Heh. Nice one.
But would it mean that they don’t exist because…
or, would it mean that they don’t exist because…
Thing is, I actually agree with you. But what you are saying atheism is, I am saying atheism usually is, always should be, but often isn’t with some people.
There was nothing meme-like about my post. This is based on stuff I frequently see amongst colleagues both IRL and here. I’ve met atheists who suddenly have their eyes go weird and energised and puff their chests out when the subject comes up, and they seem to go into proselytising mode. I knew a guy who was a member of the International Socialists (or the Spartacists or something), and when the topic came up, his atheism manifested itself in body language which was pretty much identical to that of some fire and brimstone TV evangelist in a shiny suit. Start a religious debate, and these guys are zoning out and in their element. They’ve researched thoroughly, they debate strongly, and they may even be members of organisations such as the Australian Skeptics. They can quote Bible passages with the best of 'em. These people approach atheism with religious fervour, which is something that doesn’t sit at all well with me. For these folks, atheism is well beyond a “mere lack of belief”, and I find it a little embarrassing to have them on my side.
gonzomax, I hope you don’t mind that I snipped some of your comment- I wanted to agree with you. Sometimes it is very hard being totally accountable for your own behavior. No God to forgive me, no Satan to punish me if I make a bad decision. At the end of the day, I have to deal with my own guilt if I feel like I slighted someone and my own regret if I could have treated someone with more kindness and generosity. The introspection that you refer to is a constant inner dialogue- every real life interaction with any living being gets scrutinized and measured beforehand and afterward. Atheism = total personal accountability.
I don’t discuss my beliefs or lack of with anyone outside of this forum. When Christianity is brought up, which is a daily occurrence at work, I say supportive and agreeable things, and when pressed, lie and claim to belong to a church. Most hardcore Christians are on a mission to ensure that they are meeting a soul quota, and I won’t let anyone go home worried about the state of my eternal rest, so I pretend to be affiliated. This is the only place that I have to express dissent or disagreement, and though I run the risk of offending or hurting someone’s feelings, at least I have a chance to express my disgust for the shame and fear that controls the thoughts and behavior of the many Christians.
What makes you think they are living in shame and fear? Do they tell you what they are feeling? There behavior is boorish, but you are the one hiding something. Why do you tolerate them?
Are any of the Christians that you work with tolerant or are they all like vultures circling the desks of the heathens? Any explaination for why so many are concentrated in one place?
In looking at the link that you provided, I find that some of the destructive behaviors that he attributes to America are things that I don’t recall seeing you describe as destructive before. Also, he fails to show causation. Isn’t it possible that America has a higher murder rate because of our gun laws, for example, instead of because we have so many Christians?
This has not been your finest argument.
Yes, some of them will. They won’t do it because they are atheists. They will do it because they are troublemakers who will use any excuse to make life difficult for someone else. Christians will do the same thing. They don’t do it because they are Christians, but because they are bad asses. Jerks.
By far most atheists won’t do this and most Christians won’t either. Most Christians also won’t hound you at work, preach to you on street corners or bug you at home.
If some of you here think that most Christians are like that, you have led a very limited life and that’s really sad. You don’t have to take a Christian’s word for it. You can read what your fellow atheists have said here.
And there are others here whose posts suggest that they have some prejudices that have not been dealt with. Others continue to try to snap their fingers and create electrical current from sweaty palms. Their words are just circles and spirals and wheels.
We ought to be working together to do something worthwhile – like preserve the First Amendment.
And the circle whirls back around…and around, and yet around again…
It’s been a long discussion.
Can anybody provide a cogent defense why any religious belief–pro, con, nil, maybe, shades-of-gray–should have any role at all in civic life? What happened, and why, to the principle that no collective power, group-think, majority, whatever, should or could require even the slightest question about personal beliefs?
I don’t get it. Talk about the (ultimately) personal being political. What’s wrong with the simple, easy and civil principle that individual beliefs are just fucking out of bounds. They just plain don’t matter, and should never even be a topic of discussion in the first place.
It isn’t an issue of atheists shutting up…or agnostics, humanist-deists, or any of the endless permutations of Christians, Jews, Masons, Moslems, Wiccans, whatever. Faith is divisive, no matter the core messages of belief. (And that applies to science and atheism; they just come in different packaging.)
I’m sick and tired of hard core believers of any stripe agitating for “fairness”. There are too damned many of them, mostly demanding some undefinable equal time, scrambling for victimhood and persecution…and guess what?
They all leave me cold. I don’t fucking care because the scramble for air time and shouting and public blathering is rotten from the root. I respect folks who adamantly refuse even to know other people’s beliefs, solely on the basis that it’s none of their business.
Sadly, I remember the principle was a benchmark of conservatism. Talk about degredation.
I think you are probably correct about this. It would be nice to see the world jettison all of its Faiths. Perhaps then would could start to see less divisiveness too.
Maybe that’s what some of the posters here were getting on about when they opined that people of Faith are more inclined to criminal behavior. Maybe there’s something to that. It sure seems to me that blind Faith often leads sooner or later to division and violence. But that is just a feeling–nothing I can prove, of course.
Yes, they will. Most of them prefer to use the government or other forms of authority to harass and punish unbelievers and “sinners”, instead of showing up in person. If you were right, all those anti gay marriage laws would not have passed; they passed because America is a religious country and religions will not leave people alone.
Good point, but just posting here (in non-snark mode) to point out that the nested quote should correctly be attributed to MaxTheVool rather than me. Carry on.
We humans are by our nature quite confident that our belifs are true independently of our experience.
In other words - If I happen to believe the earth is round, it’s not just true for me, it’s true for everyone.
I know that seems arrogant, and it probably is, but I think it is valid these days.
Now… If I happen to believe there is no God, it’s not what I chose to believe, it’s what I am forced to believe from all the millions of bits of experience floating around in my head after 27 years which tell me this ‘God’ person/concept is a fabrication or mistaken belief.
As one of these human beings who is confident enough that what he believes is likely true for all the rest and for reality itself (independently of conscious things) I see other people believing God as people believing in something that doesn’t exist…
Forgive the word but the definition of this is ignorance. Rightly or wrongly this counts as “Ignorance to be fought” in my mind (although in reality I haven’t actively fought it for many years online or off. In fact I’ve barely expressed an atheistic opinion for the last three years… nor am I particularly motivated to do so now or in the future, with the exception of this post/these thoughts which formed in my mind and asked to be posted, inspired by reading this thread)
So I happen to be a live-and-let-live atheist, but the fight-theism atheist is in there somewhere.
No, we won’t.
Site would be cite. I said I doubt it because it would be difficult to obtain proof. iIdo not know who would compile such stats.
Like it or not, Robertson and their ilk are the spokesmen of religion. They are the talking heads on Fox, CNN and most any TV show on religion. They collect millions from their Christian followers. They are Christianity in America. You and a few dopers who recognize what rat bastards they are are a minority. You do not speak for religion . They do. They are Christianity.
Fixed.
Fox and CNN don’t select Robertson because he is Christian; they select him because he is controversial. They like that he believes…
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists are infested with the spirit of the Antichrist.
He can tell hurricanes where to make landfall.
Pagans, abortionists, and the ACLU caused 9/11.
Gambling is a sin, but owns a racehorse.
Ariel Sharon’s stroke was the wrath of God.
Charles Taylor is good for Liberia.
The State Department should be nuked.
We should assassinate Hugo Chavez.
God has abandoned Dover, Delaware.
…and those are just recent highlights. He has a decades-long history of kookiness.
But what Fox and CNN don’t play are remarks by Richard Land, the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy chairman: “I would say that Pat Robertson is way out on his own, in a leaking life raft, on [Charles Taylor].” Or “the arrogance of the statement [about Ariel Sharon being punished by God] shocks me almost as much as the insensitivity of it”. Rebuttals like those get very little attention.
Pat Robertson isn’t Christianity just because Fox and CNN like him any more than Louis Farrakhan is Islam, or Al Sharpton is black America. And he certainly doesn’t represent the majority, even in his own denomination.
Robertson is like the rest. When they think(do they really) are operating with a connection to god ,they are superior. His TV programs are huge and his ministry makes millions. He has a pipeline to the presidents. He is not just an aberration or a joke. He is Christianity in our America. If he is just on TV for his controversial and stupid talk ,his power would have been diminished as his stupidity has been revealed. He can not be dismissed because of what he says , because he wields huge power in the Xian base. And his political power is gargantuan. I always wanted to use that word.
To thinking people he is a joke. The Christians are not laughing at him. Thinking is not a requirement for belief.
It very funny to me how Liberal refuted your points, but you just repeat them back again. You’re just wrong. Pat Robertson doesn’t speak for me. His stupidity has been revealed. I laugh at him, and so do my fundie father and brother. He doesn’t speak for me any more than Mr(s). Garrison from South Park speaks for you.
Plus, his political power is on the serious decline. It was never real anyway. He just conned people into thinking it was.
I think you(and Liberal) may be missing the point. You seem to be saying that because Robertson and his ilk don’t represent your beliefs he doesn’t represent Christianity, and he doesn’t to you. Unfortunately, until moderate Christians get better publicity and are able to shout down the Rad Religious Right, the RRR certainly represent Christianity to the rest of the U.S. and the world.
Well, let’s say just for the sake of argument that you’re right — Fox and CNN have been annointed to select the Christian spokespeople. If so, then what can be done? In order to meet the same criteria that Fox and CNN use in selecting Robertson, moderate Christians would have to become crazy in some way. That would mean they wouldn’t be moderate anymore.
Can’t we instead stipulate that only the very gullible and ignorant presume any representation based on nothing more than exposure through cable news and gossip shows?
No, but we can stipulate that the squeeky wheel gets the grease, and the RRR is a hell of a lot squeekier then the moderates, and have been for some time. IMHO, your main “enemy” at this time isn’t the supposed Radical Atheist Movement that questions your motives, it’s the RRR that is systematically destroying your reputation. You better figure out a way to get loud damn fast, or you’re going to get marginalized into oblivion.
I don’t feel that all Christians are living in shame and fear, but many people do not thrive in an environment that feels stifling and oppressive. How do I know? They tell me. I interact and talk with my friends and co-workers, and we cover many subjects including philosophy, interpersonal relationships, and personal happiness, and if one is a subscriber- Christianity is a pervasive entity that affects all of these topics. Hiding one’s light under a bucket is simply not done in the Southeastern US.
And yes, I already volunteered that I am hiding my atheism, and I have no reservations about that. As I said, Christians are in the business of saving souls, and I don’t want any of my friends or co-workers to feel concerned about what the afterlife holds for me (after organ donation: nada.) or concerned that they must actively recruit me. Besides, what I believe is none of their business unless I bring up the topic. Which I do not. What they believe is my business, because they bring it up. Frequently.
Because I live in the South, Zoe, and discussion of church activities and religion is commonplace at work, the grocery store- practically anywhere a group of people are gathered. It is a starting point for most conversations. In general, only the zealots will actively witness, but most every Christian is curious about matters of denomination and how important church activities are in your life. I am happy for those that find comfort in their religion, and happy for those who find serving their church rewarding. But many people that I interact with are dissatisfied and frustrated with many aspects of their lives. Anti-depressants are just as frequently prescribed to Christians. There is often resentment in family units if one person is adamant about church attendance, and others are not so enthusiastic. Matters of sexuality are often stifled or tendencies forbidden. Christians allow religion to heavily influence decisions about issues of science and politics instead of relying on personal experience and common sense.
From my perspective, Christianity does not contain the answers to all of life’s quandries and disappointments. If anything, it muddies the water and prevents people from being self-reliant. Many Christians suffer because they are falling short from the impossible expectations outlined in the Old Testament, or they willfully commit sins and crimes against humanity and excuse them with the blood of Christ. We have all of the tools that we need to manage our lives without superstition. Science is answering all of the questions about origins and the afterlife. Superstition is causing us to falter and stagnate, and prevents us from evolving both as individuals and society.