Atheists In The News

[loveweary11]

Atheists open up: What they want you to know - CNN.com

 

 

Has anyone else noticed a huge media blitz with atheists sounding off passionately about their disbelief???

 

What the heck is going on here?

 

After having gone to catholic school as a child, I came to the conclusion that the God mythology was created to keep peopke behaving and to help people cope with tragedy and adversity when they can't cope on their own. (My personal take, figured out at age 9 or 10)

 

At age 9 or 10, i simply accepted this line of thinking and moved on to understand other things in life that interested me. No god, so no topics of discussion, no debate, no getting up on a podium and declaring to the world that i don't believe. There are lots of other things to do in life.

 

I simply can't understand how anyone would go on a crusade about something they don't believe in! What's the point in that?

 

I'm not going to get up and proclaim to the world that O don't believe in he tooth fairy. I'm just going to move on.

 

Through out my life, I've simply said, "I'll believe it when I see it" to people who pressed me on why I don't believe in god. That answer was good enough for everyone. Certainly I'm not out there shoving my opinion down people's throats. It's also never cost me a friend or family member.

 

What I don't understand is why these atheists care!?!!

 

Also, they should be quiet before they give us a bad name.

 

A large part of being an atheist is not identifying with any group. Why must these weirdos try to form a group of atheists!!?!

 

That would be like a group of anarchists forming a political party.

 

They should seek out other groups, not make us look bad inb front of the nation.

 

/end rant

Edited March 29, 2015 by loveweary11

[umirano]

Has anyone else noticed a huge media blitz with atheists sounding off passionately about their disbelief???

 

What the heck is going on here?

People standing up for their beliefs, maybe?

 

I simply can't understand how anyone would go on a crusade about something they don't believe in! What's the point in that?

How are they in a crusade? Are people speaking up against rape (culture) also in a crusade?

 

I'm not going to get up and proclaim to the world that O don't believe in he tooth fairy. I'm just going to move on.

Incidentally toothfairyists aren't balkanizing our society, aren't shooting people who've stopped believing in the tooth fairy, there is no tooth fairy value system that isolates people with a certain sexuality, there are no children mentally tortured with stories about the tooth fairy taking revenge if they don't follow her teachings or deny her existence.

 

Through out my life, I've simply said, "I'll believe it when I see it" to people who pressed me on why I don't believe in god. That answer was good enough for everyone. Certainly I'm not out there shoving my opinion down people's throats. It's also never cost me a friend or family member.

I'm glad your atheism didn't isolate you. Depending on what country you live in you're still very much subject to religious nonsense deeply ingrained in politics, justice or social affairs. Except for France and certain eastern European countries I can't think of one though.

 

What I don't understand is why these atheists care!?!!

Because they are compassionate people. They want to end the celestial dictatorship on what women can do with their own bodies. They want people to have the freedom to use all of today's medical knowledge to care for their families. They want to give people to end their lives with dignity and on their terms when suffering from terrible medical conditions.

 

Secular policy has brought wealth, health and freedom to people. Some religious people are ready to sacrifice all those advances for the sake of their own fairy tale, because in some old text that they believe was written by their invisible friend should dictate our lives, rather than what has proven to actually make things better and safer for everyone.

 

Don't shun those who have the courage and energy to speak up against the religious bullying that has been going on for millenia.

 

Also, they should be quiet before they give us a bad name.

No, maybe YOU should be quiet before YOU give US a bad name.

 

A large part of being an atheist is not identifying with any group.

That is actually no part of being an atheist. Atheism simply means refusing every single of the countless existence claims for deities. As an atheist you automatically identify with other atheists...?!

 

Why must these weirdos try to form a group of atheists!!?!

Neither are they weirdos, nor are they trying. The groups exist and did for a long time. And why shouldn't they? Don't you believe that everybody has a right to form an interest group? If not, what interests can have groups and which cannot? Who should decide? And why?

 

That would be like a group of anarchists forming a political party.

Huh, there are plenty of anarchistic groups, and no, it isn't the same. Atheists can gather to fight religious indoctrination, the attacks on freedom that are being prepared and carried out on a daily basis by theists, to simply have a good time together, to hold intellectually challenging debates and speeches. What's wrong with that? Maybe you should join one, before the (religious) autoritharians reconvert you completely?

 

They should seek out other groups, not make us look bad inb front of the nation.

 

/end rant

You really are worried about your own image, more than the impact of the theistic worldview versus the impact of an atheist worldview. I don't think perception should guide the kind of ideas we defend. It should be the truth, more than anything.

 

It seems to me that you're not very secure in your atheism, or that you value (temporary) harmony more than intellectual honesty? Does it upset you that someone stirs the pond? I don't know about you, but I'm of the opinion it is high time that people who believe that religion is somehow exempt from scrutiny - especially when it should guide public policy - get a reality check. Every atheist, and even every secularist who is a believer, is a hero of our time.

 

The (sometimes) sweet poison of religion may not be your problem, but it is a severe threat to the health, happiness and freedom of a great number of people in all countries of the world.

 

People suffer from religion, believers probably more so than non-believers, at least here in the west.

 

In a deeply religious country the only real approach for a non-believer is to fake being a believer of the locally dominant belief. It's dishonest, but that's probably what I would do, rather than being hung from a crane on a public square, or having my family be isolated and persecuted.

 

Your Sunday-mass-cake baking christian neighbor isn't where religion is a problem. Religion is a problem when people have to die for expressing their thoughts, when people have to die because they have the wrong or no belief.

 

But religion is also the problem when certain medical tests are forbidden by law because they go against what the bible supposedly says (who really knows that anyway..?), it is a problem when people have to pay taxes that go to church activity. It's a problem when the state forces children into religious kindergardens and schools. It's a problem when children are taught that they'll go to hell for falling in love with the wrong kind of person (WRT gender or beliefs, for example), it's a problem when people rely on prayer and ceremonies instead of medication and scientifically trained doctors. It's a problem because millions of people die of diseases, and their children inherit those diseases from day 1 because religious teachings are in conflict with biology and medicine.

 

It is a problem when it can be an excuse to leave your child dumb and uneducated because certain scientific discoveries are in conflict with the religious teachings you chose to cloud your own judgment.

 

Are you going to be a part of the problem, or do you want to join those working the problem?

[endlessabyss]

 

Incidentally toothfairyists aren't balkanizing our society, aren't shooting people who've stopped believing in the tooth fairy, there is no tooth fairy value system that isolates people with a certain sexuality, there are no children mentally tortured with stories about the tooth fairy taking revenge if they don't follow her teachings or deny her existence.

 

 

 

Nonsense, homie.

 

 

I know a few toothfairyists who chopped up a couple people down the street because the non-believers said the toothfairy didn't exist in front of the toothfairyists children.

[TaxAHCruel]

Has anyone else noticed a huge media blitz with atheists sounding off passionately about their disbelief???

 

What the heck is going on here?

 

As with most social phenomenon - the answer is "many things".

 

The obvious one of course is that atheists have always been there, in numbers greater than most people knew, and the existence of modern media figures - your Hitchens Dawkins Harris and so forth - has not only given such people a platform - but has also shown them it is ok to be "out" there.

 

And as with most social things like this, there is always a "tipping point" where when enough people are doing it and saying it and living it - suddenly a LOT more people fall into that dynamic too and it all starts to rush forward like a cascade effect. Which is hopefully what you are observing when you opened this thread.

 

But there is of course more to it than just that. Our world is being punctuated not just by horrific and awful acts done by the religious - but expressely in the name of, or as a result of, their religion. And that is inviting a back lash too.

 

We also live in a world where the usual people at the front of the queue to hold back what many people think of as "progress" (such as medical advancements, gay rights, abortion, and much more) are almost invariably the religious. Usually using religious based arguments all founded on the existence of a god not one of them has managed to substantiate the existence of.

 

And that too will invite a back lash.

 

We have the Islamic Preachers trying to get international blasphemy laws established - embarrasingly using Ireland as an example of a modern democracy that recently rammified a Blasphemy law - while in the States you have the constant struggle by the religious to inject stultifying nonsense into the curriculum.

 

And on top of all that you do not just have the now world wide uncovering of sexual abuse within the clergys - but the systematic facilitation and covering up of that abuse - often with bribery and blackmail directed at the actual victims.

 

All of this is coming together - and more that I have not even mentioned for fear of TLDR reactions to the post. But suffice to say religion is representing itself badly and people are simply reacting to that in kind I feel.

 

Beliefs have real world consequences. Atheists do not "care" about the beleif. It is what is done WITH that belief that is the focus of their concern.