Yeah, good Lord some people just don’t get it. Atheism, to me, just means I don’t have any belief in God. It doesn’t require any sort of “faith.” I don’t claim to know there’s no God, I just don’t have any evidence for it, nor do I particularly - excuse my language - fucking care because it makes nought difference in my life and how I conduct myself as a human being. Some, I suppose, are “harder” atheists who believe firmly that there is no god, but many atheists, not just me, simply have a lack of belief of a god/gods as opposed to a belief in no god/gods.
Like what’s the point of that opinion piece? What interesting novel thing is it saying? Nothing.
While I find the topic of this thread to be a bit off-putting, I don’t find it surprising. Recently I was in a discussion with someone who claimed that, because “God is love”, atheists were incapable of knowing what true love really was. She insisted that the best an atheist could experience was lust.
I can’t read the article (I misspelled piece of crap) due to the paywall, so thanks for all the quotes.
Hunger is a powerful emotion - and we know exactly the chemistry that produces it. I wonder if this nitwit considers hunger mystical.
It’s not like we haven’t seen all this crap a thousand times before.
It would also be weird in life-saving situations, and insulting. If taken literally, the person is essentially saying “a normal human being couldn’t possibly have saved my life therefore you must be a magical creature”. I would only take it literally if I thought the person was a lunatic.
I think that makes perfect sense and I really can’t understand why anyone would have a problem with it - ‘gratitude’ as a sense of personal enjoyment/relief/satisfaction regarding a specific circumstance. Why not?
I mean, when a religious person plays a board game and rolls a double six, are they just pleased this chance happened, or do they remember to be grateful to God for, I suppose, the nonexistence of randomness?
Either that or possessed/helped by an angel. Or even a normal person, sent by God with a purpose (therefore an angel) of helping them. Whether that’s insulting, is a matter of opinion. I don’t think I would be insulted. You have to think where they are coming from.
That doesn’t surprise me. However I think the number of people who think some random stranger who has done something to save their lives is a literal, actual, angel, not someone “possessed” briefly by an angel, but an actual physical angel, would be very small, and mostly lunatics.
The article I referred to quoted people as actually thinking they ran into walking talking bull moose loony angels. And don’t forget that there was a popular TV show where this happened, which proved it in the minds of many.
If you don’t think such people exist, you should visit fundamentalist churches.