Atheists and Agnostics Meeting Place

[Stormer0628]

^ Here we go again. If you will care to read outside of your regular source canon, reasonsforjesus, you will find a larger world outside of its suffocating, limited worldview. As it features those very few who leaves atheism for theism, it neglects the larger number leaving theism for atheism. I mentioned clergyproject, which helps those leaving their faiths in droves, not a trickle few, mind you, and you could still go there to get a glimpse of what's really happening in the larger context of society.

As for Asst. Prof Rossiter's views, it's safe to assume he is of the atheist type who was less grounded on the deeper foundations of atheism, just in it along for the ride, as happens also on the other fence of the divide, the theists who are also not inclined to check the basis of their denominations.

Why do I say that? Well, for one thing a few readings on Rosseau, Voltaire, Spinoza, Kant of the classical thinkers would have given him a glimpse of what he's missing in establishing a reasonable view of morality in society. It's the reason why we have the Magna Carta and the American Constitution after all.

If he dug more, he would have found Rand's Objectivist model the anchor to an objective morality. I doubt he's even aware of Clarke's views posted above showing how religions' posturings misled people to believe morality is tied up to some religion, when in fact morality exists outside of any religion's grasp and is totally independent of them. But again, people don't see how religions effectively hijack all the good things that mean to society.

 

[Dreamer]

On The 700 Club FRIDAY: Go inside the story of an atheist's journey to faith. The Case for Christ is a story that has touched millions and we're giving you an exclusive look at the new movie. #CaseforChrist

https://www.facebook.com/cbnnews/videos/10158738871380393/

 

[tocris]

Hi Tanong lang san po ako nabibilang?
I believe there is a creator/creators but not the one discribed in the bible.

 

[Stormer0628]

Endless Religious Absurdities

Pentecostalism—in which worshippers compulsively spout incomprehensible sounds called “the unknown tongue” (glossolalia)—has become a major world religion. An estimated three hundred million North Americans and Southern Hemisphere residents now attend churches where glossolalia occurs. This faith is surging, while most other branches of Christianity fade.

Santeria worshippers sacrifice thousands of dogs, pigs, goats, chickens, and the like to a variety of deities that are partly Catholic saints and partly African jungle gods. Bodies of the unlucky animals are dumped into waterways. Miami police patrol boats fish out the carcasses. Santeria (“way of the saints”) is somewhat similar to voodoo, but it arose among Spanish slaves instead of French ones.

Many millions of Hindus pray over models of Shiva’s penis. They make pilgrimages to a Himalayan cave where a penis-like ice stalagmite rises in winter. In San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, many worshippers pray at a phallic-looking traffic barrier.

About five thousand fervent young Muslims have detonated themselves as human bombs in “martyrdom operations” to kill tens of thousands of “infidels.” The phenomenon peaked on September 11, 2001, when nineteen suicide volunteers hijacked four airliners and crashed them like projectiles to kill nearly three thousand Americans. The year 2007 had more than five hundred suicide attacks worldwide—well above one per day.

Another exception to Christian decline is the steady rise of Mormons. Latter-day Saints say an angel named Moroni revealed buried golden plates in New York State and gave Joseph Smith magical stones enabling him to translate the writing on those plates. The plates and stones cannot be examined as evidence today, because Moroni allegedly took them back to heaven.

Thousands of witch-killings still occur in tropical Africa, rural north India, Papua New Guinea, and other places with large numbers of uneducated people. When disease or drought happens, superstitious villagers blame old female “witches” for causing the blight, and mobs murder them. Saudi Arabia still has a law against witchcraft, which results in periodic beheadings. Today’s killings almost rival those of the historic medieval witch-hunts, when up to one hundred thousand women were tortured into confessing that they copulated with Satan, flew through the sky, changed into animals, blighted crops, and so on—then were burned.

Cult suicides and murders were an epidemic in the late twentieth century. More than nine hundred believers died in the 1978 Jonestown tragedy. Nearly one hundred others perished at Waco’s Branch Davidian compound in 1993. Various smaller cult massacres occurred—and Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) sect planted nerve gas in Tokyo’s subway in 1995, killing thirteen commuters and sickening about a thousand.

Tibet’s Buddhists say that when an old Dalai Lama dies, his spirit enters a baby boy being born somewhere. So, the faith remains leaderless for about a dozen years, until the supposed spirit-receiving boy is found and proclaimed the next Dalai Lama.

Jehovah’s Witnesses say that any day now, Jesus will descend from heaven with an army of angels to clash with Satan and an army of demons in the long-foreseen Battle of Armageddon. After the destruction, only 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses will survive. This group is another that is growing while most of Christianity fades. Meanwhile, other sects await a somewhat similar scenario at the Rapture.

Advanced-level Scientolo?gists say that every human contains “thetans,” spirits or souls that began as space aliens seventy-five million years ago and were sent to Planet Earth by an evil galactic ruler named Xenu. Scientologists pay money for therapy courses designed to “clear” excess thetans from their bodies.

The world’s 1.5 billion Catholics are told that the bread-like host wafer actually turns into the real flesh of Jesus—and the communion wine actually becomes the real blood of Jesus—by the miracle of transubstantiation during mass (although they still look like bread and wine). Disputes over this doctrine of “real presence” helped spur the Hussite Wars of the 1400s and the subsequent Protestant Reformation.

Creationists of the “young Earth” variety contend that this planet and the universe were willed magically into existence in six literal days, as Genesis says, around ten thousand years ago. They claim that humans and dinosaurs were created in the same week and coexisted. They reject science findings that the universe is more than thirteen billion years old. They reject evidence that dinosaurs went extinct at least sixty million years before the earliest humans developed. In fact, they reject any evidence of gradual development, insisting that all animals and plants were created instantly in final form.

“Cargo cults” grew in the southwest Pacific. During World War II, both Allied and Japanese armies built Melanesian island airstrips that received many tons of food, material, and supplies. Primitive tribes nearby thought the arriving riches were gifts that gods and ancestors had intended for them. Believers cut imitation airstrips in jungles, fashioned life-size aircraft of straw, and marched with wooden guns in hope of receiving airborne gifts from heaven. Previously, during colonialism, similar worshippers saw foreign goods arrive by ship, so they built makeshift wharves and performed rituals to induce gods to send them wealth by sea. All the god-enticing failed.

In the mid-1800s, a Chinese man read Christian pamphlets and had a vision in which God told him he was a younger brother of Jesus—and also told him to “destroy demons.” The vision-seer raised a religious army, the Taipings, which conquered much of China before being exterminated. The death toll is estimated as high as twenty million.

Aztec priests sacrificed an estimated twenty thousand people per year to an invisible feathered serpent and other fantastical gods.

In the 1800s, followers of Thuggee in India believed that the many-armed goddess, Kali, wanted followers to exterminate humans because Brahma the creator was making lives faster than her consort, Shiva the destroyer, could end them. Thugs strangled an estimated twenty thousand people yearly, until British rulers tracked them down and halted the carnage.

The Bible says that anyone who works on the Sabbath “shall surely be put to death,” and brides who aren’t virgins may be stoned to death on their fathers’ doorsteps, and gays must be killed, and on and on.

Religious absurdities are too numerous to count: Shi’ites whip themselves bloody with blades on chains because their hero, Muhammad’s grandson, was killed by a Sunni army fourteen centuries ago; Appalachian fundamentalists pick up rattlesnakes (sometimes with fatal results) because in the Great Commission, Jesus said believers “shall take up serpents”; Philippine Christians have themselves nailed to crosses on Good Friday, with real nails through palms and feet; Sufi “Whirling Dervishes” trance-dance and spout strange sounds; Christian Scientists let their children die of simple fevers because they think disease is imaginary; other believers, perhaps mentally ill, beat their children to death to “drive out demons”; Bible prophecy zealots repeatedly set Doomsday dates, but nothing happens (spurring headlines screaming “The Final Days Are Here Again”); and on and on, ad infinitum.

It’s often said that everyone should respect the “great truths” contained in all faiths. If you see any, please let me know.

SOURCE

 

[logicrojo]

Hindi.



Atheist - I don't believe in god/s

Agnostic - I don't know if there are god/s

Atheistic Agnostic - I don't know if there are god/s but I don't believe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

how do you define the term 'agnostic', BTW?



'Strong atheist' ang tinutukoy mo dito, a subset of atheism.
The term 'atheist' in general means non-belief in the existence of God/gods.
There is, however, a subset called 'strong atheists' who do openly claim that there is no God/s.
Dito sa Symbianize ewan ko kung sino yung mga atheist na openly kine-Claim nila na wala talagang God/gods,
Deity/deities, CREATOR, Supreme Being, Higher Being, First Cause, Intelligent Designer
or kung ano man ang nais mong itawag.



What do you mean by this?

Atheistic agnosticism is NOT a religion. ganun din ang atheism.


I mean, last year ako naging atheist(atheistic agnostic to be exact). gets?

I am an atheistic because I don't believe the CLAIM made by theist that there is a God/gods.
I am an agnostic because I cannot know for certain that there is no God or CREATOR. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism
sa Spectrum of theistic probability ni Richard Dawkins, #6 ako.

Mga Sir/Ma'am meaning to say may chance po ba maniwala na there is a God ang Atheist at Agnosm? Kasi ang strong Atheist there is no God but ang atheist at agnosm they dont know if God exist? im just curious and I'm enjoying reading this group. haha

 

[bjayetnap]

Mga Sir/Ma'am meaning to say may chance po ba maniwala na there is a God ang Atheist at Agnosm? Kasi ang strong Atheist there is no God but ang atheist at agnosm they dont know if God exist? im just curious and I'm enjoying reading this group. haha

Hello there! I'm an Agnostic Atheist. In my point of view, I don't believe in God but I cannot prove that there is no God. I don't think Atheist or Agnostic (Agnosm as you type) will believe in God simply because they're already equipped with the definition of both words. Unless magkaroon ng turning point na magbalik loob sila ulit sa religion which is not impossible dahil meron namang mga atheist na bumabalik sa religion.

 

[xymo]

Mga Sir/Ma'am meaning to say may chance po ba maniwala na there is a God ang Atheist at Agnosm? Kasi ang strong Atheist there is no God but ang atheist at agnosm they dont know if God exist? im just curious and I'm enjoying reading this group. haha

pag nagpakita sakin si god, then i wont be an atheist anymore.

 

[quianna]

Resulta ng walang Dios

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn2s25qnHk4

 

[xymo]

Resulta ng walang Dios

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn2s25qnHk4

lol. nung nakita ko lang yung title ng link hindi ko na pinanood.

meron bang bro eli vs richard dawkins? pa share naman ng link

 

[ahasss]

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

 

[rueryuzaki]

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

^- You're not updated. Binago na yan.

---
How was teh 'Holy ' Week , everyone?

 

[NANDAYO]

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

ngayon ko lang nalaman , ,napakarami palang Katoliko ang Hindi nag babasa ng Bible , , ,yung GF ko Catholic ,,sagrado, ,araw araw nag rorosaryo , ,pero kahit kailan Hindi sya nakapag basa ng Bible , , nakakatawa, , ,pero mahal ko sya kaya inuunawa ko nalang , , ,

 

[rueryuzaki]

ngayon ko lang nalaman , ,napakarami palang Katoliko ang Hindi nag babasa ng Bible , , ,yung GF ko Catholic ,,sagrado, ,araw araw nag rorosaryo , ,pero kahit kailan Hindi sya nakapag basa ng Bible , , nakakatawa, , ,pero mahal ko sya kaya inuunawa ko nalang , , ,

Yep, that's quite true. Kapag tinanong mo kung ano meron dun, di masyado alam kung ano contents.

 

[xymo]

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

all i can see is I

good thing its not WE

this prayer and the rest of the rosary prayer is engrave inside my skull by my mother who brings hell to me when ever i refuse to go to church on an effin sunday morning during my younger years. ilang sinturon na ang dumampi sa pwet at binti ko. ilang hangers na rin ang nabali din. ahahaha.

i guest that is the way how you make em chris.... atheist. ahahaha.

love you mama!

 

[Stormer0628]

^ Which brings to mind the following....

Pat Robertson: Non-Religious Children Should Be Beaten Until They Respect Christian Beliefs

In another example demonstrating that Pat Robertson believes in persecuting non-Christians and indoctrinating children, the televangelist openly suggested that parents should beat their kids until they respect Christian beliefs.

During yet another shameful episode of the 700 Club, which runs on Disney-owned channel ABC Family, Robertson received an email from a woman who claimed that her grandson disrespects their Christian faith when they visit their daughter on Christmas and chose not to visit this past year.

“We declined going to our daughter’s house on Christmas this year because there is always an argument, hard feelings etc.,” viewer Karen wrote.

“One grandchild comes high on marijuana, cursing and challenging our faith. I correct him and have told my daughter to ask him to respect our beliefs, but he keeps it up. Our daughter says she is a Christian but will drink too much and offend her daughter and her husband. Were we wrong to not to attend another Christmas that leaves us upset or someone angry? I have shared my beliefs many times with them and am ridiculed by this grandson and son-in-law.”​

Robertson’s immediate solution? Beat the child until he respects Christianity.

“Somebody take that kid to the woodshed and let him understand the blessings of discipline,” Robertson advised before predicting that the kid would end up in prison if a strong male figure didn’t start beating him right away.

“He needs a strong male figure. He’s going to wind up in a correctional institution, and the next thing you know, he’s going to be doing hard time in some prison. And then he would wish he wasn’t such a smart, you know, wise guy. Because he’ll be disciplined in a way that he’ll never forget in some prison… He needs discipline in the worst possible way.”

Here’s the video via YouTube...

One solution Pat Robertson conveniently didn’t mention is for Karen to stop bringing up religion at her daughter’s home. She says she has “shared her beliefs many times with them” and admits that it always causes an argument. Well, there’s her problem. Stop trying to force your beliefs upon your daughter’s family and the arguments will probably cease. It’s not that people are offended by someone just because they practice a certain religion, they just tend to get offended when someone tries to force those beliefs onto them. By doing this, Karen is inviting arguments, hard feelings, and ridicule from family members who don’t want to be preached to during a holiday or any other day of the year for that matter.

Robertson’s solution is not only cruel, it constitutes child abuse, which is against the law. Beating a child into respecting a religious belief is the very definition of indoctrination and violates the constitutional rights of the abused.

Robertson’s call for beating kids into religious submission is similar to a Glenn Beck rant from 2013 when he also advocated for parents to physically abuse their kids until they believe in God. Just two years earlier, fundamentalist Christian parents beat their nine kids in the name of God. One child actually died from the abuse. Telling religious extremists to beat their kids is a very dangerous thing to do, and if any religious parents beat their kids like Robertson is advising, he should be charged as an accessory to child abuse.

SOURCE

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Supernatural Beliefs: The Trillion-Dollar Fraud

Think of the amazing number of supernatural beliefs held by people:

Gods, goddesses, devils, demons, angels, heavens, hells, purgatories, limbos, miracles, prophecies, visions, auras, saviors, virgin births, immaculate conceptions, resurrections, bodily ascensions, faith-healings, exorcisms, salvation, redemption, messages from the dead, voices from Atlantis, omens, magic, clairvoyance, spirit-signals, divine visitations, incarnations, reincarnations, second comings, judgment days, astrology horoscopes, psychic phenomena, extra-sensory perception, telekinesis, voodoo, fairies, leprechauns, werewolves, vampires, zombies, witches, warlocks, ghosts, wraiths, poltergeists, dopplegangers, incubi, succubi, palmistry, tarot cards, ouija boards, levitation, out-of-body travel, magical transport to UFOs, Elvis on a flying saucer, invisible Lemurians in Mount Shasta, Thetans from a dying planet, etc., etc.

That’s about 60 varieties — and you can probably think of others I overlooked.

All these magical beliefs are basically alike. There’s no tangible evidence for any of them. You can’t test supernatural claims; you’re expected to swallow them by blind faith. The only “proof” for them is that they were “revealed” by some prophet, guru, astrologer, shaman, mullah, mystic, swami, psychic, soothsayer or “channeler.”

Well, considering the human brain’s vaunted power of logic, you’d think that people everywhere would reject magical assertions that can’t be verified. But the opposite is true. Billions of people embrace them. Almost all of humanity prays to invisible spirits and envisions a mystical realm. Virtually every leader invokes the deities. Supernaturalism pervades our whole species, in one form or another.

Around the planet, varying from culture to culture, the phenomenon is nearly universal. It consumes billions of person-hours and trillions of dollars. Millions of prayers to unseen beings are uttered every day, and millions of rituals performed. This extravaganza requires a vast array of priests and personnel, and a vast array of buildings and facilities. The cost is astronomical. Americans alone give $70 billion a year to churches — more than the national budgets of many countries. Other supernatural investment is enormous. For example, Americans spend $300 million a year on psychic hot-lines.

In this mighty ocean of spirituality, only a few rebels dare to ask: What if it’s all untrue? What if no spirit realm exists, and the whole enterprise is a fantasy? What if people don’t live after death? What if thousands of years of kneeling, praying, worshiping, sacrificing, fighting holy wars, torturing heretics and the like was, and continues to be, a monumental waste?

What if the emperor has no clothes?

What if the whole supernatural spectrum and its huge army of practitioners constitute a trillion-dollar fraud?

Well, we in this room, I think, are fairly certain that the entire mystical realm is a delusion, a global self-deception. But few Americans agree with us. We are a tiny fringe, so outnumbered that it’s almost forbidden to voice our view. No television network or mainstream magazine or other mass medium would dare say that religion isn’t divine. And when we say it, hardly anyone listens.

To make matters worse, we’re losing ground in some intellectual circles. In the past, we could feel confident that the most intelligent, educated thinkers regarded miracle claims as bogus. But this former fact of life is being undercut by the trend called postmodernism.

In academia these days, many say that the “truths” of supernatural religion are just as valid as the “truths” of science or the “truths” of history learned through centuries of human experience. Postmodernists proclaim that all knowledge is subjective, merely the perceptions of the perceiver.

Well, I don’t want to bog down in deep extremes of philosophy — in the abstruse question of whether it’s possible to know anything beyond “cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). Descartes showed that all I can know with certainty is that my mind exists, and is receiving impressions — and it’s only an assumption that the impressions are a valid picture of external reality.

Leaving that enigma aside, and looking at human reality as we live it, I think we can conclude that postmodernism is baloney. In our everyday, practical world, some things are real and others are bogus. Some things are trustworthy, and others aren’t. Some obviously work, and some obviously fail. We can see it through simple common sense.

If your child develops pneumonia, you don’t hire a witch-doctor to shake rattles and chant incantations — you seek antibiotics and the best professional care. You don’t consider one treatment as good as the other. In other words, you believe in science, not supernaturalism — because your intelligence has taught you that one is real and the other is quacko.

Or if your car breaks down, you don’t pray for the engine to be healed — you seek a skilled mechanic and a well-equipped garage. You know that prayer is no more effective than rattle-shaking — while the intelligent technology of motor repair really works (most of the time).

In fact, we could declare a universal law that is borne out in daily life time after time after time: Science works and prayer fails. Reason and logic bring enormous benefits to humanity — but supernaturalism brings little of value, and often brings terrible harm. Consider some examples:

Aztec priests cut out people’s hearts to appease an invisible feathered serpent and other magical gods. They also strangled children so their tears would satisfy the rain god. And they decapitated maidens, skinned them, and danced in their skins to please gods. Most sources say the Aztecs sacrificed about 20,000 victims a year. Yet, today, everyone knows that the invisible feathered serpent and other Aztec gods didn’t exist. So this ghastly slaughter was a total waste — hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed for nothing.

What benefit did this supernatural religion bring to the people? Would postmodernists say that Aztec beliefs were just as valid as our modern belief in science and democracy and human rights?

The Thugs of India strangled people for Kali, the goddess of destruction. Their theology held that Brahma the Creator was making new lives faster than Shiva the Destroyer could end them, so Shiva’s wife Kali wanted her followers to hunt unsuspecting humans and strangle them with sashes. Again, estimates say the Thugs were killing about 20,000 victims a year until British rulers stamped out the practice. Today, millions of Hindus still worship Kali — and occasional rumors of human sacrifice still surface — but most of the world doubts that there’s an invisible Kali who desires strangulations. So you see, supernatural beliefs caused horrible bloodshed, for nothing. They’re not just as valid as the rational, scientific outlook.

Next, think of the multitudes of “heretics” and “witches” who were tortured and killed by the Holy Inquisition – all in the name of the compassionate Jesus. Think of philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for saying the universe is infinite. Think of physician Michael Servetus, who discovered that blood circulates from the heart to the lungs. He was burned in Calvinist Geneva for doubting the Trinity.

All that torture and burning was declared to be “God’s will” — but nobody today actually believes it was. Even the church, if cornered, must concede that the claim of a divine mandate was false.

How many postmodernists would contend that the “truth” proclaimed by the inquisitors was genuine?

No, I think intelligent people who look at the world objectively perceive that some things are real, and others are unreal. To me, all supernaturalism belongs in the latter category. It’s the trillion-dollar fraud.

So — where does that leave us? Is humanity doomed to be forever mired in voodoo? Maybe not.

When I was a young thinker and knew everything, it was obvious to me that mysticism soon would vanish, because bright, educated, science-minded people would see that it’s all a fantasy.

As usual, I was wrong. In my lifetime, there has been an upsurge in fundamentalism, Pentecostalism and other sorts of magic. Fundamentalist Muslims became the deadliest terrorists. Fundamentalist Jews are wrecking democracy in Israel. Fundamentalist Christians want to restore Puritanism in America. Fundamentalist Hindus destroy mosques and battle fundamentalist Sikhs in India.

And yet, in spite of this soaring irrationalism, part of me still thinks my original hunch was right. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but I predict that scientific agnosticism will blossom among intelligent people, especially in Western cultures. In fact, it’s happening now, insidiously.

America evolves constantly, in subtle increments that aren’t noticed until you look back. Remember the 1950s: Blacks were forbidden to enter white schools, restaurants, theaters, hotels, neighborhoods, pools and most workplaces. Gays were imprisoned for “sodomy.” Unmarried couples were arrested on “fornication” charges. Looking at the equivalent of a Playboy magazine or R-rated movie could land you in jail. Ditto for buying a lottery ticket or cocktail. Jews were banned from some clubs and subdivisions. Divorce and unwed pregnancy were hush-hush disgraces. It was a crime in some states to sell condoms, even to married couples.

Today, that era seems as unreal as the Civil War. It slipped away, but most of us were too busy to see it leaving. If we didn’t notice those profound cultural shifts, what others are creeping up on us now, undetected in the daily hubbub? Nobody can answer with certainty. Social tides are hard to chart. (Not even pundits saw that Soviet communism was about to evaporate.)

Well, I think America is going through another unseen transformation: the retreat of supernatural religion, at least among the educated class.

Although the Christian Coalition still can marshal millions of evangelicals for Republican candidates, and the Promise Keepers can fill arenas, I think the brightest Americans steadily are losing confidence in magic.

Hardly anyone today, as I said, trusts prayer to cure diseases. In fact, American society is so unanimous on this point that prayer-only parents who let their children die without medical care are prosecuted.

Politicians still invoke deities loudly, but in truth, they don’t really expect heaven to reach down and “bless” America. Government programs are based on pure humanism: people striving to improve daily life, without supernatural aid.

Even sophisticated ministers doubt the gods — although they usually hide their disbelief in pious-sounding words. Episcopal Bishop John Spong of New Jersey has just finished another book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, belittling the notion that “God is a supernatural being who rules the universe from on high.” Since there’s no magical god, he concludes, there likewise is no divine, resurrected, invisible redeemer.

Another new book, The Meaning of Jesus, contrasts the views of two Episcopal thinkers. One of them, Ohio State University professor Marcus Borg, says Jesus wasn’t divine, wasn’t born of a virgin, wasn’t resurrected, and isn’t coming again. Of course, all this is camouflaged in a smokescreen of churchy euphemisms.

Think of it: Cautiously, evasively, some religious leaders are saying that the whole basis of Christianity is untrue. I’m sure that many intelligent preachers secretly share their view, but don’t dare say so.

Slowly, subtly, America is becoming like Europe, where supernatural religion has faded to a tiny fringe. One indicator of U.S. change is the disappearance since the 1950s of all those puritanical taboos rooted in church “thou shalt nots.” Another indicator is the traumatic shrinkage of “mainline” Protestantism, once the domain of the elite. I think the decline of those tall-steeple churches means that educated people have less faith in gods and heavens.

The western world is turning more rational, more scientific. Education is dispelling superstition.​

America’s Catholic hierarchy still denounces the “sin” of birth control, but members don’t listen. Evangelists still rant against sex, but most Americans no longer think sex is “dirty.” (U.S. sales of X-rated videos passed $4 billion in 1997.) Fundamentalists still call gays evil, but society at large is more tolerant. Preachers proclaim “God’s will” on these topics, but it rings hollow.

Don’t get me wrong — religion and supernaturalism still are mighty. At least 50 million Americans worship each Sunday. No politician could be elected if he admitted atheism. New Age mysticism is blooming.

But, insidiously, subconsciously, the scientific outlook is winning among the educated, I think. Yale scholar Stephen Carter wrote a book titled The Culture of Disbelief, protesting that U.S. trend-setters no longer take religion seriously. Carter called it a sign of moral decay — but I call it a sign of rising mental honesty.

America is evolving — in a healthy direction. Despite all the pious posturing, if you look carefully through the daily tumult, you can see supernaturalism dying.

One final thought: As society turns more secular, some people give less thought to religion, and don’t ask whether it’s true or phony. But this evades a major issue of honesty. Steve Allen put it well in one of his books:

“I do not understand those who take little or no interest in the subject of religion. If religion embodies a truth, it certainly is the most important truth of human existence. If it is largely error, then it is one of monumentally tragic proportions — and should be vigorously opposed.”​

Well, most of us hold the latter view, and are trying to oppose the trillion-dollar fraud. Honesty compels us to speak out. When we see multitudes worshiping unseen spirits, and hear declarations about heaven and hell, integrity makes us raise questions, and ask for proof.

Although we questioners are greatly outnumbered, I think history is moving in our direction. Wise people are abandoning the supernatural. Someday, maybe, most of the educated class will follow. If it happens, we skeptics of today may be seen like the abolitionists who said slavery was wrong, or the feminists who sought equality for women. They were just a fringe, often ridiculed — but they eventually prevailed over the majority. Now the whole world looks back and knows they were right. I hope that this is our destiny.

SOURCE

 

[nyakunamx]

The Case for Christ link anyone? thanks in advance

 

[Stormer0628]

I’ve been there.

At church, closing your eyes, lost in the moment. The piano, the guitars, the perfect ambience, hundreds of people … feeling so beautiful and clean inside that tears are streaming down your face … 

And then, the pastor gets up to talk about the Bible. And he says that what you were doing was worshipping God, and that God doesn’t like sin. He dislikes it so much that he died for it.

He died so you could feel love — the same love that you were feeling a few minutes ago, that you were lost in. To do that, he had to get rid of sin.

And sin is listed in a big book that indicates that you have to think the beautiful marriage that a gay couple has is bad.

It’s confusing. You were feeling so beautiful inside … but in order to feel that, you have to believe that things are wrong that don’t necessarily seem all that wrong. Things that hurt other people.

And they’re based on fantastic things in the Bible that seem … a bit unbelievable. But you have to get your spirituality here and only here, somehow, if you don’t want to go to hell forever … 

As an atheist, I’m not trying to take away the positive feelings you get. Really, I’m not. When I rant and rave, it’s often because I’m outraged that people joined the beautiful feeling you get in church with a bunch of rules that hurt people and a God who makes you feel so inferior that you have to thank him for every breath you take.

I think it’s a simple point, but one that often gets missed: you can have a connection — even a deeply spiritual one — to the entirety of existence, and get lost in it and inspired by it, without believing in all of the other nonsense. You don’t have to think gay marriage is wrong in order to close your eyes and lose yourself in the beauty of connection that you can experience in the here and now.

And spirituality isn’t a commitment, either. Sometimes I like to be contemplative and connect deeply to nature. Sometimes that’s boring as hell and I want to get involved in the hustle-bustle of life. That’s awesome. Life isn’t the one thing. Religion may try to consume you and say it is, but … I think it’s better to just live, man. You can have deep personal, “spiritual” feelings on your own time.

And what I have to say is … you do you.

If you don’t like spirituality, if it gives you a bad taste in your mouth, if you want to get rid of it — go ahead. Get rid of it in your life.

If you find those feelings you got in church in the mountains, on hikes, in a canoe, etc., like many atheists I know … find it there.

If you find it through art, through music, through dance, through painting, through singing, through doing your job well, through movies … indulge.

If you find it in watching and/or playing sports or exercising, do it there.

If you get it through video games or other forms of technology, congrats. Play Candy Crush if it makes you happy, and give haters the middle finger (no, I don’t play Candy Crush, but you get my drift). Life is short, and happiness is hard to find, so if you find something that makes you happy, reward yourself.

If you get it through meditation, then go ahead and meditate.

If you get it from reading … wow. There are millions of beautiful books we’ve written over the millennia, and we have the Internet. Read to your heart’s content.

If you find that feeling of spirituality in any other of hundreds of ways … go ahead. Go after it. Hell, if you find it through ritual, you can go join a really liberal church like the Unitarian Universalists or something (been there once when a Wiccan spoke — pretty cool). Where you get those feelings from is up to you.

And wherever you find it, if you look, you can find a community of people who get it from the same place. And you can drink in the “spirituality” or lack thereof together. It’s not just in church. Sure, it might be necessary to look beyond your atheist community … and that’s OK. There are very few people you’ll have EVERYTHING in common with.

Ultimately, spirituality is a feeling of euphoric connection to yourself and things outside of yourself. That’s it. And I really don’t think you need God to do it.

Here’s the thing though — don’t try to unjustly hurt other people. Either inside your group or outside. And look at the world rationally when you’re making decisions for other people. Like … it’s one thing to lose yourself in a video game. But please don’t pretend you’re playing Grand Theft Auto when you’re driving down the freeway in real life.

Here’s what I think happens: People go into these churches, they get these deeply spiritual feelings, and then they’re told that in order to keep them they have to fend off “the world” who may take try to take it away, and as a result they become tribal and insular, developing rules that hurt themselves and other people in the process, and their feelings of spirituality get entangled with the rules.

The key here, I think, is to separate that. Realize that deep sense of connection is your own — you own it. You decide what contexts you’ll express it in. And if it makes you happy, express it in a way that doesn’t hurt people, and be happy. You only get the one life. Get as much beauty out of it as you can.

So yeah, I’m an atheist. And I’m very vocal. But those feelings of spirituality are not something I’m trying to take away from people — I’m attacking religion. If anything, I think getting rid of religion increases the ways we can express ourselves through the feelings we label “spirituality,” and without the barrier of God-enforced rules, the intensity of the feelings we express can develop.

I’m against much of religion because I think it takes away or limits happiness, and I’m very interested in ensuring that people are happy after they leave. And once you look past the moneygrubbing preachers who say that that’s impossible … there seem to be a lot of ways it is possible.

Feel free to embrace them. As long as you’re not hurting people, or making rules you’re illogically forcing others outside your group to follow or be held accountable to … you are free to take advantage of all the world of beauty has to offer.

Life is hard enough as it is. Don’t make it harder by letting other people intrusively qualify your sense of euphoric spirituality with arbitrary, cumbersome rules that take away from the beauty in yourself and others.

Hopefully that helps.

Thanks for reading.

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SOURCE

 

[Stormer0628]

Religious Horrors – A Grim Pattern

>Excerpt from Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness, by James A. Haught (Prometheus Books, 2002). Reprinted with permission from the author.



Introduction

— In 1766 at Abbeville, France, a teen-age boy was accused of singing irreligious songs, mocking the Virgin Mary, marring a crucifix, and wearing his hat while a religious procession passed. Criticizing the church was punishable by death. The youth, Chevalier de La Barre, was sentenced to have his tongue cut out, his right hand cut off, and to be burned at the stake. The great writer Voltaire attempted to save him. The case was appealed to Parliament in Paris. The clergy demanded death, warning of the dire spread of doubt. Parliament showed mercy by allowing the youth to be decapitated instead of mutilated and burned alive. He was first tortured to extract a fuller confession, then executed on July 1, 1766. His corpse was burned, along with a copy of Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary.

— In 1980 at Moradabad, India, a pig caused hundreds of people to kill each other. The animal walked through a Muslim holy ground. Muslims, who think pigs are an embodiment of Satan, accused Hindus of driving the pig into the sacred spot. Members of both faiths went on a rampage, stabbing and clubbing. The pig riot spread to a dozen cities and left 200 dead.

— In the 1500s in Mexico, the Aztec theocracy sacrificed thousands of people to many gods. Aztecs believed that the sun would disappear without the daily “nourishment” of human hearts ripped from victims on stone altars. To appease the rain god, priests killed shrieking children so that their tears might induce rain. In a rite to the maize goddess, a virgin danced 24 hours, then was killed and skinned; her skin was then worn by a priest in further dancing.

— In the 1980s, Iran’s Shiite theocracy—“the government of God on earth”—decreed that Baha’i believers who wouldn’t convert to Islam must be killed. About 200 Baha’is, including women and teenagers, were hanged or shot by firing squads. Some 40,000 others fled Iran.

— In 1583 at Vienna, a 16-year-old girl suffered stomach cramps. A team of Jesuits exorcized her for eight weeks. The priests announced that they had expelled 12,652 demons from her, demons her grandmother had kept as flies in glass jars. The grandmother was tortured into confessing she was a witch who had engaged in sex with Satan. Then she was burned at the stake. This was one of perhaps 1 million such executions during three centuries of witch-hunts.

— In 1983 at Darkley, Northern Ireland, Catholic terrorists with automatic weapons burst into a Protestant church on a Sunday morning and opened fire, killing three worshipers and wounding seven. It was one of hundreds of Protestant-Catholic ambushes, which have cost nearly 3,000 lives during twenty years of religious conflict in Northern Ireland.

— In 1096, at the start of the First Crusade, thousands of Christians massed into legions to march to the Holy Land to destroy infidels. In Germany, some Crusaders followed a goose they believed to be enchanted by God. It led them into Jewish neighborhoods, where they hacked and burned the residents to death.

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“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction,” philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote.

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About 2,000 Waldensian Protestants in Calabria, southern Italy, were massacred
in 1560 by Catholic troops under Grand Inquisitor Michele Ghisheri, who later
became Pope Pius V and was sainted. (Library of Congress print collection)​

Jonathan Swift, looking back over centuries of church carnage, made his famous comment: “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, wrote:

“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.”​

But Christianity has no monopoly on killing for God. Even before the birth of Christ, the Roman poet Lucretius warned: “How many evils have flowed from religion!”

A grim pattern is visible in history: When religion is the ruling force in a society, it produces horror. The stronger the supernatural beliefs, the worse the inhumanity. A culture dominated by intense faith invariably is cruel to people who don’t share the faith—and sometimes to many who do.

When religion was all-powerful in Europe, it produced the epic bloodbath of the Crusades, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, mass extermination of “heretics,” hundreds of massacres of Jews, and 300 years of witch-burnings. The split of the Reformation loosed a torrent of hate that took millions of lives in a dozen religious wars. The “Age of Faith” was an age of holy slaughter. When religion gradually ceased to control daily life, the concept of human rights and personal freedoms took root.

Today, much of the Third World hasn’t broken free from religious horror. In India, Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims repeatedly massacre each other. In the Philippines, religious contention between Christians and Muslims continue to tear the country apart, while churches continue to amass financial windfall from large number of believers. In Iran, Shiite fundamentalists subjugate women and kill “blasphemers.” In Lebanon, Sunnis, Shi’ites, Druzes, Maronites, and Alawites destroy their nation and themselves. In Sri Lanka, Buddhists and Hindus exchange atrocities. In the Sudan, Muslims, Christians, and animists slaughter each other. It’s fashionable among thinking people to say that religion isn’t the real cause of these modern nightmares, that it merely provides labels for warring factions. Not so. Faith keeps the groups apart, alienated in hostile camps. “Religious tribalism” sets the stage for bloodshed. Without it, young people might adapt to changing times, intermarry, and forget historic wounds. But religion enforces separation—and whatever separates people breeds conflict.

Excerpted from Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness by James A. Haught. Copyright © James A. Haught, 2002. All rights reserved.

SOURCE

 

[rekestaz]

guys, ask ko lang , ang mga atheist ba against sa mga principles sa Bible? like forgiving people who harm you, honoring your parents, etc.

 

[xymo]

guys, ask ko lang , ang mga atheist ba against sa mga principles sa Bible? like forgiving people who harm you, honoring your parents, etc.

nope.

this is one of my favorites:

When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Deuteronomy 25:11-12