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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Home away from home
 
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Religion deserves no respect. Religion is the number one destructive force in society. Almost all our woes can be tied back to it. You shouldn't be persecuted for practicing, but when it comes to recruiting others for your loony barn, Atheists have a duty to warn against drinking the Kool-Aid.
Religion preys on the uneducated and poor. Under the guise of "helping," they destroy cultures and convert others from their traditions and heritage. It is a massive waste of time and energy that could be better spent developing quality of life, healthcare, arts and sciences. Atheists have been pacifists for too long. We need to eliminate dogma from decision making and allow scientific progress to proceed. There is no god. The Easter Bunny is about as real as Jesus reincarnate. The bible is a storybook meant to keep the masses in line. We can do better than this.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 14:27
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Quite honestly, I do find it insulting when religious people try to push their beliefs on me. I'm completely open to any debate as long as there are facts to back it up. An atheist can make their argument based on facts (thus far) and support that argument with facts and science that there is no god. A person of faith can only back up their beliefs with just that... faith. There is no more proof that god exists, than that of the Loch Ness Monster. It MAY be out there, but thus far, there is zero evidence of it, and until there is evidence, stop trying to convince me it is fact.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 13:42
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Odysseus , You know its a myth. And you have a choice.
Thor, you know its a myth. And you have a choice. My Little Pony, You know its a myth. And you have a choice. I somehow doubt, Greeks, Germans, and five year olds find my statements insulting. Maybe a five year old would. But eventually a five year old will grow up.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 12:53
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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And "In God We Trust" on our money isn't insulting for those of us who don't believe? And "One nation under god" isn't insulting for those of us who don't believe? And the push to teach "Intelligent Design" in our schools isn't insulting for those of us who don't believe? And being offered a bible to swear on in court isn't insulting for those of us who don't believe? And EVERY politician having to prove their spirituality to have any shot at being elected isn't insulting for those of us who don't believe? The list goes on and on.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 12:03
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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See, this is an ad I'm alright with. The same guys that made this one have run lots that are nice. But stuff like "You KNOW it's a myth" is just insulting.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 5:04
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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I haven't seen any that actually say "if don't believe in God, join us." I have seen this one: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/ ... lboard_2012_03_16_bk.html "You know its a myth, and you have a choice" in English and Hebrew, stationed near to the Williamsburg Hasidic community. It may come across as aggressive, but for a relatively closed community that limits access to outside information and knowledge and that has a notoriously sexist view, its a probably a thoroughly appropriate message, attempting to resonate with anyone in that community who questions their faith in a community where faith is everyone.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 4:12
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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"In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it." Ben Franklin Although Franklin wasn't an atheist he felt that it should be "more productive of good works ... not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity." Public funds aren't used, but tax-free status and the interjection of "religious values" into politics makes me think that once funding from tax-free religious organizations is spent to influence legislation, they should no longer be considered a 501c3. According to the IRS, 501c3 organizations have an "absolute prohibition against political activity." For example, considering how close the vote was in the California's Marriage Protection Act (Prop 8), it is safe to say that without the $20 million in Mormon funding Prop 8 would have failed. I don't mean to pick on the Mormons, but it is the most egregious recent example.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 3:30
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Oh, and for the record, I have no problem with anyone believing anything they want. Just don't foist your beliefs on me, and don't force your morality based on a deity on me. I'm pretty proud of the morality I already have that is based on one simple principle, treat others like I want to be treated. I'm not driven to that by fear of god, just common sense.
And while I'm 99% sure there is no god, I'm human, therefore I realize I don't know everything, and therefore anything is possible. That however means that Jupiter and Zeus are just as possible as Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Hindu, or Buddha; unlikely, but possible. I also ask you to not presume to know how or what atheists like myself think. And given the original subject, as long as public funds are not used, and coercion is avoided, any demonstration of beliefs is fine.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 2:13
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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The Khmer Rouge may have been atheists, but their carnage was not done in the name of disbelief in god. Rather like all other communist dictatorships, they put down belief in god so that god and the groups based on god beliefs could not be used to overthrow them. The downfall of communism in Poland for instance was was led by religious leaders along with unions. The point of the communist despots wasn't to get everyone to be atheists, rather it was to destroy anything their subjects could rally around. On the other hand, Crusades and so many other wars in this world's history were the result of religious leaders trying to force people into following their religions.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 2:04
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Asif,
Not sure you grasped my point. Atheists and theists are both capable of the worst atrocities. But the idea that crimes are done in the name of atheism is nonsense. There is no atheistic creed or doctrine so no crimes are committed in the name of atheism. The crimes were committed by sociopaths. if you think that being an atheist means you have no conscience that is ignorant and insulting to atheists. Maybe just maybe, these crimes were committed for other reasons than just that the perps were atheists. Hmmm? If you think you have God on your side it might be just as easy to commit an atrocity as it would be for an atheist who doesn't believe in the day of judgement to commit one. The theist mass-murderer can at least ask for (and be confident to be granted) forgiveness on their deathbed.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 2:00
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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I suspect most atheists, like most religious people, keep their views to themselves and don't foist them on others. What I think most atheists find hard to tolerate is sanctimonious religious types who try to impose their values on everyone. The right wing in this country seem bent on doing that in this election.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 1:47
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Just can't stay away
 
Joined:
2012/3/13 0:42 Last Login : 2013/9/9 18:52 From Bayside Park
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WOW! really? its a parade get over it, just like the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Gay Pride, and many other parades not everyone is a fan but we move on.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 1:33
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Reply to sinik:
I am sorry to burst your bubble but atheists can be just as nasty as the religious. "The Khmer Rouge also classified people by religion and ethnic group. They banned all religion and dispersed minority groups, forbidding them to speak their languages or to practice their customs. They especially targeted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christians, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general, people who had contact with Western countries or with Vietnam, disabled people, and the ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese. Some were put in the S-21 camp for interrogation involving torture in cases where a confession was useful to the government. Many others were summarily executed. Confessions forced at S-21 were extracted from prisoners through such methods as raising prisoners by their arms tied behind and dislocating shoulders, removing toenails with pliers, suffocating a prisoner repeatedly and skinning a person while alive.[15]
Posted on: 2012/4/5 1:24
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Atheism is merely a lack of belief in God(s). It doesn't require faith to have a lack of belief. FYI: Some ("strong" or "positive" ) atheists will assert that God does not exist but this is not the default position. Quote:
I don't believe any violence has been done "in the name of Atheism". Some atheistic despots have done violence but I don't think any of them claimed to do it in the name of Atheism, did they? Perhaps a different choice of words was warranted.
Posted on: 2012/4/5 0:47
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Please don't pretend to understand what Atheists do and don't do. The ONLY thing we don't do is believe in the mythology of a deity or deities. Beyond that we have no limits other than the same limits every other human being is subject to. And I'd tend to believe our minds are open to a whole lot more as we aren't slaves to the thoughts of the clerics ruling our lives and our thought processes.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 22:53
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Sure, we may understand much of the universe through rational processes, but what does that mean? Believing there are phenomena that will forever be beyond our ability to perceive or comprehend, is believing in the limits of rational thought. But we already know that rational thought has obvious limits. Does it provide the inspiration that helps us create and understand art? Music? Lovemaking techniques? How about war? Or is it irrational thought that guides us through those lands? Atheists tend to limit their thoughts on the subject to whether they believe in the theological models created by various organized religious groups. I suppose that's by definition, but it doesn't seem like a very fruitful approach. If I reject every suggestion a toddler has for a chili recipe, I won?t have to worry about making a pot of crayon and mud stew, but I won?t end up with any chili either. So why limit yourself to only rejecting what you believe are the superficial claims of others? Have you been presented, or presented yourself, with every model that could exist?
Posted on: 2012/4/4 21:40
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like this guy. He's just being a dick.Quote:
Posted on: 2012/4/4 21:38
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Posted on: 2012/4/4 21:37
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I never said "WILL understand," I said "MAY understand." I also didnt say "all," I said "much of." I also believe that there will be things we will never understand. But I accept that as well. I stand by my statement.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 19:02
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I stand by my observation. Claiming that we have, or will have, the tools to comprehend every aspect of the cosmos someday is practically a leap of religious faith. Yes, today we can explain what that ball of light in the sky is, how babies are made, and why durian fruit stinks like cat pee, but that still leaves more difficult, ancient questions that have never been answered to our satisfaction and probably never will be.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 17:48
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Wow. This is thread is going crazy. Not only did people start being critical about innocent marchers ....who only practiced their constitutional rights....but now this topic has become overwhelmingly anti-religion..now wait there is more....but is slowly veering into Islamophobia.
I will repeat myself once more. It is not religion nor atheism that is the problem it is man. Not so fun facts: WTC Lives Lost due to Al Qadea: 2996 Lives Lost During the Khmer Rouge(led by an atheist known as Pol Pot) Regime: estimated at 1.7 million
Posted on: 2012/4/4 17:42
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No, it was Muslims who flew into the towers but the article was talking about churches being active locally, not Mosques. While there is a humanistic strand of Islam, irrationality predominates.
The so called goods of secularism were really fruits of Christianity. Aristotle taught that slavery was natural. St. Paul equivocated. However, Christian civilization was distinguished from the ancient world in that it was not slave based. Thus, the lack of slaves spurred techonolgical innovation. The early modern revival of slavery was spearheaded by pragmatic colonial powers in league with Islamic slave traders. The abolition of slavery was directly a result of Christian activism. Similarly, the ancient world, though not Rome where women had significant legal rights, and Islam suborndiated women so that they were virtually a separate species. Christian society, in comparison, insisted on rights of women from the start. For instance, from inception, a woman could not marry in a Christian land against her will. Women in Christian Europe were educated in the middle ages and in religious orders women made tremendous civil and cultural contriburtions. Devoutly Christian families often cultivated the intellects of their daughters, e.g., St. Thomas More's daughter Margaret was reputed to be one of the most brilliant persons in Europe at the time. Full citienzenship of woman happened in very religious countries in the Christian West (it was virtually the apogee of the US as a Christian nation that the franchise was extended to women). While Christianity is traditional and sees woman as primarily wives, mothers and home makers, and men as husbands, fathers, and workers, that is because it recognises realities that inhere in nature.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 17:25
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Fun fact:
It wasn't atheists that flew those airplanes into the World Trade Center.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 17:05
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As an atheist myself I respect that there are believers as long as they respect my dis-belief...There are times that I have to defend my reason for not being a believer. Every single moral that believers have every rule they follow in civilized society, is a secular humanist law. All the laws we currently have come out of the age of reason, a backlash against centuries of secular 'moral' rule known as the dark ages. It wasn?t divine morality that eliminated slavery, or allowed women to vote and own property: these are against the teachings of the bible. Every modern first world moral came from secular humanism, and a rejection of the violent morality of the bible. I find it hard to believe in organized religion since they cherry pick the morals and rules of the bible that they wish to follow which is part of the standard hypocrisy of religion. Ignore the 90% of the rules that you find inconvenient, and follow the 10% that happen to suit your desires. Do you think eating shellfish is an abomination? Do you think slavery should be legal and acceptable? Why not, those are Biblical morals!
Posted on: 2012/4/4 17:02
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Peace!
On Reality: Atheism does tend to be reductive. It is materialistic and cannot distinguish between hypothesis and reality. Epistimology, the branch of philosophy which examines how we know, is a fascinating subject. It is uncontroversial that the human mind works in paradigms. At the end, whether one is an atheist or believer, there is a jump of faith. A familiarity with intellectual history will also trim the sails of the ardent scientific atheist. It is no accident that science arose in the Christian West. Albertus Magnus and the Domincans took up science where the Greeks had left off (the Islamic contribution is really limited to preserving texts for the most part and importing hindu numbers to the West). A compelling argument can be made that the Judeo Christian embracing of creation and of rationality is what made science possible. On Violence Atheisim and theism deal with ultimate issues which can get people pretty agitated. I do believe that the Crusades, the Inquisitiion, and wars between Protestants and Catholics can be understoon very differently from how the village atheist describes it (For example, the Crusades were the response of Christian civilization which had been on the defensive for four hundred years from an expansionist and coercive Islamic army; the various inquisitions were state tribunals, not Church tribunals and although the inquiry dealt with matters of faith, the motivation was as much to do with civil order as theological faith; the wars between Catholics and Protestants were more likely explained as a a product of unbridled nationalism and the worship of the nation state than of the violence of religion. But even if one rejects all of that and wants to consider these as vioelnt aspects of Christiantity, one has to consider that since 1789, all the violence has been done in the name of Atheism. Starting with the genocide in the Vendee in 1793, through the rise of Bolshevism which killed more poeple during its reign than the any other ideology in history (think the Gulag, think the Cultural Revolution, think Pol Pot, think Ceacescu, think the Great Leader). Moreover, contra the attempt to describe Nazis as a sort of Christiantiy, it was clearly a form of neopagnanism. which derided the Catholic Christ as a weakingling following Nietche and wanted to ressurect the Teutonic gods of the barbarians. It is, in fact, the height of irrationality to indulge in screeds about the danger of Christians. Bu
Posted on: 2012/4/4 17:01
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Re: God belongs on the streets in Jersey City
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Really? Please don't accuse atheists of oversimplifying the nature of reality or life. Reality,including the biology of life, is very very complicated, and contains a whole host of things we don't understand. And we can accept the fact that we don't understand it all. We have faith that in time, much of what we don't understand may be explained, just as over the last few hundred years we've come to understand the solar system, electricity, how the body functions, how chemicals work, nuclear physics, etc. Science is the attempt to understand what we admit we don't know. Now I will admit to simplifying the nature of death. Simply the body or integral parts of the body cease functioning; now that is simple and clean. There is no heaven, there is no hell, there is no afterlife. Simple... In that you are right, Atheists simplify.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 16:41
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Ultimately, atheism versus religion debates are ironic because they?re both effective methods for remaining contently ignorant of phenomena we do not fully comprehend. Neither philosophy requires much contemplation, effort, or risk on behalf of the individual, but they?re both quick to point out the other camp?s folly.
Atheists tend to overly simplify the nature of reality, life, and death by explaining it away with ration and science that isn?t remotely advanced or comprehensive enough, while religious zealots promote fantasies about the immortal quality of the conscious ego and the deliberate wishes of metaphysical entities. Both are reassuring to in their own ways, but dodge the most important issues. I say they?re both crutches, but any system that helps a person integrate truly mind-boggling concepts into his or her life is a system that helps, and will probably have a positive influence on their maturation and psychological health.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 15:53
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+1
Posted on: 2012/4/4 15:09
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Following a Religion and believing in their fairy tales shows that you are mentally challenged. Scientology, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Moonieism, Mormonism; they're all the same. They are crutches for people who can't comprehend the complexity and randomness of the world and need someone to tell them that the world has meaning. Religion is a crutch for people who can't make up their own mind on right from wrong. It's a tool for megalomaniacs to control people and extract their money and soul. It's a grand, evil lie.
If you believe, you are weak of mind. If you follow, you might be dangerous. If you are a missionary, you are doing the devil's work. Keep your crazy off our streets.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 15:05
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Well if you think you have to be an atheist to commit atrocities, it was refreshing to hear William Lane Craig's defense of the Israelite genocide of the Canaanites. He claimed that the only people that might have really been harmed by this were the Israelite soldiers that had to carry out God's orders to kill all the Canaanite men, women and children.
Nice one, Bill! No wonder they call it apologetics. It's perfectly OK to commit genocide as long as you do it in God's name.
Posted on: 2012/4/4 14:46
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