Some will argue that the rise of atheism in the West has to do with education - ie, the more educated a society is, the more likely they are to reject religion. I, of course, reject that argument. I tend to think it has more to do with Western prosperity. The more prosperous a society is, the less likely it is to have any sort of abiding and widespread faith in God, because there is no sense of need. Where there is great need - due to either poverty or oppression - people need a source of hope, and they find it in God. An atheist will argue that they're finding it in a fairy tale. As a believer I would disagree, but that's another debate altogether. The issue is why atheism is more prevalent in western society.

As to non-violent resistance, that's hard to speak to from a Western perspective, where Christians are not being systematcally oppressed and there is little violence directed toward Christians and where, while our status may be lower than it once was, we haven't been stripped of "dignity" for the  most part. However, it would seem to me that the basis of non-violent resistance comes from a society which was oppressive and which systematically stripped people's dignity away from them. Jesus was one such person who had his dignity stripped away, and yet insisted on non-violence - not fighting for himself, and instructing his followers not to fight for him. To say "they feel that non-violent resistance is simply not an option; how can they not fight back when their dignity is being ripped away form them" demands that one at least consider the example of Jesus, who did not fight back when his dignity was being stripped away.

As I say, that's easy for me as a Western Christian to say. Whether I could live by it if I were facing some of the conditions faced in other parts of the world is an open question, I admit.

Non violent reistance is called 'voting' , atheism is science dismising philosophy

"Do they only become viable options when a safety net of privilege is apparent?"

This depends on your defintion of 'apparent'.

Also the words safety net, viable options, and privledge.

Ahem.

Freedom swings to and fro

Sometimes fast sometimes slow

Choost a religion; give it a new twist

Or if you'd rather, be an atheist

Options are livable (when they aren't die-able)

Whose to say when they are viable?

Cheers!

Hi Faerenach,

Affluence is more damaging to faith than any criticism might be.

Part of that, I suspect, is that affluence breeds contentment and when folk are content there is no reason to look for reasons or assistance.  Discontent is to faith as necessity is to invention.

When you have all that you need one of the first things one jettisons is the other.  Whomever the other is (spouse or deity or sibling or parent) because the other has always been a means to getting what is needed.  When there is no longer a need one no longer has use of means.

Ghandi appealed to non-violent resistance.  One would be hard-pressed to sell India as a privieged society during his lifetime (or even now).  Non violence is a philosophy it may or may not have economic or even political connections.

I would argue no.

They only become viable options when one is committed to non-violently bringing about change.

Their success as option depends, I think, on something other than privilege.

Like shame.

I'm guessing that is how Ghandi starving himself and King getting himself beaten and jailed while doing no violence ot any other worked in a way that the Hunger Strikes of IRA members didn't.

The occupy movement while peaceful may not have won much public sympathy simply because there was very little violent effort undertaken to dismantle the various protests.  And what force was employed did not appear out of scale due to advances in crowd control.

Tear gas and pepper spray, while painful experiences do not produce images of individuals with blood streaming down their faces .  Add to that scenes of individuals in the occupy ranks (all denounced by the Occupy movement) as anarchist infiltrators or police agitators returning violence and popular support has no clear "good guy" to cheer for.

If your opponent can't be shamed by their violence then the choice appears to be maim them with violence of your own.

The philosophies of violence and non-violence are probably found in some measure through religious and non-religious groups.

Grace and peace to you.

John

No, atheism is reason dismissing theology.

Choose a religion; don't be meticulous

Every one, is downright ridiculous

I can opine with no feeling of guilt

That being ridiculous is how we are built

No Law from nature but ;Do what thou wilt'?

The Universe is alive - (I say with a lilt)

Enjoy your posts I do 

Hi Rev. Davis!  I tend to agree with this, that atheism is at least partially a byproduct of education.  Perhaps even a lack of superstition?  Now to really twist your brain, can you conceive the idea of a society without need?  Would that society be mainly atheists, or even all atheists?

I hear you.  My own status of privilege is a real struggle for me as a Christian.

Happy Genius wrote:

Non violent reistance is called 'voting'

Hi Happy Genius!  Do you mean to say that nonviolent resistance is a byproduct of democracy?

Yikes.  I agree with Chansen on this one.  Religion and philosophy are not the same creature.  Though I would also imagine that many atheists may have more against the institution of religion than the theology.

apparent: undeniable awareness

safety net: bail-out, perceived freedom to take risks

viable options: choices available that seem like a good course of action

privilege: advantage, in wealth of all kinds - education, finances, options 

Hope that clarifies!

Hi Rev. John!  Always a pleasure.

You say discontent, Rev. Stephen Davis refers to need.  Are these linked in a way, do you think?

And this is why, myself, I like to think that nonviolent resistance is NOT a byproduct of privilege.  And yet... Gandhi was fairly educated and privileged himself.  Could we maybe say that nonviolent resistance rests at least on education?  Martin Luther King, again, was an educated man.  Was Jesus?  I would say yes.

Shame being that moment of conscience when a person realises their actions are evil?  I would say that works on an individual... but how about systemic injustice?  How do you nonviolently respond to a slow but steady steamroller?

I feel again like Rev. Davis stated - I cannot really understand the position of those people coming from the privilege I do.  I guess what blows me away is not just that Gandhi stood up to an empire, but that he convinced others to do it as well.

Or escape.  The three ways of resistance... fight, flight, or stick it to the man - peacefully. 

I suppose they are; I didn't think to equate atheism and nonviolent resistance in any other way than privilege, but now you have me thinking about it!

(and hi Chansen!)

Some people define atheism as non belief in god ...

Others define atheism as non belief in anything ... virtually nothing ...

What is God but indeterminate ... nothing but a vast desire for whatever is missing? Is there anything missing here in this realm of primary hate? Now is that an odd metaphorical statement?

This would alieviate the belief in the needs of the common people as underdogs of wealthy social order that have never experienced needs of any sort ... just unbounded desires for more ... without knowing that such desires could under-mind all of philosophy (philosophy being the love of knowledge and wisdom) a pain to the elite for they don't wish to go there.  You don't believe, observe, observation being a fine art ... like appreciation ...

Would this be something out-of-bounds of the elite? Would they be Gods of sorts ... idealisms? Would this label vary with perspective from that indeterminate line as drawn betwwen what is and what isn't believed ... as needed ?

As I have asked before without the underdog ... hoo would carry out the Royal chi-ite as fecundity ... tyrant's REX ... a pain of learning to the lower tiers in vast satyr ... like a Shadow under the locii tree ... thus ID befalls us in the absence of psyche ... whom we strive to catch up with as a quantum character of Cos Moes ...

Hi Faerenach,

You are too kind.  The pleasure is mine.

I'm sure there is overlap.   I prefer discontent because it doesn't imply a solution is gain for the self.

As disturbing as it was for Americans to watch White policemen attack unarmed, peaceful Black women and men with dogs, whips, clubs, horses and hoses.  I think the sight of White men and women experiencing the same violence at the hands of White policemen is the straw that broke that collective back.

Unitl then it was always violence against the other and when Malcom X comes to the attention of White America in " The Hate That Hate Produced" there is the growing realization that it isn't just Blacks being targetted.  Although it was still believed that Whites only target blacks and Blacks only target Whites.

The violence of White policemen against peaceful, unarmed, White protesters pulls the veil aside and all of the ugliness is laid on the table.

Which is not me saying that without the White presence equal rights would not have happened.  It is me saying until Whites, saw that Whites were being targetted they never believed it was about hate.  There was always a notion that White policemen were simply keeping the law and the Blacks were simply breaking it.  Because of the lense of racism, organized violence looked like a routine police matter.  With the lense of racism removed, organized violence looks only like organized violence and even if you put the racist lenses back on.  Your brain still translates violence into violence.

All three probably rank among the highest levels of education available to their society at the time.  More than that. all three are influenced by the belief that violence is not a solution to a problem it is the problem that needs a solution.

Every system is infected by individuals.  When those individuals can no longer comfortably look the other way or take refuge behind the rubric of following orders and they start to notice that the blood on their hands takes longer and longer to wash off the system crumbles.

It may take a good long time.  Anything that can be built can be dismantled.  It goes together one piece at a time and comes apart the same way.  Depending on which parts come off first it might appear that the whole is still very much intact.  Before long the weakness will show and soon after that it collapses upon itself.

Time wears all things down.

Truth has a distinctive ring to it and it resonates in the hearts of its advocates as well as its adversaries.  It infects the humans that infect systems.

Having a reputation for being good also helps.  Ghandi, Jesus, and King were able and willing to connect not only with the people they loved they were willing to connect with the people who hurt the people they loved.  That takes more than a little guts.  Anybody can rage against the machine.  Few tend to offer it the same respect they would to the people who the machine rages at.

Abraham Lincoln's better angels of our nature speech captures the thrust of what made Ghandi, Jesus and King so effective.  They were good men pointing to a better way and that is an attractive adventure to most of us.

Something very like that, yes

Grace and peace to you.

John

Thank you RevJohn for your contributions, here and elsewhere.

The choice for non-violence has its primary root in a love that has little or no sense of other, a love that recognizes that all of us are connected, and that "other" is essentially an illusion.

It requires one kind of education, primarily spiritual and experiential, to reach this quality of love. It requires another kind of education, primarily social, historical and political, to develop strategies for non-violent resistance.  King and Gandhi had both.  When this love is strong enough, it overcomes fear.

While the attractiveness of atheism increases with affluence, atheism does not preclude developing the kind of love that has little sense of other, and religion, unfortunately, does not seem to overly encourage the development of this kind of love.

When reading the Hebrew scriptures, we hear of the reign of a long and profitable reign by a Jewish king  (Manasseh ?)thoroughly hated by the followers of Yahweh because he seemed to reject fear of any deity.  With that rejection of deity, the followers of Yahweh claimed an increase in willingness to oppress the poor and marginalized by this king and his followers.  A recent archeologist claims the palace credited to Solomon was probably really the palace built for this king.

I would say atheism can be a first world option. Life can have meaning without a deity and there can be hope...

It is harder when you you know your child is dying as you swat at flies covering them... when your family is dead because they were denied medicine that cost pennies... when you know your child will die of diarrhea before promises made are kept... when people starve while food sits on tarmacs or in waris dumped as "waste".... It is harder to have hope or for life to have meaning when it is - be born, suffer, die....

Non-violent resistance is also easier when nobody is trying to kill you. There are time when non-violent action has not been from being noble or even as a choice, but because resistance was futile, violent or non-violent resistance was futile.

As a rape advocate, we always told people the goal was to stay alive. There may be violent resistance, non-violence resistance or there may be no resistance...

There are times survival means fighting.

There are times when who you are matters more than if you live or die. Some women said they would have rather died than not fight.... Some did not fight, one woman said she just went limp... it took his power away because she seemed to not care....

I asked my grandfather about the Shoah and he said resistance would have made it appear he cared what they did and that gave them power. It would also be seen that he might barter to stay alive, that he would do things to stay alive or keep a loved one alive... in the end all resistance, violent or non-violent , did was show that they had power over you. He would not give them that. They had none, even if they killed him, and so he resisted nothing... My grandmother, on the other hand, he said glared and never hid her disgust...  He worried she would be killed. She worried he would live and be dead.

I mean, as your arms are stretched out to be cut off by a group of people, what point is there in resistance? You can only be true to yourself and do what you would do.... be who you are....Regardless of what you do or don't do, you will most be without arms. You can then only hope to live or hope to die.... and you can pray that somehow, someway, that it will happen (live or die) and that there is a reason or that this is not how it was supposed to be.... that you are loved and valued.... somewhere by someone... even if the only one you can think of lives in the sky.

We take so many positions based on ignorance, based on privilidge we do not even know we have... I am sure atheism and non-violence can be among them.

The only god-love that is loves in the sky?

What does that tell you about our particular state?

Hi Happy Genius!  Do you mean to say that nonviolent resistance is a byproduct of democracy?

 atheism is science dismising philosophy

No, atheism is reason dismissing theology.

Yikes.  I agree with Chansen on this one.  Religion and philosophy are not the same creature.  Though I would also imagine that many atheists may have more against the institution of religion than the theology.

apparent: undeniable awareness, apparently, not always.

safety net: bail-out, perceived freedom to take risks, or pain avoidance

viable options: choices available that seem like a good course of action, Just how 'viable'?

...and what causes the 'seem'?

privilege: advantage, in wealth of all kinds - education, finances, options , rank, family, talent...

Hope that clarifies!

Not at all. Context, context, context! A rule in general Semantics: A word never means the same thing twice. 

 affluence breeds contentment

I wonder: I have never been more content, and have never been less 'affluent'

and when folk are content there is no reason to look for reasons or assistance.

Whaaat?

 Discontent is to faith as necessity is to invention.

Bah. Neither is  tightly bound.or closely  related in my personal experience. My greatest invention was not exactly necessary,,,,but many lives and busineses were saved by the Happy Genius Telephone Conversation Extender. --- After you in a fit of rage slam th phone down, the other end hears everyting you say for the next 15 seconds...

In that case would the rich be a pain in the ass, that donkey that didn't wish to know about the affairs of the uppidty ... or heir tiers ... an Ayres thing as compared to Eire ... a much more profound and thus whetted state ... sharpai ... bieres anna edge?

Ecclesia appears to be a gathering intellect that is inhibited by alien powers to the mortal form ... Hoem or just an aum'r ...

non-violence is rapidly disappearing as an option in the first world. As democracy loses its meaning (in even theoretical terms), we are seeing an increasing reliance on state force. That is going to get much worse.

To every action is an equal reaction ... a wave to displace all we know as superfluous to that which is beyond comprehension. And what is that?

Heaven is no where to be found (Maas less, volume less point like devoid of thought) unless you can imagine a mind ... conjure it up outa word ... fruit of the old tree? Who believes in Complex Nos.? the otherside of an alternate reality that holds way over the electic and Black Holes ... metaphorically of course ...

So graeme, do you mean to say that nonviolent resistance has no presence in a situation with no democratic option?