Atheist Bible
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Well, apparently people on here need to read a few books and get thoughts in order. There seems to have been a lot of standard arguments propogated by the theistic about atheism being some sort of religion. Which is pretty laughable. But before I really get in to responding to just some of the, well, effluent I've seen on here in this thread, I must post this link. Maybe someone else posted it, but I saw nothing. Didn't closely read everything; just skimmed. Anyway:
http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Bible-Illustrious-Collection-Irreverent/dp/0061349151/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236716947&sr=8-1
Ok, read that. It's pretty good. Take you half an hour, tops. Then read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great, and Sam Harris' Letter To A Christian Nation. They are, quite frankly, good reads. They will start opening your eyes to what atheism is. It is not a belief system. It is mutable. I admit that I would believe in god should I presented with compelling evidence. It's, you know, kind of like the scientific method.
As it stands, the bible of the christian faith is a horrid place to look for morals. It has rules for slavery in it. It has rules for selling your daughter into sexual slavery. One of the supposedly uplifting tales shared between christianity, judaism, and islam is one of the most blatant tales of child abuse. A man heard a voice, and led his son to a mountain, bound him, and then began to sacrifice him. God didn't even save the child; it was an angel. Do that today and see if you don't end up in jail. It's not moral. It's not sane. It is absolutely horrific.
Immanuel Kant had a pretty good basis for morality that required no god. In fact, Socrates argued in Plato's Euthyphro that morality is independent of the gods, and this was something like 500 years before christ was supposedly born. Try that one on for size.
Refraining from believing in a god with rules for owning other human beings doesn't make me an amoral person. In fact, I think it might point in the other direction.
There may be no one end all be all work of atheistic morality, but what requirement is there for one? Speak up. Don't give automatic respect for established religion. Question it. It so very often folds in the harsh light of reality. Look at religion like the cave in Socrates' Parable of the Cave, and atheism like the sunshine outside. It's quite refreshing, actually.
http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Bible-Illustrious-Collection-Irreverent/dp/0061349151/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236716947&sr=8-1
Ok, read that. It's pretty good. Take you half an hour, tops. Then read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great, and Sam Harris' Letter To A Christian Nation. They are, quite frankly, good reads. They will start opening your eyes to what atheism is. It is not a belief system. It is mutable. I admit that I would believe in god should I presented with compelling evidence. It's, you know, kind of like the scientific method.
As it stands, the bible of the christian faith is a horrid place to look for morals. It has rules for slavery in it. It has rules for selling your daughter into sexual slavery. One of the supposedly uplifting tales shared between christianity, judaism, and islam is one of the most blatant tales of child abuse. A man heard a voice, and led his son to a mountain, bound him, and then began to sacrifice him. God didn't even save the child; it was an angel. Do that today and see if you don't end up in jail. It's not moral. It's not sane. It is absolutely horrific.
Immanuel Kant had a pretty good basis for morality that required no god. In fact, Socrates argued in Plato's Euthyphro that morality is independent of the gods, and this was something like 500 years before christ was supposedly born. Try that one on for size.
Refraining from believing in a god with rules for owning other human beings doesn't make me an amoral person. In fact, I think it might point in the other direction.
There may be no one end all be all work of atheistic morality, but what requirement is there for one? Speak up. Don't give automatic respect for established religion. Question it. It so very often folds in the harsh light of reality. Look at religion like the cave in Socrates' Parable of the Cave, and atheism like the sunshine outside. It's quite refreshing, actually.
Find me somewhere on this forum where this "god bullshit" is being shoved in anyones face. I can find you lots of atheists shoving their shit in peoples faces, except they aren't atheists. They are anti-theists. Just bigoted people ranting about a subject they know nothing of, yet have so much faith in their own infallibility they would make the Pope jealous.Gormourn said:
Most religious people don't give a damn about what you believe as long as you keep it too yourself. But when someone tries to force the president to not give an oath to a god he believes, they are being a jackass, and trying to force their crap onto other people.Gormourn said:
Not to mention, we have this [http://www.rcrc.org/]. And then we have this [http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html].
This is rather like saying "Read Fred Phelps' article 'Why gay people are all Satan spawned slime who will end humanity on earth' to discover the truth about gay people". No. Reading hate propaganda peddled by theophobic megalomaniacs like Hitchens and Dawkins is not the ideal source for understanding theology.CapnGod said:
I hate to brake it to you, but nothing in science is ever definitely true. All theory of how the world works is exactly that: theory. It is an attempt to explain what we see, and find rules as to how they happen, but you can never actually prove that your theory is right, only that your theory is very likely. In fact, the only area in which total truth can be established is maths.NeverAiling said:
I'm not saying science is false, but neither is it true beyond doubt.
Nope. Because "Why religion poisons everything" is not a work of atheism and does not speak for atheism.caross73 said:
Nor does "The God delusion".
Those have nothing at all to do with atheism, it is time a lot of people calling themselves atheists understood this. Atheism is not the hatred of religion or the hostility towards people of faith, that is theophobia and bigotry. Atheism is the personal belief that there is no god.
Really? Hate propoganda? Are you kidding? I haven't read the whole thing, but I have read from the bible. Continue to do so. I see some good stuff in there. Hell, one of my favorite books is The Book of Joby, which is a retelling writ large of the Book of Job. Good story.
Why are you so ready and willing to label books I've suggested you read as hateful? Have you read them? Do you know what's in them? Or are you jumping to unfounded conclusions? I'd say they have good arguments for not believing in a god, but they aren't about hate.
That's a pretty ignorant view. Also, nowhere in those books I suggested reading does Harris, Hitchens, or Hawkins exhort killing anyone. They don't. The bible? Well, yeah. It does. So, about that hate?
Why are you so ready and willing to label books I've suggested you read as hateful? Have you read them? Do you know what's in them? Or are you jumping to unfounded conclusions? I'd say they have good arguments for not believing in a god, but they aren't about hate.
That's a pretty ignorant view. Also, nowhere in those books I suggested reading does Harris, Hitchens, or Hawkins exhort killing anyone. They don't. The bible? Well, yeah. It does. So, about that hate?
What capngod above said. The idea that religion is destructive, yes, is not a hallmark of atheism as a whole, but it is hardly theophobia unless its groundless -- and its not groundless. Everything that questions whether credulousness of untestable hypotheses is a good thing is bigotry to you.cuddly_tomato said:
Calling believers and the Bible out on some of the ridiculous things said and contained therein is perfectly reasonable -- especially when they are used as a call for restricting rights and writing public policy.
Bible = guide (The Holy Bible = The Holy Guide. Manuals are sometimes reffered to as bibles). Do you really need a book telling you how not to believe in God?
Side-note: The OP is bordering on being an Anti-theist, which is basically what I call the atheist equivalent of an evangelical Christian. And those people can get annoying, FAST.
"Many Escapists are Christians. Being a Chrstian, I view this as a good thing." I know he isn't insulting any other groups, and that is why I used the qualifier "bordering." Still, it seems as if he is way too happy to have converts. Showing your beliefs to the world, encouraging them to listen, and helping those who agree with you is fine, but actively campaigning can be a bit militaristic. Still don't agree with me? How about we examine the inverse of that sentence.
"Many Escapists are not Atheist. Being an Atheist, I view this as a bad thing."
Basically, I can't stand people who are religious bulldozers, pushing their beliefs down your throat like a sailor's "gun" into a triple-cun...well you get the idea. I realize that Atheism is not a religion, but is rather the lack of a religion, yet it still involves beliefs pertaining to religion. While the OP has not reached militant status yet, I encourage all Anti-theists to be a little kinder and more understanding when speaking about...anything. Thank you.
Side-note: The OP is bordering on being an Anti-theist, which is basically what I call the atheist equivalent of an evangelical Christian. And those people can get annoying, FAST.
Innocent enough, but imagine the response if I said,space_oddity said:
"Many Escapists are Christians. Being a Chrstian, I view this as a good thing." I know he isn't insulting any other groups, and that is why I used the qualifier "bordering." Still, it seems as if he is way too happy to have converts. Showing your beliefs to the world, encouraging them to listen, and helping those who agree with you is fine, but actively campaigning can be a bit militaristic. Still don't agree with me? How about we examine the inverse of that sentence.
"Many Escapists are not Atheist. Being an Atheist, I view this as a bad thing."
Basically, I can't stand people who are religious bulldozers, pushing their beliefs down your throat like a sailor's "gun" into a triple-cun...well you get the idea. I realize that Atheism is not a religion, but is rather the lack of a religion, yet it still involves beliefs pertaining to religion. While the OP has not reached militant status yet, I encourage all Anti-theists to be a little kinder and more understanding when speaking about...anything. Thank you.
Oh jeez, another one.CapnGod said:
The Bible is not taken literally by any Christian with a functioning brain. By the same token, no atheist with a functioning brain thinks that is the common view of Christians.
Just as there are good reasons to not believe in a god(s), there are good reasons too as well.
The Goodwinesque correlation both Hitchens and Dawkins make between war and religion is hateful, and highly unscientific. A theory is only a theory until it is proved wrong. 4 and a half billion religious people live on earth right now, the vast majority don't kill each other over religion, therefore religion is not a systemic aspect in human conflict.
And, while it is a good story, the Book of Job doesn't speak well on god's behalf. He let satan harass and torture one of his faithful and murder his family on the basis of nothing more than a bet? Did you see Trading Places with Akroyd and Murphy? Did you think the old guys were moral? It's basically the same story, only the stand ins for god and satan got what was coming. You can't even blame satan in the story, since it's basically his role to do that. The only really reprehensible one in the story is god. What a prick.
After you and others had the audacity to lecture me on not slandering holy texts, I think you need take a long hard look in the mirror, bub. I hate to break it to you, but lots of Christians DO take the Bible literally, and if they didn't, saying the Bible is a work of fiction wouldn't get them so up in arms, nor would it be considered bigotry. It would be a statement of widely known FACT.cuddly_tomato said:
It isn't saying the Bible is fiction that gets them up in arms, you really don't get it do you?caross73 said:
You know when someone tells you that you are going to go to hell for not believing? You know the condescending and high attitude they have when they tell you that a place is reserved for them because they are so super and you are so stupid? You know when they say that they know everything and if you don't listen you will spend an eternity having a big demon shoving a red hot poker up your arse for all eternity?
THAT'S why. You are doing EXACTLY the same, in the name of atheism.
Bullshit and please refer to our previous discussion where I was lambasted for comparing God to the tooth fairy. The problem isn't with the "I know the truth." I mean seriously, good for them. At least they are harmless lunatics. Its with the "if you don't believe as I do, you are a bad person and will be punished." You should not be allowed to hold office. You are a bad person because you don't acknowledge my God. Its the THREAT. I don't care if you hold a wrong belief, but if you tell me I'm wrong, I'll say No, I'm not, and here is why your belief is incorrect. And if you want to complain about it, or think less of me for it, then you are just as bigoted as the anti-theists.cuddly_tomato said:
And for your information YOU are doing exactly what you are complaining about.
And denying that much of the worldwide conflict is religious in nature is ludicrous. Let's look at, oh, for starters, Israel. The holy land. Fighting over that particular patch of ground is NOTHING if not religious in motivation.
Bosnia and Serbia in the '90s? Religious. How about the uproar after 12 Danish cartoons? There was conflict and bloodshed afterward. Religious. The crusades? Religious. Sri Lanka today? Oh, yeah, religious.
Man, funny how religion has been the cause of a lot of suffering and misery.
Bosnia and Serbia in the '90s? Religious. How about the uproar after 12 Danish cartoons? There was conflict and bloodshed afterward. Religious. The crusades? Religious. Sri Lanka today? Oh, yeah, religious.
Man, funny how religion has been the cause of a lot of suffering and misery.