The Atheist That Hates

It is certainly possibly given a certain credulity that has to be present in most religious people. With the fact that they will more easily believe ridiculous and outrageous stories I wouldn’t be surprised to find that many of them latch on to conspiracy theories. I don’t know if there is any solid information related to that available but it would certainly be an interesting study.

Sounds like a bad cheesy horror film. It could have been any one of hundreds of different things but “Jinns” is not a valid answer as to what it could be. It is hard for people to discount personal experience or personal experience retold from someone they trust but it is very easy for people to be mistaken. Any logical and reasonable answer is a better answer than magic.

Personally I find it to be no big deal. It is so much part of our common language that a lot of people will say “Oh my god” or “Jesus Christ on a pogo stick” even if they don’t believe. It is something where everyone understands the implication which is far from literal. I don’t understand why anyone would bother to make a big deal over something like that but I have heard many people say non-believers shouldn’t be able to use these terms. If nothing else we should continue to use them just to stick it to the people who want to police the language we can use.

There aren’t a lot of ways to respond to crazy without calling it crazy. You could attempt to engaged him in conversation but really when you boil it down to the basics religion is a widely accepted delusion. If only one person believed Christianity they would be called a delusional mad man. Mass acceptance does not make an idea any more correct. There are simply some people that can not be rationed with, he likely sounds like one of those people. If someone completely decides that reason and logic mean nothing to them it is impossible to find a logical and reasonable way to explain to them that they should value logic and reason.

I trust science and I would follow what theory scientific evidence shows to be true. I can say with a good amount of confidence that evolution will never be shown to be wrong, the only thing that could change is having more and better information on it. Evolution is absolutely true, but we’re always working out more and more details. If science tomorrow was to show me that the theory of gravity is not true, I would trust science if it could show me that information but nothing in me thinks that will ever happen either.

In many ways I agree, it is a natural course of Atheists finally speaking up. Any time a group of people that are generally unpopular in public opinion start to speak out and gain ground those that oppose it step up their outrage. It is a struggle that has to happen sadly. It is unfortunate but it has been the case historically that in order for people to be recognized and accepted in society they have to work for it. Most of the parallels between the Atheist movement and civil rights or LGBT movements are unwarranted but there is a general undercutting patterns that all of these struggles share. Things get worse before they start to get better.

I think that in the next few years we will likely see a stronger and stronger push back against the advancement of Atheism. Even with that though there seems to be so much momentum behind the pushing back of religion and pushing forward of positive Atheism that it seems like it will be a much shorter struggle for Atheists than it (still) is for other groups. I sometimes still have my doubts but I am starting to think more and more that I will live to see a day where the majority of people in the world are not religious. Until that day there are those of us Atheists that will be discriminated against, looked down upon, called names, and get in to fights with friends and family. Sadly that is the price that we have to pay in this struggle, it isn’t fair, but life rarely is.

I consider it a bit funny but don’t take it seriously. It feels like an attempt at a FSM like religion, but based on a “real” goddess, that never really gained a lot of popularity. Chaos plays an important part in the universe but it certainly doesn’t make a religion.

I only know a little bit of information about it. I used to have a lot of curiosity about psychedelics and that prompted me to learn more about the pre-Columbian shamanism of the Americas. It sounds like some very interesting stuff but is all relatively easy to explain in scientific terms. It is an interesting era of history that we have little insight on but could possibly learn information that would help us even today. Interesting stories and interesting times but likely something that could never really be recreated in modern day.

Thank you and I appreciate it. It seems like a lot of it is due to the way it is selectively presented to Western culture. Usually we are only allowed access to the positive sides that have mass appeal. The more ridiculous and less favorable bits are all left out to give it more charm and appeal. I do quite enjoy many aspects of Eastern religions personally but it doesn’t make them correct or beneficial to humanity.

Religious people are raised and coaxed to believe a lot of ridiculous things. They will walk around their entire life believing that there is a special omnipotent being that watches over them. They will often believe this figure loves and cares for them and will ensure that they have a wonderful afterlife. They believe this because it is comforting, they so fully accept it as their world view that it is dangerous for them to even doubt the idea. Often times these religious people come from a small world view where all of their friends and family share a similar if not identical belief. It is somewhat understandable that when someone comes along who rejects this idea fully they feel a moment of shock.

It is also often understandable that they will jump to a justification that fits within their religious world view. “You must love the devil!” or some other similar nonsense. It is simply the result of a small minded binary world view. Either you’re with god, or you’re against god. Either you’re “saved” and a believer or you’re not and people would like to believe that everyone they know or care about is going to be among the “saved” and generally agree with their world out look. Especially for someone who has never encountered a contradicting world view, it can be quite a shock.

Part of that is why it is such a great thing that many Atheists have spoken out about their disbelief. It puts the strong believer in the position of cognitive dissonance. They want to believe those that are not Christian are not as “good” as they are, when presented with someone they know to be a “good” person that is not Christian they are left with a dilemma. In order to resolve the dissonance they either have to give up their small minded and bigoted view or they will push to distance themselves from the non-believer. Sadly it seems too often they look to distance themselves from the non-believer. Those that hold on to that prejudice aren’t many but chances are if your Atheism shocks someone it is because of their built in prejudices.

They talk about me on Fox news? Can someone get me that clip please?

The biblical god is not a good character, he is not something worthy of worship or concerned with the betterment of humanity. Lucifer on the other hand….

As I was not created, I am not commanded to worship anything or anyone and never would.

…what? This question doesn’t make any sense at all. Even if I attempt to twist it to make any sense it basically seems like you’re asking if I want to be evil. I don’t believe in absolute morality because there is no absolutely morality. All morality is relative and is a result of our development and our evolution. “Good” and “evil” do exist but simply as words that we use to describe the actions of people they do not exist in some absolute concrete form.

Apparently I am at odds with some pro-choice people in the fact that I think the real separation point is viability. Once a child is viable to survive outside of the womb (usually around the 20 week mark) I feel that the abortion conversation becomes much more tricky. I still certainly consider myself pro-choice but once a child is fully developed to the point of being able to survive independent of it’s mothers womb we have a completely different story. At that point I personally consider the child to be fully human.

The “even a single cell is a living cell” discussion I find to be a complete garbage argument though. No one mourns over the thousands of once living skin cells we shed each day. No one has made any serious effort to ban male masturbation which is a veritable genocide of small living organisms. The only time people care about such a small amount of cells is when it is a potential human inside of a woman. Until it actually achieves viability it is only a potential human. A fetus has to engaged in a parasitic relationship with a host until it become fully viable.

If we don’t consider all things that could be potential humans, like sperm and skin cells, humans that are worthy of being mourned over why should the circumstances change when these cells are inside of a woman’s body? The only way a potential human can become a human is with the consent of the mother’s body, it plays a huge emotional and physical toll on that woman’s body and that woman should be free to chose if she wants to allow that to happen. If we consider every potential cell to be a life that can be murdered then most teen boys put the crimes of Hitler and Stalin to shame in just a few years.

Very true. Buddhism is one of the only other religions you will find religiously motivated suicide bombers in outside of Islam.