>In this part of town, we call them Starbucks.
Oh, hey, I am so sorry! I thought that was its own religion. Boy, now I feel stupid…
>Honestly? Because I fucking hate the fucking Baby Jesus being fucking shoved down my fucking throat every fucking day by people who don’t even fucking know me. So fuck 'em… But my beliefs aren’t outrageous, they’re right.
Hmm. Yes, this sums it up pretty well. Accurate, and accurately expressed to boot.
For me, personally:
Atheism describes my stance on the existence of gods. It’s not a positive belief or set of directives like a religion.
Secular Humanism describes my philosophy of life.
Naturalistic Pantheism describes my religion (though I’m pretty slack about it).
Evolution doesn’t much influence my religious beliefs. I’d still be an atheist if the theory of evolution imploded tomorrow (fat chance), and I didn’t have a problem with evolution when I was a theist.
I have a Cthulhu fish on my car, because I think it’s funny. I don’t particularly like Darwin fish, because it buys into the whole evolution vs. Christianity fallacy. I also have a “Happy Humanist.” Plus I had an “I believe in life before death” bumper sticker before someone wrecked my bumper.
I like to have this stuff on my car, and to mention my atheism when it comes up naturally, because I think it’s good for people to realize that atheists aren’t just elitist philosophy professors living in NYC or something. I’m pretty much just like my neighbors, except for this one thing. I’m a faithful wife and a stay-at-home mom. I’m moral, friendly, and generous. This does not fit with many people’s stereotypes of us.
I’m a raging civil libertarian, but I’m economically moderate, so I don’t fit any of the typical categories mentioned above.
In my view, most theists are as intelligent as atheists. IIRC, atheists do tend to have more education, but that doesn’t equate to IQ. Nevertheless, there is something different about atheists who have rejected religion - for some reason, we are able/willing to examine an area of belief that has been cordoned off from everyday rational inquiry in most people. For me, the trigger was my interest in urban legends and paranormal claims. Once I developed a standard of proof for such things, I realized I could also apply it to the gods question. It scared me a bit, but I felt obligated to do so, and then I realized there was no good reason to believe in any gods. I’m still open to more convincing evidence, but extremely doubtful it will appear.
As for Pascal’s Wager, I like to hypothesize a perverse god who rewards atheists for their rationality with heaven, while punishing the blind faith of theists with hell. There, Pascal, that’ll put marzipan in your pie plate, Bingo!
>And I get really really really angry when people equate atheism with religions, or with the generic term ‘religion’. It’s fundamentally different.
There are a couple senses in which I’d like to be able to call athiesm a religion. One is the demographic sense. When I go into the hospital, I’d prefer the records show I am an athiest so they don’t have priests doing incantations over me when I wake up, because I find that creepy. Another is that religions are sort of off limits for interference, in the sense that there is a social expectation that by calling something a religion you let people know they are not allowed to criticize it, as opposed to, say, oil heat versus gas, which everybody feels welcomed to comment on. When I’ve told people filling out forms that I’m an athiest, sometimes they will say, “Oh, come on, you don’t really mean that! Let’s just put down Protestant. There’s no call to get nasty!”
But I do, truly, think athiesm is fundamentally different from religion, or perhaps better from “all the other religions”. It’s correct; it’s the belief that’s actually factually true. And it’s the one that doesn’t require a supernatural.
I have no criticism for the way this thread has gone (except a few worrying moments where it might become a flame fest) but I notice the questions have dried up.
Any more questions? I was kind of hoping for mundane ones, with a looser connection to atheism (but still relevant). Questions about the way we run our lives, deal with situations that a religious person might deal with differently.
Such as “what where you thinking about last time you were in a church?” or “what’s your early memory of being confused about a religious custom?”
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
Less than two weeks ago, the voters of my state passed a constitutional amendment which will make me a second-class citizen. These oh-so-pious Christians have decided that I shouldn’t have the same rights as they have. And none of their dogma is based on anything rational; it’s just pure, simple ignorance, fear and hatred.
And I’m supposed to be worried about offending them??? I don’t think so.
I was raised Jewish, and I remember once in Sunday School, we were learning that Abraham was the first monotheist, the first person who believed in one god, rather than many gods. I asked the teacher, “What if Abraham was wrong? What if there really are many gods?” (The possibility of no god at all hadn’t occurred to me yet, I was only about 8 or 9.) The teacher just said, “We believe that there is only one god.” So I said, “But what if we’re wrong?” She never really answered my question, and in all the years since then, nobody else has.
Of course at that age, I was under the misconception that people’s religious beliefs had some connection to objective reality. I’ve learn since then that, sadly, that’s usually not the case.