Who knew a discussion of agnosticism v. atheism could have such an angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin quality to it? 
BraVO!!
Wheelz (minor witnessing) As a Jew who keeps covenant with the Lord and feels His presence in my daily life, I’m still EXTREMELY pissed at religious displays on public land or funded with government money, and I HATE ‘ceremonial deism’ and want it gone. If the government puts up a Christmas tree, they should put up not just a menorah, but the display of any religious group that asks AND at least one display for atheism.
The separation of church and state is a wonderful principle.
You might want to go to Youtube and check out Owen Morgan (Telltale Atheist) and Lloyd Evans (a.k.a. John Cedars). Both are scathing ex-JW. Owen focuses on other cults as well while Lloyd loves to bash the JW Governing Body. In your spare time, watch the movie Apostasy (2017).
Heh. I picture you showing up at school the next day, and the teacher asking What was your Bible-related activity? and you saying I checked into a hotel and stole one.
Ahem … it’s not stealing when it says right there in the front of the book that you can take it if you want it. (The Gideons encourage people to take their bibles)
My favorite Bible was indeed acquired this way! I was reading it in my hotel room, and found it really was much easier to read than the version I was using at home.
I think it’s fitting that you left behind something that was no longer useful to you in the bathroom.
I too went through a phase of trying not to identify as an atheist. I would twist myself in knots with semantic games like “well they say God is good; I believe in good…” or call myself a Buddhist because hey, all that stuff about suffering sure makes a lot of sense. Folks in my heavily Christian hometown would leave you alone as long as you believed in something, and I cared entirely too much about their delicate sensibilities. It was a big relief when I could privately admit to myself that I didn’t believe in anything at all, and a bigger relief when I left for college and could say that out loud without it being a whole thing. It’s not that I never said it aloud until then. I just always had to brace myself for the reaction. Dan Savage once wrote something about public displays of same-sex affection never being an unself-conscious act; there was always the fear, the quick glance around, and by then the impulse had passed, and the decision to follow through felt like a deliberate, political act. I kind of related to that, in a way that I hope both gay kids and young atheists today won’t.
As the pushback has faded, atheism has become a smaller and smaller part of my identity. It’s not exactly on the same level as all the other things I don’t do or believe in (stamp collecting, Santa Claus) but I spend a lot less time thinking about it than about any of the things I do, or believe in. And I have so much room in my life for all my passions now that I don’t have to waste so much mental energy on something that has never given me anything but grief.
Enjoy your freedom!
Considering the cost of hotel rooms, there are cheaper ways of obtaining a Bible.
Sure, now. But AIUI, when Hari_Seldon was in school, a room at Motel 6 actually did cost $6.
He’s kinda old.
But I bet Bibles were a lot cheaper then, too.
That depends on just how old he is. Bibles were hella expensive back in the pre-Gutenberg days.
Then he could have just gone to a monastery and copied one by hand. That way he could have gotten one in Latin.
I’ll have to echo others and point out that Dawkins and Jillette being argumentative isn’t what makes them atheists. It just makes them argumentative (in public, anyway; in person, who knows. They might just be argumentative in public for the sake of their careers.) Being atheist isn’t a source of amusement any more than not being a football fan is a source of amusement.
Speaking as an atheist, I am absolutely not an atheist out of some sort of personal motivation. I can’t even really understand how that would work; I am an atheist for exactly the same reason I believe that five times seven is thirty-five, or the same reason I believe the Sun derives its energy from nuclear fusion, or that the Tigers won the 1984 World Series; I believe those things because they are objectively true. I believe there’s no God because to my eyes that is simply, and rather obviously, true. What I feel about it, or how convenient, desirable, or entertainment that is, is of no consequence at all. It’s just a fact.
At least we have Rush’s Freewill.
When Hari_Seldon was a kid, the Bible was still being written.
I’m a born-again Christian, and I approve this message.
For a number of reasons, really.
First, I don’t think it does anyone any good to pretend to themselves that they’re something they’re not. You don’t get closer to the truth that way. About God (or the absence of one), about yourself, about life, the Universe, anything.
And in general, it doesn’t do anyone much good to pretend that to other people as well. There are exceptions, of course: if it’ll upset your 90 year old grandmother to find out you no longer follow her religion, no reason to tell her and get her upset. But in general, the more you can just be who you are, the better and certainly happier a person you’re likely to be.
I’m a born-again Christian because of something very powerful that happened to me fifty years ago, and amazingly enough, keeps on happening. But if nothing like that has happened to you, and you don’t have any other good (in the sense that they suffice for you) reasons to consider yourself a Christian, even if you grew up in a Christian home, then why be one? This isn’t one of those 'fake it ‘til you make it’ sorts of things. It’s not going to help you to pass as a Christian when your heart’s not in it. Be who you are.
I don’t even think it’s particularly good for the faith for people in that situation to stay around. If a church isn’t full of people with an animating reason to be there, then either that church’s faith will be about not much of anything (as happened to a lot of old mainline churches) and people drift away. Or it becomes about other things (as has clearly happened with evangelicalism) and those things might not be very good.
One thing I feel helps bring about the latter situation is when the barriers to leaving are high, generally due to one’s church or denomination being varying degrees of cult-like in the sense of occupying all facets of your life, so if you leave, you know you’re leaving your entire support network behind and stepping into the unknown. (A number of people have mentioned this in this thread.) That can be intimidating, and not everyone’s up to that.
So whatever bright moment of religious passion that caused the church or denomination to be there in the first place is years, probably generations, in the past, and rather than having something joyful to infect the world with, they’re hunkered down to keep the world from infecting them. They’ve got it all backwards, but they’re still there. So the more that people in such churches feel they can leave, the better.
And wherever they are after that is fine with me. Some ex-evangelicals I know are still Christians. Others still believe in a God, but aren’t Christians. Others are now atheists. It’s all good: you don’t find any truth by being something you’re not.
Which is why I’m glad Two_Many_Cats2 is saying “fuck you, Jehovah” even though there’s not a chance that I’d say “fuck you, Jesus.”
There, you said it! 
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
(Rush fan since 1978)
I’ve always interpreted that song as “I don’t believe, but it’s OK if you do.”
Neil Peart’s fortune hunt was definitely far too fleet. RIP, Professor.