Fear of the godless horde »
Posted By RickyDawkins 1 year, 2 months ago in ReligionWe want to change the culture as a whole so people make rational decisions about government and education, rather than relying on superstition and ignorant authority, and that's what ought to scare them more. -PZ Myers
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RickyDawkins
Atheism can be either the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist. In the broadest sense, it is the absence of ...
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memestryker1 year, 2 months ago
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In the U.S., with a first amendment that acknowledges religious freedom, the majority still does not acknowledge that it includes the rights of nontheists.
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Both our presidential contenders support state-religion entanglements, such as using taxpayer dollars for "faith-based" initiatives. These funds can be used by religious organizations who have received a green light from both liberal and conservative Supreme Court justices to discriminate based on religious belief, gender, or sexual orientation.-
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antibrainwasher1 year, 2 months ago
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Due to the arrogance and ignorance and fearmondering of the toothless inbred moron religicons, it's still illegal to run for political office in at least 2 states in this evangelical creationist nation.
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Welcome to the eternal stoneage, america the religicon stupid. -
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Dionys1 year, 2 months ago
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"In the U.S., with a first amendment that acknowledges religious freedom, the majority still does not acknowledge that it includes the rights of nontheists."
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So then you're finally willing to admit that atheism is not only a faith system but now also a religion?
Awesome.
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LADYSMITH1 year, 2 months ago
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The Truth That Will Not Be Told
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Prof. Paul Eidelberg
If you are wondering why the deluge of information about Obama’s shady past has not eliminated him from the presidential race;
If you are wondering why Obama may become America’s next president despite voluminous evidence of his being a liar and a fraud;
Let me reveal the secret underlying this grotesque state of affairs.
We are living in a postmodern world where truth and falsity are no longer relevant. In Barack Obama postmodernism (moral relativism) unites with the modernism that began with Machiavelli, who deified the self—the self-creating self that dispensed with the verities of the Bible.
Countless people who support Obama care not an iota about truth and falsity. Nihilism is pervasive. Propagated initially by the universities and subsequently spread by the mass media, nihilism permeates the Democratic Party, where the liberal-left is now triumphant. How appropriate that Obama should be the presidential candidate of this party! Obama is not only postmodern but post-American. He has created his own identity, which means he is a pure opportunist.
What attracts so many people to Obama is the very fact that he is a liar obviously infatuated by his own oratory, What matters to such Obamanites is not truth but the SHOW, the SHOW, the SHOW. That’s what Obama’s campaign is all about: not ISSUES, which require sound knowledge and proven experience, but SHOWMANSHIP. ENTERTAINMENT is all.-
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CRYMTYPHON1 year, 2 months ago
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You dislike moral 'relativism', LADYSMITH ?
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Then demonstrate your moral system.
Show us on Propeller, that you affirm values regardless of the circumstances.
I have never seen you, in any screenname, denoune a lie if it was aimed at an opponent;
I have never seen you affirm a truth, if it was detrimental to a cause you supported.
I have never seen you hesitate to judge absolutely; never withholding judgment for lack of evidence.
Because you attach a diety to your personal preferences,
it does not give your morals greater authority;
instead, you sound hollow; fraudulent;
like a used car salesman with a fish symbol on the sign. -
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Dionys1 year, 2 months ago
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"Countless people who support Obama care not an iota about truth and falsity"
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Okay. First it's kind of silly to be posting about Obama on an atheist thread considering that he's Christian (or considering the neo-Con's ridiculous claims Muslim).
Second, if anyone's morally and ethically bankrupt in this election it's the Neocons and McCain/Palin who have had the gall to lie, lie, lie and then when called on those lies by the media CONTINUE to lie knowing full well that they're telling lies. Furthermore the people of the Repugnant Con party tend to then parrot these lies over and over despite their having been proven to be... lies.
I agree with you that we live in a post-modern (or post-post-modern) world and that moral relativism has become somewhat of a danger in society. Lewis and Chesterton pointed these things out decades ago and they still hold true today.
Is it lack of a belief in a deity that fuels this, however? No. A lot of atheists I know are fully shaped, moral and ethical beings. Some are not. Just like you'd find in any religious tradition. Considering the moral vaccum often found within evangelical Christianity today, you may want to redirect your sputum.
What is lacking are the *connections* that used to be made within religious traditions. It is the breakdown of community and the breakdown of the realization of the interconnectedness of humanity and the universe that contributes to the breakdown of ethics and morals. For if we don't realize that our actions reverberate throughout our commonly constructed world then we are capable of all sorts of horrors.
Foremost at the head of this movement is the American idea of 'individualism' which has been carried to such an extreme that people can justify any action as long as they get ahead, no matter who they end up stepping on. -
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Sageparadox1 year, 2 months ago
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Omg, wow pathetic are we to have to do a political smear attack in a religious forum about atheism. I know, blah blah blah, Obama is a Muslim commy terrorist who want to spill the blood of our first born to make the sauce for the Flying Spagehti Monster.
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memestryker1 year, 2 months ago
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Obama is a Christian, and he well-versed on the content of the Christian Bible.
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Of course, that book is simply the written recording of a combination of history, folklore, and wisdom of a people. Its doctrine spread not only by the sword, but as a result of being the only publication produced by those with access to early printing presses.
I agree that Obama is a great orator--he has a trained voice, and his natural voice was already one that is pleasing to most ears. He also has mastered rhetoric, talking about ideals rather than realities in a way that people believe they are heading towards a utopia.
And I agree that he may be pushing us into a post-American era, through his strong ties to individuals and groups like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and the United Nations, all of whom support dictatorial autocracy rather than the democratic republic we try to maintain--to at least some extent.
I think Obama has a good heart and really wants to help people. He has sought to be the lead dog for much of his life--he has that drive--and there is nothing wrong with that. We need people who crave leadership roles. And those around him have encouraged it. I think he'll be preachy like Jimmy Carter if elected president.
He's already moved from the far left to a fairly conservative stance on abortion and religious issues, while also embracing a lot of autocratic leftist positions.
But then, most religious leaders also focus on showmanship, entertainment, the hypnotic effect of the baptismal pool's waves on the room, the hypnotic music when the plate is passed, etc.
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LADYSMITH1 year, 2 months ago
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antibrainwasher1 year, 2 months ago
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You keep praying to the invisible floating baby jesus for us, we'll still be thinking for you, LS, since you can't do it for yourself.
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Perhaps, if you spend 1 minute each day actually thinking for yourself, instead of echoing the megachurch snake handling inbred tent revival Ted Haggart wanabe foaming at the mouth programming infesting the sack of crap between your ears, you could actually post something worth reading now and then. -
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Charlson1 year, 2 months ago
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This is one atheist who doesn't care if you believe in a god or not. Please, quit villifying all atheists as undesireable people who don't know the difference between right or wrong. Many, if not most, atheists are moral people who treat their fellow citizens as they would like to be treated and we obey the laws and pay our taxes. I just don't believe that an all might creator created us. And even if I were to imagine a god exists, I just don't believe he/she was very successful in what he/she created and quickly lost interest in his/her mess. Life and how we live it is up to us, it's our responsibility, not God's, to distinguish right from wrong and good from bad.
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Dionys1 year, 2 months ago
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"Life and how we live it is up to us, it's our responsibility, not God's, to distinguish right from wrong and good from bad."
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I'm pretty sure most theists agree with you on this matter. Excepting the literalists, perhaps.. But they're damaged goods anyhow.
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toph19731 year, 2 months ago
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My aprents let me and my sister decide whether or not we went to church. We went a couple of times and that was it. They let us choose if we believed in god or not. After a couple of Sunday's it became apparent that what they were preaching was obviously not true.
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It does not take faith to dismiss the idea of god, nor does it take any sort of faith to be an athiest. All one has to do is think critically about it. Once critical thought is applied, the whole idea falls flat. Not to mention how factually innacurate the bible is.-
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Dionys1 year, 2 months ago
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"Once critical thought is applied, the whole idea falls flat."
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For you and for others, sure. For some it doesn't, even when applying critical thought. As evidenced by numerous, well-educated theolgians and philosophers, versed in theology, philosophy as well as the sciences. How is your judgement that once critical thought is applied that the whole idea of theism falls flat any different than the judgement of theists that atheists say they abhor?
Not to throw another wrench in the clockwork, but why does ' God ' (or the Gods) by neccessity have to submit to empirical science as the method of 'proof?' I'm pretty sure theologians, philosophers and artists don't require science to submit to theological proof, or 'artistic' proof whatever that may be.
Granted there are some evangelical nutjobs who think theology informs science, but then they have enough problems as it is with other issues.
But seriously. Why should the existence of God be decided by empirical science when science isn't decided by theology/philosophy/et cetera? -
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memestryker1 year, 2 months ago
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toph1973, the whole idea falls flat to those who are able to transcend indoctrination. I've watched former fundamentalist Christians become New Thoughters, and then "find" reincarnation and simply jump into another system of belief based on ancient Indian philosophy or the Edgar Cayce teaching. Or suddenly they decide to embrace Protestantism, with a focus on the "prophets."
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Those who finally make the jump out of folklore, metaphor, cultural engineering, etc. are few. And those who don't make the jump, or who are so indoctrinated they never even question belief, find it terrifying and unimaginable that people don't believe in the supernatural when they do. Some worry that, if there is no deity, it will all fall apart. Of course, that's silly, but not when one's brain has reified the idea of the supernatural.
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CRYMTYPHON1 year, 2 months ago
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This was a terrific thread; it made me recall what Propeller can be.
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I exchanged views with people smarter than me, and not once did they say ROFL, LOL, or ROTFLMAO. (I did get a hahahahaha but it was meant nicely).
Thanks RICKYDAWKINS! -
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