Perhaps there are atheists in foxholes, but they are coping through meds, hard data, and reason. Yet the shells keep coming!
Not only are there atheists in foxholes, but there's even a war veteran organization that uses as its motto, "Atheists in Foxholes"; from the Wikipedia page on the subject (my emphasis added):
quote:Usage
... Although the adage occasionally means that all soldiers in combat are "converted" under fire, it is most often used to express the belief of the speaker that all people seek a divine power when they are facing an extreme threat. The quote is also referenced when discussing the opposite effect — that warfare causes some soldiers to question their existing belief in God due to the death and violence around them. . . .
Criticism
Several atheist organizations object to the phrase. The Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers has adopted the catch-phrase "Atheists in Foxholes" to criticise the aphorism. Author James Morrow said: "That maxim, 'There are no atheists in foxholes,' it's not an argument against atheism — it's an argument against foxholes." In 2015, describing the phrase as a "tired, old, untrue cliché", the Freedom From Religion Foundation erected a monument to "Atheists in Foxholes", commemorating American atheist, agnostic, freethinking and skeptical US armed services veterans.
(go to Wikipedia linked above for the links in the article)
I know I've recounted this story before. A fellow diner at the monthly Atheists United Orange County brunch, Gene, gave us this war story (an actual war story from Nam). He and another atheist were sitting in the base club one night when the base came under mortar attack. They grabbed a bottle of whiskey and took cover under the table to calmly wait out the attack.
At the table next to them was a group of "sky pilots", religious fanatics who would constantly make obnoxious nuisances of themselves by preaching and trying to "save" the others, which included invoking that old "no atheists in foxholes" canard. During that attack, they also took cover under their table. The only difference was that instead of calmly awaiting the outcome, or even eagerly anticipating these as their last moments before being joined with their beloved Savior, they were howling and fouling themselves in absolute terror of dying. Despite using their "Christian Death Threat" (as I call it, the playing on their intended victim's innate fear of death), it was they who were terrified of meeting their Maker, whereas for the atheists death would be the end of it.
I have been following World War II week by week through the Time Ghost Army's weekly coverage with coverage of each week delivered each Saturday (plus their special series, such as "War Against Humanity" ("Never forget!"), "Spies and Ties", and "On the Homefront"). At Timemark 22:52 of yesterday's episode for Week 267 of the war, Week 267 - The End of the Warsaw Uprising - WW2 - October 7, 1944, Indy Neidell covers the effects of prolonged combat on the soldiers' psyche:
My father was a Seabee serving on Saipan after its liberation, but what he saw affected him strongly for the rest of his life; besides his drinking having become much worse, he wouldn't talk about the war to anyone for 20 years and then, I think, only to inform me, after which he started to open up.
He described sitting on their ship waiting for a week before disembarking with bombs and shells constantly falling around them. He also described everybody yelling and cursing every time a shell had come too close for comfort. They made it through alright ... -ish. There were also those who were to brave to show any fear or to react. They were the ones who cracked up, who couldn't take it.
Disclaimer:
I think he was recounting the story of others there. His unit arrived a couple months after the island had been liberated and so their disembarking would not have been opposed.
... but they are coping through meds, hard data, and reason. Yet the shells keep coming!
You are engaging in stereotyping and caricatures. We are not ÜberVulkaner guided solely by logic while suppressing all emotional response (not sure of the exact terminology there, since I have not yet encountered the proper terminology while watching Star Trek in the original German). We are still human with human responses; to quote Shylock:
Shylock: If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Why would you think that we are so much different from yourself?
In the meantime, there are breathing exercises for calming and focusing yourself before an operation; from multiple sources I've been informed that it's part of SEAL training.
My problem with the "atheists in foxholes" argument, quite apart from the fact that it simply isn't true, is that even taken at face value, it's just a bad argument in the first place.
"So you're telling me that your big argument, the one that you believe to be the most important truth in the universe, you're telling me that I'm more likely to believe that argument if I am so utterly traumatised that I become temporarily deranged? As if people become more rational when placed in mortal danger? Not quite sure that's the knockdown argument you seem to think it is buddy."
Mutate and Survive
On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
For a guy who hates religion and vanquishes gods, you sure have a lot of mystical substitutes. I would argue that though they relieve pain rather than cause it, they are false hopes. You would add the word "also".
Who else could he possibly be talking about? It was a response to your Message 14.
Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that it has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --Percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
atheists are more likely to man up....alcohol notwithstanding...because they don't have God as a fallback option. Whimpering is optional.
Whimpering is apparently mandatory for believers, or at least a natural reaction to being faced with Judgement and fearing that they might not be saved.
Sure, their preachers tell them that they're saved, but deep down many of them still harbor doubts. For one thing, they don't see the changes in themselves that they've been told they should, like the Fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-26). That lack can be especially damaging for teenagers raised in the faith who see having been given that Fruit as evidence that they are indeed saved, or at least the strong lack as evidence that they aren't actually saved. Deconversion stories (eg, https://www.ex-christian.net/...imonies-of-former-christians ) describe the psychological and emotional scarring from such teachings. Adults are able to rationalize that kind of stuff away, but kids actually take it quite seriously.
But if having "God as a fallback option" helps them, then that is a good thing. But if it causes them to quite literally lose their shit (as happened in that war story I shared in Message 18), then they have some serious rethinking to do.
But, as I also mentioned in Message 18, that argument is just the "Christian Death Threat" again. I think I'm the only one to call it that, but it's the last parting shot that a Christian proselytizer will resort to when he fails to convert an atheist: "Just think of what will happen to you when you face God after you die!" or the bumper sticker slogan "Don't be caught dead without Jesus!" Everybody has some fear and uncertainty about death, but preying on that fear and uncertainty really is a low blow.
That is what "no atheists in foxholes" amounts to: a poor man's Christian Death Threat.
Though it did come up last month at our Atheists United breakfast. One member's father had used it to get out of military duty (or at least combat duty) by arguing that since he was an atheist, that meant that he wasn't allowed in the foxholes. Great loophole!
I'll mention some good thoughtful videos on YouTube by Genetically Modified Skeptic, such as this one:
He's an ex-Christian who is still processing his deconversion and how his mind used to work as a Christian. Part of that process is guided by his psychology major in college. His presentations are calm and well reasoned and guided much more by how people think than complaining of abuses.
I'm pretty sure this video is where he talks about having been involved in a "essential oils" marketing scheme which was Christian-based and seeing them dealing with critics and former members using the same kinds of arguments as they do in their religion. And with his psych studies he was able to identify what they were doing. I think this one also gets into apologetics with its reasoned arguments and why that has nothing to do with why believers believe.
I would argue that though they relieve pain rather than cause it, they are false hopes.
What pain? What hopes? What are you talking about?
Chanting mantras in my darkened room wearing nothing but my shorts and cotton lab coat is not for analgesic purposes or as pleas for existential relief. Such is just for the fun. Especially stoned. As I try to keep the mantra and dive deeper into my mind I usually end up fighting Romulans or moaning in some girl's bed.
Yes, I do have a spiritual side. My greatest such experience was on a night of small unit maneuvers, 3am, no moon, no lights anywhere. When the eyes adjust you begin to see the details of the stars behind the stars you have already seen. I had my own ultra-deep field view and, in my mind, it stretched out forever.
But the better part, the part that laid me out was when I stretched out my arm and cast a shadow in starlight. As a science nerd I knew where those photons came from, what they had been through. At that point my awe at the immensity of the cosmos and at the power of physics consumed me. I'd found my god.
This interview from three days ago with Kate Cohen by Seth Andrews (host of The Thinking Atheist) popped up on YouTube: We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (with Kate Cohen) .
She discusses the pressures faced by those who have stopped believing to not tell anyone about it, but rather to try to fit in and pretend to still believe.
I saw the table of contents in her book. What intrigued me was her reasoning for not becoming an agnostic. What's so dishonest about admitting a lack of knowledge?
That's the question that could hypothetically define WWIII. Why do the nations in power have to make everything about them? When will the poor have their day?
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