Science & technology. Great! Active & involved already. Reason, ok, one of the human tools, among others like emotions, intuitions, common sense, etc. Let’s reason together, yeah! And keep reasoning. Yet a question arises why it is in doubt for @Patrick that anyone (in fact, many people) could be religiously ‘musical’ as Max Weber once wrote, while also practising science or technology?
Yes, atheists are statistically more likely to live without sponsorship than the majority religious in all countries of the world that I am aware of. The ‘reasons’ for this should be quite obvious as even Patrick could guess for us. He must put in the work alone in this for his ‘godless side’ showing to us that he in fact knows those sociological reasons because he is outnumbered by everyone here.
Why does it tend to be more difficult morally for most people to sponsor an atheist in contrast with sponsoring an evangelical protestant Christian (e.g. like Joshua & Peaceful Science)?
That might be an appropriately proportional return question to this thread’s question asking about the site’s sponsors. So, an answer was given and a follow-up has been asked: why it matters and who sponsors you in response.
The ‘unworried atheist’ (the ones who for a time block out nihilism, just like Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych) became a thing with baby boomers in several ‘western’ nations. Some turned to Buddhism or other esoteric blend of ‘spirituality’, seeking to find some ground for their existence. Others, became spiritually numb, religious zombies in the historically odd position of claiming that what is alive is actually dead. The next generation is of course, as to be expected, quite another thing spiritually. Thank God for Jordan Peterson speaking to young men the way he does!
“I am certain that among your friends, your family, your community that there are many nones, agnostics, and atheists. Perhaps a third to a half…”
Ok, a little fantasy blip or just bad folk sociology coming from a retired technologist. Please don’t act certain about anything like that. It is bad form that slides easily into prejudice. Yes, I know and have friends who are atheists; that does not change anything I’ve written above.
The efforts of this list could & should be directed to much better things than spending time with incorrigible atheists tugging on the community. Joshua can decide whether or how there needs to be a volume control (though it may sound ‘un-American’ to some, it is simply a technologically preferable democratic option), as there is in any normal functioning social organisation, so that people can speak in the proper place & way.
Considering me (or anyone else here) as an atheist is just sheer & utter impoliteness, no wait, it is delusional as only Richard Dawkins could have moulded that idea into you. Being a monist in contrast with a pluralist, or a monotheist rather than polytheist theologically provides the infantile ‘you’re an atheist too!’ taunting with greater clarity. Can atheists unlearn the spiritless ideology they have swallowed as they live in a comfortable ‘western’ technopoly of both secular & religious individualism? When one witnesses answers to that on a personal level, not just as an academic question, and sees how change is possible, it makes all the difference to how one can ‘spiritually breathe’ or be ‘religiously musical’ in one’s own life.
Perhaps it is good to have a token atheist here to remind everyone else that we are glad we never embraced atheism or are so overwhelmingly glad (e.g. check out Sy Garte’s regular post-atheism thanksgivings on Twitter) that we’ve grown out of it. ‘Militancy,’ might be something to check on Joshua’s future list.