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Atheists and conflict resolution (view source)
Revision as of 21:16, September 24, 2019
, 21:16, September 24, 2019→Atheism and violence
All of these courts have wide discretion in deciding how quickly or slowly to rule. That means it’s very difficult to place a confident time frame on when we should expect to know the final outcome of the case; if every court took as much time as reasonably possible just to complete the appeal process described above, it could take… I dunno, five years? But this lawsuit is in fact a small, relatively simple one, so it’s more likely that that process will be finished in a year or less.<ref>[https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2019/09/23/see-you-in-court/ See you in court!] by PZ Myers</ref>}}
All of these courts have wide discretion in deciding how quickly or slowly to rule. That means it’s very difficult to place a confident time frame on when we should expect to know the final outcome of the case; if every court took as much time as reasonably possible just to complete the appeal process described above, it could take… I dunno, five years? But this lawsuit is in fact a small, relatively simple one, so it’s more likely that that process will be finished in a year or less.<ref>[https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2019/09/23/see-you-in-court/ See you in court!] by PZ Myers</ref>}}
== Atheism and open-mindedness ==
[[File:Freethinkers.jpg|thumbnail|200px|right|Dr. [[Jonathan Sarfati]] is a staff member of [[Creation Ministries International]]. ]]
Concerning '''atheism and open-mindedness''', ''The Independent'' reported in an article entitled ''Atheists are less open-minded than religious people, study claims'':
{{Cquote|Religious people are more tolerant of different viewpoints than atheists, according to researchers at a Catholic university.
A study of 788 people in the UK, France and Spain concluded that atheists and agnostics think of themselves as more open-minded than those with faith, but are are actually less tolerant to differing opinions and ideas.
Religious believers "seem to better perceive and integrate diverging perspectives", according to psychology researchers at the private Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Belgium's largest French-speaking university.
Filip Uzarevic, who co-wrote the paper, said his message was that "closed-mindedness is not necessarily found only among the religious".<ref>[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/atheists-agnostic-religion-close-minded-tolerant-catholics-uk-france-spain-study-belgium-catholic-a7819221.html ''Atheists are less open-minded than religious people, study claims''], ''The Independent'', 2017</ref>}}
''PsyPost'' indicates:
{{Cquote|New research indicates that religious believers can be better at perceiving and integrating different perspectives than atheists in Western Europe.
“The main message of the study is that closed-mindedness is not necessarily found only among the religious,” the study’s corresponding author, Filip Uzarevic of the Catholic University of Louvain, told PsyPost.
The research was published April 27, 2017, in the peer-reviewed journal ''Personality and Individual Differences''.
Atheists tended to show greater intolerance of contradiction, meaning when they were presented with two seemingly contradictory statements they rated one as very true and the other as very false. They also showed less propensity to be able to imagine arguments contrary to their own position and find them somewhat convincing.<ref>[https://www.psypost.org/2017/06/study-finds-nonreligious-can-close-minded-religious-49182 Study finds the nonreligious can be more close-minded than the religious]
By ERIC W. DOLAN, ''PsyPost'' June 23, 2017</ref>}}
[[File:Temple of Reason.jpg|thumbnail|200px|The Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg was turned into a Temple of Reason by the [[Cult of Reason]]. See: [[Atheist cults]] ]]
The abstract for the 2017 journal article ''Are atheists undogmatic?'' published in the journal ''Personality and Individual Differences'' states:
:"Previous theory and evidence favor the idea that religious people tend to be dogmatic to some extent whereas non-religious people are undogmatic: the former firmly hold beliefs, some of which are implausible or even contrary to the real world evidence. We conducted a further critical investigation of this idea, distinguishing three aspects of rigidity: (1) self-reported dogmatism, defined as unjustified certainty vs. not standing for any beliefs, (2) intolerance of contradiction, measured through (low) endorsement of contradictory statements, and (3) low readiness to take a different from one's own perspective, measured through the myside bias technique. Non-believers, at least in Western countries where irreligion has become normative, should be lower on the first, but higher on the other two constructs. Data collected from three countries (UK, France, and Spain, total N = 788) and comparisons between Christians, atheists, and agnostics confirmed the expectations, with agnostics being overall similar to atheists."<ref>[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886917303070 ''Are atheists undogmatic?''], ''Personality and Individual Differences'', Filip Uzarevica, Vassilis Sarogloua, Magali Clobert, Volume 116, 1 October 2017, Pages 164-170</ref>
=== New Atheism and open-mindedness ===
''See also:'' [[New Atheism, dogmatism and Jonathon Haidt's study]]
[[File:Sam Harris-2010.jpg|thumbnail|260px|left|[[New Atheism|New atheist]] [[Sam Harris]] speaking in 2010.]]
[[New Atheism]] is a contemporary form of [[militant atheism]]. The new atheist [[Richard Dawkins]] said about New Atheism, "[O]ur struggle is not so much an intellectual struggle, as a political one: What are we going to do about it?”.<ref>[http://secularismandnonreligion.org/articles/10.5334/snr.al/print/ Faithless: The politics of new atheism] by Steven Kettell</ref>
Using special text analysis software, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt found that new atheists very often wrote in dogmatic terms in their major works using words such as “always,” “never,” “certainly,” “every,” and “undeniable.”<ref>[http://www.thisviewoflife.com/index.php/magazine/articles/why-sam-harris-is-unlikely-to-change-his-mind10 Why Sam Harris is Unlikely to Change his Mind] by JONATHAN HAIDT, February 3, 2014 8:36 pm</ref> Of the 75,000 words in new atheist [[Sam Harris]]' ''The End of Faith'', 2.24% of them connote or are associated with certainty.<ref>[http://www.thisviewoflife.com/index.php/magazine/articles/why-sam-harris-is-unlikely-to-change-his-mind10 Why Sam Harris is Unlikely to Change his Mind] by JONATHAN HAIDT, February 3, 2014 8:36 pm</ref>
Springerlink indicates in the abstract for ''New Atheism, Open-Mindedness, and Critical Thinking'' by Christopher R. Cotter (first presented at the ''(New) Atheism, Scientism, and Open-Mindedness'' Conference, Lancaster University, April 3, 2012 and the Workshop for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion and Culture, University of Edinburgh, April 25, 2012):
{{Cquote|A common theme throughout the writings of [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Daniel Dennett]], Sam Harris, and the late [[Christopher Hitchens]] is the importance of ‘[[critical thinking]]’. Not only do these authors believe that they themselves are critical thinkers, they also advocate critical thinking as a key element in their idealized atheistic future. This chapter has been written to assess the veracity of their claims to critical thinking in their engagements with ‘religion’, via an engagement with related literature on ‘open-mindedness,’ particularly the work of William Hare and Harvey Siegel. An analysis of this nature is not merely of academic interest, but is of great importance given the popularity of their books both within and outside the atheistic milieu, the near-canonical status that they have achieved, and the effects of their rhetoric upon the beliefs and practices of individuals in the ‘real’ world. The argument in this chapter flows sequentially through delineations of the concepts of ‘open-mindedness’ and ‘critical thinking’, and a demonstration of the New Atheists’ valorization of critical thinking, before discussing open-mindedness as a constituent part of critical thinking, and then building a three stage argument to demonstrate that the New Atheists are not open-minded, and that therefore they are not critical thinkers (in the context of their most popular considerations of ‘religion’).<ref>[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-54964-4_3 ''New Atheism, Open-Mindedness, and Critical Thinking]'' by Christopher R. Cotter</ref>}}
In a 2014 ''New Republic'' article entitled ''The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins: His atheism is its own kind of narrow religion'', the atheist philosopher [[John Gray (philosopher)|John Gray]] wrote:
{{cquote|One might wager a decent sum of money that it has never occurred to Dawkins that to many people he appears as a comic figure. His default mode is one of rational indignation—a stance of withering patrician disdain for the untutored mind of a kind one might expect in a schoolmaster in a minor public school sometime in the 1930s. He seems to have no suspicion that any of those he despises could find his stilted pose of indignant rationality merely laughable. “I am not a good observer,” he writes modestly. He is referring to his observations of animals and plants, but his weakness applies more obviously in the case of humans. Transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings—himself and others.<ref>[http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119596/appetite-wonder-review-closed-mind-richard-dawkins ''The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins''], New Republic by John Gray</ref>}}
==== Antitheism and open-mindedness ====
[[File:Stalin.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Joseph Stalin]]'s atheistic regime killed tens of millions of people. See: [[Militant atheism]] and [[Atheism and Mass Murder|Atheism and mass murder]] ]]
''See also:'' [[Antitheism]] and [[Antitheism and antisocial behavior]] and [[Atheism and narcissism]] and [[Atheism and anger]]
[[Antitheism]] is active opposition to and hatred of theistic belief. It is distinguished from simple [[atheism]] in that it is not simply a rejection of belief in God; rather, the antitheist is actively opposed to such belief.<ref>http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Antitheist</ref> While a particular atheist might be content to deny the existence of God, but leave others to their own faith, the antitheist will actively seek to undermine or eliminate the faith of others. Thus, all antitheists are [[atheists]], but not all atheists are necessarily antitheists. Antitheism is also sometimes referred to as [[militant atheism]], and is prominent amongst people who see religion as promoting "hatred".
In the United States, a University of Tennessee study estimated that 15% of [[American atheism|American atheists]] were antitheists.<ref>[http://www.alternet.org/belief/6-types-atheists-and-non-believers-america The 6 Types of Atheists and Non-Believers in America] By Amanda Marcotte / AlterNet
July 11, 2013</ref>
Social science research indicates that antitheists score the highest among atheists when it comes to personality traits such as [[narcissism]], dogmatism, and anger.<ref name="New Atheists">[https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/science-shows-new-atheists-to-be-mean-and-closed-minded/ Science Shows New Atheists to be Mean and Closed-Minded]</ref><ref>[http://www.thisviewoflife.com/index.php/magazine/articles/why-sam-harris-is-unlikely-to-change-his-mind10 Why Sam Harris is Unlikely to Change his Mind] by JONATHAN HAIDT, February 3, 2014 8:36 pm</ref> Furthermore, they scored lowest when it comes to agreeableness and positive relations with others.<ref name="New Atheists"/>
=== Atheism, open-mindedness and groupthink ===
''See also:'' [[Atheism and groupthink]]
[[Groupthink]] is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of individuals in which the quest for harmony/conformity within the group results in irrational and/or poor decision-making.
In relation to [[atheism and groupthink]], the [[Atheism|atheist]] website ''Atheist Revolution'' declared about segments of the [[atheist population]]:
{{Cquote|We've seen various cliques emerge, some of which have largely abandoned critical thinking for dogma. This mutual admiration society strikes me as being [http://www.atheistrev.com/2012/04/cohesion-comes-at-price.html antithetical to free thought], as similar ideas are rewarded through promotion while diverse perspectives receive less attention. This sets the stage for a type of groupthink that runs counter to [http://www.atheistrev.com/2012/04/big-tent-atheism.html big tent atheism]...
By elevating some in our movement to the level of celebrities, I fear we have cheapened it through irrational hero worship.<ref>[http://www.atheistrev.com/2012/10/feeling-disillusioned-with-atheist.html ''Feeling Disillusioned With the Atheist Movement''], Atheist Revolution</ref>}}
=== Atheism and dogmatism ===
*[[Atheism and dogmatism]]
=== Atheism and intolerance ===
*[[Atheism and intolerance]]
== Atheism and violence ==
== Atheism and violence ==