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Well I don't care either. If 60% of all people in North America think that the supernatural is not real, so what.
This is not a popularity contest...the most votes wins!
It's about reality. That my friend is what matters. I'm cool with you being an atheist. I suspect you feel the same way towards me (unlike many on this board).
But yet some feel that what matters is which view is the most popular. Which is gaining ground (hurrah for our team!). In these matters it matters not whose view is winning. But rather who is correct. I suppose we will find out after in the end.
I am confidant as are you. To sum it up, I really don't care which view is winning. I left high school many years ago. Most of the popular HS kids these days are either losers or are living boring lives.
LOL, I'm sure this isn't the last thread from a theist about atheists losing ground in the religious race. It's far from the first. Failing to see we are actually just spectators and not competing with the mass of segregating theists is their first mistake. Asking theists to be tolerant of others isn't a religion. It's an active group like any other. Woman's rights groups are not in the race with theists either although accused historically.
When a religion based bomb goes off it affects the crowd of spectators. So deal with us they will. We don't like the casualties but that is a far cry from being a religion ourselves.
I'm with you on this one, it's not a popularity contest. I've never understood the game of grabbing the most followers with the mission game. Does seem sports like. The purpose is only to gain followers to obey a God like figures commands. Activist groups don't qualify. They have a concrete message of tolerance and they are humans. Their mission is awareness, not gathering a group to praise and follow the commands of an entity.
Theists compete just fine without us atheists being lumped in, no need to bring us into the religious race for a congregation. We don't qualify. Making people aware of us, removing idol worship from government, and basing laws on human wants and needs instead of a unproven God like entity is an activist group, not a religion. We may be religious about it, but it doesn't qualify as a religion.
The need to have us qualify as religion only leads me to believe that Theists are embarrassed about their belief in the unknown and want company to justify it. I don't see them getting that from atheists. We are a - theist. We don't and will never qualify as a religion.
Although I don't identify personally with those who idolize Dawkins or Justin Bieber, the fact remains these are human beings, not a floating God figure with a rule book. Big difference. Yes, they do enjoy their popularity as artists they don't control the afterlife, nor claim capability for human life. They aren't creators of life, they just present their art. Humans who idolize other humans ideas is a different thread. IMO. Humans are real, you can actually see them and talk with them. Plus if they claim to have created the earth you can argue with them and ask for proof, and you can have them treated.
Last edited by PoppySead; 07-14-2013 at 08:00 AM..
I am unashamedly evangelical about atheism as Dawkins, though far less effective. Why should we not be? Sitting home and keeping quiet about it is a recipe for another 2,000 years of Theist delusion.
An atheist trying to convert people to atheism because some have used religion to commit evil is like an asexual trying to convert people to asexuality because some have raped and spread STDs. Just as most couldn't imagine a life without sex, neither I nor many others could imagine a life without religion.
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Cult of reason. It was something that had to be tried, I suppose, and the question does arise of what replaces religion. I think there could be more celebration of the rationalist worldview (if and when it is taken to be the better and only rational one) and we get Dawkins and Hitchens on stamps rather than Popes and Mother Theresas.
No, when GOD is replaced, history shows us it is replaced with some pretty awful stuff:
And the Cult of Reason murdered countless people in an effort to create a "rational, Godless society".
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I refuse to be made to feel that it is somehow wrong or a betrayal of what we stand for. And someone who finds science (or at least the astounding discoveries it makes) as dull and boring is a lost soul indeed.
Believe in whatever you want or don't believe in whatever you want, just don't preach it. I say the same thing to Christians, Muslims or anyone else.
Also, yes, I am not afraid to say that analyzing the chemical composition of swamp gas or counting rat chromosomes is not "astounding" to me in the least. I would much rather study Mythology and the spiritual practices of human beings and make astounding discoveries about myself then study something that has very little bearing on my day to day life (sorry Mr. Sagan, but those "billions and billions" are just big balls of boring gas far away. I would watch the US congress and get the same effect)
[quote=victorianpunk;30482063]An atheist trying to convert people to atheism because some have used religion to commit evil is like an asexual trying to convert people to asexuality because some have raped and spread STDs. Just as most couldn't imagine a life without sex, neither I nor many others could imagine a life without religion.
While I see what you're trying to say here, I think you're missing a few bolts. For one, sex is real, I can show you what sex is. God is not proven, you can only tell me what you imagine God is or what God wants or worse, what somebody else has imagined God is. God was designed so to speak. God only feels real to those who believe it where as sex is real, period.
I think you've already agreed that people with delusions should seek help, not introduce bills containing laws their delusional fairy said were moral for all on earth. So, there is a big difference.
Would you accept a law my imaginary fairy believed would be good for all mankind? God is only real to you, the definition of delusion is based on a belief despite evidence, imagined, or simply a thought. Sex is not a thought, although you can think about it. I don't think you'd allow my imagination to construct your society.
Last edited by PoppySead; 07-14-2013 at 04:18 PM..
While I see what you're trying to say here, I think you're missing a few bolts. For one, sex is real, I can show you what sex is. God is not proven, you can only tell me what you imagine God is or what God wants or worse, what somebody else has imagined God is. God was designed so to speak. God only feels real to those who believe it where as sex is real, period.
I am talking about the PLEASURE of sex. Can the pleasure of sex be proven? No...AND SPARE ME THE OLD "BRAIN CHEMISTRY" fallacy! Those chemicals may induce pleasure to some but a "meh, whatev". Hence the joy of sex is unprovable....so do we give up on sex and only reproduce through artificial insemination?
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I think you've already agreed that people with delusions should seek help, not introduce bills containing laws their delusional fairy said were moral for all on earth. So, there is a big difference.
Would you accept a law my imaginary fairy believed would be good for all mankind? God is only real to you, the definition of delusion is based on a belief despite evidence, imagined, or simply a thought. Sex is not a thought, although you can think about it. I don't think you'd allow my imagination to construct your society.
"The state recognizes no religion, and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people."-Albanian Constitution, 1976. Used to justify killing countless people in the name of stopping "delusional beliefs"
Even other atheists think that line of thinking is absurd.
"The state recognizes no religion, and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people."-Albanian Constitution, 1976. Used to justify killing countless people in the name of stopping "delusional beliefs"
Even other atheists think that line of thinking is absurd.
In the United States, we as citizens recognize the right to freedom of religion as it is guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
This means the freedom to believe in any religion or to believe in no religion at all.
An atheist trying to convert people to atheism because some have used religion to commit evil is like an asexual trying to convert people to asexuality because some have raped and spread STDs. Just as most couldn't imagine a life without sex, neither I nor many others could imagine a life without religion.
I imagine that it would be. However that is not why we try to spread the gospel of rationality, of which atheism is that worldview applied to the god -claim; it is because the god claim fails to make a good enough case for credibility, let alone fact on which to base one's life, and on that basis the organized authority of the religious has to be challenged and the rationalist worldview adopted rather than the faith -based.
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No, when GOD is replaced, history shows us it is replaced with some pretty awful stuff:
And the Cult of Reason murdered countless people in an effort to create a "rational, Godless society".
The warning is well taken. Of course there are risks, but the answer is to learn from the mistakes and try to avoid them, not to advocate a sort of religious Luddism vis a vis a change in our worldview from the dogmatic to the reasoned.
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Believe in whatever you want or don't believe in whatever you want, just don't preach it. I say the same thing to Christians, Muslims or anyone else.
But I cannot let you say it to us, because Rationality as sound reasoning and going with evidence rather than faith is right.
Of course you can say it, but I can say I don't buy it for a moment. I don't mind if people need to believe in gods, or Atlantis or pyramid -building aliens or Bigfoot. I do mind if it becomes the tail that wags the dog of global worldview and that has to change.
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Also, yes, I am not afraid to say that analyzing the chemical composition of swamp gas or counting rat chromosomes is not "astounding" to me in the least. I would much rather study Mythology and the spiritual practices of human beings and make astounding discoveries about myself then study something that has very little bearing on my day to day life (sorry Mr. Sagan, but those "billions and billions" are just big balls of boring gas far away. I would watch the US congress and get the same effect)
I can understand your fascination with the foibles of human thought. I am also very interested in the way we think and the evolutionary instincts on which our art, culture and religion are surely based.
That said, the study of these things is better aimed at understanding why we come up with mythological explanations rather than crediting them as worthwhile in themselves and for me, studying our past, our biosphere and universe in which we live is far more worthwhile, because it is about demonstrably real facts, not fairy - tales.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-14-2013 at 07:32 PM..
Reason: 'god' is not 'good'
And the Cult of Reason murdered countless people in an effort to create a "rational, Godless society."
I'm not interested in an atheist state, but a secular state. They are not the same thing, as the article you cite immediately makes clear. Secular states are neutral about personal beliefs. The US is mildly non-neutral in the direction of religion (via tax exemptions and other favors); it's neutral only in the sense that it treats all religions equally favorably. I'd favor eliminating those special provisions and not promoting either religion or irreligion.
It is likely that under such a scheme many of the activities of religion would continue to enjoy tax exempt status, not as churches, but as not for profit organizations; they would simply have to demonstrate some purpose other than promoting a belief-system and collecting tithes, such as feeding and sheltering the poor and indigent (without condition that they submit to proselytization).
Don't worry though, I'm not holding my breath on that one.
I imagine that it would be. However that is not why we try to spread the gospel of rationality, of which atheism is that worldview applied to the god -claim; it is because the god claim fails to make a good enough case for credibility, let alone fact on which to base one's life, and on that basis the organized authority of the religious has to be challenged and the rationalist worldview adopted rather than the faith -based.
I miss the old atheists. Since when has "atheism" meant "rationalist"? Reason is the enemy of human civilization and is the worst dogma of them all. I am 100% anti-rationalist.
What ever happened to awesome, thinking atheist like Nietzsche?
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That said, the study of these things is better aimed at understanding why we come up with mythological explanations rather than crediting them as worthwhile in themselves and for me, studying our past, our biosphere and universe in which we live is far more worthwhile, because it is about demonstrably real facts, not fairy - tales.
Mythologies are not explanations usually but are dreams of the public. "Myths are public dreams, dreams are public Myths,"-Joseph Campbell.
I would much rather study the Tao te Ching (ah, what creation Myth is hidden in that one again? I've read several translation and never saw one fairy tale) or the Gnostic poems than measure rat droppings or look at big, ugly balls of gas in space (stars)
I am a human and hence, I choose to study to living, breathing heart of man and not the cold, sterile hand of science.
I am talking about the PLEASURE of sex. Can the pleasure of sex be proven? No...AND SPARE ME THE OLD "BRAIN CHEMISTRY" fallacy! Those chemicals may induce pleasure to some but a "meh, whatev". Hence the joy of sex is unprovable....so do we give up on sex and only reproduce through artificial insemination?
You said sex, you did not say trying to take the pleasure out of sex for others. So, I'll hold true to my reply.
We aren't discussing the joy of sex, we are discussing atheists losing to theists in some kind of Theist competition, to me their is an orange in the apple cart of that study. It's absurd to lump us in as flock gatherers. We only form groups to make others aware that we are here. To inform closet atheists that it's ok to come out of the closet, there is support if you need it. It's pretty simple, I'm unsure why you think it's complicated.
"The state recognizes no religion, and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people."-Albanian Constitution, 1976. Used to justify killing countless people in the name of stopping "delusional beliefs"
Even other atheists think that line of thinking is absurd.
It's not one extreme or the other for me, this is exactly why lumping atheists into Theists views of society doesn't work. As stated already, we simply strive for the freedom to be atheist and desire a government without prayer meetings, and God rhetoric like a blessing after every informative briefing. I have no desire to take over the world like Gru from Despicable Me. People are free to practice religion, or not practice religion personally, no reason to prevent that.
Government officials are free to have a religion personally but I'd like them to keep it out of their speeches and their work place. They are addressing the nation and the nation is full of people of all religion and lack of it.
I don't think meeting with religious leaders pertains to government office seats, nor does getting the nod from the Christian head honchos. Their faith should be strong enough to survive the day without popping out of their mouths when addressing me. I didn't ask to be blessed, it's insulting. This is a public office not a private club.
Right now an atheist running for president is a joke, so is any other belief besides Christian. Do you not think atheists children or other non Christian children want an equal chance to become the president? I'd like everyone to feel free to run for office without religious pressure, and this includes all other religious people not just atheists who have none. These are my reasons for joining atheists groups and educating others about who we are. We are normal people, not the devils minions trying to gather flock from other religions. The only thing we lack is a belief in the super natural.
I will make as many people aware of this as possible because if I don't they might imagine a much worse scenario, like I'm worshiping Dawkins and planning to kill all Theists.
I am not imagining that the president blesses the nation with God speech though, nor am I imagining he has prayer meetings in the White House. Again, different. I would like this to change and awareness might help, so I will explain my position when ever I can.
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I've read several translation and never saw one fairy tale) or the Gnostic poems than measure rat droppings or look at big, ugly balls of gas in space (stars)
