, are doing exactly the same thing to the Muslims). There are other religions out there, such as Unitarianism, Wicca, Santeria, Buddhism (granted that's not really a religion in the strict sense), and so forth, and Christians feel the need to decry them all.
But the biggest fights, in my experience, come from Christians saying, "Hey! You stupid atheist! What's the matter with you? How can you be so stupid as to think that God doesn't exist? What kind of moron are you?" And the atheists saying, "Hey! You stupid Christian! What's the matter with you? How can you be so stupid as to think that God exists? What kind of moron are you?"
Christians are often heard to say that they don't see how it's possible to live as an atheist because atheism lacks a moral code, and if you ask me, this rather misses the point.
Here's what I've come to think about the whole debate.
Christianity has, as one of its core tenets, submission to God. This is, coincidentally, one area in which Christians are very similar to Muslims, but that's not the point right now. What is important is that this belief gives rise to some interesting thought patterns, such as that used in the 12 Step programmes, which states that you must accept that you are inferior to God. Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit! in which they state that the need to affirm such a belief is overly degrading to the human condition, and is not necessary for recovery from addiction. And I think that in that, certainly, they have a point.
Christianity, then, is what I will call a "Deist" religion, and by this, I do not mean "a religion that believes there is one or more god(s)," but rather, I mean that the believe that humans have no control over their own lives, their own destinies, let alone the lives and destinies of anyone else, or even the world around us. George Carlin did a routine on this once. He was talking about how people can chalk up anything that happens to "God's will." He elaborates: "Yeah, I ran over the kid in the driveway. Hey! Don't look at me! God's will." He then describes a lynch mob, milling around muttering, "Let's go down the church and get this guy God. It's the fourth kid he's killed this week!"
A bit extreme, but you get the point.
So for this rant, "deist" means "surrendering control and responsibility." Conversely, we have atheism, which is most frequently based on scientific evidence.
I'm going to pause here to make sure that people understand a point that should go without saying, because I trust my readers (perhaps a foolish move on my part) to be intelligent enough to realise that when I'm making a statement in rants like this, I'm referring only to the majority of people within a certain group. There are exceptions. There are Christians who do not fit this description, just as there are many atheists and scientists who do not fit the descriptions I am about to give. It is easier to understand that there is an implied "most" in front of every personal noun in these descriptions than it is to actually type the word "most" in front of every instance of such a noun. Granted, it would then be counter-productive for me to have to insert a disclaimer like this, but sadly, past events have made it clear that I must in fact do so.
Anyway, my point is that I realise that all persons are different, and one should not use preconceptions like the ones I'm outlining in this rant as a basis of judgement for anyone. I (as you should) take each person on a case-by-case basis, waiting until I get to know the person before I decide what I think of him. Rants such as this merely indicate that the percentages are higher that any given person of a certain group will be described by the statements I'm making that that they will not. It doesn't mean that I think that they can't, or that I can use these opinions as a basis for my opinion of an individual. It's merely a description of the average.
Back to my point. Atheists, as I said, usually base their beliefs on scientific evidence. Many scientists take a truly impartial view of their work, and attempt to interpret the results as seems most logical. However, there are also a great many scientists who intentionally allow their preconceptions to skew their observations. For example, I point again to the controversy on global warming. I have read articles which reveal that there are scientists out there who are so anxious to "prove" the global warming phenomenon that they are intentionally suppressing data about the "Medieval Warm Period." These scientists are so determined to advance their own personally held "Green Theories" that they are no longer looking at the evidence objectively.
Allow me to offer my own opinion on the matter, just as a brief aside. Global warming may be occurring, and it may not. I am of the firm opinion that there is simply not enough evidence available to us to prove OR disprove the notion. Evidence abounds that suggests that the earth is warming up, but we cannot know, at this point, if human activities have a causal relationship with this trend. More to the point, we cannot reliably discern the climate patterns from more than about six to twelve centuries ago. So we cannot know if this warming trend is normal or natural. There is not enough evidence to cause the widespread panic that is occurring across the globe. I DO think that it's not a bad idea to take some of the precautions suggested by the global warming theorists, just in case, but for pity's sake, don't have a stick up your ass about it. Don't try to lynch those who choose not to follow these suggestions.
Anyway. My theory about atheists based on this observation is that many people have taken an opposing view to the deists, which I will call "humanist." In this rant, humanist means "believing that humans are responsible for all things, and there is no other cause." Maybe this statement is a bit overly broad, but it shows the humano-centric viewpoint that many people hold. It reminds me of the old fears about nuclear war: people often said, "We have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over." When in fact, what would happen would not be that we destroy the world; we would simply reshape it. It would become hostile to life as we know it. New life might spring up in the wake of such a war, that was better adapted to living in such a place, but the earth itself, as a planetary body in orbit around the sun, would still exist.
I propose a third theory: what I call "Realism." In this theory, humans have control over much of their environment, including the entirety of our own lives, but there is much over which we have no control, and we would do well to remember it. Even those aspects of our own life which appear to be out of our control are still largely of our own doing. As Neil Gaiman said in an issue of Sandman, "Sometimes I suspect that we build our own traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while. That this is the way of life, from the All-Highest down to the meanest creature in existence..."
We need to find that balance. To learn what areas we do control, and work to control them, as we learn over what areas we have no control, and stop trying to control them.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
/rant
There are other debates. Just a few examples: many Christians believe that all Muslims are "trapped" in the Crusades, still fighting the old religious wars to eradicate the "scourge" that is Christianity (I actually had someone say that to me, never mind that we, as a Christian nation, and working supposedly in God's name, are doing exactly the same thing to the Muslims). There are other religions out there, such as Unitarianism, Wicca, Santeria, Buddhism (granted that's not really a religion in the strict sense), and so forth, and Christians feel the need to decry them all.
But the biggest fights, in my experience, come from Christians saying, "Hey! You stupid atheist! What's the matter with you? How can you be so stupid as to think that God doesn't exist? What kind of moron are you?" And the atheists saying, "Hey! You stupid Christian! What's the matter with you? How can you be so stupid as to think that God exists? What kind of moron are you?"
Christians are often heard to say that they don't see how it's possible to live as an atheist because atheism lacks a moral code, and if you ask me, this rather misses the point.
Here's what I've come to think about the whole debate.
Christianity has, as one of its core tenets, submission to God. This is, coincidentally, one area in which Christians are very similar to Muslims, but that's not the point right now. What is important is that this belief gives rise to some interesting thought patterns, such as that used in the 12 Step programmes, which states that you must accept that you are inferior to God. Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit! in which they state that the need to affirm such a belief is overly degrading to the human condition, and is not necessary for recovery from addiction. And I think that in that, certainly, they have a point.
Christianity, then, is what I will call a "Deist" religion, and by this, I do not mean "a religion that believes there is one or more god(s)," but rather, I mean that the believe that humans have no control over their own lives, their own destinies, let alone the lives and destinies of anyone else, or even the world around us. George Carlin did a routine on this once. He was talking about how people can chalk up anything that happens to "God's will." He elaborates: "Yeah, I ran over the kid in the driveway. Hey! Don't look at me! God's will." He then describes a lynch mob, milling around muttering, "Let's go down the church and get this guy God. It's the fourth kid he's killed this week!"
A bit extreme, but you get the point.
So for this rant, "deist" means "surrendering control and responsibility." Conversely, we have atheism, which is most frequently based on scientific evidence.
I'm going to pause here to make sure that people understand a point that should go without saying, because I trust my readers (perhaps a foolish move on my part) to be intelligent enough to realise that when I'm making a statement in rants like this, I'm referring only to the majority of people within a certain group. There are exceptions. There are Christians who do not fit this description, just as there are many atheists and scientists who do not fit the descriptions I am about to give. It is easier to understand that there is an implied "most" in front of every personal noun in these descriptions than it is to actually type the word "most" in front of every instance of such a noun. Granted, it would then be counter-productive for me to have to insert a disclaimer like this, but sadly, past events have made it clear that I must in fact do so.
Anyway, my point is that I realise that all persons are different, and one should not use preconceptions like the ones I'm outlining in this rant as a basis of judgement for anyone. I (as you should) take each person on a case-by-case basis, waiting until I get to know the person before I decide what I think of him. Rants such as this merely indicate that the percentages are higher that any given person of a certain group will be described by the statements I'm making that that they will not. It doesn't mean that I think that they can't, or that I can use these opinions as a basis for my opinion of an individual. It's merely a description of the average.
Back to my point. Atheists, as I said, usually base their beliefs on scientific evidence. Many scientists take a truly impartial view of their work, and attempt to interpret the results as seems most logical. However, there are also a great many scientists who intentionally allow their preconceptions to skew their observations. For example, I point again to the controversy on global warming. I have read articles which reveal that there are scientists out there who are so anxious to "prove" the global warming phenomenon that they are intentionally suppressing data about the "Medieval Warm Period." These scientists are so determined to advance their own personally held "Green Theories" that they are no longer looking at the evidence objectively.
Allow me to offer my own opinion on the matter, just as a brief aside. Global warming may be occurring, and it may not. I am of the firm opinion that there is simply not enough evidence available to us to prove OR disprove the notion. Evidence abounds that suggests that the earth is warming up, but we cannot know, at this point, if human activities have a causal relationship with this trend. More to the point, we cannot reliably discern the climate patterns from more than about six to twelve centuries ago. So we cannot know if this warming trend is normal or natural. There is not enough evidence to cause the widespread panic that is occurring across the globe. I DO think that it's not a bad idea to take some of the precautions suggested by the global warming theorists, just in case, but for pity's sake, don't have a stick up your ass about it. Don't try to lynch those who choose not to follow these suggestions.
Anyway. My theory about atheists based on this observation is that many people have taken an opposing view to the deists, which I will call "humanist." In this rant, humanist means "believing that humans are responsible for all things, and there is no other cause." Maybe this statement is a bit overly broad, but it shows the humano-centric viewpoint that many people hold. It reminds me of the old fears about nuclear war: people often said, "We have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over." When in fact, what would happen would not be that we destroy the world; we would simply reshape it. It would become hostile to life as we know it. New life might spring up in the wake of such a war, that was better adapted to living in such a place, but the earth itself, as a planetary body in orbit around the sun, would still exist.
I propose a third theory: what I call "Realism." In this theory, humans have control over much of their environment, including the entirety of our own lives, but there is much over which we have no control, and we would do well to remember it. Even those aspects of our own life which appear to be out of our control are still largely of our own doing. As Neil Gaiman said in an issue of Sandman, "Sometimes I suspect that we build our own traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while. That this is the way of life, from the All-Highest down to the meanest creature in existence..."
We need to find that balance. To learn what areas we do control, and work to control them, as we learn over what areas we have no control, and stop trying to control them.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
/rant