Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Monday, June 04, 2012
Why Atheists should fear the encroachment of religious influence into our politics, our education system, and our secular lives in general.
This is not an indictment of religion, or religious people in general, but it is an indictment of allowing religion to overcome logic and freedom of thought.
"This is not an indictment of religion, or religious people in general, but it is an indictment of allowing religion to overcome logic and freedom of thought."
No, Gryphen. It's an indictment of the human soul that would allow such abject cruelty to others no matter what the reason is. It is also an indictment of mob mentality.
Wow. Great quote and don't get me wrong. I despise organized religion and do not believe Jesus Christ even existed. But in all fairness atheists are just as capable of atrocities or have you never heard of the Iron Curtain or Pol Pot or North Korea.
You want to think atheism is benign but it has just as much potential for harm as any religion.
That's why I just call myself a heathen. Atheism is also a belief system of sorts and I have no truck with either belief or anti-belief systems.
We just do not know either way or any way, actually. It's all just guesswork. If you want to commit yourself that's your business but I don't understand why it makes you superior in any way.
@4:32 - I don't think I've gotten the sense that anyone is actually claiming that being an atheist automatically makes you a good person. (if they are, then they are an idiot) More open-minded? *Possibly*, but the examples you state just underscores the fact that humans are capable of vicious acts regardless of belief system. Period.
I have friends that are Jewish and Christian and they are the very model of the best of what their beliefs are supposed to teach. They are compassionate and caring and do not stand in judgement of others. They also do not deny science or believe that the country should be run by religious dogma.
So, just as being atheist is no guarantee of being open-minded, intelligent or compassionate, being religious is no guarantee of being a tiny-minded science-denying bigot.
For me personally, I'm in the middle, a staunch Agnostic. I do get a sense that there is far more to "reality" than our feeble, limited senses and understanding can begin to comprehend (isn't that the whole point of science?), but I don't claim to have insider knowledge of what might have created it or whether any "thing" created it at all.
That's the conundrum that always makes me laugh at Atheists, they like to tear down religious faith, but they've merely adopted the exact opposite unprovable belief - that there is no God at all.
Until one side or the other PROVES their point of view, I will always stand behind the premise that the only logical, rational point of view is to admit that you don't know the answer to that question.
Sure let's ignore the 90 million killed by atheist states in the 20th century and argue over N.K.
Good point Anon. It's humans who are more aggressive than any other animal and in the wrong hand of religion or atheism or whatever, we are capable of tremendous harm.
Everyday Freethought is correct. North Korea is not atheist - they are taught that their ruler is their god. It is easier to keep the masses in line that way.
""Today, Juche is no longer just an ideology, but a full-fledged religion that worships Kim Il Sung as god, and his son, Kim Jong Il as the son of god. Whether or not Kim Jong Un is now worshipped as the grandson of god remains to be seen."" http://www.northkoreanchristians.com/religion-north-korea.html
But in all fairness atheists are just as capable of atrocities or have you never heard of the Iron Curtain or Pol Pot or North Korea.
Why would you expect otherwise? Why would you expect non-belief in gods to automatically make somebody a good person? If somebody has told you that, why would you believe them? Non-belief in gods (pending convincing evidence) simply removes one of the causes of atrociousness.
You want to think atheism is benign but it has just as much potential for harm as any religion.
Let me fix that for you: You want to think humanity is benign, but it has almost as much potential for harm as religiously-obsessed humanity.
Keep in mind, though, that religiously-obsessed humanity tends to gain power, and thus is much more likely to realize its potential for harm.
If there was a Facebook filter that allowed you the relief of religious postings, or an app for that, I'd pay handsomely for it.
These atrocities committed against atheists sound suspiciously tortuous, much like done to, their Christ? Jesus was a fine man, an example of how we should live, but to turn him into a "son of God" more so than the rest of us are, and the magical powers of an immortal, how is this not blasphemy? How are other people persecuted for their beliefs not more worthy of divination?
Whatever. Many people try to live with Christ's teachings, but too many use it as a license to hate, hurt and exclude in some bizarre publicly sanctioned sense of superiority.
Jesus was a fine man? Are you kidding me? If He was not God the Son then He was a monster, a manipulator, liar, con artist, fraud - He encouraged people to worship Him, to die for Him! A fine man? Seriously?
Listen both of you - there is zero evidence that the Jesus Christ promoted as the son of God by the man who would become St. Paul EVER EVEN EXISTED AT ALL.
Did you here me? ZERO.
There is NO historical evidence for Jesus. No eyewitness accounts of Jesus. The gospels were written many years after he would have died. Nor do they agree with each other. And we all know, or SHOULD know, how notoriously unreliable eyewitness accounts are anyway.
Christianity is nothing but a massive fraud. It's tragic how obedient people swallow this crap without ever asking a single question. Talk about brainwashing.
This may be OT or perhaps there is something in it that adds to our understanding of the complex reasons some people go along with the herd.
Many years ago I read a study which purported to find out the nature of the fears of men and women - putting it very broadly. One of its claims was that when women were asked what they most feared from men, the most frequent answer was that they were afraid of being hurt or killed by them. Men, asked what they feared from women, most frequently answered that they were afraid of being laughed at.
I think Madalyn was a little off in this quote. I don't think these things were done to atheists, but to Jews, other christians who were deemed not pious enough or who were "heretics". In the event of a christian takeover of the US, atheists will likely be safe for a long while, until christans are done purging other christians.
Have you never heard of Jessica Alquist? She's just the latest of non-believers targeted by Christians. The 16-year-old girl received threats of rape, assault, and even death from kindly Christians who objected to her very existence. It has and still happens to Atheists.
Really what that quote is, is an education on exactly why religion must be kept from power at all costs. It's really pretty simple and you can see it in every political system: in any given point of view, the most extreme advocates of that point of view will rise to the top.
Once you set in motion a system of competition over who is the most "faithful" in a religious sense as a means of vetting leaders, you inexorably move toward extremism. Just like we're seeing with the Republicans, moderates are eventually viewed as weak and are culled out in favor of "uncompromising firebrands".
So the fantasy that many Christians have that a Christian government would be wise and compassionate like Jesus is unfounded in history. Any time you get a theocracy, you eventually end up with the Taliban.
And that's not even taking into account the fact that most of these would-be "Christian" leaders are frauds in pious clothing, seeking only power and riches.
...Like some botox-infested hillbillies we know...
Great posts, both Boscoe and Barbara Carlson. There's always this ideological tug of war whenever the topic of Atheism is brought up.
Not to take away from your insight on Jesus losing the GOP primary, but if one exchanges any belief or non belief system, the analogy "Too compassionate, too humanist, too kind, too sane" would equally apply to the divinity in all gods and humans.
Where is it written that all people must conform, and if they don't, their "too open minded", or "less than" whatever "normal" means? Why does this quote "offend", when wars and crusades "wiped out" "The bad guys", for what end? How CAN any deity condone torture, persecution and killing because "we're right and they're wrong"? I consider myself an Atheist/Humanist, and to me, being called "godless" is a complement, yet it doesn't stop me from being a caring,etc. person and interacting with others who believe and are caring, etc people. It's the extremists who let fear drive them to madness that scare me.
Why Are the Anunnaki Doing This? ⇒ http://youtu.be/LRDlmQer6Dw
The Anunnaki are systematically disarming, disabling, deactivating, and destroying nuclear weapons of all sorts around the world. They even began nuking underground bases on September 26, 2011, producing effects on the surface that are earthquake-like (http://youtu.be/e4QmHY6z05s). These beings are here to take the power from the New World Order elite (Illuminati) and give it back to mankind.
FEMA plays a vital role in the New World Order. ... And when the gods begin their decent, FEMA will have you believe that Earth is being invaded by hostile extraterrestrials, and that FEMA has your best interests at heart. But these are not invaders, they are our saviors. ..."
Using night vision and infrared goggles and cameras, anyone can witness the battle being waged between the anti-NWO Anunnaki and the evil Illuminati (http://youtu.be/oM83bdXrW_E). At the present the battle is one-sided, ... The gods are biding their time for the strategical, astronomical, and astrologically perfect moment to destroy the New World Order and free us all."
The elite humans of earth are not faking the existence of UFO's and aliens. However, their aim is to manipulate us to fear and hate the returning Gods rather than embrace them for who they truly are: our rescuers. For they will destroy the New World Order, as the gods oppose deception, they will come and destroy key military bases, especially underground bases and the elite-controlled earth governments will declare that we are being invaded, and that we are being warred upon. But the truth is that it will be the insidious international bankers who are being warred upon, and all of their puppet governments destroyed.
Operation Mockingbird is all over YouTube like chemtrails and solar flares ... invasion by faking UFO sightings with fake UFOs and military in alien costumes (when, in fact, they are not). The non-existent Project Blue Beam (Bluebeam) is a disinformational psyoptical hoax, a double deception. Space has been weaponized. Why would the elite weaponize space if if they supposedly intend to use holograms to fake an alien invasion and if the threat to the evil New World Order was not real?
Freemason archeologist Zecharia Sitchin may have been used by TPTB to give a bias interpretation ... of the Sumerian tablets, but he was not the originator of the ancient astronaut theory...."
Due to Nibiru's increasing gravitational influence on earth, a pole shift is currently underway. There is certainly a virtual media blackout on both the shifting of Earth's poles and the return of planet Nibiru, called the Kachina star by the Hopi Indians, who told of its coming in their astronomical predictions and prophesies. There is also a full blackout on the nuclear destruction ..."
This is the apocalypse, the end of the (new) world (order) achieved by the power elite through infiltration of governments, political organizations, major news media corporations, and through CIA and black military and intelligence operations, secret societies, and international banks. The gods, led by the Elohim EN.LIL (YHVH), have taken up our cause, and they will completely annihilate the Satanic (Enkiite) power elite who have enslaved humanity."
------ Wooo....that's a lot to absorb. The Book of Revelations says that the devil and his mouthpieces will try to cause the nations to go to war with Jesus.
The whole POINT of religion is to make people think illogically and have no freedom of rational thought.
ReplyDeleteOnce people thought it couldn't happen again. They were wrong. It could indeed happen again.
ReplyDeleteWhen religious faith becomes obsession, madness reigns.
"This is not an indictment of religion, or religious people in general, but it is an indictment of allowing religion to overcome logic and freedom of thought."
ReplyDeleteNo, Gryphen. It's an indictment of the human soul that would allow such abject cruelty to others no matter what the reason is. It is also an indictment of mob mentality.
Wow.
ReplyDeleteGreat quote and don't get me wrong. I despise organized religion and do not believe Jesus Christ even existed. But in all fairness atheists are just as capable of atrocities or have you never heard of the Iron Curtain or Pol Pot or North Korea.
You want to think atheism is benign but it has just as much potential for harm as any religion.
That's why I just call myself a heathen. Atheism is also a belief system of sorts and I have no truck with either belief or anti-belief systems.
We just do not know either way or any way, actually. It's all just guesswork. If you want to commit yourself that's your business but I don't understand why it makes you superior in any way.
When I see pix of North Korea, I see a lot of pictures of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il all over the place. People are required to display them.
DeleteThis is NOT atheism. Atheism is saying that there is no god whatsoever. Replacing your god with another is not atheism.
People should STOP saying North Korea is atheist. It is not. It is a personality cult.
North Korea most definitely is an atheistic state.
DeleteWas my last comment not clear? No it is not.
Delete@4:32 - I don't think I've gotten the sense that anyone is actually claiming that being an atheist automatically makes you a good person. (if they are, then they are an idiot) More open-minded? *Possibly*, but the examples you state just underscores the fact that humans are capable of vicious acts regardless of belief system. Period.
DeleteI have friends that are Jewish and Christian and they are the very model of the best of what their beliefs are supposed to teach. They are compassionate and caring and do not stand in judgement of others. They also do not deny science or believe that the country should be run by religious dogma.
So, just as being atheist is no guarantee of being open-minded, intelligent or compassionate, being religious is no guarantee of being a tiny-minded science-denying bigot.
For me personally, I'm in the middle, a staunch Agnostic. I do get a sense that there is far more to "reality" than our feeble, limited senses and understanding can begin to comprehend (isn't that the whole point of science?), but I don't claim to have insider knowledge of what might have created it or whether any "thing" created it at all.
That's the conundrum that always makes me laugh at Atheists, they like to tear down religious faith, but they've merely adopted the exact opposite unprovable belief - that there is no God at all.
Until one side or the other PROVES their point of view, I will always stand behind the premise that the only logical, rational point of view is to admit that you don't know the answer to that question.
Sure let's ignore the 90 million killed by atheist states in the 20th century and argue over N.K.
DeleteGood point Anon. It's humans who are more aggressive than any other animal and in the wrong hand of religion or atheism or whatever, we are capable of tremendous harm.
Everyday Freethought is correct. North Korea is not atheist - they are taught that their ruler is their god. It is easier to keep the masses in line that way.
Delete""Today, Juche is no longer just an ideology, but a full-fledged religion that worships Kim Il Sung as god, and his son, Kim Jong Il as the son of god. Whether or not Kim Jong Un is now worshipped as the grandson of god remains to be seen.""
Deletehttp://www.northkoreanchristians.com/religion-north-korea.html
But in all fairness atheists are just as capable of atrocities or have you never heard of the Iron Curtain or Pol Pot or North Korea.
DeleteWhy would you expect otherwise? Why would you expect non-belief in gods to automatically make somebody a good person? If somebody has told you that, why would you believe them? Non-belief in gods (pending convincing evidence) simply removes one of the causes of atrociousness.
You want to think atheism is benign but it has just as much potential for harm as any religion.
Let me fix that for you: You want to think humanity is benign, but it has almost as much potential for harm as religiously-obsessed humanity.
Keep in mind, though, that religiously-obsessed humanity tends to gain power, and thus is much more likely to realize its potential for harm.
Bravo, Ted Powell, well stated.
DeleteIf there was a Facebook filter that allowed you the relief of religious postings, or an app for that, I'd pay handsomely for it.
ReplyDeleteThese atrocities committed against atheists sound suspiciously tortuous, much like done to, their Christ? Jesus was a fine man, an example of how we should live, but to turn him into a "son of God" more so than the rest of us are, and the magical powers of an immortal, how is this not blasphemy? How are other people persecuted for their beliefs not more worthy of divination?
Whatever. Many people try to live with Christ's teachings, but too many use it as a license to hate, hurt and exclude in some bizarre publicly sanctioned sense of superiority.
Jesus was a fine man? Are you kidding me? If He was not God the Son then He was a monster, a manipulator, liar, con artist, fraud - He encouraged people to worship Him, to die for Him! A fine man? Seriously?
DeleteOh great - a Jesus fight!
DeleteListen both of you - there is zero evidence that the Jesus Christ promoted as the son of God by the man who would become St. Paul EVER EVEN EXISTED AT ALL.
Did you here me? ZERO.
There is NO historical evidence for Jesus. No eyewitness accounts of Jesus.
The gospels were written many years after he would have died. Nor do they agree with each other.
And we all know, or SHOULD know, how notoriously unreliable eyewitness accounts are anyway.
Christianity is nothing but a massive fraud. It's tragic how obedient people swallow this crap without ever asking a single question. Talk about brainwashing.
This may be OT or perhaps there is something in it that adds to our understanding of the complex reasons some people go along with the herd.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago I read a study which purported to find out the nature of the fears of men and women - putting it very broadly. One of its claims was that when women were asked what they most feared from men, the most frequent answer was that they were afraid of being hurt or killed by them. Men, asked what they feared from women, most frequently answered that they were afraid of being laughed at.
I think Madalyn was a little off in this quote. I don't think these things were done to atheists, but to Jews, other christians who were deemed not pious enough or who were "heretics". In the event of a christian takeover of the US, atheists will likely be safe for a long while, until christans are done purging other christians.
ReplyDeleteHave you never heard of Jessica Alquist? She's just the latest of non-believers targeted by Christians. The 16-year-old girl received threats of rape, assault, and even death from kindly Christians who objected to her very existence. It has and still happens to Atheists.
DeleteReally what that quote is, is an education on exactly why religion must be kept from power at all costs. It's really pretty simple and you can see it in every political system: in any given point of view, the most extreme advocates of that point of view will rise to the top.
ReplyDeleteOnce you set in motion a system of competition over who is the most "faithful" in a religious sense as a means of vetting leaders, you inexorably move toward extremism. Just like we're seeing with the Republicans, moderates are eventually viewed as weak and are culled out in favor of "uncompromising firebrands".
So the fantasy that many Christians have that a Christian government would be wise and compassionate like Jesus is unfounded in history. Any time you get a theocracy, you eventually end up with the Taliban.
And that's not even taking into account the fact that most of these would-be "Christian" leaders are frauds in pious clothing, seeking only power and riches.
...Like some botox-infested hillbillies we know...
Boscoe, you nailed it.
DeleteChristianists and Islamists are two sides of the same coin.
And if Jesus were to run for office in a GOP primary, he'd lose.
Too compassionate, too humanist, too kind, too sane.
Great posts, both Boscoe and Barbara Carlson. There's always this ideological tug of war whenever the topic of Atheism is brought up.
DeleteNot to take away from your insight on Jesus losing the GOP primary, but if one exchanges any belief or non belief system, the analogy
"Too compassionate, too humanist, too kind, too sane" would equally apply to the divinity in all gods and humans.
To my own line of thinking, blind faith and zealotry necessarily demands a complete absence of logic and critical thought.
ReplyDeleteWhere is it written that all people must conform, and if they don't, their "too open minded", or "less than" whatever "normal" means?
ReplyDeleteWhy does this quote "offend", when wars and crusades "wiped out" "The bad guys", for what end? How CAN any deity condone torture, persecution and killing because "we're right and they're wrong"?
I consider myself an Atheist/Humanist, and to me, being called "godless" is a complement, yet it doesn't stop me from being a caring,etc. person and interacting with others who believe and are caring, etc people.
It's the extremists who let fear drive them to madness that scare me.
I posted a video on one of your threads about that blue beam; I count red blinky lights. Here's a comment I found at youtube
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOTwg3NdzvM&feature=related
Why Are the Anunnaki Doing This? ⇒ http://youtu.be/LRDlmQer6Dw
The Anunnaki are systematically disarming, disabling, deactivating, and destroying nuclear weapons of all sorts around the world. They even began nuking underground bases on September 26, 2011, producing effects on the surface that are earthquake-like (http://youtu.be/e4QmHY6z05s). These beings are here to take the power from the New World Order elite (Illuminati) and give it back to mankind.
FEMA plays a vital role in the New World Order. ... And when the gods begin their decent, FEMA will have you believe that Earth is being invaded by hostile extraterrestrials, and that FEMA has your best interests at heart. But these are not invaders, they are our saviors. ..."
Using night vision and infrared goggles and cameras, anyone can witness the battle being waged between the anti-NWO Anunnaki and the evil Illuminati (http://youtu.be/oM83bdXrW_E). At the present the battle is one-sided, ... The gods are biding their time for the strategical, astronomical, and astrologically perfect moment to destroy the New World Order and free us all."
The elite humans of earth are not faking the existence of UFO's and aliens. However, their aim is to manipulate us to fear and hate the returning Gods rather than embrace them for who they truly are: our rescuers. For they will destroy the New World Order, as the gods oppose deception, they will come and destroy key military bases, especially underground bases and the elite-controlled earth governments will declare that we are being invaded, and that we are being warred upon. But the truth is that it will be the insidious international bankers who are being warred upon, and all of their puppet governments destroyed.
Operation Mockingbird is all over YouTube like chemtrails and solar flares ... invasion by faking UFO sightings with fake UFOs and military in alien costumes (when, in fact, they are not). The non-existent Project Blue Beam (Bluebeam) is a disinformational psyoptical hoax, a double deception. Space has been weaponized. Why would the elite weaponize space if if they supposedly intend to use holograms to fake an alien invasion and if the threat to the evil New World Order was not real?
Freemason archeologist Zecharia Sitchin may have been used by TPTB to give a bias interpretation ... of the Sumerian tablets, but he was not the originator of the ancient astronaut theory...."
Due to Nibiru's increasing gravitational influence on earth, a pole shift is currently underway. There is certainly a virtual media blackout on both the shifting of Earth's poles and the return of planet Nibiru, called the Kachina star by the Hopi Indians, who told of its coming in their astronomical predictions and prophesies. There is also a full blackout on the nuclear destruction ..."
This is the apocalypse, the end of the (new) world (order) achieved by the power elite through infiltration of governments, political organizations, major news media corporations, and through CIA and black military and intelligence operations, secret societies, and international banks. The gods, led by the Elohim EN.LIL (YHVH), have taken up our cause, and they will completely annihilate the Satanic (Enkiite) power elite who have enslaved humanity."
------
Wooo....that's a lot to absorb. The Book of Revelations says that the devil and his mouthpieces will try to cause the nations to go to war with Jesus.