The video starts off giving the definition that most religious people seem to usually assign to people who think like I do, and then goes on to provide one that is much closer to the truth.
It may seem an unnecessary thing to fight these ridiculous suppositions, but remember the MOST distrusted people in America are the atheists, and that is a determination made by people who are fed a constant stream of lies about what experiences shape an atheist and what an atheist believes to be true.
How about a report something that affects all of us?
ReplyDeleteThe anatomy of a chicken sandwich boycott.
What will liberals come up with next to stir up an outrage?
egg sandwiches?
-Snotty Troll
Huh? Where's trig?
DeleteIf you don't know how religion affets allof us,you have your head in the sand.From jihads,to trying to force God into government,to oppression of women,to the denial of science,religion does its best to control our lives.
DeleteThe stupid ass queen makes it all about chicken and the bots follow. What's next....oh yeah, Tawd in the meeeelitary.
DeleteI think there’s something (god/goddess/spirit/spirits) out there… and it/they want to be worshipped.
ReplyDeleteBut, I treat atheists with the same respect as a member of a religion. (Yes, I watched the video even if it’s a little slow with Internet Explorer.) Good video.
Claiming atheism is a religion is like claiming NOT collecting stamps is a hobby.
DeleteO/T, but look like $carah's invite to speak is NOT in the mail:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/05/republican-convention-2012-speakers_n_1745553.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Whoot!
Hey little Snotty Troll/Flat Earther; could your people have put a rover on Mars?
ReplyDeleteBack to the subject at hand: I suspect that the great majority of atheists were born into a religious family and raised as regular churchgoers, much like myself. It took years of study and thought to come to the realization that this god we were taught to believe in didn't exist, and that we couldn't MAKE ourselves believe in a god, just to be like everyone else. Confusing belief in god with the golden rules of civil society is the most common and, IMO, nastiest mistake, taught by pastors and priests in order to control their flocks.
ReplyDeleteThis!
DeleteYeah, choice of religion seems relative to the family/culture into which you were born. Born in Saudia Arabia? You'll be Muslim. Born to Jewish parents? You'll choose Judaism. Born close to Rome? You'll be Roman Catholic. Born in Alabama? You'll be an Evangelical Christian. This observation doesn't hold true all the time, but it does most of the time.
DeleteDescribes me too!
DeleteThe notion that priests and pastors seek to "control their flocks" is pure rubbish. What is bad about humble human beings finding ways to connect with others, to be of help and find meaning in one's existence? While I am no fan of Evangelicals, I suppose even many of those congregations are engaged in good works, as well. Stop acting like religious people are zombies with no independence of thought. It is a silly stereotype intended to perpetrate your narrow perception of religious people.
Deletemy question to my church-going religious family and friends is:
ReplyDeleteif you believe that god created the heavens and earth for man....
then why don't you spend every opportunity learning about physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy so that you can better understand this miraculous gift?
oh, and if there is a god - he/she/it is a god of bonding - covalent bonds, hydrogen bonds, van der waals forces, etc.....which is what holds the atoms together to make the things that is the universe.
this god is a FANATIC about bonding. just saying.
Better yet, anon at 8:45, why don't they do a better job of making sure the earth is around for future generations by voting into office people who do likewise. Why keep voting in people who are owned by industries that do nothing but pollute our precious home planet?
ReplyDeleteBecause those delusional idiots are certain that we are in the end times so it doesn't matter. Get as rich as you can now, because, as you know, you CAN take it with you. LOL They're certain God won't mind us trashing the earth because we have "dominion" over everything.
DeleteProbably because they use a brush as broad as you're using to paint everyone they disagree with, I imagine.
DeleteWell, I have to say the first half was news to me as a Christian. I've never heard that explanation applied to atheists, not to mention it is fatally flawed. If Dave were and atheist because he hated God, he wouldn't be an atheist because he is acknowledging that God exists. Duh. The second half does resonate as a viable description of atheists.
ReplyDeleteGryphen, your opinions of Christians are really tainted by the plethora of fundie fake "christians" in your area. You should keep that in mind when you get on your soap box and stop painting all of us with the same broad brush. You seem to have many extremist religious people up there. That isn't the case everywhere in America.
HP reported recently on a Gallup poll which found that 54% of Americans would vote for a well-qualified atheist for President. After leaving the Presbyterian church, I spent decades as an agnostic before I converted to Catholicism. Besides liberal and mystical Catholics, my best friends include Protestants, agnostics, atheists, and a pagan from the Unitarian Universalist Church. We can all get along.
ReplyDeleteFor another eye-opener, google Catholic scientists, or Catholic astronauts. The father of the big bang theory was a Catholic priest, as was the father of genetics, Gregor Mendl. Amps and volts get their names from Catholic scientists. That's just scratching the surface.
Then there's one of my personal favorites, Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health. He also directed the Human Genome Project. He's an evangelical Christian, and he believes in miracles.
People who call themselves religious, but behave with bigotry and ignorance, are only a small minority. They may be vocal, but remember they don't represent most believers, any more than the God-hating atheist described in the video represents most atheists.
I moved a lot as a kid, which meant I've been a member of plenty of catholic churches before my confirmation, and eventual excommunication. Catholics love fire and brimstone. And they love guilt. Guilt was how we were controlled and put in line as children. Catholic guilt is a very real phenomena. And when it was found out I was bisexual, the guilt and fire and brimstone came out in full force when I was excommunicated at 13 for being a heathen.
DeleteChella, I've met many people who call themselves "recovering Catholics" and who endured negative consequences in the church. There's no doubting the truth of those painful experiences.
DeleteThere's also no denying the life of St. Francis of Assisi, the accomplishments of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, or the enormous good done by the Amazon Relief Project.
Melinda Gates is a practicing Roman Catholic whose charitable efforts reflect the church's position on social justice. There's no better example of living out the "preferential option for the poor" than her dedication to causes such as immunizations for children and birth control for women in underdeveloped countries.
My faith sometimes wavers, but I hope it never dies. This much I know is true: It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
I'm not saying Catholics can not be good people. My mother and her family are catholic, and they are some of the nicest, most compassionate people I've ever met. On my fathers side, genetic testing shows that my family can be traced back to the knights Templar, from when they were based in malta. His family are devout Catholics, but my father had tought me from a very young age to question EVERYTHING.
DeleteI grew up believing in god because that's what I was told. My first waver of faith came after the movie Jurassic Park came out, and my 6 year old self became obsessed with dinosaurs. My catechism teacher told me that dinosaur fossils were put in the earth by the devil to fool us, yet every book available in my library begged to differ (as a side note, I was a very advanced reader. By the time I hit 3rd grade, I was reading on a high school level. Math, however, was all jibberish to me)
And through my life, I continued to question everything. My mother told me I could still go to heaven, regardless of my excommunication, because god knew I was a good person, yet the very same dogma was had subscribed to told me I was no longer in the good graces of god.
While I do not believe god exists, I do stand is absolute awe and wonder in the universe and the fact that the same atoms that make up my body were born from the death of a star. Amazing stuff.
I don't have a problem the religious, I have a problem with their organizations.