More Atheists Than I Thought!

Great Debates
61

Oh, yes, Ambushed, I have talked long and intimately with priests! Almost became one myself. And every one I talked to – and the Baptist ministers I talk with every day, and the Lutheran pastors and the Methodist ministers – all tell me that God isn’t a matter of logic or reason, but a matter of faith.

The intellectual mind can examine two contradictory concepts, understand them, even explain them to someone else. Accepting or rejecting is optional.

As for whether science and religion can be embraced simultaneously, how do you know what can and cannot happen in my mind? Or anyone elses? Most Americans believe dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years before humans, yet also believe God created the earth. Ye gods, man, read TIME magazine once in awhile.

And concerning the mental masturbation remark – it’s called sarcasm and wit. My cite would be most of the Dope.

62

Since this thread has developed into a rather heated debate, I’ll move it to Great Debates.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

63

[QUOTE=mrrealtime]
…if you want to debate there might be some evidence of whether being religious results in…a lack of humour…
[/QUOTE]
There’s a pretty good if not linear correlation between increasing levels of dogged devotion to any cause (religion, atheism, banning SUVs etc.) and increasing humorlessness.

Which is why the level of stridency and humor-impairedness is so low among agnostics.* :smiley:

You’d feel even less alone if you had a nice “faith family”. :cool:
*So where do we fit in this little survey? Betcha 50% of Americans would acknowledge being agnostics, if it wasn’t like admitting that you sometimes speak harshly to your mother and rub puppies’ fur the wrong way.

64

js_africanus, that was not gentlemanly.

As for my OP, I’ll compare Bush, who has us all “on our knees united in prayer” with Clinton, who once (I’ll have to paraphrase) spoke of “Americans of all faiths, and not forgetting our atheist friends as well.”

I was stunned! For the first time in my memory, a President publicly welcoming atheists into the family! The fact that such a little thing meant so much to me speaks volumes about how alienated we are in this country. And yes, seeing “In God We Trust” on my money is offensive. It doesn’t keep me up nights, I’m not campaigning to have it removed, but it’s one more little dig.

65

[QUOTE=Eve]
js_africanus, that was not gentlemanly.

As for my OP, I’ll compare Bush, who has us all “on our knees united in prayer” with Clinton, who once (I’ll have to paraphrase) spoke of “Americans of all faiths, and not forgetting our atheist friends as well.”

I was stunned! For the first time in my memory, a President publicly welcoming atheists into the family! The fact that such a little thing meant so much to me speaks volumes about how alienated we are in this country. And yes, seeing “In God We Trust” on my money is offensive. It doesn’t keep me up nights, I’m not campaigning to have it removed, but it’s one more little dig.
[/QUOTE]

All the little digs add up and just create an air of alienation for anyone who isn’t a believer in general, and a christian believer, in particular. There is not one single argument I’ve heard that makes me think that christianity as spouted by government officials is appropriate in any public speech. Ever. I don’t care if he thinks he’s comforting *most * people, I don’t care if people think he’s just adding his personal flavor to an issue, and I certainly don’t care that the majority of americans are christian. None of it is valid when addressing the masses in this country. It’s offensive and marginalizing.

66

[QUOTE=ambushed]
We DID do the things you claim we did not!
[/quote]
No we didn’t.

“Praying in public” is very much not equal to injecting religious ceremony into official public functions.

I have absolutely no legal or moral objection to anybody festooning their car with crucifixes and scriptural verse. I have strong objections to the same decoration being placed in a courtroom.

I have absolutely no legal or moral objection to anybody hoisting a cross onto his shoulder and dragging it around with him. I have strong objections to that same cross being mounted on the front door of the state legislature.

I have absolutely no legal or moral objection to a group of people gathering themselves together in the stands of a public high school football game and praying loudly and visibly for Jesus to guide the incipient field goal through the uprights (though I may mock them for a stupid prayer, and for failing to heed the warning in their own scripture against such overtly demonstrative acts). I have strong objections to that same prayer being sanctioned by the public high school administration and officially led using the address system.

I have absolutely no legal or moral objection to anybody standing in front of the Stars and Stripes and reciting for himself an oath of loyalty that is steeped in religous language and iconography. I have strong objections to that oath being designated by my government the primary approved version of such an act.

The distinction between the first and second example in each instance is pronounced and unmistakable, and it pains me that I should have to explain it to you.

What’s to be gained by being ignorant about it? What the fuck is wrong with your thinking?

67

[QUOTE=js_africanus]
Do you treat astrologers with the same respect that you treat your priest?
[/QUOTE]

That depends. Is either of them in the habit of spewing a rant peppered with obscene insults into a forum that is supposed to be dedicated to civilized debate?

68

[QUOTE=Eve]
I just wish sometime, someone would acknowledge that at least 5% of Americans are atheists, that we exist, and are just as much Americans as all the Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc., etc.
[/QUOTE]

I, Lord Ashtar, speaking for theists all over the country, hereby acknowledge the existance of atheists in numbers up to and possibly exceeding 5% of the U.S. population. I also proclaim that they can be just as American as the rest of us, even though they are godless heathens who like to kick puppies and have sexual intercourse with their parents.

:wink:

69

[QUOTE=js_africanus]
Mods: the following is a bit harsh
[/QUOTE]

Harsh, undeserved and completely out-of-line for any forum other than the Pit; I’m not sure what you were thinking. Do not insult other posters outside of the Pit again.

70

[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
I, Lord Ashtar, speaking for theists all over the country, hereby acknowledge the existance of atheists in numbers up to and possibly exceeding 5% of the U.S. population. I also proclaim that they can be just as American as the rest of us, even though they are godless heathens who like to kick puppies and have sexual intercourse with their parents.
[/QUOTE]

Now, was that so hard?

71

[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
I also proclaim that they can be just as American as the rest of us, even though they are godless heathens who like to kick puppies and have sexual intercourse with their parents.
[/QUOTE]

I haven’t had puppy-parent booty ever since that one time. And I apologized.

Let it go.

72

[QUOTE=ambushed]
Look, TimeWinder, your claims demonstrate that your thinking is out of touch with reality. We DID do the things you claim we did not! What’s to be gained by being dishonest about it?
[/QUOTE]

No, we didn’t. I’m not sure if you’re wooshing me, since you seemed to have missed my point so completely, but I’ll assume you aren’t. Cervaise covered this pretty well, but let me try again in shorter form:

There only prohibitions against a private citizen displaying their belief as a private citizen (school/football game prayer, insignias, ten-ton monuments) are those that would also forbid secular displays of the same form: curtesy, safety, and zoning laws – that sort of thing. In general, anyone can pray anywhere and whereever they want.

But the words “a private citizen” are important there. Courthouses are not private citizens. Public sports events, teachers, judges, etc. are acting as representatives of the government, which isn’t allowed to do these things. We did NOT sue to prevent prayer at football games and in schools: there’s a ton of it going on, and the constitution protects it. We sued to prevent MANDATORY or ENDORSED (i.e. organized by the state) prayer at football games.

This distinction is critically important. Please go back and reread my post, because I stand by my point: we’ve never made any (successfull, anyway) effort that I can think of to prevent private citizens from displaying their belief–so long as they’re not asking the government and taxpayers do endorse and fund it.

This lack of understanding of the basic separation of church and state is a big problem we athiests have here in the US.

73

Well, speaking only for myself, I certainly feel the atheistic love.
I appreciate all the admonishments, both tepid and genuine, but it simply doesn’t make up for being called a cunt. You know how often someone has thrown that word at me IRL? Never.

But that’s what I get for attempting to discuss issues of religion on this Board, and I swear to the God I believe in this time I am going to fucking learn this lesson.
:mad:

74

Jodi, you are totally justified in your feelings, I feel that Js_africanis should be denied membership for that outburst, but I dont think that has anything to do with atheism.

If you are happy to toss all of us out because of that ridiculous rant, and close dialogue alltogether, then js_africanis and his/her ilk has won.

I feel that there are those kinds of people on both sides of the debate, frocked priests who molest children and are protected by the pope, clerics who promote violence against the innocents, and yes, athiestic governments that run over student protesters with tanks.

That doesnt mean we stop talking. If we do, then those tyrants and monsters win.

75

Anyone remember Nixon’s silent majority? Sometimes I feel that atheists and agnostics are that silent majority. I’d bet that a very sizeable percentage of those who mark down “Catholic” or “Jewish” or “Hindu” on their survey forms aren’t the least bit faithful. It strikes me that anybody who claims a religion that says, “You’ll go to hell if you do X,” and then continues to blithely do X, can’t seriously believe in the assertions of their religion. I’d call those people unbelievers, even though they cling to the fiction that they’re not. In fact, I really know almost no one who both claims a faith and practices it according to the book.

76

[QUOTE=Jodi]

I am not against the separation of church and state, BTW; I think it’s one of the most important precepts in our system of constitutional government. I am, however, comfortable with the small amount of ceremonial deism that Eve is not – i.e., “In God We Trust” on money, opening the U.S. Supreme Court session by saying “God save the United States and this honorable Court”. If there is 99% separation, I’m okay with that. Others are not. I’m interested to know what, other than ceded the other 1%, might be an appropriate acknowledgement of a faith or lack thereof.
[/QUOTE]

I simply cannot believe that an intelligent person such as yourself, Jodi, does not understand what that 1% represents. It represents the believing majority using a publicly financed public institution to tell the atheist minority, “We are right and you are wrong.”

Here is an idea. Since the vast majority of Americans believe not only in God but that Jesus was his son, why not change the slogan to “In God and his son Jesus we trust”?

If Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians don’t like it, you could tell them to fuck off just as you have been telling atheists to get stuffed with your use of references to God in the US government.

Or are atheists the only religious minority opinion you care to ignore?

Yopu know very well that every official reference to God in the US government is nothing more or less than the majority telling the minority that in the final analysis, “God DOES exist and we just let you atheists exist unmolested because we feel like it. But don’t go getting the idea that your religious opinion is equal to that of a believer. It is not.”

There is this sort of willful stupidity or inability to see this point among believers that I find quite frustrating. Here in Canada, a Member of Parliament petitioned to have the reference to God taken out of the preamble to the constitution. His motion was of course voted down, but what got me was the reaction of believers. “If we take God out of the constitution, they say, we would just be promoting the atheist point of view instead of the theist.”

I have heard something along these lines from American believers as well. The reasoning is pure bunk.

“In God we trust” is an official endorsement of the theist opinion on every piece of money. The OPPOSITE of that would be to put on a slogan that says “God does not exist”. THEN AND ONLY THEN could you legitimately say that atheists are asking you to promote their viewpoint over others.

But that is not what atheists are asking. They are asking that the slogan be taken off the money, and that the state remain silent and neutral concerning the existence of God.

Also, atheists are aware that the 1% to which you refer is only the thin edge of the wedge. If we do not fight back constantly against even that 1%, the next step will be the Ten Commandm,ents in Court Houses, and . . . . . well I leave it to your imagination.

77

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
And concerning the mental masturbation remark – it’s called sarcasm and wit. My cite would be most of the Dope.
[/QUOTE]

Whenever anyone accuses me of mental masturbation, I have a stock answer: “You do it your way and I’ll do it mine.” :smiley:

78

I don’t believe the results.

:smiley:

79

A really large percentage of Americans go to church or another place of worship on a fairly regular basis. I’m not religious and I have many single friends who are like me, but my friends who have kids all go to church at least once a month. That doesn’t mean that they really believe – there are social reasons to go – but I think that many of them are good Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

I believe that the number of non-believers in any poll will have something to do with people being afraid to admit to being without faith, but it also has to do with how you ask the question. I don’t believe that Jesus is/was devine and I don’t really believe in god, but I am not an atheist. I think of an atheist as being part of a community of people with similar beliefs. I don’t think of myself as an agnostic either, but that probably has more to due with not wanting to wear any kind of religious label.

I find religion fascinating. The more I study it, the more sure I am that there is no god. And the more puzzled I am by the educated and intelligent Christians I know. I have Christian friends who are brilliant and they understand the history of their religion and the holes in the doctrine, but they still have faith. I truly appreciate the Christians who are willing to discuss their religion with me. I think that there are Christians with bad motives who don’t follow the rules of their faith and they have been causing problems in this country. I think that because of them, some non-believers have become very hostile to Christians as a group. I think that is wrong. I think it’s wrong to belittle Christians and I doubt that the Americans who are comfortable doing that would do that to another religion. I’ll bet you wouldn’t do it to a Jew for instance.

80

[QUOTE=nancy drew]
I’ll bet you wouldn’t do it to a Jew for instance.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, most of those on the SDMB who are openly hostile to religion are quite happy to make the same comments to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Animists, or whoever. Christians may carry the largest target by being the largest group, but those who are truly opposed to religious belief, hereabouts, are quite willing to belittle any religious belief. (Others, of course, may choose to disagree without expressing the contempt, but a few nasty comments (from either side of the discussion) immediately raises so many hackles that nearly every comment is (deliberately?) misread throughout the rest of the thread.)