Atheism as itself is counterproductive and is rendered useless without humanism intrinsically involved
Atheism as a psychological phenomenon.
by BurnTheShips 105 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
BurnTheShips
? Care to elaborate on that ?
My family comes from a marxist communist country. From a philosophy which claims to be not just an atheistic but also a humanistic philosophy, but that in reality is nothing but anti-human.
Marx: "The criticism of religion leads to the doctrine according to which man is, for man, the supreme being; therefore it reaches the categorical imperative of overthrowing all relationships in which man is a degraded, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being."
A lot of innocent people have been degraded, enslaved, and killed in the name Marx's "supreme being".
BTS
-
mary stewart
interesting. but i became an atheist cos my prayers were never answered! and the idea of a god is cazy and unscientific.
the way dad is so anti-science you'd know why i love science! -
mary stewart
that vitz is a quack! he likes freud, who was an atheist! atheism is NOT self-woship. theists think atheism is some kind of religion, which it ISN"T! btw, my dad is reason 1: he's a wuss. my mum runs the family and my dad has no balls to confront her. he LETS he run things.
-
Narkissos
From this perspective, it is amusing to see that the "psychoanalysis of atheism" parallels many of Lacan's insights, although carefully avoiding the central one: namely, that our genuine relationship to the "Father" is neither imaginary (as in "belief") nor real (as in "experience") but symbolical (i.e., coextensive to the use of language, for religious "believers" and "unbelievers" alike).
I have a hard time wrapping my head around this. I think I understand what you are saying.....but what realm is it in? And how is it any less real?
I was referring to Lacan's concepts.
Let me take the example of a table.
The imaginary table is "what I know a table to be", the mental picture of a "table" which allows me to recognise an object as a table.
The real table is the thing I bump my knee against before I know what it is.
The symbolical table is the word "table" which allows me to connect the former two.
Each of these three "orders" are autonomous yet they are all connected and in interaction (Lacan illustrates that with the picture of the "Borromean knot").
The imaginary realm is our "world map", or world representation, which makes up (our) reality; it includes things as tables and rivers and tree, but also things as gods and devils, or fairies and unicorns, or Illuminati conspiracies.
The "real" is that for which we have no word or representation; that which is not filtered through mental images or symbols; especially, the things against which we bump, the symptom.
The "symbolical" is the central function of language through which we can allow the "real" to modify the "imaginary". That which can be defective, or radically altered, in the case of psychosis.
Lacan's "name of the Father" is basically the empty but necessary "place" which allows for the symbolical order to work. That which you must "believe" without knowing, without being able to represent it, without ever "bumping" against it, in order to play the game of language and let the real interact with the imaginary through language. It is neither a God "out there" nor God "in your mind". Yet your relationship with "him" as a speaking subject determines your psychological construction -- whether you are a believer or an unbeliever in a religious sense. And of course (still by the Lacanian theory) this has much to do with your relationship with either your father or father figures in childhood.
This imo is at least an interesting example of a-theology, or post-theology, in the psychoanalytical field...
Btw, there's another (unrelated?) absence in the articles you posted which I forgot to mention: it's strange that Vitz doesn't mention Bakunin -- who reversed Voltaire's famous sentence "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" into "if God did exist, it would be necessary to do away with him." This stance I feel is very interesting from a psychological standpoint -- inasmuch as it implies a conscious striving with the idea of God, instead of an unconscious suppression.
-
Homerovah the Almighty
The political power struggle by a select group of individuals and whatever they did to promote their agenda doesn't give discredit atheistic ideology,
to be militant is not to be humanistic is it ? in the understanding of true humanism.
Atheism has been a tool to gravitate power to people unto themselves that is true and any attempt to force the ideology through militant action is dutifully wrong.
-
BurnTheShips
The imaginary table is "what I know a table to be", the mental picture of a "table" which allows me to recognise an object as a table.
The Kantian phenonmenon?
The "real" is that for which we have no word or representation; that which is not filtered through mental images or symbols; especially, the things against which we bump, the symptom.
Is this the same as the Kantian ding an sich; noumenon?
Btw, there's another (unrelated?) absence in the articles you posted which I forgot to mention: it's strange that Vitz doesn't mention Bakunin -- who reversed Voltaire's famous sentence "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" into "if God did exist, it would be necessary to do away with him." This stance I feel is very interesting from a psychological standpoint -- inasmuch as it implies a conscious striving with the idea of God, instead of an unconscious suppression.
Maybe he mentions it in his book...which I haven't yet read.
Thanks
BTS
-
BurnTheShips
The political power struggle by a select group of individuals and whatever they did to promote their agenda doesn't give discredit atheistic ideology,
to be militant is not to be humanistic is it ? in the understanding of true humanism.
Atheism has been a tool to gravitate power to people unto themselves that is true and any attempt to force the ideology through militant action is dutifully wrong.
Let me use your statement:
The political power struggle by a select group of individuals and whatever they did to promote their agenda doesn't give discredit
atheistic ideologyChristianity,to be militant is not to be
humanisticChristian is it ? in the understanding of truehumanismChristianity.AtheismChristianity has been a tool to gravitate power to people unto themselves that is true and any attempt to force the ideology through militant action is dutifully wrong.Perhaps the problem isn't the tool, but the bearers.
BTS
-
Homerovah the Almighty
Both atheism and Christianity ( religion ) have been tools lets say that have been used wrongly upon people with grievous consequences.
Lets not forget the killing and torture of people that have occurred in the name of Christianity or other religions for that matter.
-
BurnTheShips
Thanks Homerovah, that is how I see it too. It is important to recognize these things, from both sides.
BTS