Atheism

@Romeo Fabulini,

Romeo Fabulini wrote:

You remind me of Delbert Grady flatly denying the truth when it's presented to him-

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@Ragman,

Quote:

Personally, I call the topic of atheism an anti-philosophy. There are legions of theists and their philosophy/ies has often historically been fashioned into various religions.

Which were fashioned in the particular region for a long while and only became world religions at a very recent date in the history of the human race.

Quote:

Churches and such have used/misused this choke-hold of the masses and whipped up these fervent loyalist passions to make war in its name (when in reality it was for power and profit) but I digress.

And won't the Atheists do the exact same thing if they come to power except that recent history suggests with less tolerance. And we don't know what the masses are like when not in a choke-hold. I don't think Atheists will give that a try. You're spinning empty nothings Raggie.

You don't digress at all.

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spendi: with less tolerance.

(chuckle) Murder and total devastation and slavery are hard to top, spendi.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

Atheism

The title to this thread. To discuss. I think I'm boring.

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@Setanta,

I had a similar experience, but I was a young teenager when I determined that the religion our family belonged to made statements that I couldn't believe in. They said that their's were the only true religion, and they said some bad things about other religions. That didn't make any sense to me, and it doesn't today. What I've come to learn over the years is that a person's belief in god is a "personal" thing that doesn't always mesh with their church's teachings.

That's okay, but I still see too many religions teaching bigotry including homophobia.

The US's population is about 80% christians, but many don't believe in universal health care or to extend unemployment insurance to the unemployed amongst us. Not much "love thy neighbor" learning going on!

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I was baptized, raised, and confirmed in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Germany. (Theologically, it's just like the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of America, only in Germany.) I never had anything against it and still don't. Then as now, I liked the old buildings with their stained-glass windows, liked the fellowship and the rituals, loved the music, and endured the sermons. Ironically though, I became an atheist around the age of 14 because the pastor who confirmed me did a good job. He was a great guy who got me really interested in the Bible.

How did that lead me to atheism? Well, this pastor instructed us that it's good protestant practice to make a habit of reading the Bible by ourselves and making up our own minds about it. So I did. In bits and pieces, I read it cover to cover. And when I finished, roughly a year after my confirmation, my mind was indeed made up: Taken as a whole, I found the Bible's facts mostly bogus and often self-contradictory, the Bible's values often abhorrent. Granted, you could cherry-pick some highlights, and that's what the church did. But I could no longer take this book seriously as a product of people inspired by the creator of the universe. I didn't leave the church immediately because I was impressed with its social work. There were also some family reasons not to leave immediately. But as a believer, I was done.

Over time, especially in college, friends and acquaintances tried to pitch me various other religions. None of them ever grew on me: once I looked at their teachings in detail, they all seemed at least as preposterous as the Bible.

Today I like to say I believe in a minimalistic, two-tenet religion: (1) Believe alleged facts if the balance of the evidence supports it; (2) believe alleged values if, overall, acting on them appears to people happier than it makes them miserable. But that's mostly a philosophical concession: I adhere to both of these tenets without being able to prove them, which technically makes them a religion. But most non-philosophical people I know in real life don't see it that way. To most people, I'm an infidel, and that's fine with me, too.

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@Setanta,

I have no recollection of ever, in my entire life, having such thoughts as the ones Setanta expresses. I would never have thought God was preposterous or not preposterous. There were more pressing matters to attend to. I got into the atheist camp to free up the inhibitions of young ladies who were obviously gagging for it.

Years later when surfeit resulted in futility and disgust, as surfeit always does, and I could bring a more objective view to the matter, it soon appeared obvious that whether God was preposterous or not a belief in God certainly was not.

One would have to get into reverse science fiction to imagine the alternative and everybody knows how preposterous science fiction is.

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

(chuckle) Murder and total devastation and slavery are hard to top, spendi.

Jesus warned that it wouldn't be easy.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

I was never baptized. Church/religion/god just wasn't a subject at home - it never came up. I know my dad was baptized (we still have the certificate) and I assume mum was - but we never went to church. I assume their respective early lives put paid to much belief in the existence of a god. One the eldest at 6 of three boys abandoned by their mother, the other a refugee from war torn Berlin who walked across Germany with her mother to an Austrian refugee camp. But really they never talked about it.

My first interaction with religion was probably age 6 in thursday mornings regular 'scripture' sessions at school (for about an hour miscellaneous clergy get a classroom of kids while the teachers smoke in the staff room) it's broken up by denomination - I picked Presbyterian because it had the funniest name.

I didn't know there was an atheism. I had a friend that went to Sunday school but I didn't really understand the religious connection. We went to weddings, christenings, funerals that involved churches. No fuss was ever made about it - my parents never discussed their religiosity or lack of it. But the rest of society was pretty adamant about it. I read the bible cover to cover. Concur with Thomas' review.

In the pubescent/adolescent years I guess I'd label myself agnostic. I didn't know, it seemed looney, but how could so many people over so many years subscribe to the looniness? Further self-education has shown me that it's not that surprising or unusual. Anyway - I still don't 'know' but I'm definitely an atheist. Almost an anti-religionist (I make a distinction) but I don't feel any need to rub anyone's face in it.

Mrs Hinge's grandmother was a pivotal person in her upbringing, widowed quite young and devoted her life to the church. As a wee girly Mrs Hinge would ask her questions about the Bible. It became quite obvious that her grandmother didn't have the slightest clue about what was in the bible - she was just a giving person who devoted herself to a sociocultural institution as a channel for contributing to community.

Mrs Hinge is not an atheist (but is an anti-religionist).

1 Reply

Most here probably know my story - the nunnery for her..

Trying to be succinct, no doubt failing:
- baptized but unaware of it at the time
- no memory of anything at all about religion until I entered 1st grade, and then it was mildish. I have no memory of christmas back in Ohio, but we probably had a tree. Do remember it being an event once I was in California in 1st grade at St. Monica's. I think we learned some beginning praying.
- then came first communion, which involved a lot of instruction. Sort of like learning about a computer for me now: huh? what? oh, ok, I'll try. I have to reboot? What is reboot?
There were a lot of complexities showing up, including sin and repentance and confession (rote saying I disobeyed my mother twice) and memorizing act of contrition and saying it to a screen with a voice. At seven, we were deigned to have brains for this elevated behavior.
Also, I got a new dress and we all had our picture taken together.

Skipping along, I came to believe in all this until things got a little rocky in my teens, some episodes fairly trying, but I still believed:
- a friend of my father's, and his wife, had a child who came down with leukemia. They'd heard of a St. Jude shrine in Chicago (saint of the impossible), so together with them, we, and then our family separately, kept going there once in a while, us by ourselves later when my father lost his job. The child died, the job didn't come back - but that was anticlimatic, as I remember thinking this all seemed unlikely as we were driving to the place the first time.
- my mother, and me tagging along, making a lot of novenas when our family was in big money trouble. Novenas are very boring. I started daydreaming about a football player while praying aloud.
- the whole convent episode (my high school was a little rabid), detailed elsewhere. I just didn't want to, when push came to shove.
- after that it was all downhill, and I ended up popping the balloon while arguing with a certain person named Joseph Ratzinger versus Hans Kung. I just stopped, this was all some giant construction.

Took me long enough.

edit - I never got far in the bible, trying to read it while being eleven.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Quote:
(chuckle) Murder and total devastation and slavery are hard to top, spendi.

Jesus warned that it wouldn't be easy.

Well, he will never make it with those kind of tactics.

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I've told my story numerous times, on here. Suffice to say, I am hard core atheist. To say "I don't know" is not in my makeup. There are simply too many arguments against gods and no evidence of any kind for them.

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

I've told my story numerous times, on here. Suffice to say, I am hard core atheist. To say "I don't know" is not in my makeup. There are simply too many arguments against gods and no evidence of any kind for them.

I consider "I don't know" one of the most intellectually honest things a person can say. Whereas "god did it" is an act of unadulterated intellectual cowardice.

1 Reply

PS. We're using the statement in a different context.

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@Thomas,

There are some interesting things in there. My objection to organized religion was originally for the nasty character of the people employed in the field. I also read the bible, cover to cover, twice. This was when i was 12--my grandmother had this magnificent, old King James bible of the family bible type. I can't say, though, that it lead me anywhere, because my growing disenchantment was with the idea of organized religion in general, it was already beyond such specifics as cults. I have values similar to yours, but i wouldn't say they rise to the level of a religion.

1 Reply

Quote:

Setanta said: My objection to organized religion was originally for the nasty character of the people employed in the field. I also read the bible.. I can't say, though, that it lead me anywhere, because my growing disenchantment was with the idea of organized religion in general

Yes mate, most Organised Religionists are a disgrace, but atheists make the mistake of letting them put them off Jesus, so in that sense they control atheists!
Me, I don't give a rat's ass about Org Rel, they're small potatoes and they don't control me or block me from Jesus at all.. Smile

To atheists I say it's fine to attack the crackpots of Org Rel as much as you want because they thoroughly deserve it, but don't make the mistake of attacking Jesus too!
I mean, it's IMPOSSIBLE not to like him.. Smile

Jesus said- “You teachers of the law and Pharisees are full of filth, greed and wickedness...the prostitutes will get to heaven ahead of you!" (Matt 23:27, Luke 11:39-41, Matt 21:31))
"Not all who call me "Lord,Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. Then I'll tell them plainly, I never knew you, get away from me" (Matt 7:21-23)

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/Jesus-v-snoots.gif~original

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Please remember folks, try not to feed the god botherer and agnostic trolls.

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Incidentally there are all sorts of atheists, for example earlier in this thread somebody called himself a "hardcore atheist". Does that mean there are also "soft core atheists", and atheists who are somewhere between hard and soft, or what?
In fact here's an article I wrote and posted around the net to try to figger out what makes atheists tick-

WHY ARE PEOPLE ATHEISTS?
(Let me know if i've missed anything out)

1 - To look 'cool' and 'politically-correct' in front of their mates.

2 - Because they were turned off Jesus by something that happened when they were kids, such as parents forcing them to go to church, or having bullying nuns and priest teachers at school, or a harsh fire-and-brimstone aunt or uncle etc, so being an atheist is their way of 'getting their own back'.

3 - Fear. At the back of their mind is the nagging doubt that Christians may be RIGHT, so by attacking Christianity, they hope to drag others to hell with them so they won't be alone down there..

4 - Terror. The idea of demons and evil spirits terrifies them, so by shouting 'Christianity is a lie!' they're trying to convince themselves that Christianity and demons are one big conspiracy theory and myth.

5 - Possession. If somebody is hosting a malign spiritual parasite (demon), it warps their thought processes and blinds them to the beauty of Christianity, and uses their mouth to speak through to slag off Christianity.

6 - The dazzling beauty of Christianity makes them feel embarrassed, so they attack it.

7 - Some are gay/ lesbian and wrongly think God hates them, so they 'hit him back' by being atheists.

8 - Some are secretly afraid of Satan, so they attack Christianity in the hope he'll like them.

9 - Some are witches/ occultists and they hate Christianity because the Bible condemns it.

10 - Some 'hear voices' telling them not to be Christians..

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@Romeo Fabulini,

You've forgotten the most important aspect of your "bogus list'
NO RELIGION CAN PRODUCE ANY VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE OF ITS GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT and cannot, similarly, evidence anything to underpin its credo other than "hearsay" from supposed patriarchs and Apostles . (IMHO each chapter of the Bible should really begin with "NOW THIS STORY- IS NO ****- WOULD WE LIE TO YOU?"
Archeologica evidence that shows that certain cities of the Bible texts actually existed and therefore that bit of history SHOULD good enough for the "true believers". Well duhh, if your gonna make up a story, why not tie it to some actual piece of real estate? .

Larry McMurtry and Alexander McCall Smith have made very good livings as writers of fiction using very technique of introducing just enough history to "root " their stories in time.

ALL CHRISTIANITY IS A CULT so you shouldnt be bad mouthing Witnesses or Mormons. Youre just pissed cause their myths don't agree with your myths.

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@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

I was never baptized. Church/religion/god just wasn't a subject at home - it never came up. I know my dad was baptized (we still have the certificate) and I assume mum was - but we never went to church. I assume their respective early lives put paid to much belief in the existence of a god. One the eldest at 6 of three boys abandoned by their mother, the other a refugee from war torn Berlin who walked across Germany with her mother to an Austrian refugee camp. But really they never talked about it.

My first interaction with religion was probably age 6 in thursday mornings regular 'scripture' sessions at school (for about an hour miscellaneous clergy get a classroom of kids while the teachers smoke in the staff room) it's broken up by denomination - I picked Presbyterian because it had the funniest name.

I didn't know there was an atheism. I had a friend that went to Sunday school but I didn't really understand the religious connection. We went to weddings, christenings, funerals that involved churches. No fuss was ever made about it - my parents never discussed their religiosity or lack of it. But the rest of society was pretty adamant about it. I read the bible cover to cover. Concur with Thomas' review.

In the pubescent/adolescent years I guess I'd label myself agnostic. I didn't know, it seemed looney, but how could so many people over so many years subscribe to the looniness? Further self-education has shown me that it's not that surprising or unusual. Anyway - I still don't 'know' but I'm definitely an atheist. Almost an anti-religionist (I make a distinction) but I don't feel any need to rub anyone's face in it.

Mrs Hinge's grandmother was a pivotal person in her upbringing, widowed quite young and devoted her life to the church. As a wee girly Mrs Hinge would ask her questions about the Bible. It became quite obvious that her grandmother didn't have the slightest clue about what was in the bible - she was just a giving person who devoted herself to a sociocultural institution as a channel for contributing to community.

Mrs Hinge is not an atheist (but is an anti-religionist).

What is the distinction you are trying to make between agnostic and atheist in the part I have magnified, Hinge?

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