Along with an occassional bit of fraud. I don’t recall the name offhand, but there was a Christian author a while back who manufactured quotes from Jefferson and Adams showing them to be staunch supporters of a religious state and that they themselves were devout Christians. Those quotes were printed in a book as truth, and have been often used by various fundamentalists since to “prove” that the Founding Fathers intended for the United States to be a theistic nation.
The quotes have been proven false by assorted scholars, but they still live on. I’m sure someone who’s not heading out the door in a few minutes can fill in the details for me.
I have encountered more than a few atheists who are actively trying to “convert” religious people. They obviously want to “free” these people from their religion, and I am guessing that their ultimate dream would be to stamp out all religion completely (through their conversion efforts). I find this terribly obnoxious, no less obnoxious than Christians being pushy with their religion, or vegetarians being pushy with their diet (I’m a Christian and a vegetarian).
While these kind of atheists ultimately want all religion gone, I assume that they know that forcing people to do stop worshipping is a very dangerous slipperly slope. So, I doubt they actually want religion outlawed.
And yet, Guin, although I object to people actively trying to push their beliefs on me, it seems incoherent that one could simultaneously believe something to be true, and yet refrain from telling others about it. That is, if one is concerned with the search for truth.
Not defending idiocy and ignorance, but perhaps… the reason for this forum.
Gold dust I don’t know from. But “missing day”? That brings to mind the early Heinlein story, “Goldfish Bowl”. I suppose this is something completely different…
There are a number of people who believe that the account of the sun standing still in the sky recounted in Joshua 10:12-13 has been proven true by NASA scientists or astronomers or whoever. Snopes has an article on it.
I have to say that I think that threads that name a poster in the title, and that are specifically started just to quibble with one specific statement that that poster has made, rather than to debate a general topic, ought to be put in the Pit.
Either that, or else just send her an e-mail. This–
I disagree, DDG. I think this–and Maeglin’sdecember GD thread are perfectly appropriate. The debate is better focused by defining the scope of the inquiry beforehand; if WV_Woman doesn’t feel comfortable responding, then she needn’t, but I think the OP is pretty respectful of her point of view and is merely seeking to examine it more fully–hold it up to the light, as it were. There’s no Pitting going on here whatsoever.
There was a phenomenon in some charasmaticaly inclined churches a while back where people would find themselves covered in what appeared to be fine gold dust when praying or worshiping - some even claimed that they had been given a gold tooth/crown by God. These manefestations were seen by those who believed as a sign of God’s blessing. Some of the claims were disproved, and as far as I know the “movement” has stopped. Here is a fairly balanced article on the topic.
Many in the more conservative wings of the Church utterly rejected these claims from the word go, calling them false teaching and worse…
Hence my hasty addendum, although I think I probably still should never have used the term ‘hard atheist’ - I did so merely because I seem to recall that’s how the people in question happened to describe themselves, but I certainly did not mean to imply that there was any inherent agenda to stamp out religion in hard atheism.
No, in fact IIRC, the people I have heard advocating the eilimination of religion (and we’ve had at least one or two here on the boards, but they don’t tend to last long) typically have scant idea how their master plan would actually be implemented.
I don’t think there’s anything other than motivation (and the possibility of an angry, but illegal lynchmob ) stopping you from doing that, but what exactly would be the point?
**nahtanoj:**Good morning madam, we’ve dropped by to tell you the good news that God doesn’t exist…
**Housewife:**Really?, I thought that he did
**nahtanoj:**Mmm, well it turns out you were wrong, see (hands over some literature)
**Housewife:**Well, I must say this is most surprising
**nahtanoj:**Indeed
**Housewife:**So, if I believe this, what will happen to me when I die?
**nahtanoj:**Nothing
**Housewife:**And if I don’t believe it?
**nahtanoj:**Nothing
…
I think the same thought process is going on in the evangelical atheist as in the evangelical Christian. “I know better than this poor slob and, rather than let him continue down the dark path, will provide him enlightenment. I’ll beat it into him, if necessary!”
But there are more polite ways of discussing what I believe to be true than attempting to force it down some one elses throat, by threat of hell-fire or by legislation or what have you. That’s the beauty of rational debate (which sometimes occurs right here ;)), it allows us a polite way of disagreeing about what we believe to be true. Thus, we can state what we believe to be true and discuss why hold a set of beliefs ‘A’, and can not subscribe to another set of beliefs ‘B’. You (the proverbial ‘you’, of course) might introduce me to something I’ve never heard before, or provide a new perspective on belief set ‘B’.
The problem arises when you (TPY,OC) are unable to convince me by reason and are still convinced you’re right. Thus, you seek other means of forcing me to conform with belief set ‘B’. This is the point where sharing your beliefs becomes pushing your beliefs on me, and unacceptable. I think that’s the point where you’d reach for Guins cattle prod.
We’ve seen it argued that christians are trying to enforce Christianity in some of the debates here. It appears that there is at least one Christian (and possibly more) who feel the reverse is also true - that there is an atheist movement attempting to force Christians to abandon their faith. I’d never seen this facet of the Theist/Atheist debate here. I thought it worthy of exploring with everyone, first to see if it is a commonly held belief (which so far it doesn’t appear to be) and second to ‘hold it up to the light’ as Gadarene said. Call it my personal attempt to root out and fight a little ignorance.
Is it a matter of prophecy then? If so, surely there should be a fair amount of evidence within current events indicating a movement to be rid of Christianity entirely. My point is that there’s no movement who’s political platform is “Tired of hearing about Jesus and the bible and being witnessed to? Join us, and help us elect officials who want to stamp out religion!”
Taking it to the Pit just invites a disorderly pile-on which would make WV_Woman defensive (and rightfully so!) so that it would be harder to discuss her position rationally. Including her name in the title seems fair, as might catch her attention and increase the likelyhood of her commenting on the thread . . . though it hasn’t worked so far.
