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The Atheist Recruiting Machine
Akira Suemori / AP Photo
From subway ads to “Blasphemy Day,” nonbelievers are proselytizing louder than ever. But as they draw more converts, are they in danger of losing their unique brand of faith?
America has long dotted its landscape with billboards that advocate a relationship with God. (A Southern favorite: “If you think it's hot here, imagine hell.”) Ads that suggest shunning Him, however, are newer territory.
Yet last week, a consortium of atheist groups rolled out an ad campaign doing just that. Coming a year after London’s city buses were plastered with adverts that stated flatly, “There’s probably no God. Stop worrying and enjoy your life,” New York City’s subway trains were plastered with similar ads asking bleary-eyed commuters, “Are you good without God?”
It’s the latest promotional push by a special interest group that has grown increasingly vocal. Over the past couple of years, atheists have come to see themselves as a cohesive demographic that should advocate on its own behalf. And such efforts seem to be working—the American Religious Identification Survey recently found that the number of people who claimed “no religion” had nearly doubled recently, to 15 percent.
“We’ve been being nice for decades and look where it’s got us. Now that we’ve been taking the gloves off, we seem to be getting somewhere.”
“We've been being nice for decades and look where it’s got us,” says Richard Dawkins, the author and biologist who has perhaps become atheism’s loudest activist, and who was behind the London bus ads. ”Now that we've been taking the gloves off, we seem to be getting somewhere.”
But not all atheists are comfortable preaching the gospel of the nonbeliever. After all, the New York advertising effort could be seen as something most atheists consider repugnant: evangelizing. Dawkins admits to his own zealotry in his fight against what many atheists call irrationalism in his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, in which he compares creationists to Holocaust deniers. “I think it’s reasonable to carry on with a certain amount of zeal when there's evidence that people out there still don't get it,” he says.
But should atheists proselytize with a passion akin to the loudest bible thumpers? It’s a question that has divided the atheist community into two schools of thought. And ironically, it’s a split that somewhat resembles the one among born-again Christians, between those who advocate a fire-and-brimstone approach (“Accept Jesus or burn in hell”) and those who want to bring newcomers into the fold with a gentler message that sells a warmer (and, in the case of younger Christians, cooler) brand of Christianity. For some atheists, the very idea of aggressively spreading the word of no-God is practically sinful.
These two philosophies are fracturing organizations at the top of the atheist activism food chain. Consider the Center for Inquiry, atheism's top think tank and one of the groups behind New York’s “Good Without God” campaign. The Center’s founder, Paul Kurtz, one of humanism's eminences grises, preaches maximum tolerance. His life's aim, he told me, is to “make it so a person can be a nonbeliever in our society and be respected and accepted.” As such, he thinks it’s counterproductive to preach against religion. “You can't begin by calling people names,” says the 85-year-old Kurtz. “It's self-destructive to nonbelievers.” When Kurtz’s own organization supported international “Blasphemy Day” in September (a day dedicated to openly criticizing all things God), Kurtz wrote a column in Free Inquiry magazine, an atheist publication put out by the Center for Inquiry, comparing the day to “the anti-Semitic cartoons of the Nazi era.” He continued, “There are some fundamentalist atheists who have resorted to such vulgar antics to gain press attention.”
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Science and Math only TOOLS to help us interpret the world around us, they are not Truth. The path to God and Truth are one and the same, though religious leaders are fallible and often stray from the path, they are human after all, and we'll always need spiritual leaders. For everything we can explain with Science, we discover 100 more unanswered questions. I'll take a spiritual life over a scientific life any day of the week, and I say this as a person with degrees in applied science. That people are ignoring spiritual matters is definitely a bad sign.
Well, this is exactly where intelligent religious and intelligent non-religious people disagree. Science and Math are tools to help us understand the universe, because they ARE Truth. If they weren't truth, how would we understand anything correctly? That's how that works, the tool is based on incontrivertible principles of the truth of how the universe works. A wrench, properly applied, can be used to fix a pipe, because of the unique intersection of chemistry, physics, math, etc. which leads to a wrench fixing a pipe, not because God made wrenches and pipes and people to fix them.
Just because Science doesn't answer ALL of the questions doesn't mean there is a God! What kind of sense does this make?
SOME of us who don't believe there is such a thing as "spirit", because there has never been any scientific evidence, feel that we live, in fact, a MORE moral life than most of the "spiritual" people out there for the simple fact that we try to do the right thing because it is right, not because religion told us so.
How do we determine what is morally right? We use reason, not faith.
The whole sentence, "That people are ignoring spiritual matters is definitely a bad sign" is a faith-based, un-reason-able sentence, and has no meaning to someone like me. What do you think, we're not being moral? You'd be wrong about that.
I hope you understand that this isn't an excessively wordy reply because I am trying to attack you or call you names, but because I am trying to have a reason-able conversation about this. I respect you, and your right to believe, but not necessarily your beliefs. MY unanswered questions have to do with how intelligent people like yourself decide there must be a metaphysical world just because the physical world doesn't appear to have all of the answers! Can you explain that?
Johnny-
I appreciate your respectful and intelligent response. I am a Christ-Follower so I'm sure we see things differently. I think you are correct to say the science and math are truth. The way I see it science and math express the very existence of God. To me the complexity of nature and human life only make a stronger argument for intelligent design. That doesn't necessarily rule out evolution. There are some who consider the possibility of intelligent design through evolution. Some would argue that even the Bible does not contradict this theory.
I do have a question related to your post. You mentioned morality. My first question is what is your definition of morality? Most of the results I have gotten for the definition say something like "conforming to the rules of right conduct". My second question is where do the rules come from?
Morality is what one determines are the best actions to exist in their surroundings in the way they want to exist.
Morality has changed over the thousands of years religion has been a force... and as such so has religion changed to suit the times, showing that there is no concrete morality.
The only 'rules' there are are natural law (which science tries to determine) and whatever rules a society makes.
kdj-kdj-
I understand that some cultures have a slightly different understanding of morality but generally speaking there is a moral code by which human beings live by. Take murder for instance. I think most cultures throughout history have considered it wrong to murder. Even the murderer would feel wronged if someone attacked them or tried to murder them. What you are describing is moral relativity. What is right for you is right for you and what is right for me is right for me. But what happens when those two "rights" collide? A society cannot be sustained on this principle. It would be chaotic.
The average sane human being does live by a code of ethics. This code is most often very similar at its core. How do we explain this?
Hairball: Why do you capitalize Follower? That strikes me as a rather self-centered and self-reverent way to label yourself. It is almost like you are equating yourself with Christ. Christ-Follower. How about Christ follower?
A few things:
Science isn't truth and you would be very arrogant to believe that. How often do we find out that we have been wrong about things? Science is fascinating and valuable, but not absolute truth.
Science not answering all of our questions is not an argument trying to prove God, it's just an argument that we cannot depend solely on science to determine what we believe is true. Besides, even if we got to the point where we had collected every bit of scientific knowledge available, the questions "how did this come to be?" and "why are we here?" would still be unanswered.
Also about morality changing: you can look at different societies and different moralities and say that since they are different there is no absolute morality, but what is more interesting is how similar they are in all parts of the world and at all times. In no society has morality ever been completely opposite of another. It has never been "good" to be selfish, a liar, a thief or a murderer. All societies have had an idea of morality and there has been a common string running through all of them. Any believer in moral relativity will contradict himself in the next breath. Are you not willing to say that one morality set is better than another? Was Ghandi no better than Hitler?
pricklypear-
The capitalization of follower was a mistake. Not sure how this equates me with Christ, but I definitely do not consider myself equal with Christ. I guess it could be inferred that I think I am one of His most important followers but that is not the case either. Just a typo. : )
The morality line is the weakest argument theists have.
We sentient, social beings have similar morality regardless of culture. Murder and theft are "understood" to be wrong even where belief in god is absent. However, many religions actively promote murder in direct contradiction to what we inherently know to be right. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is a good biblical example of this superstitious lunacy. And we need not chronicle the plethora of other "sins" such as homosexuality and heresy for which the Judeo-Christian god demands murder.
On the scientific side, as our knowledge grows, so conversely does the hand of god diminish. Eventually, our understanding of the universe will leave so little to the realm of the mystic that god will necessarily join the flat earth on histories scrap-heap of failed theories. Or so we can hope.
selahh-
I think you and I would have different definitions of "truth." Truth to me would be the facts we know that allow us to build buildings, perform surgeries, create vaccines. These earthy, touchable, right-before-your-eyes truths are what allowed human beings to become the wonderful, prosperous race we are and create beautiful things. If you would live without these "truths," you would have little chance to contemplate a "higher" truth because, if you're older than about 30, you'd most likely be dead by now.
This isn't an attack against you, but sometimes I secretly wish that people who bash science as evil would live without everything science has given us. They wouldn't last a week.
The truth you speak of is more spiritual. But how is it very separate? How unreal will it have to become? Science told us the world isn't flat, so our idea of the heavens had to change. Science then told us that the sky is not where God resides, instead it's full of gases, and very cold. We've found no gods living on Olympus, no fawns in the forest. My truth and your truth are pretty much the same. How much longer will mine keep backing yours into a corner before you give it up?
As for morality in societies, I have a different opinion as well. Societies throughout history HAVE had appallingly disparate moral values. Some cultures prized thievery, others murdering your enemies. Some turned a blind eye to incest and rape. Others built themselves on the backs of slaves, who they treated as worse than animals. There have been truly monstrous societies. There have also been just and moral ones. They both existed, prospered, and died off equally before the invention of Christianity, even Judaism.
As for the morals that do seem to be found in almost all societies...well, that can be explained by science, as well. Read some books on biology and animal behavior. Look up social animals and altruism.
am | Edit Note | Delete
"Of course, if you actually followed the morality explicitly commanded by the Bible, Torah and Koran, you would kill adulterers, gay people, apostates, and disobedient children and be sent to prison. Thankfully, the vast majority of religious believers long since decided to disregard much of "God's word", because it is manifestly appalling, and read it metaphorically. But you have to strip away an awful lot of the texts as metaphor before you get to a few bland lessons about being nice to each other. Can't we get the lessons about niceness from somewhere else, without the bogus metaphysics and endless injunctions to kill our friends?" -Johann Hari
Hairball, i doubt that you have ever sat down by yourself and just thought about your existence as objectively as possible, and i assure you that you are missing out on something very big and beautiful as well. If you were born in Iran, you would no doubt be a muslim, If you were born in Jamaica, you would be a Rastafari, and if you were born in any other place, you would need that regional deity as your saviour. Think outside the box, you have been programmed since childhood to close your eyes to the real world around you. WAKE UP!!!
Hairball, i doubt that you have ever sat down by yourself and just thought about your existence as objectively as possible, and i assure you that you are missing out on something very big and beautiful as well. If you were born in Iran, you would no doubt be a muslim, If you were born in Jamaica, you would be a Rastafari, and if you were born in any other place, you would need that regional deity as your saviour. Think outside the box, you have been programmed since childhood to close your eyes to the real world around you. WAKE UP!!!
Arbiter:
Wow. You speak with such confidence as if you actually know me. I grew up in an extremely pentecostal church. So I guess I should still be one but I'm not. I have spent many hours of my life contemplating my existence. I am constantly challenging my spiritual belief system. That is actually the reason I started posting on this thread. I am not so naive to think that my posts are going to "save" an atheist. I was hoping to challenge myself and maybe challenge others as well. I truly respect those who do not believe as I do and I try not to make assumptions about them. I ask questions because I sincerely want to know the answer.
Just to clear up any more assumptions you may have about me.
I am not a Republican
I don't dislike homosexuals
I think people should be able to marry whoever they want
I am more concerned with foreign policy then the abortion issue.
I am leaning closer to pro-choice
My best friend is an agnostic
I could go on but I think you get the point
Very good and civil conversation going on here. I do respect your beliefs whatever they may or may not be. I am a Christian who is fascinated by science as well. To me science affirms the power and glory of God. I believe in a creator, because there is no scientific theory that would support the principal of everything originating from nothing. This could only happen in the supernatural.
I agree that people who do not believe in God can live a moral life. I know of atheists I would rather be around than many Christians. Whether or not one lives a moral life is not the issue though, as we learn from scripture that even the most moral among us falls hopelessly short of the standard established by God. The believer, realizing such, has reached out and through faith has accepted the free gift of salvation. It has nothing to do with how good a person they might be...and I'm sure thankful for that ! This is my belief and I stake my eternal destiny on it. We live in a great nation though, where you can hold particular beliefs or no beliefs at all, this is not the case in many other parts of the world.
I think making the claim "Science and Math are tools to help us understand the universe, because they ARE Truth." demonstrates a considerable amount of faith.
However I feel like I must disagree in so much as I think it is erroneous to claim that science and math /are/ truth. In its place, let me offer the idea that science and math are powerful tools for /determining/ the truth. The thing that makes science and math powerful tools is a rigorous consistency. Math is a powerful tool for describing the world. Science is a powerful tool for asking questions about the world and then exploring what those answers might be.
However, in spite of all the insights that have been gleaned over the ages through the application of math and science, there are still things that math cannot describe and questions that science cannot answer. It is within this space, unreachable by math or science, where dwells the matters of faith.
I love your answer. I don't hear any anger here or condemnations. Organized religion, for all the good it does, seems to be a very destructive power in the world.
god of the gaps. Let's apply some precalc to this, take the limit of the size of the gaps in knowledge that god fills as scientific understanding approaches infinity.
Zeus used to control thunder and lightning, Apollo brought the sun across the sky, and Anubis watched over the Egyptian dead. Most people who believe in an Abrahamic god think of these things as ridiculous, but I ask, how are they any different?
Well, it's easy: the Abrahamic God is the Billy Mays of religion, offering all those products in one broad, generic, easily collapsible and conformable God of all things.
"You won't believe this, but you SHOOOOULD!!!! An all-knowing, all-seeing, giver or life to the universe and all it's inhabitants, the one true and only God, making all previous Gods obsolete. You'll never need another God again. Just tap into that almighty, all-consuming God and you'll be set for eternity." - end Billy Mays impression.
Not very different at all if you look at Life events allegedly shared by Horus and Yeshua (a.k.a. Jesus)
Check out this link
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5b.htm
Hey dewey,
You would not believe the number of times I've heard that same pitch, except in the place of the one true god, the pitch maker has substituted their own personal top of the the belief chain holder, from the most common, atheism, to the more esoteric beliefs revolving around things like a particular football team or favorite psychoactive substance.
"For everything we can explain with Science, we discover 100 more unanswered questions." Yes. That is the nature of science. Every door that gets opened leads to a corridor full of unopened doors. This is the nature of real knowledge. As to johnnyapplecd's statement that science is truth, well that is utterly fallacious. Jomama is completely right to say that science and maths are tools, they are ways of modeling reality. Math is a language, a representation of things rather than the things themselves.
But, jomama, we will not always need spiritual leaders, and many people do not need them now. You clearly do, and that is fine, but projecting your needs and desires onto humanity as a whole is ludicrous and patronising.
There is no God.
Actually, God probably exists. According to the Scientific laws of Thermodynamics, which says 'entropy is increasing' and rocks tend to dissolve into dust - LIFE SHOULD NOT EXIST. In fact, that humans exist and create wonderful things completely contradicts this so called scientific law, people seem to ignore this. God's expression is in life itself, and it is highly likely that divinity is driving this ship forward.
Life does not contradict the second law of thermodynamics, that argument against evolution lacks a fundamental understanding of thermodynamics. Even if it did, your argument would negate the laws of thermodynamics, subsequently making your argument using thermodynamics inane.
OK, if you're going to be religious, please don't try to rationalize it. Every mainstream religion is full of inconsistencies and contradictions and has nearly all scientific evidence going against it. That's why it's all about taking the "leap of faith." You only make a hypocrite of yourself when you try to present a rational case for your irrational faith.
As for the the second law of thermodynamics, human life on earth does not decrease the entropy of the universe since there is far more to the universe than simply earth and its inhabitants. So long as the disorder in the rest of the universe increases to compensate for the order of life on earth (not too difficult for an expanding universe), then the second law is not violated.
Lastly, don't go waving your degree in applied science around as if it were worth anything. Most undergraduate degrees in science are nothing but a picture-story joke, and give only a superficial impression of what science is about.
Hmm. how about what an actual Entropy scientist has to say about this?
"Living organisms preserve their internal order by taking from their surroundings free energy, in the form of nutrients or sunlight, and returning to their surroundings an equal amount of energy as heat and entropy."
-Albert Lehninger: "Principles of Biochemistry", 1982.
Earth is not a closed system.
I think you're confusing biological complexity with thermodynamic chaos. Based on the same line of thinking, the sun shouldn't be shining because the fusion of two smaller atoms into a more complex atom decreases entropy. That is not the case. As Holden says a few comments down, the second law of thermodynamics applies to a closed system.
Entropy in no way suggests that life should not exist. Idiots like this commentator educating children is exactly why China is going to take over...
ROTFLMAO... thank you
thank you artios.....Entropy, in Thermodynics, is just a term given the measurement of the molecular disorder of steam. Super-Heated steam, has high measurement of Entropy........THAT'S IT!! The higher the Entropy, the higher the rate of heat transfer. How the F#@K did Thermodynics and Entropy get into the discusion (NO MATH REQUIRED) of religious beliefs?
Science is tangible and provable, and can be measured,
while Religion is based on FAITH.
Very Interesting slogan on the bus . . . There's " PROBABLY " no God.
" PROBABLY ??? "
Is that like saying " Definitely NOT Sure. "
Talk about Wishy-Washy Atheists.
Doesn't exactly sound like they're CONVINCED ?
"Science is tangible and provable, and can be measured,
while Religion is based on FAITH."
That's precisely the reason why there is a 'probably' in the slogan.
God, to be fair, cannot be empirically tested for, and thus cannot be unproved, however absurd the notion it. As one commenter suggested, intangible, undetectable unicorns everywhere cannot be unproved either. The idea is the same for Carl Sagan's invisible dragon breathing heatless, ineffectual fire. Cannot be unproved by observational science. So, sure it's absurd, and there almost certainly is not a higher power manipulating everything, but it is not able to be shown.
So to be good scientists, we must include the 'probably'. This objectivity is what separates these school of thought (theists and atheists). However, as another here rightly put forth, the burden of proof is laid upon those who say that god exists, not the other way around.
I think they were wanting something conversational, and also not to come off as total douchebag assholes who are sure of themselves.
Oh wow, please go back to school.
Actually, god probably does exist and I don't 'worry' about it, I rather enjoy this life.
Then why make three posts about it if you're not worried?
yeah, i mean, again, "That people are ignoring spiritual matters is definitely a bad sign."
We call that worry.
kdj-kdj, you have posted more than three times, does that reflect on your level of worry? Is two times okay? four posts means your in a state of panic?
No, actually jo, as a mathematician I can state fairly categorically that an omniscient, omnipotent being who existed before anything and created everything, loves you but will send you to hell, and who's holy word is riddled with what we now know for certain are abject lies and perversions of human dignity, is just about the most unlikely being ever dreamt up by fevered minds of our primitive forebears.
Genesis just flat-out never happened. We know that for a fact. Created the universe in six days you say? Used a rib did he? Nice. I wonder what he could have done with a femur and a couple of strips off the shoulder. That'd be one hot bitch! If you ever see him, ask him why as a human male I had to have nipples and an appendix.
Exodus is extremely unlikely to have happened, and so the hell what if it even did? Climbing down from a mountain made of stone after forty days and nights with tablets formed from stone would not constitute a miracle. It might constitute craftsmanship depending on the quality. Given what was written on the tablets it would definitely constitute some degree of plagiarism (see the Code of Ur-Nammu).
The whole of the old testament is near incomprehensible gibberish. Don't let midgets near the altar (Leviticus 21:20, just as an example)? Have you ever read the book? Does it seem more likely that this is the inspired word of a loving god or just a bunch of crap made up by semi-literate, tent-dwelling, superstitious fools?
And, no, the second law of thermodynamics does not negate the possibility of localized increasing organization within a system. Consider gravity acting on the particles contained in a gas cloud in space. If a critical mass is built up at a given point, a new sun will emerge as the mass approaches concentrations suitable for fusion reactions. Outer bands of the cloud, if there are any, will begin to coalesce into smaller concentrations of matter that might then form planets. We know that this happens. We're spinning around on one of the products right now. We can watch stars being formed inside nebulae thousands of years ago by peering across the universe with the Hubble telescope. Matter can locally organize itself into solar systems via gravity even though the overall universe is expanding and heat entropy is continuing apace.
If you're having such a hard time understanding the SLTD then I would suggest that you never start looking into quantum physics and string theory. You might just start bleeding from the ears.
You're as bad as the creationists who deny evolution because it would have taken longer than six days.
Though to say "the whole of the old testament is near incomprehensible gibberish" does rather undermine your claims of literacy, so perhaps you're just repeating chunks of what you've heard.
It does seem that it's rather easier for people to decide /who/ to believe than it is to decide /what/ to believe.
Pinkofelty.......you're my new hero!.....just decided.....just awesome! Well said indeed!
For those that say once you've read the bible, you'll become a believer......well, that's aload a crap. It only made more of an athiest.
No, seriously, this is a fucking brilliant response. I am going to memorize that shit and then go kick me some philisophical ass. Well done.
Of course the same way atheists say you can't prove that god exists, that goes both ways; you can't prove he (or she who knows) doesn't...
Sure, sure, but it is not our burden to prove god's non-existence; we're not the ones claiming that there's a god. This is rather simple logic - if I claim that "A" exists, I must provide some evidence to back up my claim. Otherwise, it is safe to assume that "A" is nothing but a product of my imagination.
While we're on the subject, however, atheists have way more evidence against the existence of god than believers do in favour of it. Not too difficult, since religions present exactly zero evidence, but still.
The lack of evidence is not proof of a negative. For example many athiests believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life and support programs like SETI. There is no direct evidence, merely inference based on probability and the mind boggling size of the universe.
As for "God," there are so many possible working definitions that it's difficult to pin down. Organized religion likely does not preach the truth, that does not mean there is not a being with characteristics we would call godly.
In fact, just as with extraterrestrial life scientific, understanding leaves open the door to the existence of gods. With infinite level 1 universes, if the laws of physics allow for a god, then there is a god somewhere. Level 2 universes which do not necessarily have the same laws may allow for more fantastic creatures than we can imagine.
The concept of "God" is so ambiguous that each person, believer or not, will have a different definition. The debate cannot be resolved, because people can't even agree upon the question, let alone the answer.
there is no evidence against the existence of God. that statement is just laughable.
by rules of logic, you cannot prove that something doesn't exist. let me guess, you would say that evolution is evidence against the existence of God? wrong. It may be a good argument against those people that believe the world is 6000 years old, but it isn't evidence against the existence of God.
Based upon the the books of the abrahamic religions, god does exist and we are him/her. We now have the ability to create and change life. We can descend from the heavens, alter the life forms and direct their activities. Are we not godly?
applaud to your answer.
You cannot prove anything DOESN'T exist.
Prove to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist.
you stole the flying spaghetti monster from Dawkins book!
Never read anything by him.
The 'belief' was created in 2005 by a guy named Bobby Henderson in a letter to the Kansas State Board of Education.
A good picture of the 'deity': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Touched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.jpg
Blasphemy! His Noodly Appendage has left evidence for us all over this earth. How do you explain so many things in His Image, or the overwhelming popularity of pasta?
RAmen.
I believe the world is filled with invisible, intangible, unscented unicorns. They follow people around and cause bad things to happen to them. Everytime something goes bad, it's their fault! Assholes! Also, they killed your God years ago, and they now run the universe.
Please, prove they don't exist. If you can't, that obviously means they're real.
They're not unscented.
I think these unicorns contained most of the mass of the universe. In physics they are called "dark matter".
A little know fact: that is actually a shortening of the "dark horse matter", since unicorns, in the late middle ages were commonly known as "dark horses".
Please study your logical fallacies.
Can you imagine the sadness of a person who feels so strongly about being an atheist that they actually have to organize, go to meetings and try to get others to embrace their non-belief? Yes, let's get together and discuss how much we don't believe. That will be great!
When people are inundated on a daily basis with things they themselves find to be illogical, hateful, a detriment to civilized society... wouldn't these people be remiss if ignoring what they find to be truth?
Don't you see that to people like them, ever increasing in numbers, feel that this kind of reaction is appropriate to those who have been reeled in by others dong the exact same thing but using an ancient collection of stories and illogic instead?
Wolverine1987 - Yes one is sad when fairy tale believers have sufficient political clout that they affect non fairy tale believers civil rights.
Try to buy alcohol in Texas before noon. 25 years ago you could not buy hardware in Texas on Sunday.
Fairy Tale Believers:
Tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.....
Tell people where they can and cannot place their businesses.....
Tell people how many beers they can have on their table in some restaurants.....
Tell people they want to allow children to pray in our schools to the giant at the top of the beanstalk......
Here are a few, others have more patience to make longer lists.
Can you imagine the sadness of a person who feels so strongly about being religious that they actually have to organize, go to meetings and try to get others to embrace their belief? Yes, let's get together and discuss how much we do believe. That will be great!
Nicely put, mcasio.
mcasio. My kind of sarcasm. The truth
There is a difference between the expression of disbelief and belief. I personally do not believe in a lot of things, but I do not put much time and energy into trying to tear down other beliefs. The "sadness" lies in the fact that these people are so discontent that they have to go around tearing down others beliefs in the hopes that maybe, just maybe if they can destroy other peoples faith it will make them feel better about their own lack of faith.
This Christmas you will not find me going around argueing that Santa does not exist. Why? Because I know he doesn't, what's to argue?
selah:
We wouldn't be so discontent if our lives weren't being governed by the superstitions of others.
choptop13
Could you give me an example on how your life is governed by religion?
selahh:
I agree with you. Anyone who would want to tear down someone else's belief system to make themselves feel better is, indeed, sad. However, religion has a much richer history of doing this kind of thing than atheism. I can't recall ever having been visited at home by atheists trying to convince me to abandon my faith. I have, however, been visited on several occasions by the faithful trying to convince me that my path is incorrect and will lead only to damnation.
selahh: you really think religion has nothing to do with a lot of laws? what reason is there to be opposed to homosexual marriage if homosexuality was not considered a sin? what reason is there to promote abstinence only education when contraception has been proven to be so much more effective? and atheists do not just oppose christian religions, they believe all religions are equally ludicrous. There are still cases of Islamic extremists sentencing people to death for infringements of religious law - eg, adultery, sex before marriage, improper dress or flirting. To say that religion does not infringe on people's lives is disingenuous. If some religious people would not force their beliefs on others to varying degrees I would have no problem with them.
Yeah you're right - so much more hollow that a room full of "believers" every Sunday bowing to an idol that symbolizes the ancient world's version of an electrric chair....
That's an icon, not an idol.
No, prickly...
It's idol (as in the thing that the Second Commandment prohibits fashioning); not icon.
Wow. You know your history. It is true that the crucification symbology emerged very late in the history of Chistianity, as it would have been completely inappropriate earlier when a cross presented in that way was equivalent to an electric chair for earlier cultures where execution was common.
Christianity did not become morbid and obsessed with Christ's suffering until relatively recently.
That calls Christians.
I don't understand-- How is it "sadder" when atheists assemble than when believers assemble? When atheists hope to free others from ancient superstitions that fetter them with unnecessary guilt, ritual, and inequitable treatment of others (gays, women, etc), but not sad when proselytizers of "faith" preach mythology for the purpose of putting a rosy picture on death?
I suppose it's "sad" when a young child discovers that in fact, Santa Claus does not really exist. Sentimentally sad at the loss of innocence. But hey, we all need to grow up sometime...
Imagine growing up in a world where everybody still believed that Santa was real and do awful terrible things to their brothers and sisters in the name of this Santa character. Yeah, i think discussing why people need this mythical Santa character in their life is actually not that bad of an idea.
Consider it payback for the eons of carnage religion has inflicted on non believers. If we can overlook all those witch hunts and crusades, surely you religious folks can overlook a bit of light ribbing. Or is that faith not as strong as you lead us to believe?
Please remember there are still places in the world where the punishment for disbelief is death.
My faith has been wavering for some time, but it took watching a video of Child Witches in Nigeria on You tube to eliminate the last remnants. What is done to these children ( some as young as 18 months) in the name of Evangelical Christianity is simply torture. If a Merciful God allows this to happen to innocent children I have no use for belief in a old man, in white robes,sitting up in a place called Heaven, deciding that these little children should suffer. Someone please tell me what purpose does this serve - apart from making money for the torturers in the name of Christianity.
So, why are you just standing by? Do something.
Just because someone claims to be acting in the name of god, doesn't mean they are. Why do you think god gave you a brain?
For one thing, the second law of thermodynamics referred to above, only really applies in a closed system. The earth isn't.
And science isn't Truth, but some imaginary guy who lives upstairs with a big beard is? Please. Observable facts are 'truths'.
The existence of god cannot be empirically tested, but it is far more likely that he, along with the deities of yore, was invented, and perpetuated by mechanisms of culture alone.
sincerely,
a godless, liberal scientist
That humans refer to the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity as having a gender says a lot, IMO.
The fact that this "omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity" can only have one son and this son had to die for our sins (kind of silly in my opinion) is kind of laying it out there. Why not just find another way to do it? Oh yeah, maybe "HE" did, back when the "Christ" cult was the Horus Cult back in Egypt and then transplanted itself in ancient Israel. I guess they believed in recycling back then.
I'm not going to argue for or against God. But with religious fanaticism on the rise there is going to be a push for atheism. It's called balance.
My all time favorite bumper sticker--God was my co-pilot but we crashed in the Andes and I ate him.
hahahaha hilarious!
Blaise Pascal said:
If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).
Or, at the very least wear a crucifix so people will think you're a nice person.
Pascal's wager has always been bothersome to me because it tells people to not be true to themselves. In addition to that, the current incarnation of god is omnipotent, omnipresent, and other omni- words that people choose to attribute. He knows what you're truly thinking, so either way you'll be damned by this particular god.
I do rather enjoy the last line. ;)
So I should believe that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet? Or should I get a circumcision and a yarmulke and head off to the synagogue. Perhaps I ought to embrace Christ and head down to the church of the blessed virgin Mary and have myself confirmed? Or accpet Jesus as my personal lord and savior? Perhaps Krishna, Vishnu, and that whole crowd would be my best bet?
So how will you wager? The wheel is spinning, place your bets on Pascal's Roulette.
Oh, and wearing a crucifix so that people think you are nice? Doesn't work so well. Protestants may distrust your Popishness, atheists may assume that you are a homophobe, Muslims may think you an idolator, Jews may remember the Pope's stance during the holocaust, etc, etc.
Actions connote niceness, not jewelery.
Anyone who still believes in eternal damnation is cherishing a punitive, vicious, sadistic God, the kind of oddball who cares if you eat wheat during passover, feels adulterers should be stoned, condones slavery and the rape of captive women, and makes no sense at all.
I didn't really read this as Granite saying he/she believes this to be true, especially after the previous post. I read the last line as sarcasm... is it just me that thinks that?
I much prefer the alternative to Pascal's wager, and the world would no doubt be a better place if people embraced the atheist's wager instead:
"You should live your life and try to make the world a better place for your being in it, whether or not you believe in god. If there is no god, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent god, he will judge you on your merits and not just on whether or not you believed in him"
Dibs: The Jews said Pope Pious XII was "a righteous gentile". That is pretty high praise.
All of them Prickly Pear? Was there a meeting?
Yes, not every Jewish person thinks that, and not every person that thinks that is Jewish. The point I was making was that what may be a friendly symbol to one person is not to another. Pedantry and nit-picking may make you feel better, but the overall point stands.
my favorite: Jesus saves, but Gretzky scores on the rebound
For those of us who are believers we are taught from a young age that life is a gift from God, and that it should be cherished and lived to the fullest of each day that has been given to us. So I don't understand where the notion came from that, because I believe in a higher power that I waste this gift of life believing. My Second comment is My father is an Atheist and my mother is a Christian so I was raised with the dual argument of both sides, so I chose to be a person of faith because also from a young age God isn't there to be proven or disproven the bases of any faith is just that faith, to have the believe in something not seen or touched. My last and final comment is I'm also a gay man, so you can image what I've had to go through with my faith. However I would rather live in a world were I will have to fight for my "lifestyle" and have a hope of a better tomorrow, than live in a world with no hope.
Hope is in the eye of the beholder.
So you are saying that if there is no God, there's no hope for humanity?
How about having faith in yourself, in your fellow man, in your family. It truely does boggle me that having no God means having no faith, no hope for mankind.
The divine deity was created after thousands of years of human (and animal) evolution. Humans began to cultivate the earth, and used the placement of the Sun and stars to know when to harvest and so forth. Stories were created about the Sun and stars because it was understood that without the Sun, nothing would grow. These stories, passed on through generations, not only gave humans specific times of when to cultivate, but also emphasized morals for the community. These stories, through many generations, became faith. They were perverted many times through many faiths to be "fact." And, through hundreds of different religions, many of which have the same story with different characters, we have come to today.
I had faith that Santa Clause was going to give me presents for the rest of my life. My life wasn't crushed when that faith turned out to be wrong. I grew up a little bit.
Is it any wonder that out of the top 5% of the most intelligent people in this country, 85% have no belief in God.
Oops... that below response from me is to you.
I am not a believer.
@NorCalGladiator
Have faith in ourselves and fellow man? I see no reason to have faith in mankind. I think it's funny how people look around at all the suffering in the world and use it as an argument against God. Suffering in the world is why I have no faith in mankind. 20% of the worlds population are hoarding 80% of the worlds resources. There is suffering in the world because we allow it. Faith in fellow man is empty.
I was raised in an atheist household, and in my adolescence I explored the world of faith, looking for spiritual truths. I did not find them there, but that did not crush my hope for a better tomorrow. In fact, when I stopped looking outside this world for a better life I learned how to appreciate what is good in this life, to really value and cherish it, and to start fighting for a better world for us all, here and now.
I can imagine how hard it is for you as a gay man of faith. It must be hard knowing that a large proportion of your fellow believers think that you are an abomination who will suffer and burn for all eternity. That must be very hard. As an atheist I have a reasoned morality that puts tolerance and defense of life above all other considerations. To have to put obedience to the dictates of an outdated book at the center of your life and fight to be respected for who you are ... well, I do not envy you, not one bit.
You have very much mistaken me.
I am not a believer.
yeah i funked up and clicked your reply instead of memphisTN's.
my apologies.
It's all good.
For those who seek truth by scientific measures of the existence of God, prove to me scientifically that God doesn't exist..
You cannot prove a negative.
So the onus is on you to prove it does.
I can prove there is no soul. If a soul exists outside of the physical body, why do people with Alzheimers lose their identity, personality, memory and self as the physical brain deteriorates? Why wouldn't the soul remain unchanged? Why do people who suffer traumatic brain injuries become entirely different people? Our minds are created by our brains. We cease to think and feel when they cease to function. Apparently humans aren't brave enough to face the fact that after we die, it will be exactly as it was before we lived. Nothing. No pain. No loss. Nothing at all.
That's not proof, though. Evidence does point to it, but it is still not proof.
Inthink, can you define soul?
The soul is what is left of me when everything else is gone.
look up
She describes exactly what bothers me about atheism. It can incite zealotry and fanaticism that is so akin to religious fundamentalism.
That is a human problem.
Go to an NFL football game and then come back and tell me I'm wrong.
perfect analogy.
what bothers you is your own fear.
no, no fear. I'm not a religious person in the slightest. And I think religion can be bad as well as good (for those people who were born and live in unfortunate circumstances, those beliefs can be comforting). I just have issues with people that believe in things so strongly it causes harm - which I haven't seen yet in atheism, but it could happen, no?
Hilarious comment since the world's religions have incited the worst violence known to man. The inquisition. Witch burning. 9/11. The Taliban. Atheists to not murder, imprison, or physically attack those who don't share their beliefs.
Yes they do. Atheists commit terrible acts, just as the religious do. Some, such as Stalin actually used their atheism to justify their violence.
This in no way discredits atheism, as atheism is not a belief system with a set of doctrines, rules or precepts that people are told to follow. this does discredit any religion that claims moral authority and then permits atrocity.
Don't fall into the trap of claiming that atheism is a better belief system. It isn't, because it is not a belief system. Likewise the idea that religion creates certain human behaviours is equally flawed. Religious people can be kind and benevolent or violent and cruel, regardless of professed faith. It is the same with atheists.
So far... But how are we to know what anyone truly believes in their own mind? i.e. all the atrocities committed in the name of religion were not committed BY any religion, but by someone using one to motivate a mass of people. Atheism has never had the structure to support this. With atheism gaining structure it isn't hard to imagine someone doing the same thing to get 'logical' people to attempt to wipe out those damn believers. And they'd have no qualms about ruining parts of 'God's Creation' for years with fallout and other side effects of the most horrible advances in the science of killing.
Matt572, you seem to be arguing that if atheism becomes a coherent movement then it may become as violent and destructive as religions have been, but at the same time you say that it wasn't necessarily the religions that caused the violence. Is this a fair summary.
And yes, maybe in the future atheism may become some kind of faith that causes violence. It may also become some kind of faith that heralds a golden age of peace and prosperity. Neither one looks likely to me, but I can't prove either, and neither can you. Hysteria and supposition won't help us.
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." Steven Weinberg
Atheism becoming a movement or faith (rather than a rejection of them) is the problem. It will not become either a faith that causes violence or one that heralds peace and prosperity, it will have sects of each like every other faith. Atheism should abhor structure entirely, how can you have a 'humanist chaplain?' How is one man a bigger, better nonbeliever than another? And do some cost-benefit analysis. Are the benefits of a possible Church of Atheism's missions worth even the chance that someone could rise to power and start another atrocious faith-based disaster?
I'm simply talking about zealotry, religious or not, it seems to provoke the worst in people. See NFL comment above. I won't disagree with your point.
Dibs - you are right, and that's my main point. Militant fanatics, zealots, I don't trust 'em. They are the type that will never admit a wrong.
Don't see any atheists burning and torturing people for their beliefs. Haven't noticed them killing pro-lifers. Or bombing any churches. Or starting a massive crusade to take over the Vatican.
Just FYI, I don't hold Christianity as a whole responsible for the previously mentioned acts. I'm just pointing out that I can't think of many atheist zealots that compare to the historic Christian zealotry that has taken so many lives.
true true. I might dare to say that atheists may even value this life more since they think/know there is nothing afterwards. Still, die-hard fanaticism creeps me out. Can we all just know that we don't know everything yet? (if much at all, really)
"A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."- Winston Churchill.
Some folks choose to not believe in God. That is their right. Our Constitution and the United States is the one place on earth that brought that opportunity to the world. It was brought together by mostly Christians and Jews, and others who left other countries for the freedoms and opportunities this new land made available.
For those who disbeleive, that is your right. For those who do, that is also your right. I would say, however, that the freedoms we take for granted and the rest of the world emulates is based on the blood of those who did believe and thought that freedom for all men was worth fighting for.
When we look around the world at the big picture, and see what the principles of those with other philosophies have to share and their lifestyles, perhaps we should consider that belief in the principles of God, whether real or imagined, have helped form a better society than one that says "anything goes".
As for me, I believe in both this country and God, for it is that belief, those principles, that steer me back on track once I get off course. I pray for those who don't have some type of similar compass.
I am glad to hear from such an obviously devout and patriotic American that they believe that atheism is a right in this country. Too many people claim that this is a Christian nation, or that you are free to believe in whatever God you like, as long as you believe. I would point out, however, that the world is full of place that also allow this freedom, and that the USA is by no means unique in that.
As to the idea that religion helps creat better societies, well that isn't such a defensible position. The majority of the world's legal systems, including the USAs are based on Roman law. Rome was a well ordered society that permitted many more freedoms than is commonly realized (well, except for the slavery, but that is something that the US supported for a large chunk of it's history). This system of law was not derived from divine sources, and the majority of the 'personal relationships' that the Roman gods had with humans were when Zeus would trun himself into a farm animal and have sex with a human woman.
Historically, and presently, there are plenty of societies that are ordered, moral and happy, but not founded on religious belief. The United States was founded on ideas, and ideals, and those came from the enlightenment, and from many men who rejected the strict dogmas of faith.
The United States was founded on God, which is why it is "one nation under God" and God is on our money, and in our principles.
The Constitution principles were "all men are created equal". Unfortunately, some folks, who were Godless, and held slaves were at a point where the entire American experiment would have been lost had slavery not been tolerated a bit longer. If you know your history, it was about 50 years later that Lincoln addressed that issue, and more Americans bled to reinforce those beliefs.
Take a look at societies that are Godless (Sudan) or misuse God (Central Africa) and you'll see that at the core it is those who manipulate others but have no moral core that is the problem. Religion gets blamed for actions taken in most part by Godless people. Don't confuse the two.
The United States is the first to succeed in creating the system, and many others have xeroxed it. Fiji uses our Constitution. Norway has rubber stamped it. Many other as well. Some are democracies, some are somewhat socialist, but the principles are seeded there. One major difference is accountability, which we in this country are struggling with now.
The philosophy of religion is one which atheists struggle with, because what is athieisms philosophy? Is it "anything goes"? If so, how do they define accountability? Who is right, who is wrong? Is that something that is decided by the masses? or from within? What is the moral core that guides them?
At the end of the day, I may be right, or wrong. I choose to believe, and I choose to respect those who don't, but I also pray for them. I am guided (not ruled) by the philosophies I believe in, and others can depend on me based on those philosophies. Like driving on the freeway, each of us in our little lane, following the rules of traffic, I control myself in a predicable and neighborly acceptable manner. If you have a belief that "anything goes" then the car in the other lane may swerve at any time, without consequences. I choose to believe, and be prepared.
I will not argue with you on the history of the US, but to say that it was the Godless who kept slaves is not true, and it is disingenuous of you to claim that. Many religious people kept slaves, as did many of the founding fathers. The Bible never states that slavery is wrong, and as much as many American bled to end slavery, many Americans bled to keep slavery.
Sudan is not a Godless society, and the problems there are exacerbated by divisions between Muslims and Christians. Also, to say that there are problems when God is misrepresented does not strengthen the case for religion, but weakens it. If religion causes stability in society, then how can a religious society fail without the religion being a failure?
Tha American system may (debatably) be the first system to guarantee freedoms, but it is not the only one, and many secular states are as successful. Any one of them has flaws, but so does the US, as you admit. Also socialism and democracy are not exclusive. I am originally British, but now happily American, and my country has ahad democratically elected Socialist governments, Conservative governments, and often (and currently) Moronic governments. Socialism is a political stance, not a system of gevernment.
But the most important point to address is your assertion that atheists have a problem with religious philosophy. That is not true. As an atheist I do not believe in religious philosophy, as it is based on faith that I do not accept to be true. Religious philosophy predisposes a God that I do not believe exists, so nothing follows from that.
What I do believe is informed by my atheism, though not dependent on it. I believe that we have one life to live, only one, and that is true for all beings on this planet. I then have a choice to embrace "anything goes", but I choose freely to reject that. If I act like a child and demand that my needs are met, take what I want, and lash out when angry then I will inevitably end up alone, or be killed by someone bigger than myself. Anything goes leads to death, destruction, and the ending of the only life I have.
If I wish to make my only life a satisfying and long one then I need to cooperate. This is an evolutionary biological imperative that we see reflected across the animal kingdom, and occurs naturally in the human race. It is logical, philosophically to help as many people as I can, to give them freedom and respect, and in turn expect they will treat me the same. And it feels good to have the security that civil society provides.
I chose not to have faith in the unprovable, but to have faith that we can as a society care for each other, and make this one life, one chance, and one world a better place. If someone is an atheist, a Hindu, a Christian, or a Muslim, then I am happy to join with them in creating this civil society if they share this belief. If they use their faith to undermine it, to deny rights to homosexuals, to deny climate change in the name of God, to fly planes into buildings, then I will reject their divinely inspired lunacy and struggle against them, along with the reasonable faithful.
ConsitutionalRights - the Pledge and our currency were both altered with the God references in the 1950s. The Founding Fathers had nothing to do with either of those things.
Your history and current events need up-dating if you think that societies that believe "in the principles of God" (wtf does that mean?), form "better a better society than one that says 'anything goes'."
Have you ever heard of the Inquisition. It's estimated that over 1 million people (mostly women who were denounced as "witches"), were burned at the stake in medieval Europe. Have you read about Iran and how the religious government oppresses it's people and fakes elections? How about the Taliban in Afghanistan, where they enslave women and shoot anyone who disagrees with them?
Yes, there have been atheist governments that were monstrosities as well. Like Stalin and Mao, but they came to power because the previous religious-believing governments failed their people miserably.
The best thing about the U.S.A. is the U.S. Constitution and it's bill of rights. The first ordains separation of church and state, and if we're smart we'd keep religion out of politics and vice versa.
My history is fine, thanks.
Europe was never a religious area, it was a "manipulated" area. The King of England used it to rule over his people, and when it went against him, he changed the church. That is the primary reason for separation of church and state. That power was used against anyone who disagreed with them politically, and they used their power over the church to manipulate the masses. That is why the Taliban and Iran are a problem, but if you look at what is happening in Europe now, don't be surprised if it becomes a theocracy in a decade.
Atheist governments are not to blame because of religous predecessors, that is just the symptom, not the disease. The disease is people in power without a moral core, and that lack of moral core is justified by the philosophy that "anything goes, if it makes me feel good".
If you take an honest look at society, and review the "anything goes" mantra you see a population that is jumping in and out of bed with each other and no relationships, pregnacies and abortions, drugs, government dependencies, and a general loss of hope. We are hidden away in a room with computers, TV's and games, and don't interact with each other. We stress over the latest IPOD and Microsoft software, and then collapse when we lose our jobs. The "anything goes" mantra gives birth to a "no responsibility/no accountability" thinking. Religious philosophy provides that guidance, and as a practicing Christian I "practice" as best I can, but recognize that I sometimes fall out of principle and have to steer my way back home. What is the driving force behind atheists? The law? Whose law? Republican or Democrat? Individual or group? What is atheisims philosophy?
The US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and our society was morphed out of religious principles. If you like it, you should accept the fact that those principles, were created from a faith based process, not one person just deciding "anything goes".
"anything goes, if it makes me feel good" is hedonism, not Atheism. The fact that you think atheists revert to hedonism when they don't have an imaginary friend watching over them speaks volumes about your character, but doesn't say anything true about atheism.
What people like CR fail to realise is that they have things backwards. Our western values do correlate with the Abrahamic religions, because the two have been intertwined since their faith's creation. Indeed, if you look at how religious morality has changed over the years (CR's previous example of slavery illustrates this nicely), it demonstrates just how flexible and reliant Christian morals are on the societal morals that are the true base of our ethical behaviour.
And this is a good thing, otherwise we'd be living in a world with slavery, rape, forced marriage, the death penalty for pretty much any sin and a host of other backwards beliefs.
I see it a moral failure that some people need a cosmic Santa that watches their every move to behave morally.
I do not believe in god or in any other supernatural creature (Santa, little elves etc) but I still behave like a decent, kind human being.
Your mistake is claiming those who do not believe in a god DO believe that "anything goes."
Only a savage believes that. Therefore, you think non-believers are savages.
Just as a good Christian is supposed to:
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you ... Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die." -- Dt.13:6-10
As a good Christian is supposed to?
Hmmm, perhaps if you knew anything about Christianity you would know that what you just quoted has nothing to do with what "a good Christian is supposed to do". Christians are not under the law of the Hebrews. The only things Christians are told to do is love God, love your neighbor, love your enemies. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of orphans and widows, visit people in prison, make disciples.
Sounds so hateful, right?
The greatest commandment is love thy neighbor. If you do that one to the best of your ability, it takes care of all the others, especially loving God before all others.
Presently she began again. 'I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think-' (she was rather glad there WAS no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) '-but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke-fancy curtseying as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) 'And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
CR, just a couple of quick points...
I have to say that your view of an atheist philosophy as "anything goes" is just as bad as a view of a christian philosophy as keeping slaves, stoning non-virgins, and condemning any number of other things. All of those are in the bible, but it's safe to say that most christians don't go out and practice those on a daily basis.
Most people, in general, will fall back on the golden rule, but this is not at all unique to abrahamic religions. It is unique to civilizations.
It seems, in your comments, that any time someone does something bad in the name of a religion they're "misusing" it and whenever anyone does anything good they're following religion. Could it not be that religion was created (and yes it was created) to be "misused," that is, it was created in order to pressure people to act in a certain way?
And finally the notion that our Constitution and Bill of Rights were "morphed" from religious principles follows flawed logic at best. The most commonly held belief is that the 10 commandments are the basis for our laws. Not so much according to Jim Walker:
"1. I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other gods before me.
The U.S. Constitution does not mention God, Creator, Jesus, or Christianity anywhere. Nor does Constitutional law require U.S. citizens to worship a God. Nor does it prevent anyone from worshiping other gods or no god at all.
2. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain:
This commandment, to never take the name of God in vain, appears nowhere in the Constitution. We citizens can swear and curse any god, in any way we wish.
3. Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you
Not only can American citizens not keep the Sabbath, but we can ignore it entirely without out violating the Constitution.
4. Honor your father and mother...
Sorry, but the Constitution does not require anyone to honor fathers and mothers. We can even despise and hate our parents all we want (just as the alleged Jesus taught his disciples in Luke 14:26), without violating Constitutional law.
5. You shall not kill (murder).
At first this may seem Constitutional but it cannot possibly agree with it for the very reason that the Constitution allows the declaration of war, which of course kills and murders many innocent human beings. Murdering innocent human beings doesn't even seem to bother many Christians!
6. You shall not commit adultery.
The Constitution says nothing about adultery. A man or woman can have sex with as many married people as they like without violating the Constitution.
7. You shall not steal.
Although states have laws against stealing that remain consistent with the Constitution, the Federal government, by using "eminent domain," can rob and steal from its citizens all it wants (taking private property for "public use," for example), without violating the Constitution. Close but no cigar.
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Although one cannot lie in a court of law, while under oath, it says nothing about lying outside the court unless it constitutes slander. American citizens and sitting Presidents lie all the time without violating the Constitution. Moreover the Constitution specifically allows spying and countersurveillance, which guarantees lying to others. Close in some narrow cases, but not at all in most.
9. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife..."
The U.S. Constitution says nothing against not coveting wives. You can desire your neighbor's wife all you want. Sorry.
10. You shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.
The Constitution does not prevent you from desiring anything in, on, or around your neighbor's house, or any other house or thing for that matter."
Our founding fathers may very well have been a majority of christian men, but they realized that there should be a wall of separation between ones religious beliefs and ones socio-political beliefs. Just read Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, which was unanimously approved in congress, and also by John Adams.
"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." Elbert Einstein
Funny thing-- growing up in these United States in the 70's is that most of the bullies, cheaters, shoplifters, dopers, and sexually promiscuous kids (in my relatively affluent high school of 3000 in Northern Virginia), I knew were Catholics. (And yes, school kids of any religion can be any or none of these things), I was fascinated by their belief that if they recited incantations of "Hail Mary, Mother of God..." or executed any number of ritualistic behaviors, that their "slate" was then wiped clean and they could start a new day. I would ask a lot of questions about CCD--- those "Catechism" classes they went to (it was like a private club that I could not be a member of!)-- and they reasoned that if they didn't do their Hail Mary's or go to confession, they'd feel guilty. Any guilt they felt was from NOT going through the mechanics of their rituals, rather than because they had done something that wasn't "right."
Ridiculous hooey, I thought.
Bertrand Russell said it very clearly in his celestial teapot argument:
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time"
I am an Aethiest with practice in Buddhistsm, and I am fine. We don't need to convince anybody to believe or not believing in GODS. If you are a real aethiest, you know that there is no GODS and so no need to talk about it.
I'm really not interested in debating whether or not there's a god. And while I believe the answer is no, I don't feel much of an urge to convert people to my way of thinking.
What I'd like, however, is to be rid of the pervasive assumption that *everyone* believes in god. To be rid of the ways, subtle and less so, that society is built to accommodate Judeo-Christian impositions. The example cited above about Sunday blue laws is only one of many.
To a believer, the religion "wired" into our society probably doesn't even pierce the conscious awareness. It just makes sense. But to an atheist, it's a constant drip of nonsense.
It's a little bit like being left-handed, or not liking coffee (two traits I actually possess). No one's being deliberately rude in assuming that you're "like everyone else." You can't fault a person for coming out of nowhere to hand you a hot cup of joe at a meeting, or for seating you at the wrong corner of a dinner table. They're just acting out what feels to them like a friendly impulse. In the same way, I find it hard to fault an individual who is never free to do anything before noon on Sunday, or who asks blithely "which church" I go to. Take people one at a time, and few if any are committing an offense. But add it all up, and the pattern pisses me off.
So I'm not out to promote atheism. I'd just like to get it a seat at the table.
Oh, and: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNy6ziOyxoA
Perhaps it's because I live in Boston and work in an academic environment, but I find the opposite to be true here. People are embarrassed to admit they believe in God or go to church for fear they'll be considered irrational thinkers or evangelical crackpots or, even worse, Republicans Any mention of God except in the most distant and philosophical way is treated as if one has tossed a stink bomb into the room, and people will quickly change the subject to something more comfortable and appropriate, like erectile disfunction.
Of course, there are exceptions for those whose religion is seen as exotic or mysterious or cultural. Nobody would dare tell you that worshipping trees or wolves or the wind is strange - and I'm fortunate to be Greek Orthodox, which fills peoples' heads with images of Zorba and the Aegean and those yummy lamb skewers you get at church festivals. The Orthodox part they can set aside as being something really, really old, like the 12 gods on Mount Olympos.
I guess my point is that there are many seats at the table around here.
One more thing, Aethiestsm is very different from GAY movement. We don't really care gay people or minorities, we just don';t believe in life after death. Gay movement on the other hand, want the world recognize their existence and agree with them, which is far from reality of the world.
Recognize because they DO exist.
Not agreement... acceptance. Those are two separate things.
Please, please, stop talking about 'us'. You cannot talk for atheists. no one can talk for atheists. It's like trying to claim what all Chevy drivers believe, it is a non-sequitur. Atheism is not a club, a movement, or a belief-system. Atheism is a conclusion to a question, so don't include me in with your bigotry.
So YOU are an atheist/bigot, right ? You can't even spell atheism,
but you use it to disparage Gay people ?
Gay people as much a part of "the reality of the world"(your term)
as you are. Geez, what a tool !
here we go, that's a screaming gay. .
Something will have to be created to replace religion. I suggest all those who wish to pray continue to do so, but they must pray to themselves. Why not ask for the will and the power within you to face bravely the challenges of life and the loss of death, instead of expecting that will and bravery to be given to you by an outside force.
Leaving aside the obvious degeneration into a debate that no-one here is likely to win, I'd like to talk about the content of the article.
The main problem with this article, and with the various campaigns is that there is an understandable human tendency to impose narratives and group identities. There is no atheist movement as such, more that some atheists have decided to become vocal in what they see as opposition to a more militant intrusion of religion into society.
As such, there is no atheist movement. Atheism is not a belief system, but a conclusion to an argument, and perhaps the collective noun for atheists should be an "argument of atheists". When it comes to the 'New' atheists the defining feature of them is that they are outspoken, and love a good argument.
The conclusion of those arguments is different from the conclusion of religious arguments. For example, the recent embrace of the less tolerant branches of Anglicanism into the Church of Rome is an example of how schism can follow religious disagreement. The bickering of atheists can't escalate beyond hankies at dawn because where is there to schism from?
Some atheists will always argue. Many will keep quiet and go about their business, of course, happy in their lack of belief in divinity, and not care at all about other people's belief. Some will argue the religious, as long as the religious keep chiming in on national debates. Balance is good, after all, and that is the reason for the bus and train ads. And some atheists will argue with the religious, other atheists, their wives, the milkman, internet trolls, and passing rocks. Some atheists love to argue.
So I think that reports of schism, whilst hilarious, are misapplied. And as one of those angry, strident New Atheists we keep hearing about, I'll gladly argue the point with you ;-)
Can anyone name one religious god, or son of a god, or someone who has conversations with a god over all these centuries that has imparted one 'completely' new idea at the time about our planet; that the earth revolves around the sun, or talked about plate tectonics? Have they told us something new about our bodies, that there are germs or how the brain sees though our eyes? Or talked about the past with any real knowledge; how were the pyramids built, how did these big ass bones get here?
Imagine the following if one had. Imagine the legitimacy. Imagine the souls saved with one truth about us. Imagine the people who have died who have just lived simple moral lives, family, work, community, planet, that or never made to the heavens, or now burn in hell, because they were curious and asked for a few concrete answers in their questions about the religions they encountered.
Why so mysterious?
I just agree with the person that said that the non believers seem to be the more moral of the two. We judge on facts and morality. The believers judge on their religion and seem to think they will burn in hell if they question. Keep the billboards coming! There needs to be balance in this country. And it is nice to know I'm not alone in this small world.
We are few but we are strong.
Atheists don't necessarily have faith. To be an atheist means only to have an absence of belief in a theist system. There are quite a few theist systems which are necessarily mutually exclusive, so those that believe in one of them are atheists when it comes to the others. An atheist only believes in one less faith than a theist.
It is therefore not possible to classify people as atheists or attribute to an atheist a belief or a lack of belief.
Indeed. Having "faith" in an idea is quite a different matter than subscribing to a particular religious "faith". To confuse the two distinctive meanings of the term is to label oneself as ignorant. Trusting in a notion or idea is not the same as buying into a great swath of ludicrous religious dogma. A good rule: Think before opening the mouth.
I think that you misrepresent many religious people. While it is true that a shrill and vocal subset of believers fit your description, many other believers reason morality in the same way as many (but not all) non-believers.
Many religious people pick and choose their way through scripture to support bigoted beliefs, but an enormous amount will pick and choose to support reasoned moral positions. I personally believe that most people tailor their faith around their beliefs, not vice versa.
I could be wrong, of course. And you are not alone in wanting balance, and an acceptance of all view points, not just the religious. I think that vocal atheism is necessary, as people in the US are scared to voice their atheism. The feral bigotry of the zealots can get violent.
How absurd.......advertising your point of view is not "evangelizing".
I think many atheists are realizing that doing nothing as the government gets taken over by religious fanatics is not the way to go.
Indeed - we've gone from a president who doesn't believe atheists can be true americans (George Bush Sr.) to one who acknowledges people without faith in his state of the union. Staying quiet doesn't work.
I'll see your "acknowledgment" and raise you the faith based initiative, which gives US tax revenue to churches and Obama increased, as one of his very first acts in office.
You can judge Obama by his words, I'll judge him by his actions.
I don't want to convert anyone to atheism and I don't really care what your "belief system" is so long as it doesn't denigrate any other race, creed or gender.
But for too long, atheists have been in the closet, and as a result have not gotten the respect from society and the politicians that they deserve.
I wish this atheist movement well, in the hope it makes people realize that 1 in every 6 Americans are non-believers or agnostics, and that we have as much rights as anyone from the "religious community."
Thank you.
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