Really? C'mon, drunken and/or smoking slackers, for shame, even if it is a Friday night.

Britney Spear's Speculum: What did I miss?

Fluoridation of the water
Aspartame
Secular Authoritarianism

doglover: simsite9: Why do non-atheists keep capitalizing the "a" in "atheism?" It's not a belief that needs to be a proper noun. it's a lack of belief, especially in needless aggrandizement.

Atheism with a big A isn't a believe that gods do not exist. (it's not a lack, but a positive denial usually, and that's okay.)

Atheism with a big A applies to the people like Penn Jillette who can't talk more than five minutes without bringing it up!

My best bro stateside is so Christian he can turn water into wine (albeit with yeast) but you could hang out with him for a whole week before you noticed he goes to church. That's how everyone should treat it. But this is not the case.

The atheists in America are mostly out of everyone's hair and doing their own thing like good citizens. The Atheists are a vocal minority like Creationists and other groups of assholes who think want to fark with us normal people by constant legal battles and whining in the news over the most innane shiat.

Tim Tebow.

This Atheist movement is getting awful religiousy

HeartBurnKid: doglover: simsite9: Why do non-atheists keep capitalizing the "a" in "atheism?" It's not a belief that needs to be a proper noun. it's a lack of belief, especially in needless aggrandizement.

Atheism with a big A isn't a believe that gods do not exist. (it's not a lack, but a positive denial usually, and that's okay.)

Atheism with a big A applies to the people like Penn Jillette who can't talk more than five minutes without bringing it up!

My best bro stateside is so Christian he can turn water into wine (albeit with yeast) but you could hang out with him for a whole week before you noticed he goes to church. That's how everyone should treat it. But this is not the case.

The atheists in America are mostly out of everyone's hair and doing their own thing like good citizens. The Atheists are a vocal minority like Creationists and other groups of assholes who think want to fark with us normal people by constant legal battles and whining in the news over the most innane shiat.

Tim Tebow.

Actually, I feel I should go on, so I will...

Pat Robertson.

Rick Santorum.

Jerry Falwell.

Hell, the entire farking Republican party.

You want to tell me about how Christians don't rub your nose in their shiat? Try coming back to reality. They not only won't shut up about it, but they want to farking legislate it.

Atheists in the military want chaplains? And yet atheists are not anything like religious people... OK then...

Bevets: wharrrgarbl

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: I'm a militant agnostic. I stand outside of places of worship holding question marks and screaming "MAYBE!"

If I don't know, then neither can you!

/Practicing Deist
//To each his own



"Every person, of whatever religious denomination he may be, is a DEIST in the first article of his Creed. Deism, from the Latin word Deus, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the first article of every man's creed.

It is on this article, universally consented to by all mankind, that the Deist builds his church, and here he rests. Whenever we step aside from this article, by mixing it with articles of human invention, we wander into a labyrinth of uncertainty and fable, and become exposed to every kind of imposition by pretenders to revelation." Thomas Payne



Keep the faith Brother....

Skr: This Atheist movement is getting awful religiousy

Does that mean we all agree that the way religious people act is annoying?

One study last year asked participants whether a fictional hit-and-run driver was more likely to be an atheist or a rapist. A majority chose atheist.

Consider an individual who is short, slender, and likes to read poetry in the park. Would you guess that this individual is more likely to be a classics professor, or a truck driver?

Correct answer: Truck driver, because there's so many more of them.

I get called on equivocating when I say Atheism is a religion, but the multiple definitions come about by the change in perception of a word, based on usage.

Atheism is a religion, and atheists are determined to make the word fit.

God works in mysterious ways.

odinsposse: Does that mean we all agree that the way religious people act is annoying?

Atheists have been annoying religious people for centuries*. So, yeah.

*and vice versa

Skr: This Atheist movement is getting awful religiousy

Does this mean we get to make random demands that entire nations have to cater to that make almost no sense in the modern world?

Wow, well Fark never gets tired of this subject. I daresay it gets even more hits than the redheads.

/encouraging really

Plant Rights Activist: Does this mean we get to make random demands that entire nations have to cater to that make almost no sense in the modern world?

Once you have the numbers, sure.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

-Philip K. Dick

It really is remarkable.

I live in the third largest metro area in the united states, I'm in my late 20's, and because I work with music promotions, I have a fairly large social circle. I can count the number of people who openly profess a belief in God on one hand. Christ, I know more open drug dealers than Christians at this point.

People under the age of 25, who really came of age as the religious right started stomping down on everyone and everything modern society had already accepted, they want nothing to do with organized religion. They're 'spiritual' or Christian in the vague sense that they believe in certain elements of the jesus philosophy, but they want nothing to do with hateful, exclusionary religions of their parents and grandparents.

For all this talk about the rise atheism, if anything, I think it's more likely that western society is just preparing for a massive, liberal-christian revival. A lot of people really want to believe, they just want to believe in a God who's not looking to roast them in hell because they masturbate, have premarital sex, or are gay. And the first new faith to provide acceptance and adherence to these politics will probably clean the house.

I am an atheist, but I recognize that a lot of the reason that I am is that I was raised in an atheist household; a starkly minority experience in this country. I have nothing against the belief in a higher power, I simply have no evidence or feeling to suggest to me there is one. If people do believe it, that's fine. The problem 'true' atheists have with fundamentalists of all stripes is the same problem these 'spiritual' and 'nones' have: using the belief in a higher power as a way to persecute for no obvious reason than persecutions sake. About as far from the teachings of Christ as you can actually get. It's amazing how many people don't understand why Jesus hung out with whores and lepers.

But a lot of the kids do. And if they want to believe in something, I'm fine with it, if it's a more kind, gentle, and accepting christian faith than what the fark those aging bigots got going on now.

My non-belief was a gradual process, endless hours, years, and miles of rumination on my Catholic upbringing/force-feeding, culminating in the disappointing conclusion that the idea of a higher power was an attractive fantasy. I say "disappointing" because I really, really wanted to spend eternity in paradise (which would have consisted of all manner of delightful Bacchanalian excess and boinking everybody you did or didn't get with while on earth; basically drinking and farking ALL those women, even (especially) the married ones and it would actually make you healthier; so would smoking, which I miss terribly. Hell, who WOULDN'T love eternity starting off like that?), and I still don't have 100% of the courage necessary to face my conclusion that "this is it" and I have to really make something of it right now. Not all crimes will be avenged, not all the deserving will get their reward, it farking sucks and that's it, so get to it or don't.

/shrug
//end rant

s2s2s2: I get called on equivocating when I say Atheism is a religion, but the multiple definitions come about by the change in perception of a word, based on usage.
Atheism is a religion, and atheists are determined to make the word fit.


For clarity, according to your definition--

Yankees fans: Religion, or not?
GOP: Religion, or not?
PETA: Religion, or not?
Fondness for apples: Religion, or not?
Fondness for Apple: Religion, or not?
Red hair: Religion, or not?
American Academy of Pediatrics: Religion, or not?
Existentialism: Religion, or not?
Methodological Naturalism: Religion, or not?
Evolution deniers (such as yourself): Religion, or not?

In my area I know of at least four churches that are for currently for sale and one that sold recently
that has a "hall for rent" sign on it now.

I turned away from Christianity because of Chick tracts.

/true story

They preach loving one another and treating everyone as a neighbor. But only if they're like you. Only if they think they way you do, look like you do, dress like you do, etc, etc, etc. One memory that really stands out to this day is when I was at church probably around 8-9 years old. A black family comes in (I'm assuming new to town) and sits down. People move away, people avoid them, everyone's staring at them and whispering. During one of the hymns the family quietly leaves.

I don't know if Christianity or any other religion is right or wrong. I haven't had any sort of epiphany about it, though to be honest I haven't tried very hard. I live like I think I should, and I try to help people when I can. I'll donate to charities if I can spare the money. I've helped out at homeless shelters. If that's wrong, oh well. If there's a God and he hates me for it, oh well.

I was a Catholic Apologetic. However, maybe ironically, it was my research to improve my apologetic abilities that I gradually lost my faith.

Gyrfalcon: Britney Spear's Speculum: Raging Thespian: Stop submitting links about it and we'll stop commenting.

No! The people not commenting on unsubmitted articles have to disprove the existence of unsubmitted articles.

It's a lot harder to comment on unsubmitted links, you have to admit.

Anyway, if you tip more than 15% automatically, I say you're an idiot.

I'm not an atheist... I just quit going to church because everyone there was so snarky.

/I love you Jesus, but your fan club sucks!

RoyBatty: Gyrfalcon: Britney Spear's Speculum: Raging Thespian: Stop submitting links about it and we'll stop commenting.

No! The people not commenting on unsubmitted articles have to disprove the existence of unsubmitted articles.

It's a lot harder to comment on unsubmitted links, you have to admit.

Anyway, if you tip more than 15% automatically, I say you're an idiot.

Sorry, sorry, wrong thread.

The antipathy may have actually grown with the recent emergence of "New Atheist" writers such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, who have launched impassioned attacks on organized religion.

You can only act as though this is something new if you conveniently forget old atheists such as Mencken, Russell, etc.

"The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters." -- H L Mencken

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this." -- Bertrand Russell

Bevets: How many schizophrenics have murdered because God told them to?

none

You are correct on this. There were no schizophrenics who murdered anyone because God told them to because there is no God to tell them to. Any conceptualization of God is only that; a conceptualization.

simsite9: Why do non-atheists keep capitalizing the "a" in "atheism?" It's not a belief that needs to be a proper noun. it's a lack of belief, especially in needless aggrandizement.

Capital-A Atheism refers to the worshippers of Athe^. A common point of confusion.

crazyeddie: For clarity, according to your definition--

Yankees fans: Religion, or not?
GOP: Religion, or not?
PETA: Religion, or not?
Fondness for apples: Religion, or not?
Fondness for Apple: Religion, or not?
Red hair: Religion, or not?
American Academy of Pediatrics: Religion, or not?
Existentialism: Religion, or not?
Methodological Naturalism: Religion, or not?
Evolution deniers (such as yourself): Religion, or not?

crazyeddie: but the multiple definitions come about by the change in perception of a word, based on usage.

Do people use the term religion to describe anything other than belief in a deity?
The answer to that question is the answer to all your questions. Religion is only religion to its adherents.

As to the bolded quote. You are wrong, but you aren't really trying.

Summer Glau's Love Slave: I'm not an atheist... I just quit going to church because everyone there was so snarky.

/I love you Jesus, but your fan club sucks!

Congratulations on understanding Jesus' message.

s2s2s2: I get called on equivocating when I say Atheism is a religion, but the multiple definitions come about by the change in perception of a word, based on usage.

Atheism is a religion, and atheists are determined to make the word fit.

God works in mysterious ways.

As somebody who was born and raised a nonbeliever, none of this has anything to do with me. I can't relate to "Atheists" who reject faith, because I never acquired the capacity for faith to begin with. The whole debate is meaningless to me - but the loud "Atheist" minority gives the religious folks somebody to hate and fear, and that seems to make them feel better. In reality, of course, they speak only for themselves.

Cheesus: I don't know if Christianity or any other religion is right or wrong. I haven't had any sort of epiphany about it, though to be honest I haven't tried very hard. I live like I think I should, and I try to help people when I can. I'll donate to charities if I can spare the money. I've helped out at homeless shelters. If that's wrong, oh well. If there's a God and he hates me for it, oh well.

This.

I spend my Sunday mornings at a hospital instead of church. I volunteer in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and hang out in the play room to play with the children who have the energy to play. Personally, I find this a much more rewarding and purposeful activity than sitting in church. If there is a God and he judges me poorly for this I don't know how dedicated I could be to him anyways.

theorellior: Like how it's annoying having to build a pyre to burn those pesky atheists, or you just have to get your axe out to chop their heads off, or scourging them and running them out of town takes up time that could be better used for plowing?

You know there is more than just annoying, and non-annoying, right?