Politics and atheism

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Benjboi's picture
Politics and atheism

In my experience (nothing more than anecdotal opinion) atheists are very often politically left. So are right wing politics and atheism incompatible?

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MCDennis's picture
nope. they are unrelated.

nope. they are unrelated. atheists tend to be humanists and humanists probably tend to the left

Burn Your Bible's picture
I am a nothing... I agree

I am a nothing... I agree with ideas on the left and ideas on the right. I guess if there was a label it would be libertarian

mykcob4's picture
I find atheist all over the

I find atheist all over the proverbial dial I am Liberal Progressive Democrat. In the UK I would be Labour...antiTory to the max!

AJ777's picture
I can’t believe you are a

I can’t believe you are a liberal progressive. To what are you progressing mykob4?

Keith Raye's picture
@AJ777

@AJ777

So what are your politics?

AJ777's picture
I am in favor of conserving

I am in favor of conserving those values and ideas that are good, and progressing away from those values and ideas that are bad.

Sheldon's picture
Hi,

Hi,

Can I ask what moral imperatives you use to reason whether something is 'morally' good? It's obvious that actions have consequences, for myself I agree with Sam Harris "The Moral Landscape" that the most moral acts are those that can be empirically shown to promote emotional and physical well being, and minimise suffering. Harris does not limit this to humans, but includes all conscious animals.

AJ777's picture
Why should suffering be

Why should suffering be minimized in an atheistic naturalist worldview? Isn’t some suffering beneficial physically and spiritually? Who decides what suffering is? A moral law giver is necessary in order to have an objective moral law.

Sheldon's picture
"Why should suffering be

"Why should suffering be minimized in an atheistic naturalist worldview?"
Empathy, compassion, decency, humanity etc. Have you ever been elated and happy? Conversely have you ever been in real physical or emotional pain that was unbearable and made you miserable? Which would you prefer? Assuming you prefer the former why would you think every other conscious being didn't feel the same.

" Isn’t some suffering beneficial physically and spiritually?"
No suffering is never beneficial, and I'm not sure what you mean by 'spiritually', perhaps you could define it, and explain the benefit of a parent watching it's infant die from Malaria or cancer? Or how a lifetime of chronic back pain is beneficial, spiritually or otherwise. I think we have a moral obligation to each other because otherwise life would become unbearable. It is also a demonstrable fact that societal animals have evolved to be empathetic towards each other, it is innate in us. When others are obviously suffering it provokes sympathy in us, as it should.

"Who decides what suffering is?"
We do, obviously, since suffering is an entirely human concept we've created in order to explain and understand a state of existence.

"A moral law giver is necessary in order to have an objective moral law."
How do you know this if you can't decide for yourself what is moral? How do you know that the religious doctrine and dogma you accept is moral if you can't determine what is moral yourself without blind adherence to dogma and doctrine?

Keith Raye's picture
@AJ777

@AJ777
That looks like a rather evasive answer. Please define 'good' and 'bad'.

mykcob4's picture
Why should anyone care what

Why should anyone care what you believe AJ777? You believe in a myth and that is your record of belief.
Politically conservatives cannot be progressives. They are juxtaposed to one another.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rj...

Keith Raye's picture
I'm a member of the Labour

I'm a member of the Labour Party - one who supported Jeremy Corbyn before he became leader and still do.
And I'm vehemently anti racist, and a supporter of sexual equality.

Benjboi's picture
See I don't know where I

See I don't know where I stand, I feel that society can't be blamed for the acts of the individual and that we inevitably end up with a hierarchy and those that have and those that have not. I'm also in favour of having limited regulation and letting the market find it's place.

However I'm also vehemently in favour of equal opportunity, sexual equality and the support and defence of those incapable of their independence. Free speech and the rule of law are my red lines.

The problem is these positions end up putting me economically right and socially left. I almost always end up spoiling my ballot.

Tory party? Bigoted old career politicians wearing a new Labour badge, what a thrilling prospect.

Keith Raye's picture
In my view, economics work

In my view, economics work best in a free market, but there are limits, and you've only to to look at the super-rich/super-greedy to see where those limits should be. I'm a believer in the co-operative ethic, ie in the idea of customers being shareholders. For example, I buy my gas and electricity from Co-operative Energy. That makes me a shareholder in the company - not merely a customer. Which, in turn, entitles me to a say in the way the company is run, and how much the company officers get paid. In addition, I get a share of the profits - a dividend which is paid annually. The better the company performs, the more dividend I get.

That arrangement gives ordinary people a real incentive to help their companies thrive. It works, and the Tories are crapping themselves over it - they denigrate the idea at every opportunity. Why? Because they are - almost to a man - shareholders in the old fashioned sense of the word ie investors whose primary concern is profit at the expense of the customer instead of FOR the customer.
Have a think about it and you'll probably see that's the ideal way to run public services such as railways, energy and water supplies.

Keith Raye's picture
The other great crisis in our

The other great crisis in our society at the moment is the cost of housing and rents. If you believe the tory promises on housing, then you'd have to believe in fairies too. Why? Because a large majority of them are landlords and/or shareholders/investors in land and construction companies. Lower house prices and rents are anathema to them. The only party who will ever change that situation is Labour and it's one of those things that's very dear to JC's heart.

Benjboi's picture
Totally agree Keith, I'm not

Totally agree Keith, I'm not keen on unionised labour but only because we do it wrong here. Our union set ups end up drawing them and us battle lines which is unproductive at best and destructive at worst. Place the unions on the board of companies and this problem evaporates. Take john lewis, it's more expensive than everyone else, occupies odd and often expensive locations and was really slow to take up the Web as a trading platform yet they're robust and profitable. The fact that it's cooperatively staffed despite almost every commercial disadvantage cannot be a coincidence.

I think we may have to disagree on house prices though. The problem cannot be dealt with by artificial manipulation and I personally feel Corbyn has got this one wrong. Politicians like to pretend that there's some great mystery to the housing market, there isn't. It's simple supply and demand economics. We create 200,000 households per year, we build around 40,000 (actually this is an exaggeration based on latest figures), that's 160,000 households per year that aren't catered for and then they wonder why prices keep rising. They either need to slow household creation (brexit, whilst I hate the concept, might actually assist this) or build more houses which is challenging due to nimby mentalities.

Keith Raye's picture
Yes, but do you see WHY only

Yes, but do you see WHY only 40,00 houses a year get built?

And you don't need unions on the boards of companies that are co-operatives, because those companies are partially controlled by the customers and/or the staff who operate them. Yes, uncontrolled unionism can be as bad as uncontrolled capitalism - in both cases it's the customers who suffer. Companies are best run by people best qualified to do it, but if their workers are shareholders most of the problems of capitalist versus unionist disappear.

Benjboi's picture
True Keith, you've put it

True Keith, you've put it better than I did but it was in essence what I was getting at.

Regarding the 40,000 there's no one reason but it's a combination of an over reliance on private enterprise, a lack of funding for social housing, objections against large scale housing projects, the disastrous right to buy project (which would have been fine if the proceeds had been used to build more social property, as it was it ended up as a quasi ponzi scheme) and a lack of trades capable to construct them. It's a complex issue and is compounded by a lack of political courage. Unfortunately people vote with their pockets and policies that cause a reduction in perceived personal wealth are political suicide so they talk tough and do little.

Keith Raye's picture
@Benjboi

@Benjboi

All of what you say is true, but the basic reason why all of that happened is because it's in the interests of a very few, very rich, very greedy people to see that property and land prices keep on climbing. Building the number of homes that's actually required, would lower ( or at least stabilize prices ) so that young people could get into the market the way they used to. Socialism isn't against ownership of property - that's communism. But we socialists want to see a fair housing market that benefits the many rather than the few.

Flamenca's picture
@Benjboi, there are only a

@Benjboi, there are only a few exceptions of well-known conservative Atheists (Silverman, president of American Atheists is one) but he's not a politician. I don't now if any kind US citizen in the room could name any atheist active politician in GOP... I'm sure in GB, far more secular, you can name several of them. Getting out of the atheist closet in a very traditional environment must be really hard.

Where's the correlation? Religion is pure traditionalism, therefore, conservatism, which right-wing bias parties are also happy to represent. Religious people are the vast majority of people and religious elites control pulpits, priviledged places to mold a certain opinion based on political agenda; often related with religion (Creationism at schools) but not necessarily (gun control, wars abroad, same-sex love and marriage, apostasy, etc.) And they tend to be also conservative, in the sense of unwilling to change their vote. Very useful indeed.

@AJ. I am in favor of conserving those values and ideas that are good, and progressing away from those values and ideas that are bad.

That sounds like a cliché, and it's also begging the question: Who discerns right ideas from wrong ideas and in which criteria? I hope you don't suggest a theocratic unitarian authority...

AJ777's picture
God, apart from his authority

God, apart from his authority, all else is opinion. Prove otherwise.

mykcob4's picture
@AJ777 "god" is an opinion.

@AJ777 "god" is an opinion.

Flamenca's picture
@AJ. Assuming God is the

@AJ. Assuming God is the authority, then the Bible must be the book of instructions. I could prove you "severalwise", but I'll give you just a bite:

There are hundreds of different translations of the Bible, several different intepretations among each translation, entire books have been added, changed or suppressed in the Bible over centuries... The randomness derived from its very beginning: please, take a look at the First Council of Nicaea. Before 325 C.E. there was no Bible, no holy instructions, so can you explain why in Ancient Egypt, words like "fairness", "suffering", "mercy", etc. already existed several centuries before Christ? Aren't those signs of a moral system?

And please, for once, be a gentleman and give a straight answer to a straight question.

Burn Your Bible's picture
That is an awesome question!!

That is an awesome question!!!!!!!
@angiebot

AJ777's picture
The Christian view as I

The Christian view as I understand it is that god has written his law on our hearts or given us a conscience so that no one is without excuse. Read Romans 2.

Keith Raye's picture
@AJ777 Please define 'god'

@AJ777

Please define 'god'

Sheldon's picture
"God, apart from his

"God, apart from his authority, all else is opinion. Prove otherwise."

That sounds like an opinion to me?

AJ777's picture
That is an assertion, you now

That is an assertion, you now have the burden of proof to back it up.....

mykcob4's picture
Nope AJ777 I don't have ANY

Nope AJ777 I don't have ANY burden of proof. Since a god has never been proven it is only an opinion.

Flamenca's picture
@AJ: I read in an academic

@AJ: I read it in an academic paper in Spanish. But I'll make it easy for you: please, google "Maat", you'll find out they even had their own divinity for morality and justice!

And you should also check the "Papyrus of Ani" out, written 1250 BCE... That's a moral code "by the book" in a figurative sense!!!

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