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the "product of their times" argument?

T'ai Chi

Penultimate Amazing
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Every so often, when someone is ranting about belief, intelligence, etc., and I point out that Newton was a pretty smart believer, I often get something like

'Most everyone believed back then. His belief was a product of his times.'

So, when they then go on about smart atheists today, why do they get upset when I merely turn around their argument and suggest that maybe atheism is a product of these times?
 
Until recently (around the start of the 20th century) it was career suicide, in any walk of life, to profess a disbelief in God, so it's not surprising that no-one did.
 
T'ai Chi said:
Every so often, when someone is ranting about belief, intelligence, etc., and I point out that Newton was a pretty smart believer, I often get something like

'Most everyone believed back then. His belief was a product of his times.'

So, when they then go on about smart atheists today, why do they get upset when I merely turn around their argument and suggest that maybe atheism is a product of these times?
Click to expand...

Probably because of the error in your counter argument.
 
T'ai Chi said:
So, when they then go on about smart atheists today, why do they get upset when I merely turn around their argument and suggest that maybe atheism is a product of these times?
Click to expand...
Enlightenment is largely progressive. The further back in time one travels the greater the ignorance and superstition.

It was once believed that light traveled through aether.
It was once believed that maggots spontaneously generated from rotting flesh.
It was once believed that gods lived at the top of mount Olympus.
It was once believed that the letting of blood could cure disease.

If atheism is a product of these times it is because these times are a product of rational thought, education and scientific inquiry using the scientific method.

Sadly the product is, to a large degree, still being held back by superstition and irrational beliefs.
 
wollery said:
Until recently (around the start of the 20th century) it was career suicide, in any walk of life, to profess a disbelief in God, so it's not surprising that no-one did.
Click to expand...

And in many of the times and places, it was real suicide - often with a long.painful period reaching final point.
 
RandFan said:
Enlightenment is largely progressive. The further back in time one travels the greater the ignorance and superstition.

It was once believed that light traveled through aether.
It was once believed that maggots spontaneously generated from rotting flesh.
It was once believed that gods lived at the top of mount Olympus.
It was once believed that the letting of blood could cure disease.

If atheism is a product of these times it is because these times are a product of rational thought, education and scientific inquiry using the scientific method.

Sadly the product is, to a large degree, still being held back by superstition and irrational beliefs.
Click to expand...
Note that T'ai Chi doesn't think that rational thought, education and scientific inquiry is a good thing (because it leads to atheism, which, apparently, is a bad thing, something that will pass).
 
CFLarsen said:
Note that T'ai Chi doesn't think that rational thought, education and scientific inquiry is a good thing (because it leads to atheism, which, apparently, is a bad thing, something that will pass).
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Good point. Someday perhaps we will go back to blood letting and give up on the notions of microorganisms, the atomic structure of matter and the internal combustion engine.
 
T'ai Chi said:
So, when they then go on about smart atheists today, why do they get upset when I merely turn around their argument and suggest that maybe atheism is a product of these times?
Click to expand...
These times are smarter than those times. We know so much more.
 
chriswl said:
These times are smarter than those times. We know so much more.
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True. But we shouldn't think that in centuries to come, critical thinkers won't remark on the mistaken views that we no doubt will have had on a number of subjects. That said however, the likelihood that science will go back to gods as an explanation of how things work seems about as likely as going back to the Geocentric universe.

Steven
 
Darat said:
Probably because of the error in your counter argument.
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Also because atheism clearly has always existed. The only factor that influences the proportion of the population who are atheistic is the punishment to be applied. There are a billion atheists in China, where it is encouraged (and China has a long history of atheism, probably going back to prehistoric periods). Fewer in Afghanistan in the '90s, where it was grounds for execution.

My impression is that atheism as a concept is not a product of any period - it is a product of human thought. Unlike religions, if you stamp out atheism by exterminating its adherents, it is rediscovered in exactly the same way.

What is a product of the period are the rights that atheists are extended to exist among believers.
 
fuelair said:
And in many of the times and places, it was real suicide - often with a long.painful period reaching final point.
Click to expand...

Socrates being the original martyr of doubters everywhere.

And he wasn't even an atheist. Close enough for them to kill him, though.
 
People are avoiding the point about Newton though. Was his belief merely a product of his times?
 
blutoski said:
My impression is that atheism as a concept is not a product of any period - it is a product of human thought. Unlike religions, if you stamp out atheism by exterminating its adherents, it is rediscovered in exactly the same way.
Click to expand...

[Applause]

Steven
 
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