Atheist!

[hmmnmm]

Now I remember a bit more...
the first verse of genesis does not necessarily affirm the existence of a supreme supernatural being.
All it really says is:
Shit happens
What is just is
Gold is where you find it

Have a nice day.


And the reason the word atheist is uncomfortable for many americans is because of the implication of finality... removes the comfort of both certainty and free speculation... something like that. No definable beginning and no definable end.
Which is what the first verse of the bible really says.

 

[rgraham666]

What religion gives people is order, a way to sort and weigh the universe and their actions in it. I have no qualms with this. If it makes them act in a wise and restrained manner, good for them.

One religion not mentioned here is animism. In animism, so I understand, the universe is a living thing and all things are part of it. So any action you take affects the universe and yourself in some manner. From what I know, this makes animists rather more careful than a lot of the more 'advanced' religions.

On the other hand, Shinto was the official religion of Japan during WWII, and they were less than careful and kind.

I mention this because it seems to me that the more 'advanced', monotheistic religions usually cause a separation between man and the universe. Man is always given a special place in Creation. Usually a place of ownership and control.

And then most often this special place is given only to believers. Which makes it much easier to hurt unbelievers as they aren't people anymore.

But, as was pointed out, atheists did just as badly.

It boils down, for me, to this question. Are your beliefs a guideline? Or an excuse?

 

[Pure]

my experience is that the parents trying to be very secular, say Jewish or Christian in name only, often generate kids who, in the first case become 'Orthodox', or in the first and second cases become members of some cult-like group. Perhaps this is what Mabeuse was getting at. Or maybe some become communists, as a form of secular religion.

hmmnmm// The other thought was to the effect that if america suddenly adopted an atheistic creed, rebellious reflexes would likely tempt me to profess some brand of christianity or something.//

Christianity seems paradoxically to flourish when in a weak or persecuted position as in early (to Xtianity) Roman days. Now I bet China is an area for evangelizing; just enough persecution.
Certainly Russia is being evangelized.
----

But, to return to my point, I think everyone has 'faith' in certain items for which their evidence is slender to non-existent. To pick up a point I believe Mabeuse made: The superrational folks often fuck up seriously--for example, those that have an elaborate set of 'tests' for a potential mate. Some end up with real 'doozies,' while Kendo above, did OK by going on 'cleavage.'

To put the matter a little differently: we're in many situations of imperfect knowledge; very sparse data-- as when you've known someone a couple months. Yet we must act (in the broad sense that staying home worrying about what to do is 'acting').

So we 'take a flyer' (leap of faith, so to say). To use Kendo, again, the 'figure' of the person may be as good a criterion as any (no better, no worse). That choice is NOT very much based on 'reason' and 'evidence', but intuition and emotion.

 

[hmmnmm]

the hmmnmm new international re-revised version of Genesis 1:1

"Hi, you've just entered a world that's pretty fucked up, always has been fucked up, and always will be fucked up. So try to make the most of it."

 

[arienette]

the hmmnmm new international re-revised version of Genesis 1:1

"Hi, you've just entered a world that's pretty fucked up, always has been fucked up, and always will be fucked up. So try to make the most of it."

I like this.

I'm an outspoken atheist, however I have not read this entire thread because I don't want to get angry, but I do have a load of helpful atheist links that are linked to my personal site (if I ever get that up and running...hmph.)

Active Atheism: Promoting and defending the constitutional separation of church and state and changing the public perception of atheism and atheists.

ANTItheism: Ending irrational religious thought and spreading values of science and reason.

Ask the Atheist: What is an atheist? Where do atheists get their morals from? Answers to these questions and others you may be asking yourself.

Atheist Eye: An atheist's view on the christian lie.

Infidel Guy: Taking a critical look at what we believe. Listen to The Infidel Guy internet radio show every Wednesday and Friday at 8PM ET.

Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers: There are atheists in foxholes.

Rational Response Squad: Fighting to free humanity from the mind disorder known as theism. Listen to the Rational Response Squad internet radio show every Friday at 9PM ET.

 

[rgraham666]

My favourite religion, as I've mentioned before, is The Church mentioned in Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth books.

Written on the foyer at the main entrance of its central building. "If God had really intended Her creations to spend most of their time worshipping Her, She wouldn't have made the universe nearly so complicated."

It's Holy Book is entitled "The Book of Universal Truths and Other Humourous Anecdotes".

This book contains such pieces of wisdom such as the 17th Psalm of Indifferent Contentment. "Man is without a doubt the most conceited race in the universe. Who else believes God has nothing better to do than sit around and help him out of tight spots?"

I'm also fond of Matthewson's 23rd Edict. "To be angered by evil is to partake of it, stupid."

 

[hmmnmm]

my personal site (if I ever get that up and running...hmph.)

you too?

 

[hmmnmm]

Genesis 1:1 = Walter Cronkite

 

[NoJo]

I mean, it just seems a shame to me to go to all these pilgrims and worshippers in Mexico and Lourdes and the Ganges and Mecca and hold up your hand and say, "Okay, that's enough of that. Stop. It's all a bunch of nonsense. Go home and forget about it." What do you do with all that yearning and emotion and need for meaning? Teach them to square dance?

Well, imagination doesn't seem to me to be connected with religion, certainly not
religious belief.

I'm talking about delusion, not illusion.

It almost sounds as though you'd rather all that yearning went unfulfilled. I really don't think there's any danger of our yearning for meaning being satisfied in the foreseeable future -- it's pretty obvious that the Unkown expands faster than the Known. So if anything, there are bigger mysteries now than ever before in history.

-------------------

It's kind of overdramatic to mourn a loss of human cultural diversity --- all those wonderful customs and notions disappearing. Human culture ramifies, perhaps more so now than ever before, now that we have such effective ways of communicating with each other.

Culture has always undergone opposing changes, towards unification and schism.

I'd be glad if fewer people went to Lourdes -- I mean if fewer people felt that they needed to, because they could get medical treatment that made it unnecessary.

-------------------

Assimilation is a big issue for Jews -- and it's a subject that's been at the center of debate in my family for at least three generations. I married "out", as one of my parent's friends commented wryly: By marrying someone from an obervant Jewish family, an exotic family to me, for whom assimilation meant practicing Islam. Some of my wife's family are named Hajj -- a number of them were pilgrims to Mecca.

There's a fear among Jews that if you abandon your religion you're somehow going to lose your identity. Thankfully, I know from expereince that it's not the case. You can be selective, and throw out the crap, and still proudly maintain the culture, and the tradition.

So how does that work? It's simple: I say a blessing in Hebrew every Friday night over the wine and bread. I fasted last Monday, because it was Yom Kippur.

But I refuse to read the Haggadah at Passover though, because of the obscenely xenophibic tale it tells; the Exodus is rightly considered a crucial story in the mythology of Judaism, and frankly is a pretty awful piece of P.R. for it.

The blessings, the dietary constraits and the fasting I happily undergo, because they're fun -- these rituals are kind of fun, like Christmas dinner and Trick Or Treating is fun. But I do it in the spirit of fun and tradition. It's nice to have family traditions like this.

Some traditions are pagan, like Easter eggs hunts, and they're fun too. They're not part of either my own or my wife's family tradition, so we don't do Easter egg hunts. Maybe next year.

I dunno, maybe dipping in Ganges is fun. I doubt if Hajj is fun.

-------------------------------------

 

[NoJo]

What religion gives people is order, a way to sort and weigh the universe and their actions in it. I have no qualms with this. If it makes them act in a wise and restrained manner, good for them.

What makes you act in a wise and restrained manner, Rob? I'm not being flippant, I'm pointing out that religion is at best unnessary for learning how to act in a wise and restrained manner.

Thankfully, very few people follow the "letter of the law" of their professed religion when it comes to taking moral decisions, they use common sense and personal experience to decide how to act. Of course, if they're well-versed in the bible, they could then find an appropriate quote to support it. But you could do that with Shakespeare too.

Hell, you could probably justify your actions using quotations from the Star Trek scripts, in fact I'm sure sure some people do.

 

[Guest]

. . . Hell, you could probably justify your actions using quotations from the Star Trek scripts, in fact I'm sure sure some people do.

Well sometimes, but only A Piece of the Action episode.

It speaks to me.

 

[NoJo]

Nichelle Nichols sometimes speaks to me.

 

[Guest]

Nichelle Nichols sometimes speaks to me.

Hailing frequencies open, Joe, Honey.

 

[NoJo]

Hailing frequencies open, Joe, Honey.

I like it when she tells me she's getting a strange transmission in her ear.

 

[Guest]

I like it when she tells me she's getting a strange transmission in her ear.

Wasn't that in the episode with John Holmes?

 

[CharleyH]

Wasn't that in the episode with John Holmes?

LOL - I would like to see THAT one! LOL

 

[NoJo]

Well, come over, we can watch every episode. I hope you like eating mustard sachets, that's all I have in my fridge right now.

 

[Guest]

Well, come over, we can watch every episode. I hope you like eating mustard sachets, that's all I have in my fridge right now.

I'll bring Chinese.

 

[slippedhalo]

This thread has been such an interesting read. I haven't seen such a well thought out, intelligently debated conversation since...maybe since some of my better literature classes in University. I am always interested to see what people think about religious issues and I have to say reading this topic and the truly interesting posts therein has made my day. Thanks everyone who posted. You gave me a totally different kind of faith, even more important to me than any sort of faith in a higher power or whatever...I have a renewed faith that there are actually intelligent people in this world who can listen to the arguments of those who have differing opinions from themselves and be civilized about the debate instead of lowering themselves to stone throwing and insult flinging. I am so very impressed. I feel much better about humanity now. Thank you, guys.

 

[rgraham666]

What makes you act in a wise and restrained manner, Rob? I'm not being flippant, I'm pointing out that religion is at best unnessary for learning how to act in a wise and restrained manner.

I watch people. If they do things that I think are unwise, I make a note in the future not to do that myself.

So far as religion goes, it's unnecessary in my life. I can come to my own conclusions, thank you very much.

For some people it is necessary, they haven't the ability or the inclination to do much of their own thinking. Some use this faith as a guideline, some as an excuse.

But many people use rationalism, and it's various manifestations like capitalism and communism, as an excuse as well. Human's like being free of responsibility.

 

[rgraham666]

This thread has been such an interesting read. I haven't seen such a well thought out, intelligently debated conversation since...maybe since some of my better literature classes in University. I am always interested to see what people think about religious issues and I have to say reading this topic and the truly interesting posts therein has made my day. Thanks everyone who posted. You gave me a totally different kind of faith, even more important to me than any sort of faith in a higher power or whatever...I have a renewed faith that there are actually intelligent people in this world who can listen to the arguments of those who have differing opinions from themselves and be civilized about the debate instead of lowering themselves to stone throwing and insult flinging. I am so very impressed. I feel much better about humanity now. Thank you, guys.

Wait until our 'friend' shows up. You haven't seen anything until you've seen him in action.

 

[slippedhalo]

Which 'friend'?

 

[slippedhalo]

psssst: Don't tell anyone, but I have quoted Star Trek for my own purposes as well. That Data was some philosopher.

 

[NoJo]

I'll bring Chinese.

Great. I'll go find something we can use for a table.

 

[Guest]

Which 'friend'?

Oh!

We dare not speak the name!


Glad that you are enjoying the AH, halo. Please stay around. You'll find most discussions here to be civil and often very educational.