Godless Wonder

I suspect the statistics will bear out your statements (and I don't mean to imply which is cause and which is effect, only that I think you're right that there is a correlation. It's fairly well known that more "developed" (whatever that means) conntries tend to have lower birth rates.) This is no doubt related (sorta) to why I really started this thread, (and why I haven't posted to it much lately). This thread is born of my own frustration and anger, and consequently, I suppose is mostly rhetorical, and pretty much pointless. I look at relgions of the world and am amazed that a single person believes any of it. It is so obviously made up.

I don't expect that there's any way whatsoever to get rid of religion. I may as well rant and rave and ask how do we get rid of death or pain. Anyway I must confess that the real reason I started this thread is that my ex-girlfriend, a christian, broke up with me because I'm an atheist awhile back. Consequently I'm frustrated with religion and religious people in general (and her parents in particular for brainwashing her so thoroughly and completely) Bah! No way to fix it.

So there you have it, what actions are religions people taking that bother me? They're breaking my heart, and their own hearts. for the sake of a non-existent being. Now I have to try to find some girl that can measure up to her, which at the moment seems near impossible Supposing I manage that, the odds that she suffers from some horrible religious mental disease that makes her crazy is something greater than 90% in the U.S. If that's not the most frustrating thing ever, I don't know what is. Sorry to take it out on you folks here. I do consider religion terribly harmful, awful, a kind of self-inflicted mental disease. However, saying so is pointless, so I will shut the heck up now.

Rational BAC

Hey---I wouldn't have lost the "love of my life" over something as silly as religion or the lack thereof.

You could have faked it. Or called yourself a 'troubled' agnostic---she would have spent her whole life trying to lovingly convert you. Going to church one hour a week won't kill you, and you can always get by dozing through the whole thing--quite acceptable for even good Christians to do that.

It is probably true that calling yourself an atheist is going to turn off 90% of the good looking young things out there. Why turn yourself into a lonely old man who stood on principle?

So call yourself something else. For Gawd's sake man--at least get your priorities straight. You will probably never know in this lifetime whether there is a God or not. -----------so of what great importance is the subject anyway?

What is important is living the kind of life you want to live. If that means faking some of it to get the rest of it, then that is a fine thing to do.

Virgil Tibbs

First off let me say to Godless Wonder, I have never been in that situation, but if I were it would put me in a baaad way. That sucks beyond words and I feel for you.

Now, on to the valiant defense of the (lack of) Faith.

While there are very few non-believers (except maybe agnostics) and even fewer religous fundamentalists who have not spent a lot of time pondering their views, there are a lot of moderates who seem not to think of religion much at all, AFAIK. If they ever do, I imagine a significant number may choose a side.

Oddly, non-believers and fundies do have one thing in common: they proceed logically from a premise. The premises are radically different however. Atheism really only requires trust in one's observations and "trust" (in the positivist sense that nothing is ever "proven" true beyond testing) in theories that model those obervations (as without at least a few working theories, everything would appear to be supernatural, as it did in ancient times... I can't really fault ancient civilizations for being supernatural, as not even knowing why rain fell would drive me freakin' nuts!).

Fundies on the other hand require trust in their observations like everyone else (if they can't trust their observation, how can they know they are reading the bible correctly?), but also take additional premises such as the bible being the completely true word of god. Using these additional premises it is easy to logically prove god's existence, as if you accept the bible to be true you'd have to arrive at the conclusion god exists. Problem here of course is that the added premise is very shaky: why one religious book and not another? Not to mention that taking as a premise the truth of a book that says god exists in order to prove god exists is circular logic, not the best variety.

Moderates such as liberal xians however, do not have the same use for logic: if you believe only a part of the bible is true, how do you choose which part? "I believe the part I like" has no basis in logic. Thus I believe this postion is unstable and most probable of the three to decline (maybe from theism to deism, which at least allows for a natural view of "this life"... but then deism turns into atheism/agnosticism so much that things would likely start looking up for the non-believers in short order).

An unreasonable generalization. Moderation is good on some issues, but makes little sense in others. Is it good to be moderate on the issue of "slavery v. abolition", "police state v. free society" or "dictatorship v. democracy" (that would make you as a moderate in favor of what, constitutional monarchy? I'm just kidding of course)

But I will say this, Rational BAC: you seem like a very nice poster... in moderation. (okay, even I feel like groaning at that joke, and I wrote it)

Tibbs

Virgil Tibbs

Unless of course, "the kind of life you want to live" involves intellectual integrity, in which case lying about the most fundamental aspect of your world outlook for personal gain does not fly.

And if the relationship actually led to marriage, who'd want to spend a lifetime of lying to one's spouse? Doubt I could look myself in the mirror each morning, living like that. YMMV.

Tibbs

DOLBAC DENIS

Religion flourishes with poverty and injustice.
U.S.A is a typical example of a supposedly developped country with the highest percentage of believers (almost 94% I think).
Brazil is another example of a country where religion expands.
So the problme that we atheists have is 1) eradication of poverty 2) eradication of injustice.
This is a lot to chew.
The other snag is that atheism is a form of honesty (how could religion be anything else than bad faith)...
Any marketing specialist will confirm that : "MARKETING HONESTLY AN HONEST PRODUCT" does not sell.

TenaciousVeracious

Good thread, well started GodlessWonder. It can be frustrating to encounter all this 'God Talk' even from political leaders such as Bush, Blair and so on. Do we never get any rest?

It would be an interesting experiment if you did wear that T-shirt! I wonder how long you'd live. Maybe the way to affect the power of religion is to build understanding, a new body of science and knowledge, about why people are so drawn to it - give eveyone fresh insight into why they embrace such obvious falsity.

goat37

I hate to say it, but I don't put a whole lot of faith in the intelligence of man.

Seems that the 1% of the population are the ones making the advancements, and the rest are either along for the ride, against the advancement, or too dumb to realize anything has changed.

I, unfortunately, believe that most people are not very bright. I don't think these people could handle a world without their particular deity. There is too much that they cannot explain because they cannot learn the foundation of what it takes to explain things... so 'goddidit' is the best they got.
I also believe that people are too put out by actually having to do their own research and fact finding, that once they hear something that they can use that doesn't require them to provoke any type of intellectual thought, they'll not only believe it but defend it.

"Goddidit" as an answer is nothing more than a cop-out to me. It is for people that lack the mental integrity to try to find out what the universe is all about.

I do not include ALL religious folk in these statements, but a lot. I believe some were like Einstein in the fact that they formed their own beliefs and ideas that they just couldn't accept the possibility of anything else being right. (I refer to einstein in the fact that he didn't want to buy into quantum mechanics... and even earlier formed the theory of special relativity before he formed the theory of general relativity)

I am an atheist (well, agnostic) due to the fact that I cannot accept any statement that leads to the complete shutting down of the mind, and just accepting someone else's word for it... especially when their statement has no scientific evidence to support it.

So religions can have their burning bushes, their world floods, and their 8-armed gods... I'll take scientific discovery and intelligent thought over those ANY day of the week.

Rational BAC

I don't think that the belief in any kind of reality beyond our limited senses or our limited intelligence to comprehend in any way shuts down the mind. It expands it. To believe only in the existence of what we can sense and understand with our minds is the true shutting down of any mind.

I see atheists living within a box, falsely comforted by the seemingly real fact to them that there is obviously nothing outside of the box within which they live. They can't see it , they can't smell it, they can't hear it, their minds cannot comprehend it--ergo--there can be nothing to existence besides that little tiny box of their minds and senses.

Theists may live in a fantasy world, or they may live in a more real world than atheists can ever envision.--------The one thing for sure is that theists are always trying to see outside that little tiny box of so called reality.

sodium

I see little evidence that our civilization has always kept a balance between the nut cases. Of course, your "long run" caveat pretty much makes your view unfalsifiable.

But moderate religion has collapsed before. It did so in Rome. And the next 15 centuries were the result of the choice of fundamentalism over naturalism. Modern society is slowly making a similar choice, and it isn't clear to me which side will be chosen this time.

Consider the following article, maybe not a disinterested source, but I think you can find the same statistics elsewhere.

http://www.pastors.com/article.asp?ArtID=3090

goat37

You are trying to argue the metaphysical. You obviously don't experience life using the senses that we have for a reason. Especially the sense of smell, which we use to sniff out bullshit. :P

If you can't see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, taste it, or even comprehend it.... uhm... then what do you have? Nothing.

I am not saying there is nothing beyond the universe, but if the universe is entirely self-contained with no edges or boundaries, then what would I need to worry about something 'outside' the universe when it obviously has absolutely no bearing on the universe.

And yea... that box that we live in.. "the universe" as we like to call it.... it's infinite, meaning there is no end. Maybe you could show me a picture, but I've never seen an entirely self-contained box with no edges or boundaries. But then again, I haven't seen these miracle healings that we are fed everyday by religion in it's feeble attempt to shove it's dogma down our throats.