I don’t see that I have any say or any choice in believing whatever seems, at the moment (in my case, the last forty-odd years), to be true.
Are you proud that your feet are closer to the ground than your ass is?
Proud? I am as proud about my (lack of) religious status as you are of yours…Ok so I am less proud then you.
I am happy to live in country where Christians are the people who tend to raise an eyebrow, “You go to church?? Really?”
I can’t think of a single time when anyone asked about my religion. Oh yes I can, NZ has “Bible in school” a truly antiquated and stupid policy. It works like this- for half an hour every week NZ schools are officially NOT schools. During that half hour the local church can come in and do their worst. As a child I was not allowed to attend “god time”, I went to the school library. Twenty odd years later my son went to the library during bible in schools.
I was never proud (or not proud) of my atheist roots. Why would I be proud about what was just the way I was bought up?
Years later I was pleased that I agreed with the way I was bought up.
Proud? No, just happy to believe what I believe.
At the risk of being redundant, I don’t see where ‘proud’ applies. Like most others here, the subject of my lack of religious beliefs rarely comes up, and I have no particular reason to ‘convert’ anyone to my way of thinking. When somone attempts to witness to me about their faith, which isn’t very often, I usually steer them away, either politely or with annoyance, depending on how persistent they are.
My question would be if you are a non believer are you proud of it? I would guess most dopers would say yes. … Do you try to “convert” others or share the benefits you perceive in being free from an organized religion?
To be proud of something, it should be something that you’ve accomplished. Being an agnostic is not an accomplishment; it’s just a belief system. Of course, I don’t preach to others about my agnostism. I am very respectful of other people’s religious beliefs regardless of whether I agree with them or not. After all, no one really knows who’s right with absolute certainty. That’s why it’s called “faith”.
I’m not proud of being an atheist any more than I’m proud of green being my favorite color. I don’t care if someone believes or not and wouldn’t dream of trying to talk someone out of believing in a god. I’ll gladly debate the subject if they start it though.
I was raised Catholic. It turns out you can dump the religion, and still keep the guilt. I suspect it’ll be easier once my parents pass away, since they are the biggest reason I keep it low key. They know, but it would hurt their feelings if they heard what I really thought of the Church.
I figure there’s nothing to be proud of. According to http://www.godchecker.com/ there are 2,850 gods in their database, none of whom I believe in. The Christians don’t believe in 2,849 of them. That’s not a big difference, certainly nothing to get excited about.
When I was a teenager, I was pretty cocky about it, yeah. Part of that was a defense mechanism, because I was the only atheist I knew, and was not really surrounded by the most thoughtful sort of religionist. Maybe I could have been quieter about it, but, ya know, in high school, you tell one person that you’re an atheist, and by lunch the whole school has heard that you sacrifice kittens to Satan. I took a lot of crap, and I felt different and special and Remarkably Brave for Standing Up for my Beliefs. Or, um Lack of Beliefs.
Now that many of my friends and colleagues are atheists, I don’t really feel particularly special any more.
And, yeah, I’ve given up on trying to convert people. I even had a long protracted email correspondence with someone who was undergoing a crisis of faith, and where a younger version of myself might have jumped in there and trotted out my best arguments against religion, I didn’t—couldn’t . . . The guy was suffering and vulnerable, and I felt like using it as an atheist “witnessing” opportunity would be vile. I ended up mostly asking him questions about how he thought about God and God’s role in the world. Even told him that he should find a religious leader to talk to, as well. I don’t know what he decided in the end, but I hope he was able to find some comfort either in rejecting God or reaching a new understanding of God.
What is interesting to be is the number of people who are atheistic because they “were raised that way.” I have heard of a lot of people who are of a certain religion based on that reason and I have always found that particular argument to be ridiculous and illogical. I am shocked to hear fellow atheists use it.
What sets me apart from the rest of my very catholic family is the fact that no one else has ever even looked at another branch of christianity.
What this means that they’ve never challanged or questioned the world they live in.
Kinda sad, if you think about it.
I was brought up to be a thoughtful, considerate man (although I’m sure some of you could’ve been fooled from how I’ve acted in a couple of threads around here). I’m proud of that, even though it wasn’t my doing.
Many people are proud of their sexuality, whether heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or whatever, even though they had no say in it.
It’s very, very sad. It’s one thing to do some study and evaluation and come to the conclusion that the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of your parents are the best for you. It’s quite another to accept them without thought.
Why?
I use it to differentiate myself from atheïsts who were raised as a believer.
Maybe I ought to have used calm kiwi’s ‘atheïst roots’.
&
What would you do if a religion is intolerant, homophobic, anti-semitic and discriminatory towards women? What if that religion will be the biggest in your country by 2020?
Would you try to talk someone out of believing, or would you just say: “Nah, What do I care what happens in 14 years” ?
I’d probably try to turn every thread into a discussion of it, is what I’d do.
Daniel
I am an atheist and so is my Mom. I am not an atheist because Mom is. Are you really an atheist because you were raised that way or because you thought about it and studied and came to that decision on your own?
I would try to talk them out of the intolerance, homophobia, anti-semitism and mysogyny. I would not try to talk them out of theism. I think that approaching that sort of person from a “there is no God” angle would be counterproductive.
Just to clarify a point, I don’t think, at least for me, an athesist does not say “there is no God.” I personally think that it should be there “are no gods” Stating it as you do, hajario, would imply that even Christians are atheists, because they don’t believe that Apollo exists, or that Zeus exists.
I know it is petty, but for me personally, to deny only the existance of the Judeo-Christian God, seems to give credit to the God that I deny the existance of.
I think you’re deliberately misconstruing them. If I say, “There is no person who is not alone,” I’m mistaken if there is a person who is not alone; I don’t need to say, “There are no people who are not alone” in order to mean that everyone is alone.
Similarly, if I say, “There is no god,” I’m mistaken if there is a god, whether that god be Discordia, YaHuWaHu, Llolth, or Zeus. I don’t need to say, “There are no gods” to cover the latter situation; and I have never (nor, I believe, have you) heard a Christian say, “There is no God” to signify their disbelief in Coyote.
Daniel
First, I’ll just say that I suppose I’m proud about my ability to apply rational thought and my understanding of cause/effect to all aspects of existance. In a conversation recently with friends I remained mostly silent as they were talking in all honesty of dead loved ones coming to them in their sleep, but they weren’t dreams, they were the dead people actually coming to visit them. I’m not really proud of the fact that I think they’re completely wrong, but more disapointed that people who I generally find to be smart and reliable observers of the world would draw the conclusions they did about their dreams.
And, at the risk of turning this into GD, I’d just like to take exception to two things:
First, some folks have talked about atheism as a belief system. I’m pretty sure there was a thread on this recently, but atheism is not a belief system. There are no guidelines, creeds, rules, laws, or canon.
Understanding that, it follows that the term witnessing really doesn’t apply to atheists. An atheist can be an insensitive, obnoxious jerk, but he or she can never witness in the same way that a person of faith can witness.
Like others, not proud. Considering religion and reading the entire Bible left me no other choice but to be an atheist.
If someone came up to me and tried to convert me, I’d try to counter-convert them. In my experience, such people run away fast. I also suspect that the minister in the OP is being evangelical (perhaps not on purpose) and is therefore getting counter arguments.
I do love debating atheism though, since it lets me test my lack of belief. Try to falsify a hypothesis is the only way of being sure of it.
I can say that I’m proud of it because I know there are people who think I should be ashamed or quiet about what I think. That has an element of spite to it and I certainly don’t live spitefully, but it’s an emotion I can summon from time to time.
The other reason I can say I’m proud of it is that while I didn’t choose to be an atheist, I did choose to give these issues careful consideration and assemble my own view of the world after turning away from religion. I do think that being an atheist is central to my personality, and I can be proud of that.