>When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
That quote is deceptive though and and it's sometimes used, as in your case, to push religious propaganda. For every secular view you'll likely find a theistic view with many commonalities. Theism doesn't stop people from justifying or believing in many of the things agnostics do because out of thousands of denominations of thousands of theistic religions of thousands of gods and thousands of years, theistic belief is just as varied as non-theistic belief. And often they're just as vague and meaningless while virtue-signalling as something more meaningful and sometimes the love they espouse is something committed only for that tribe or out of fear of gods rather secular motives which may often be for the tribe but not because they feel they have to. Sorry if I seem course but I'm tired of this meaningless 'life has no meaning without belief in gods' trope pervade my favorite forum for which I'd rather view tech news and not be denigrated for not having found any believable gods yet. Nihilism isn't defined by lack of belief in gods.
" and it's sometimes used, as in your case, to push religious propaganda."
A comment is not 'propaganda'.
Unless your comment is 'Atheist Propaganda'.
Seriously.
"Nihilism isn't defined by lack of belief in gods." Fine, but that doesn't take away anything about what he said about Nihlism.
There is something more mundane about the quote, and that is the psychology of people who are willing to believe truly crazy stuff, and there is a lot going on there, probably worth study.
If you're going for intellectual honesty, "a comment can be propaganda." But in this case it has been as propaganda if going by the typical definition of "the systematic propagation of a doctrine". Of which atheism or agnosticism have none and more often than not, in the west it's atheistic ideologies that were more systemically pushed by establishment as propaganda than atheistic by a large margin. So it's fair to say it's often used as propaganda, this specific quote I've personally witnessed used as such many times and it reeks of self-righteousness.
>Fine, but that doesn't take away anything about what he said about Nihlism.
And so what did he say about nihilism? Your criticism of AGNB's interviewees seems to be that they're nihilistic. If they were truly nihilistic, you could argue, they'd be at home sulking that there's no point in doing those things but they all seem truly motivated to do various things. I don't get this offense at nihilism when it's one of the most benign ideologies to ever exist. How many people have died from people who had no motive or saw no point in action? Nihilism is void of motive. It's when you have both motive and ideologies is when many people get killed. In that case you could just as easily rail against ideologues.
>and that is the psychology of people who are willing to believe truly crazy stuff
Maybe they see all the craziness in the world and only become a reflection or amplification of it. We can't also forget all the craziness in the theistic religions which cause people to do worse things than coordinating over silly ideas. I wouldn't condone all the "craziness" but I can't generalize and denigrate it either. This craziness, as you may see, represents a lot of creativeness and originality that you can find in man and many good things come from it, both productive and what you might see as non-productive. And if it's the "meaningless" fun they're having at harmless conventions, it isn't meaningless if it's fun. Fun has meaning in giving people reprieve from stressors, which ultimately helps us be more productive. And if not, oh well. You wind up with people who've just enjoyed themselves for apparently nothing. We could get deep into existential philosophy if you like but I think you get the point. You can look at many things as shallow but often, like with everything in the world, there is more to it than what's on the surface and more meaning in it than you may see. Because you don't see meaning in something doesn't mean it's not there.
The intellectual hoops you're leaping through to try and justify a normal comment as 'propaganda' not only don't help your case - they only serve to possibly validate that your very own response is is a form of propaganda itself.
"We can't also forget all the craziness in the theistic religions which cause people to do worse things than coordinating over silly ideas."
Spirituality is not a 'silly idea', more importantly it doesn't cause us to do crazy-bad things in general.
'Silly ideas' are things like Imperialism, Communism and Fascism - all of which are secular ideals and have caused massive, worldwide violence to the tune of many massive wars (most wars in fact) to the tune of 100's of millions dead in the last century alone, and continue to hang the existential nuclear threat over our heads.
Maybe I was a bit hyperbolic in calling it propaganda but I'm sometimes reminded that my state constitution says I can't run for legal office for lack of belief in a deity nor witness in court. The chances that I'd have big government sponsoring my view are much less than yours, hence why I used it.
>Spirituality is not a 'silly idea', more importantly it doesn't cause us to do crazy-bad things in general.
The "silly ideas" I referred to colloquially as those which are the subject of AGNB's videos, not to spirituality.
And the "ideas" you pointed out as silly, two of which, were and are driven as much by religious motive as secular.
The reason people say "propaganda" is that your commentary uses a bunch of words but don't make an argument but sort of feel like they do, and because they reveal intellectually dishonesty when the surface is scratched.
Imperialism, Communism, Fascism are sexual evil? Maybe. Spirituality is not? OK
What about the rest of religion -- the Crusades, ISIL, the subjugation of women, the persecution of homosexuals, the intolerance of atheist, agnostics, deists, and spiritual people who believe in a slightly different version of spirituality, the institutional rape of children?
It's not so simple as "spirituality good, secularity bad"
That quote is deceptive though and and it's sometimes used, as in your case, to push religious propaganda. For every secular view you'll likely find a theistic view with many commonalities. Theism doesn't stop people from justifying or believing in many of the things agnostics do because out of thousands of denominations of thousands of theistic religions of thousands of gods and thousands of years, theistic belief is just as varied as non-theistic belief. And often they're just as vague and meaningless while virtue-signalling as something more meaningful and sometimes the love they espouse is something committed only for that tribe or out of fear of gods rather secular motives which may often be for the tribe but not because they feel they have to. Sorry if I seem course but I'm tired of this meaningless 'life has no meaning without belief in gods' trope pervade my favorite forum for which I'd rather view tech news and not be denigrated for not having found any believable gods yet. Nihilism isn't defined by lack of belief in gods.