Valteron You find me a pro-life atheist who cares about faith based issues who can’t get elected and then we’ll talk about discrimination. Atheism is a political stance, it is not comparable to race in any way.
I have been thinking about starting a similar thread like this one, but I was thinking more along the lines of atheist “awareness” not “pride.” IANA gay man, but I too see the similarities. Many people don’t know they know any gay people or atheists and therefore they got wrong-minded ideas about them. Many people wrongly assume that atheist is anti-religion, not non-religion, for example. The only way to battle these stereotypes is by being open about our non-belief.
When it comes to atheist voices in the media, besides the Four Horsemen, there is Tom Leykis, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. He usually spends most of his time talking about sex, but he does an occasional segment called “Ask the Atheist” because many people supposedly don’t know any.
Wouldn’t it matter whether your declarations were truth or lies?
The point is that my belief, or lack thereof, can change as I choose. If I have some type of spiritual awakening, I can convert to that religion. Atheism is an intellectual choice. Sexual preference and race both seem to be genetically hardwired. You can’t decide to change the color of your skin, and I don’t think you can choose which gender turns you on.
A Christian would argue that you don’t really choose revelation, God chooses who he reveals himself to.
This just isn’t true for most of us: I can decide to pretend to be Christian, but there’s just no way to make myself truly believe it, the same way I can’t make myself believe any of the other types of nonsense a previous poster mentioned (eg, 2+2=5.) If you truly can change your fundamental beliefs at will, I guess I’ll take you at your word, but you’ll have to believe me and other posters in this thread that we, in fact, cannot simply choose to not be atheists.
But, on the chance that you’re claiming that because your religious beliefs might change over the course of your life, that you therefore have conscious control over them, I’d offer this analogy: when I was a kid, my favorite food was pizza. Then, as an adolescent, I realized how great Indian food was. Now, of course, it’s obvious to me that Thai curry is the best food of all. I’ve had several culinary awakenings in my life. In no way does it follow that I could suddenly decide that my favorite food is now spinach. Some things, even mutable preferences created by the mind with no obvious genetic component, are outside of the control of will.
I realize I have a tendency to write “hot-button” words into my thread titles, probably as an attention-grabbing device. That is why I use words like “Aggressive” and “pride”. But awareness would do fine. I could simplify it by saying that, much like the early gay rights movement, atheists could set a few simple immediate objectives.
Of course, the religious right would translate this as “the atheist agenda” just as they created the bogeyman of “the gay agenda”.
But for starters, I could imagine getting across two or three core messages:
[ul]
[li]Atheists are just ordinary people like anyone else. Chances are you know several without realizing it.[/li]
[li]Atheists can be just as moral as anyone else. You don’t need belief in a God to be moral, to love your neighbour, to do good in your community. Atheists actually have a lower crime rate than the general population.[/li]
[li]Atheists don’t want to take away your right to worship or proclaim “God” or “Jesus” as long and as loud as you want, on TV, Radio or in 99% of venues. All we are asking is that public places like courts, government offices, public schools and other places paid for by public taxes be neutral and silent in the matter of religion and God. This is the only way the state can stay out of religious matters and the only way the state can show EQUAL RESPECT for all religious viewpoints, including atheism.[/li][/ul]
Funny thing, though. Now that I have written those three objectives, I get the feeling that the Religious Right knows damned well that that is all we want. The problem is, that is not all THEY want!
So would an atheist. I can’t make myself believe in God any more than I can make myself gay.
But it can’t. It’s sort of like when Jerry Seinfeld told the lady at the rental car desk, “Anyone can just TAKE a reservation. It’s HOLDING the reservation that matters.” Anyone can declare a belief, but believing is something else.
If you have a spiritual awakening, then you WILL convert to that religion; otherwise, it was just a spiritual slight nudge that did not awaken you.
I believe we have a common ground if we could just get to it together. I do think that there is an intellectual level for any of these things we’re discussing. A black child growing up in a white home with white relatives, neighbors, and influences might well identify intellectually as white. On the other hand…
…I agree with that too. But by the same token, you can’t really choose which God turns you on. The One that does just does.
Right.
Organizing would turn atheism into a religion. That would be self defeating. When you proselytize you enter the business of growing . It becomes a competition for membership.
One advantage of atheism is you can play golf on Sundays. I would not give that up to go to rallies(masses or services).I pass.
I’d LOVE to see Secular Humanism grow to the point where it could rival the Evangelical Megachurches. It would be a very good thing if reasoned argument and empirical evidence were cherished to the same degree that we cherish the American Flag or Jesus.
“Don’t assume I’m Christian just because I’m not violating all of the 10 commandments, I don’t believe in God”. How’s that?
You can make that argument about being proud of ANYTHING.
Also: over here being an atheist is nothing special and hardly anybody cares one way or the other, but it’s been interesting in a fairly scary way how many times I’ve had to explain even what atheism is to americans I met on the net (aside from there, basically every time it comes up that I am one, which isn’t very often). Quite a few appear to think that being an atheist means being anti-religious or far worse.
The only explanation that I can think of is that those people have never met an atheist, or the atheists keep very quiet in the US.
The problem with you cultists is that you don’t realize that Secular Humanism is the fundamental ethical basis of western society already. So you think it needs to be propagated. If I had my wish, it’d be that you’d wake up and smell the status quo and stop acting like being mainstream is revolutionary.
It’s because Der Trihs is about five times louder than you are.
Or everybody else is keeping their mouths firmly shut.
I honestly would not care if they did, but I’m hardly going to lose any sleep over it if they don’t.
Just because some religious types care about it, that means we are supposed to care in equal-but-opposite measure? That doesn’t make any sense.
Moreover, I severely doubt that those words were inserted for the express purpose of exerting dominance over atheists. More like as a historic acknowlegment of the basis of Western rule of law. A history which we have, more or less, outgrown in my opinion.
Symbols may matter in some cases, but it is a matter of perspective - there are enough real problems and issues to deal with. I’m not going to get all het up over the preamble to the Charter, particularly where we have it on good authority - straight from the Court - that the particular words under discussion are a “dead letter”.
Our Constitution was written by Deists, which effectively made them Atheist. It is true that our country was founded on secular principles. But I don’t think the majority of the American public has gotten the memo on that. Remember the absolute furor over the “Under God” thing in the pledge? The secularists were barely heard in the media over the angry shouting from the religious folk.
The ridiculous nature of political campaign ads show that Criticial Thinking is in short supply amongst the general populace, or else the retarded ads wouldn’t be effective. People don’t bother to fact check anything they hear. Secular Humanism cherishes fact checking and not believing everything you hear. It’s a value system that deserves to be actively promoted and our society would benefit from this.
I’m pissed off that an Atheist who’s “out of the closet” can’t get elected to public office. You may be content with the Status Quo, but I am not. Things can be greatly improved from where they are now.
You are reading the case incorrectly, and the cut-and-paste format is partly to blame. That is not what the judge writing the opinion is saying; he’s quoting from the submissions of one of the litigants (the one who wanted the “god” mention to mean something). In particular, he’s quoting from the submissions of a certain Mr. Staley.
He then rejects those submissions.
He acknowledges the “religious heritage” of the country as a historic fact, and goes on to say, essentially, that this is all it is.
In Judaism, the laws of Moses are only applicable to Jews. This does not mean that there were no universal moral laws applicable to all of humanity. These universally applicable moral laws are known as the Noahide Laws - after Noah, who was in Jewish mythology:
- Not a Jew (they had not been invented yet);
- Universally considered a just, moral person anyway;
- Was provided with commandments directly by God in Genesis; and
- Is the ancestor of all humanity (including Egyptians, etc.).
In Judaism, a non-Jew who keeps to the Noahide Laws is considered exactly equally as righteous as a Jew who keeps to the Commandments (which are only binding on Jews).
Here’s a cite - Wiki admittedly, but a good brief overview:
The Seven “Noahide” Universal Moral Laws are as follows:
… not the list I myself would have chosen obviously, but an interesting example of very early universalist moral thinking just the same.
In summary, in answer to your question, in Jewish mythology there was clearly a set of laws, applicable to Israelites and non-Israelites alike, that predated Moses. They are in fact still “in force” today - the laws God imposed on Noah.