Socialism leads to Atheism?

[Maverick74]

Quote from RCG Trader:

simple, one requires faith, the other does not.

And which is the one that requires faith?

 

[stu]

Quote from Ricter:

Everyone has some kind of "immortality project", as Ernest Becker called it, as their higher power. Without one it would be impossible for a man to get out of bed. No one pulls themselves up "by the bootstraps".

Nonsense.

Ernest Becker was basically saying people relied on belief systems as a way of handling the universal fear of death and that a need to deny mortality was fundamentally detrimental to human beings, and responsible for most of the iniquity in the world.

It can reasonably be said to be his argument for bringing philosophically, the universality of the fear death into a religious focus, as the means to represent the sum total of psychology after Freud.

However he was probably right for the wrong reasons.
It's clear for instance young people simply and effectively dismiss notions of immortality generally without course to such reasons of (religious) belief. The whole subject doesn't in a very general way represent any substantial concern to them.

Many people also don't find a need to think any more of death than to recognize it sometimes only as a possibility, though usually as an inevitability, with no extra requirement for it to be dwelt upon any more than the reality of life itself.

To support Ernest Becker's theory, you would need to first alter any understandings which were adequately enabling the human psyche to generally deal with immortality without introduction of extra belief systems.
Those handling mortality that way by not denying death, according to him were not necessarily consequentially contributing to evil through the fear of death.

So you would need to create a fear of mortality, on top of the survival instinct which the universal fear of death is there primarily to invoke.

Religion does that. First promoting fear then offering its own solution.
But the higher power, the need to deny mortality, to make it a problem, wouldn't necessarily be there especially in a developed, knowledgeable society unless entrenched by tradition, or the fear of mortality was still being actively promoted by hijacking the universal fear of death with a religious belief system for example.

A case of believe and be damned.

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from bigarrow:

In America today the atheist is the quintessential individualist.

Maybe, but then why are most of ET's atheist so utterly desperate to convert others? That doesn't sound like an individualist to me.

 

[Kassz007]

Quote from Maverick74:

Nitro, everyone worships a higher power. For some, it's money. For some it's God. For others it's government. It seems to me that most atheists have a tremendous respect for government and the power they hold and the reliance on that government to be their keeper. Others do no rely on government but rather their faith.

Please. Your bias is showing based on probably one or two atheists you know. I don't believe in god and I despise government.

 

[Kassz007]

Quote from soldsoldsold:

As an atheist, I don't have "tremendous respect for government." I had no say in its stipulations at the time of its creation and it certainly does not favor my success.

My 'higher power' would be the meaning I put into my life in the form of self fulfilment. My hobbies, my contribution to the world. It's a work in progress.

Indeed. I consider the purpose of my life just to enjoy life as much as possible for the short amount of time I'll be on Earth. I keep it simple. Do more of the things that make me happy, do less of the things that don't make me happy.

 

[bigarrow]

Quote from Maverick74:

You seriously don't know what the immortality project is?

Was it on the news, I must of missed it. I looked at the reviews of Beckers book on Amazon and wasn't interested to invest my time buying and reading the book. I'm not one of those searching for the meaning of life.
And you know what Mav, I don't feel any smarter or in the know now that I've heard about the immorality project.

 

[Ricter]

It's not "the" immortality project, it's "an" immortality project. Mav's right, everyone worships one.

 

[bigarrow]

Quote from Ricter:

It's not "the" immortality project, it's "an" immortality project. Mav's right, everyone worships one.

What exactly are you talking about when you say worship.
It couldn't be in the traditional use, because not everyone worships something.
Stop the worry and live, you don't need a book to have a good life or someone else to tell you what to think.

 

[nitro]

Quote from bigarrow:

...
Stop the worry and live, you don't need a book to have a good life or someone else to tell you what to think.

"First seek to understand, then to be understood"

 

[Ricter]

Quote from bigarrow:

What exactly are you talking about when you say worship.
It couldn't be in the traditional use, because not everyone worships something.

I'm not worrying, thanks though.

I meant worship in the sense that Mav used it, more generically, not in the sense of mantras and incense, etc.