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| Who said atheism wasn't a religion???? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 18 2010, 09:39 AM (1,495 Views) | |
| KlavierBauer | Jul 19 2010, 02:31 PM Post #26 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I totally disagree with both of you. First of all, per capita I would wager that the number of vehement atheists vastly outweighs evangelical Christians going door to door. Secondly - the Christians have a reason for coming to your door. You may disagree with them, but they're not there to assert their belief in nothing upon you - they're there to share their belief in *something* with you. The Atheist (at least every vocal atheist I've met) spends most of his or her time engaging in never-ending discussions bordering on harassment making only one point - that they don't believe in anything. You can think Christians are crazy, or that there's no God or whatever, I don't really care. But to equate the average evangelist's motives with the average atheist seems folly to me. I just think Atheists should be more intellectually honest about the fact that they hate organized religion for one reason or another, and stop making it look like they're on some intellectual crusade to enlighten the stupid masses to the obvious fact that there's no God, hinging on such articulate arguments as: "prove it." Edited by KlavierBauer, Jul 19 2010, 02:32 PM.
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"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper "He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple | |
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| ivorythumper | Jul 19 2010, 03:11 PM Post #27 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Tell that the millions of victims of The Reign of Terror, the Nazi Death Camps, the Soviet Gulags, the Cultural Revolution, the Cambodian Killing Fields, and so on. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 19 2010, 03:57 PM Post #28 |
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MAMIL
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Did these people fly aeroplanes into American skyscrapers or blow up British buses? It's easy to point out lots of examples of atrocities committed over the years in the name of God. Sometimes the god was a person or an ideology. I don't really see the Nazis as atheists - many of them believed in God. 'Gott mit uns'. The ones who didn't pretty much made Hitler into a God. ![]() |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 19 2010, 03:59 PM Post #29 |
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MAMIL
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I don't hate organised religion at all. I'm a little envious, to be honest. Maybe I'm not really a proper atheist - anybody who has no doubt at all is delusional, IMNSHO. Dangerously so, more often than not. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| ivorythumper | Jul 19 2010, 04:12 PM Post #30 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Your point seemed to me that atheists did not commit atrocities. If you were literally arguing that they did not fly planes into buildings or blow up buses, and that somehow meaningful, then the point is so trite that it would not be worth making. I also have trouble thinking that you really believe that the Nazi appeal to God was anything of substance. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 19 2010, 04:34 PM Post #31 |
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MAMIL
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Not really. I was responding to someone saying how vehement atheists are - far more so than religious people. I was simply pointing out that religious people can be pretty vehement too. Personally, I think the atheists poncing around with hair dryers are pretty stupid. I suspect a lot of the more outspoken and annoyingly strident non-believers were either very religious earlier in life, or will end up being very religious later on. Generally people don't make the same mistake over and over again, but keep on making similar ones. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| KlavierBauer | Jul 19 2010, 04:59 PM Post #32 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I agree - I think you're someone who genuinely has a different belief. You're not filled with hatred, because you're belief is a personal one to you. It isn't your personal crusade to change the planet - nor is it my personal crusade to change the planet to my way of thinking. Nor would I categorize you as a proper atheist, probably coming something closer to "Agnostic." |
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"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper "He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple | |
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| Jolly | Jul 19 2010, 05:38 PM Post #33 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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+1. If you listen to D'oh, really listen...he's not an atheist, he's an agnostic. We'll git 'im, yet. Shucks, even Thomas doubted... |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 19 2010, 06:08 PM Post #34 |
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MAMIL
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My family has a long, thick line of heresy running through it, and no bugger's got us yet. Oddly enough, my good Muslim friend Khalid used to call me Thomas way back when for much the same reasons. Incidentally, I managed to lead him to the pub (my own personal place of worship), but I couldn't make him drink. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| blondie | Jul 20 2010, 01:59 AM Post #35 |
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Bull-Carp
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This must be regional America stuff. I've never heard of vocal atheists up here. Mind you, this is Canada. We rarely give a fig of such things as long as the beer is cold, the heat is on, and something good is on the tube. |
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| Phlebas | Jul 20 2010, 02:07 AM Post #36 |
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Bull-Carp
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Reminds me of the T-shirt; "Jersey girls aren't trash. Trash gets picked up." |
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Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D | |
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| blondie | Jul 20 2010, 02:21 AM Post #37 |
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Bull-Carp
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Snookie is so short and top heavy I swear she doesn't need to drink in order to topple over. That makes me laugh. I don't know which group of women are the most trashy: the jersey shore gals or the desperate housewives of Atlanta. The Atlanta gals are so obnoxiuosly loud, I've had to mute the TV during my treadmill sessions. |
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| Phlebas | Jul 20 2010, 02:35 AM Post #38 |
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Bull-Carp
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I xould never understand those "Real Housewives of..." shows. On the other hand, I've never watched one. |
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Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 20 2010, 03:56 AM Post #39 |
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MAMIL
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When I browse through the TV channels on a Friday evening, I don't see much in the way of The Vehement Atheist channel. I do however see a fair number of sweaty little fat bastards from South of the Mason-Dixon telling me I'm going to hell. I'm not complaining, you understand - there's nothing like this guy to persuade me I'm on the right track ![]() Praise Jeeeesus-ah. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Renauda | Jul 20 2010, 07:23 AM Post #40 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Or some sort of mystical and mythical nonsense that harkened back to the northern Europe's pre Christian early middle ages and antiquity. In any case D'Oh I understand your not at all trite point. I also wish to add that had the likes of Ferdinand and Isabella, Mary Tudor and numerous other pious Reformation- not to mention Medieval- personalities unfettered access to the means of modern transportation, communication, smokeless gunpowder and automatic weapons their respective reigns of terror would be every bit as horrific and on a mass scale the reigns of terror godless materialist demagogues and committees have conducted during the course of the last 200 years. |
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| KlavierBauer | Jul 20 2010, 07:43 AM Post #41 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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John: The shows I referred to earlier are internet based shows, like Penn's (of Penn and Teller fame) well known atheism series, and The Atheist Experience. You might find more "humour" however, in this guy. |
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"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper "He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple | |
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| AndyD | Jul 20 2010, 11:36 AM Post #42 |
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Senior Carp
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Hairdryers LOL. I have no doubt that life exists after death and that there is a Godhead. Does that automatically make me delusional? I also have a healthy regard for knowledgeable people who are sceptical, and aetheism presumably is not total closed-mindedness, just that they've found no logic or evidence to support any religious teachings. I was certainly agnostic about much of most religions as a teenager. |
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Every morning the soul is once again as good as new, and again one offers it to one's brothers & sisters in life. | |
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| Renauda | Jul 20 2010, 11:58 AM Post #43 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I trust you're referring to Thomas Paine. |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 20 2010, 12:05 PM Post #44 |
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MAMIL
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Yes. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| AndyD | Jul 20 2010, 12:51 PM Post #45 |
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Senior Carp
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I often feel agnostics/atheists haven't looked hard enough for evidence. It's up to you. |
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Every morning the soul is once again as good as new, and again one offers it to one's brothers & sisters in life. | |
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| Nobody's Sock | Jul 20 2010, 01:50 PM Post #46 |
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Fulla-Carp
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My personal life path has taken me from Christianity indoctrination since birth, learning to fear God, living by the golden rule, etc. etc. I've always just taken it for granted that the god of Moses created all of us. But the older I get, the more agnostic I become. I've been looking for evidence my whole life, and have found none. And why must I personally find it myself? Evidence is evidence. Why can't somebody else, who's presumably found some, share it with me? Anybody? Bueller? |
| "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." | |
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| KlavierBauer | Jul 20 2010, 02:25 PM Post #47 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I've never seen what evidence has to do with it. It's an easy enough argument to make - but the same can be said from the other side. As much as you don't see evidence, I do - how can I share with you as evidence something you already consider not to be evidence? I think if the sky ripped open and God came down shaking everyone's hand, there would still be people crying out for concrete evidence. I genuinely believe that. God won't be explained or comprehended by science - we're just able to scratch the surface of what exists here for us to understand fully - God isn't even something we can fully grasp, so I'm not holding my breath for a unifying theory to explain God to me in the way Einstein thought E=MC^2 would. When we can mathematically describe (not even comprehend, just describe) a singularity within a blackhole, without arriving at concepts which have zero "real" meaning such as infinity - I'll start asking tougher questions of science and its evidentiary process. Until then though - God exists as something wholly outside the realm of science and human understanding. I can't, and wouldn't want to confine and limit God's being to something tangible and accessible by my 5 senses - it sort of cheapens the whole thing. In other words, I respect your skepticism and your desire to see evidence - you're looking in the wrong direction however. |
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"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper "He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 20 2010, 03:12 PM Post #48 |
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MAMIL
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I don't think atheism is really a rejection of God for a lot of people, but a rejection of the idea that we have to worship him. In other words, it's a rejection of religion. For example, there's a huge difference between acknowledging the existence of the possibility that something beyond our understanding created the universe and the the idea that this same creator cares whether people have sex before they're married or not. I find the former idea easy to believe, but the second idea ridiculous to such an extent that it beggars belief. I look at the size of the earth in comparison with the size of the universe, and then the age of mankind compared with the age of the universe, and someone then comes and tells me that the all-powerful being that created this universe, this creation that approaches infinity in its magesty - this same entity is interested in whether I eat fish on Friday or masturbate. What other response than hysterical laughter is there? |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| KlavierBauer | Jul 20 2010, 03:20 PM Post #49 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Which is basically what I said originally. Atheists don't hate God, they hate religion. The other points you bring up are more agnostic in discussion than atheist, as per the etymology of each word. You're talking about the possibility of an existence which we simply can't know, and who probably doesn't care much about us. That's already crossing the big hurdle, and a true atheist would in fact disagree vehemently with this statement: "For example, there's a huge difference between acknowledging the existence of the possibility that something beyond our understanding created the universe and the the idea that this same creator cares whether people have sex before they're married or not. I find the former idea easy to believe, but the second idea ridiculous to such an extent that it beggars belief." |
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"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper "He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 20 2010, 03:47 PM Post #50 |
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MAMIL
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They don't necessarily hate religion. They might just think it's very silly. Let's face it, they have a point. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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4:46 PM Jul 10