Atheism

Absolute unutterable drivel. It's as bad as My Way but not performed anywhere near as well. It's enough to make the toes curl in embarrassment.

I'm tipping you're more of a Foster & Allen kinda guy.

I just met a local atheist group out at the Natural History Museum. We had brunch after. At least two are scientists. I didn't talk to everyone. It was kind of weird because the only thing we all had in common was atheism (and maybe travel). I feel more at home with the hiking group I joined.

yeah, that makes sense actually, just having "atheism" in common wouldn't make much of a social connect. In my experience atheism is a very small facet of one's personality, certainly not enough to provoke fun times like say hiking or photography or sailing or gardening. In fact I would find it quite boring.

It makes about as much sense as a group of people who are not racists, or a group of people who don't believe in fairies, or .... At least in Boston, where I imagine there's not much suppression of Atheists. It might be different in rural Texas.

Yup. I'll go a couple more times. It is somewhat interesting to hear their stories (So, how did you become an atheist?). Except for my own story which is boring.

Maybe you can find a few nice atheists and take them hiking with you and your hiking group. One can never proselytize enough for hiking.

I thought of that too. I wouldn't have to join the groups (but, I could). I could advocate for an atheist hike now and then.

So...how did you become an atheist?

My parents stopped going to church before I had developed a sense of religiosity. Now it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

The story of the devil broke my believes at ten or eleven years of age as how can a supreme all knowing and all powerful being allow his chief angel to revolted against him and why would a creature so close to the all knowing and all powerful god either wish to revolt or knowing how pointless it is to revolt against such a being still do so.

Add to that he was said to had taken half of all the angel in heaven with him!

Even at ten or so this was way too must for me to buy into and I therefore place the god stories into the same class as Santa Claus.

A pub pal told me that he became an atheist because when he was 11 he was playing at rugby and he spotted something in the grass. He picked it up and saw it was a badge covered in mud. He took it home and polished it up and pinned it in the lapel of his blazer. It was a "hammer and sickle" badge.

He wore it all the time after that.

Then the Prime Minister called an election and his social studies teacher decided to introduce his charges to the nature of political strife and divided the class into the various parties who were standing at the election and to have them represent these factions in debate. I presume the teacher had run out of ideas. But he had noticed the badge my pal was sporting so he designated him to represent the Communist Party which had, at that time, candidates standing in a small number of east Lancashire constituencies. In fighting his corner he had to adopt the aethist stance, religion is the opium of the masses type of bullshit, as if the masses are to be taken to task on their opiates, and in doing so became a lifelong atheist and Communist. He found it difficult to go back on any declared position he had taken as all bigots do,

However-I soon cured him of that nonsense but alas it was too late and his whole life was already in ruins him having had a triple heart by-pass at 47 and his wife of 30 years running off with the chap next door because, as she told me herself, of how boring he was with his ******* hi-fi playing Debussy all day long and rabbiting about his fantastic collection of stamps not to mention his checking the oil level in his car everytime he was going out and using the dinky compressor he had bought from B&Q (£139.99) to make sure the tyre pressures were according to the recommendations in the manual the manufacturers of his car had seen fit to provide him with.

I also suspect that one of his daughters has had an abortion but I can't get him to admit it but I do know that neither of them adhered to the Christian traditions before their marriages.

You must have been quite a little genius Bill.

It's a pity you had no sense of humour.

Christians don't seem to adhere to their traditions before marriage either!

Take heed folks, without the Lord, you'll end up the subject of a country and western song.

According to this site teen pregnancy rates are higher in typically religious states. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32884806/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/. Divorce rates are also higher for religious people. Atheists have the lowest divorce rate around.

I'll vouch for the teen pregnancy thing.

they breed like rabbits down here in the bible belt...

If you can't convert 'em, outnumber 'em.

Not sure what that says about the stability of the underlying relationships though. Perhaps atheists are just more reluctant to marry in the first place.

I've always found it ironic to see the most creationist subcultures in the US out-evolve us enlightened folk.