What do you think of conservative atheism?

[The Ugly One]

Populations shift and change. Easy to argue that we have focused on growing too much and that it will be a more healthy society/environment if we slowly shift to lower populations.

Low birth rates among secular liberals are unrelated to material survival factors like population density or calorie availability. And notably, this trend is global - from Korea to Germany to America to Brazil to Kenya, when you find secular liberals, you find childlessness. I need a better reason for why we should expect secular liberal birth rates to turn around than, "maybe they just will."

Saying society survives is kind of silly anyway, it has always continuously changed and it’s rather arrogant to assume we would be any different than those before us

Society doesn't always shift and change continuously. Entire belief systems and ways of living can and do die out. The trend right now looks like secular liberalism is going to go the way of Bolshevism. Superstitious, fecund barbarians overrunning us seems likely as well.

Okay, I guess, but only an insane person would choose their beliefs based on how many children people who hold those beliefs have. Even Quiverfull-types have the religious belief first and the prolific-ness as a consequence.

So what? I didn't say anything about why you should or shouldn't believe in God. I said it doesn't matter what your beliefs are if they go to the grave with you. In the great evolutionary struggle for survival of the fittest, those who die out are by definition unfit. Evolution doesn't care if your beliefs are true, only if they were compatible with reproduction & survival.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

I do find it funny that the only answer atheists have to the most fundamental question for a sustainable society, namely, "where are the children going to come from?" is to get mad that the question got asked at all. It's a legitimate, important question. Your evolutionary objective is survival. On an evolutionary scale, our societies are not on track to survive. They're on track to get replaced by illiberal, superstitious, intolerant groups of humans who are quite obviously much better at the most fundamental task of living beings--survival--than we are.

And I guess being religious makes people reproduce?

Religion dissolving and the birth rate problem are almost certainly correlative, not causative. I'm positive in the past there were loads of people going to church who didn't actually buy into it, but they went to church anyways then went home and had kids because that's how communities and social confidence works. Everyone was just expected to make a show of being a good Christian, and separate but mostly unrelated everyone was expected to have kids.

Community doesn't exist anymore however, mainly due to technological advancement and people's adaptation to it. Therefore people aren't religious anymore, and also people in those lower trust cultures reproduce less.

People aren't not having kids because nobody has told them to, they aren't doing it because they're scared to and don't believe there's any way to make space for children in their lives, and because especially among groups like whites and asians they have enough of an IQ to engage in long term thinking and worry themselves sterile about it.

I don't believe for a second that Africans (currently the main population well above replacement) spreading aids around and reproducing like rabbits are doing the sign of the cross before screwing out their 9th starving child. They do it because they live in mud huts and exist barely above animals.

 

[One Winged Pear Farmer]

Birth rates are down across the board, and secular people are still humans so yes, any human numbers thinning does relate directly to environmental shifts regardless of what ideology they happen to self Id with. Idk, I notice hard line religious folks becoming exceedingly rare. Whatever group does or doesn’t die out really doesn’t matter, they all will die out and be replaced by something new eventually given enough time. I think Christians vastly underestimate just how rapidly they are losing actual participating members. Weird to flex about numbers on polls

 

[Peepeepoopoo Witch]

I hate the authoritarian ones. Their sense of morality is just based on what they think is right, which in practice is whatever is most advantageous to them. It's why they're pro-baby killing as long as the baby isn't white, are pro-child-on-child-abuse (bullying), dehumanize everyone who isn't exactly like them, violently chimp the fuck out over homosexuality, and admire the left for their deceitfulness, fanaticism, terrorism, and slavish obedience to the party agenda. Their general solution to every (perceived) societal ill is to just start killing people and institute an authoritarian if not outright totalitarian state. They're living evidence against their own belief in atheist goodness. I much prefer Redditard fedora tippers because they don't pretend to be your ally.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Birth rates are down across the board, and secular people are still humans so yes, any human numbers thinning does relate directly to environmental shifts regardless of what ideology they happen to self Id with. Idk, I notice hard line religious folks becoming exceedingly rare. Whatever group does or doesn’t die out really doesn’t matter, they all will die out and be replaced by something new eventually given enough time. I think Christians vastly underestimate just how rapidly they are losing actual participating members. Weird to flex about numbers on polls

The cope is the "well, at least the numbers now reflect the REAL Christians without those Cultural Christian phonies!", but it's ignoring how leftists have hijacked half the denominations.

 

[Pomniman]

It's not actual "conservatism" so much as the Overton window having shifted in the most gay and retarded ways possible to the point where literal commies circa 1964 start looking heccin' baste if you're too caught up in the retardation of recency bias to notice that there was a direct incremental progression from everything they said and did to the meltbrained niggerfaggots of today.

 

[Male Idiot]

Retvrn to Rome!

Birthrates are caused by contraceptives and high cost of living. So a different, log nosed version of your religion and its merchants infesting you.

 

[Male Idiot]

It's not actual "conservatism" so much as the Overton window having shifted in the most gay and retarded ways possible to the point where literal commies circa 1964 start looking heccin' baste if you're too caught up in the retardation of recency bias to notice that there was a direct incremental progression from everything they said and did to the meltbrained niggerfaggots of today.

That's true, but by the same vein modern conservatives are basically 1910's commies. The overton window like moved to the next galaxy, but mostly in the US and its vassals only.

 

[The Ugly One]

And I guess being religious makes people reproduce?

Snakes, pigs, grasshoppers, and parakeets aren't religious, and nobody has to convince them that their species really ought to survive. I think it's more that secular materialism makes people decide there's no real reason to reproduce. Higher intelligence + metaphysical nihilism = concluding it's better to disable your gamete production so that you can enjoy orgasms without the inconvenience of the next generation showing up. Unlike other species, we are smart enough to link causes and effects, reason about them, and develop solutions to avoid unwanted effects. The problem is we've decided extinction of the species is not an unwanted effect.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

It's gay.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

Atheism itself is based, so right-wing Atheists are even more based.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Religion shouldn’t be government-mandated.

It always will be, better to choose a good religion than a bad one.

That's why Wokeism is the state religion, its followers weaseled their way into power and de facto enforced their non-theistic religion on everyone. It will always happen because humans are not robots, the etymology behind "politics" should be a hint there.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I don't think a belief in any religion/God/afterlife is necessary for a person to be a good person or hold conservative views, but I don't think it's correct or healthy and I have deep concerns about the idea that an entire society can survive with that kind of attitude. I suppose because a conservative atheist is still influenced by the values of their larger culture.

What's the basis for an atheist society? Communism? The Cult of Reason? That's what you get when you kill God: people make a God out of themselves, which means that any idea or desire that crosses their mind is not just acceptable but can be powered with a self-righteousness, totalizing obsessive drive that accepts any means to impose its will on other people.

A culture like that can't and won't conserve anything.


Dug up something I wrote elsewhere, about why Buddhism (despite having an afterlife and good ethics) seems to fail to make good societies:

“I think what sinks Buddhism isn’t that it doesn’t preach kindness (it does) or that it doesn’t have penalties and rewards in an afterlife (it does), but that it doesnt have God as we think of it. The rice farmers make themselves gods, but they don’t have, to my knowledge, anything remotely like a Protestant, Jew, or Muslims one stark God. So what do they feel ashamed to disappoint, feel a glow when they feel theyve made it happy, a peace when they trust it, or - most importantly for this - a well of righteous (not self-righteous) anger when they sense the world is out of balance? Id think they would feel apathetic and adrift.“

 

[snowdunes]

The old religions are the most "documented working" lifestyles we got so far (with some negatives), atheists are people who thinks that they can rebuild (from scratch) every aspect of how to run a civilization. Atheists are often retards who thinks religious text are to be taken litrally, instead of seeing it as a recipe for civilization. The goofy stories are there for the entertainment purpose, just like modern media works (I personally think most texts are misinterpreted from its original form due to mistranslation). So you also need some historical context if you really want to understand these texts more in depth. Let's take a look on how modern political beliefs work:

• Reject nature and try to design everything to go against it. - Brick wall mentality / delusional
• Accept nature and try to design everything to work with it. - Go with the flow mentality / accept reality

Humans have always tried to bend nature for their own benefits, some people choose to work around it or to work against it. Going against nature is delusional because nature always win! You can see this in both what ideologies/religions and their associated civilizations survives for centuries and the others than can't even pass a single one.

The problem with "conservative atheism" is the ego to think that everything current active religions have as a rule is a problem. They do crazy mental gymnastics to criticize every religion instead of trying to understand why it was structured that way and then improve it (with modern issues and resources in mind). Right now, atheism is indistinguishable from nihilism and hedonism. To be conservative atheist, you pretty much have to read a lot of religious texts (at least scrub though its rules) and practice the "good parts" and improve on the "bad ones", and I can assure you non of the ones that claims to be one have done that.

TL;DR
Conservative atheism could exist in theory, but in practice most likely not due to most people are too busy or dumb to live by it.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

The problem with "conservative atheism" is the ego to think that everything current active religions have as a rule is a problem.

What the hell are you talking about? I don't think the vast majority of Christian tenets are "a problem" - I think most of them are very good, in fact.

But the fact that religious morality is generally a good way to structure one's life doesn't mean God exists.

 

[Paper Machete]

It depends on what you mean by "conservatism". What even is that? What do conservatives in current year even attempt to preserve? They're just the flaccid make believe opposition to democrat/leftist thought. It's like considering which cookie brand, both ultimately owned by the same parent company, you should buy.

If you're talking about being anti-hedonism and anti hyper individuality there are plenty of reasons to be against that that are rooted in common sense and nature. You don't need to have religious motivations for that to be true.

What you're really asking is do you need to be religious to want to work with nature, taking into account reality? Or do you think not being religious means we must all live in a fantasy world where line always goes up?

 

[Violent Retard]

I was raised in an atheistic household, in an overwhelmingly atheistic society. Atheism was always the default for me, and I feel that this discussion is marred by a seemingly US-centric perspective where that isn't the case.

So my atheism isn't a reaction to theism, not grounded in opposition to Christianity. The opposite is true of my conservative values - the society I grew up in is extremely leftist by American standards. So I only ended up being socially conservative by gradually reasoning myself into it.

Since I never had any feelings of vitriol towards religion and never have been exposed to any conflict between religious and irreligious people (well, until modern times), it's always been fairly easy to keep an open mind towards religion. What is clear, as has been mentioned in this thread, is that Christianity forms a fairly successful blueprint for a functioning society, in all likelihood the best one that has ever existed. Christian beliefs are useful, whether Christianity is "true" or not.

The societal degeneration that seems to have gone exponential in the past few decades appears to be a consequence of both technological advancement and the decline of Christianity. So to "repair" society one would need to turn back the clock possibly on both of these, or discover a new belief system that adapts the useful parts of Christianity with the new circumstances that we find ourselves in.

Kaczynski's proposed solution of abandoning technological progress and living a more simple life is actually analogous to converting, or converting back, to Christianity, in the sense that it would likely work, if it wasn't impossible. A life dedicated to satisfying your primary needs, as opposed to pursuing "surrogate" activities, would likely feel much more meaningful. But only a rare few people would actually pursue such a lifestyle, knowing that technology can solve all their material problems quickly and cheaply.

Likewise, even knowing that I'd live a happier existence if I believed in God and Christianity, there is no way for me to adopt that belief. Either you believe, or you don't, and I don't.

Those are the problems faced by Christian conservatives and techno-luddites.

The problem faced by the atheistic conservative is that we have no solid foundation for our beliefs. Whereas Christian conservative arguments always lead back to religion, I can at best lean on axioms such as the non-aggression principle. Another consequence, since the atheist will have to reason his way into his beliefs, is that different people will come to different conclusions, rather than inheriting their beliefs from their society and from religion. So atheistic conservatives can likely never become as unified in their beliefs as their Christian counterparts.

Of course most people have neither the time or inclination to reason about their own beliefs. So in the long term, as Christianity maintains its decline, it seems unlikely that a coherent secular conservatism can ever take its place.

The outlook frankly seems incredibly bleak.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

The problem faced by the atheistic conservative is that we have no solid foundation for our beliefs.

In fairness, there's even less solid foundation behind an atheistic leftist/progressive worldview. At least traditional beliefs have proven themselves useful empirically over many generations - progressivism is based solely on on the idea "IF IT'S NEW IT MUST BE BETTER".

 

[Violent Retard]

In fairness, there's even less solid foundation behind an atheistic leftist/progressive worldview. At least traditional beliefs have proven themselves useful empirically over many generations - progressivism is based solely on on the idea "IF IT'S NEW IT MUST BE BETTER".

True enough. Progressivist views are easy to criticize just by pointing out where they lead. The issue, I suppose, is that progressivism is the default and the path of least resistance. For people who never question where their beliefs come from, why not just do what's easy and pleasurable?

So much easier to be able to point to a single source of truth, and so much better to build a political movement around. It may not be possible to replace with a secular belief system.

Then on the other hand, the communists, climate activists and gender-evangelicals certainly exhibit what could best be described as religious fervor. I wonder if there's a way for a secular ideology to tap into the religious circuits of the brain and not have it end up in a complete disaster.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

It always falls back on the tired "lol Reddit atheists are annoying edgelords who are assmad about being forced to go to church" accusations, which are exactly as lazy and disingenuous as HHH or Android Raptor calling all Christians "fundies".

Pick one day out of the week for you all to not behave like that and maybe I'll change my mind. I still have yet to meet an atheist I would actually want to sit down and talk to as an equal, without talking down to them, because, on a long enough timescale, every single one I've talked to ends up being a smug redditor stereotype who hides behind equally tired platitudes and phrases. You get back what you put in.

If you want to be an Atheist, and you want me to take you seriously, don't adopt the label of a religion full of godless people who are almost universally the way the outside assumes they are. I take no issue with the faithless, I take issue with those who adopted the religion of Atheism. Taking on the musty, cum-stained label of 'Atheist', begets exactly the kind of treatment it naturally deserves, as it does not mean the same thing as simply "not believing in god". The baggage attached to the name is a heavy load, and one you'd do a lot better not to try and carry in the first place.

It's not a funny jab to call Atheists mouth-breathing reddit retards. They just are that way, and if you think you're capable of breaking the mould set by the "Atheist Community", then be better than them by not calling yourself one. For as long as you live and breathe, you will never ever ever be able to salvage the reputation of the branding.