Atheism

Interesting piece, thanks, Hinge. I was gratified to see that he recommended good reading with no particular ideological bent.

The photograph is more interesting than the verbals. The central focus has grossly overweight people in it, including the kid, and two blokes with no hair. And the cat!! What can one say?

I too was impressed Set.

I can't imagine Dickens and Wodehouse with no ideological bent.

Absolutely. It's a faith in the obvious. Emperor's clothes and all that.



Yes, indeed! Where would the global economy be if the various military industries didn't have religious wars to supply?

The call should go out to believers of all ilks to meet in a single place on Earth to discuss what they share. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hundred years of bloody fighting to determine the time and place.

I'm holding my breath.
Joe(. Hey.....watch it, no snide remarks.)Nation
after all it only took a thousand years for the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox to begin talking about what they shared, right before the Ottoman Turks blasted the walls of Constantinople on their way West.

Oh yeah . . . the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox . . . like the Catholic Croats and the Orthodox Serbs?

Heh. If you ever want to spend time in a room of uncomfortable people, attend a multi-denominational breakfast and try to get in on the conversation as they decide what the order of speakers will be for saying the grace over the meal.

"The Calvinist pastor stared across the table at the rabbi and the bishop trying to figure out if it would be better to go first or last."

I used to sing songs at such meetings.

Joe(Peace creep)Nation

We would be all down the pub practising our Morrisco steps in between swilling down pints of best English beer with goose-happy wenchs fetching them frothing forth, oiling our cricket bats for the match on Sunday after which the goose-happy wenches reward the highest scorer, the best bowler, the most outstanding fielder, the most smartly turned out (which I think is a philosphically flawed award) and the other seven players, the coaches, the line painters, the ball finders (no pun intented) and the scorer in the authentic evolutionary manner, sharpening our scythes for next August's corn crop and mulling over what to do with this magical wonder box called Science.

The practitioners of Science and their lickspittals and lackeys would call us Luddites and persecute us. But I have to admit that we are no good at getting the Dow butting 12,000 again and we are not so hot in explaining that us going to church every Sunday to look at the wenches all got up to look sweet, as one would in God's mansion, have not caused all the wars and mayhem. How on earth could we? We only get up when the pub opens. Which is conveniently arranged to coincide with us getting hungry and thirsty after shaking the effects of yesterday's indulgencies off.

Of course we have to supervise the less froward ladies in their preparations for the Christmas do.

Did you actually go to meetings like that Joe?

What were the breakfasts like? Any bacon?

I like the way you think. At least, what little I can understand of it.

See, now that Calvinist was not being true to his faith. He should have known that the order of the speakers was predestined.

clever Set

If most persons call themselves believers, dissenters must be labeled, so as to avoid confusion. I don't have a problem with it.

Atheists, rapists top list of people religious believers distrust the most, UBC study finds
By Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun December 1, 2011

Religious believers distrust atheists more than they do members of other religious groups, gays or feminists, according to a new study by University of B.C. researchers.

The only group the study's participants distrusted as much as atheists was rapists, said doctoral student Will Gervais, lead author of the study published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

That prejudice had a significant effect on what kinds of jobs people said they would hire atheists to do.

"People are willing to hire an atheist for a job that is perceived as low trust, for instance as a waitress," said Gervais.

"But when hiring for a high-trust job like daycare worker, they were like, nope, not going to hire an atheist for that job."

The antipathy does not seem to run both ways, though. Atheists are indifferent to religious belief when it comes to deciding who is trustworthy.

"Atheists don't necessarily favour other atheists over Christians or anyone else," he said. "They seem to think that religion is not an important signal for who you can trust."

The researchers found that religious believers thought that descriptions of untrustworthy people - people who steal or cheat - were more likely to be atheists than Christians, Muslims, Jews, gays or feminists.

Gervais was surprised that people harbour such strong feelings about a group that is hard to see or identify. He opines that religious believers are just more comfortable with other people who believe a deity with the power to reward and punish is watching them.

"If you believe your behaviour is being watched [by God] you are going to be on your best behaviour," said Gervais. "But that wouldn't apply for an atheist. That would allow people to use religious belief as a signal for how trustworthy a person is."

Religious belief is known to have a variety of social functions. Past research has found that common religious beliefs can promote cooperation within groups.

Gervais started his line of inquiry about the exclusion of atheists after seeing a Gallup poll that suggested the majority of Americans would not vote for an atheist presidential candidate. Gervais and his colleagues conducted a series of six studies on a group of 350 American adults and a group 420 UBC students.

But even in more secular Canada, distrust of atheists ran high.

"We see consistently strong effects," he said.

"Even here in Vancouver, our student participants still say atheists are really untrustworthy."
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Atheists+rapists+list+people+religious+believers+distrust+most+study+finds/5794699/story.html#ixzz1fQLFA4Df

What is strange is that religious believers have kill more people in wars and for their religious beliefs. Communists are believed to all be atheists but none of them have totally atheist beliefs. However, that is not true. What is amusing to me is that Jesus could be considered to be the first communist or socialist.

The communist countries below all have religious people.

The Five Remaining Communist Countries in the World
By Matt Rosenberg, About.com Guide

During the reign of the Soviet Union, there were communist countries throughout Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Communist countries in the twentieth century included Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Hungary, Mongolia, Mozambique, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia.

Today, there are only five communist countries in the world.

1. China

Mao Zedong took control over China in 1949 and proclaimed China as the People's Republic of China, a communist country. China has remained consistently communist since 1949 although economic reforms have been in place for several years. China has been called "Red China" due to the communist party's control over the country.

2. Cuba

A revolution in 1959 led to the taking over of the Cuban government by Fidel Castro. By 1961, Cuba became a fully communist country and developed close ties to the Soviet Union.

3. Laos

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, became a communist country in 1975 following a revolution that was supported by Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

4. North Korea

"North Korea, which was captured by Japan in World War II, was divided following the war into a Soviet north and American south. Despite being led by the USSR beginning in 1945, North Korea did not become a communist country until 1948.

5. Vietnam

Vietnam was partitioned at a 1954 conference that followed the First Indochina War. While the partition was supposed to be temporary, North Vietnam became communist and supported by the Soviet Union while South Vietnam was democratic and supported by the United States. Following two decades of war, the two parts of Vietnam were unified and in 1976, Vietnam as a unified country became a communist country.

Communist governments are authoritarian. A socialist government can be of the people or it can be authoritarian, depending on the decisions made by the people and/or their government..

Most political systems are a combination of socialism and capitalism.

True. A well regulated capitalism seems the best to me, as that allows for both sides of human nature to be addressed.