Godless Wonder

I would like to think so. Do you have evidence to back this up? My observation is that if this were happening, it would have happened already to a much greater extent than it has. Instead, I see the POTUS is a Born Again Christian, and his father, himself a former POTUS, publicly states that we should not even be considered citizens.

Godless Wonder

In the U.S., of which I am primarily speaking, since I live there, you are probably right. However. there do exist countries where atheism carries the death penalty (Iran, see http://www.iraniancivilrights.com/main2.htm )
If solitary reason unaided by fellow humans can convert people like you, that's great. I'm trying to figure out how to make more people like you begin their own personal journey away from superstition. Why? Completely selfish reasons.

I see on my TV, PBS specials about the search for Noah's Ark. (they found nothing of the kind, of course.) and so on. Why don't I see PBS specials entitlled: "Religion: Godly truth or total crap?" Dammit, I want to see "Religion: Godly truth or total crap" on my TV. (Not that it would help any, I suppose.)

DMB

Cheer up, Godless Wonder! I'm sure a lot of your unhappiness about this is caused by your location in the USA. In my lifetime, I have seen western Europe move from a position where most people would not admit to atheism to one where the xians are on the defensive.

I know a number of former muslims from muslim countries. Of course, they had to have a special sort of courage to come to the conclusion that religion is hogwash, but they did it, nearly always independently, as I ate Pascal's Wafer has suggested. If you can do this when the religion is not only surrounding you within your family from your earliest memories but is also everywhere in your society and with the legal support of the state to enforce horrible penalties on those who fail to conform, I think there is tremendous hope for humanity.

I would heartily recommend Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out for its many moving stories on this theme.

VonEvilstein

What we need is a nice spot of shallw sea, in international waters. Drain it, polder it good and properly and found our own country. One where religious claims are subject to the same laws that all other advertising claims are and churches are treated just like any other business. We'll see how long the bastards manage before filing for bankruptcy then!

Aaah, if only.

Jinto

Even if we could do that, with our luck, we'll be sitting right on top of an oil deposit.

andy_d

I'd say atheism was on the rise in the west, actually. Of the younger generation, practising Christians are a minority in most countries. Churches right across Europe are certainly struggling against dwindling congregations.

In fact, i'd say that the default belief system for young people in the west is now a fuzzy kind of agnosticism/atheism, with many people openly expressing bitter criticism of religion. I'm often quite surprised by just how angry many people are at Christianity. They seem more anti-Christian than pro-anything else. Most people I know will only express very vague ideas if you ask them their beliefs.

Not sure if the US is going to follow the trend, though. Christianity seems to be pretty deeply entrenched there.

niggle

There really is no trick to it. Just quietly, but steadily be the voice of reason. This is will place a slight pressure on Christians. Many will rant and rave to make the US "return to its Christian values" and they will win more than a few. However, in the long run, it will be self-defeating. They will expose themselves as the fools they really are to the next generation.

Things like Newdow fighting the pledge, or the 10 commandments on public property are good, even if we lose, because it exposes the fundies for what they are, dangerous.

Of course, religion will never completely go away, it's too much a part of the weakness inherent in human nature to believe somethign without evidence because it makes them feel good aka faith.

However, there is a difference between:

Hee hee, that's a really silly religion that guy is in.

Oh crap, is that guy going to kill/imprision me because of his religion.

It genuinely used to be the latter, but we are moving toward the former (so cheer up).

wildernesse

Glad that "probably" hedges your bet there.

I'm interested in why you think that just because people aren't atheists, they would be silent if atheists were rounded up and shot. I'm not an atheist, Muslim, Arab, homosexual, black, etc.--and yet when people in these groups have their rights violated, I'm not silent. I've been brainwashed into thinking that I should love my neighbor as myself and into treating others as I would wish to be treated.

I am also interested in your juxtaposition of religion as false and science as real. Science isn't reality. Science is a method of finding out about the natural world, not the natural world itself. I don't know that I would be proud of calling a method real--a method for finding out if fairies have filled my shoes with magical dust is a real method, even if the fairies and magical dust aren't.

Why do you think improving your lot means converts and greater numbers? What improvements do you want in your life that you aren't getting because of religious people?

--tibac

abe smith

1.Stop letting the religionists impose their (self-) labels/vocabularies on the rest of us. E.G. stop calling the roman catholics's affinity-group "The Church" and (stop) referring to them (a people-club) as if they were an "IT" = some kind of Platonist "Ideal" entity. They aren'T! Call them "the roman-catholic *sect*" and persuade the media to do that. The media will not do this, of course; there's too much money and too many loyal catholic believers w/ bucks to spend involved.
2. STOP giving money to any/all religionist enterprises. THINK about where your money goes!
3. Stop using the standard crapola references; stop treating clerics as if they were special = They're NOT!
4. Fight tooth-&-nail against religious sects's attempts to impose their beliefs and rules on/into our secular governments and communities.
5. Keep religious bullshit out of school curricula.
6. Do whatever's necessary to prevent the use of PUBLIC money to support ANY religious teachings, organization, ....
There're some places to start.
7. Refuse to be bullied into letting others intrude their religion into your life-space.

Godless Wonder

I suppose I'm just frustrated because I feel like I live in a world populated by people who are apparently capable of believing whatever they wish to believe without regard to whether it makes any sense or not. Probably I shouldn't have started this thread, I should have piled onto the end of the Expressing Anger at Christians thread, instead. Oh well.

As for lining up the atheists in a shooting gallery, no I don't really expect that's very likely, but there is a kind of hostility towards atheists in this country, like we are just barely tolerated. They won't shoot us, but they wish we'd go away.

As for "science is real". I don't mean that science is literally reality. You take it out of context if you take it to mean that. I mean it is "real" compared to religion, which is completely fabricated. I want the adults to stop being children. There's no santa clause, there's no god, so let's get over it and stop being children about it.

I look around the world, and I'm reminded of that Saturday Night Live skit, in which there's this family who believes in Santa Claus. The Mom, the Dad, the kids, they all believe. And so, they look under the tree christmas morning...no presents! What? But they've been so good all year long! Why no presents? What does this Santa guy want from them? Well, they'll just have to be extra good this year, and maybe santa will bring them presents next time. The next door neighbor comes over and tries to explain to the parents that there is no santa, that the parents have to buy the presents for the kids, but "No, that's not right! Santa brings the presents! You don't understand!"

I live in a world filled to the brim with people exactly like this family. Except they are not nearly so harmless or funny. It is exasperating and I'm tired of having to put up with this foolishness, and having to pretend that a religious viewpoint is even a halfway reasonable way to think and behave. It's not the slightest bit reasonable.