by zeroday* 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
**disclaimer** I'm an Atheist...
Atheism is not a Faith, it is not a religion, it is not a belief system...What do Atheist and Believers have in common...NOTHING. So why do Atheist seem it necessary to argue, fight and debate believers. What is to be gained, a new nonBeliever...I have never understood it. Why do Atheist give Atheist bad names. Why do they insist removing "God" from currency, removing anything religious from public view. OK rant over...flame on...
I suggest you watch Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial
Athiests become vocal against religion because religion leads us to an intellectual dead-end. An end where we lose our ability to find new technology, medicines, and answers. Where exploration and education stops, and everything is replaced by believing what you are told to believe. Look no further than the middle east to see where religion leads us. It was the scientific revolution that brought us to where we are today, and certainly not religion.
There are those that would put an end to the quest for knowledge and understanding of ourselves. True, not every christian or religious person is extreme - but decent people, following the leadership of a clergy are quick to do the wrong thing - and think nothing of it.
The residents of Dover thought they were doing the right thing - using public funds to teach religion in school, and selecting science textbooks that were intentionally out of date, and light on legitimate biological science. If religious fundamentalists had their way, progress in biological sciences would stop. Books would be burned, and America would become scientificly obsolete within just a few decades.
All so people can feel comfortable with in their bronze-age understanding that the world is 6000 years old, and that man is made in the image of God - rather than a lower primate.
It's not purely a matter of 'what is to be gained' - it's a matter of 'what could be lost'.
- Lime
Why do Atheist give Atheist bad names.
For the same reason some believers give other believers a bad name I guess. I've always thought that, if someone is truly comfortable with their belief or disbelief, they wouldn't feel the urge to debate it or try to shove it down other people's throats. It's almost as if they need others to validate their viewpoints.
W
Agreed...
(LOL at Beks!!!)
I don't think there's EVER been a real atheist who would describe "atheism" as a "faith"...
However, for people whose value system IS based on 'faith', that is the most convenient - and familiar - way to describe THEIR perception of "atheism"...
In other words, since religious people accept THEIR "supreme beings" based on faith [although in modern times they've adopted the 'fad' of attempting to make it appear "scientific"...], that is the ONLY way they can perceive / the only 'filter' they can see OTHER people's - atheists' - mental processes through.
This is a VERY common human failing... That old saying, "Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes/moccasins.." describes that particular form of mental blindness.
I've seen people on this board experience that 'blindness' over and over and over again. And project THEIR realities onto others, INCLUDING ME...
I experience it myself, when looking at people who continue to worship a "Johnny-come-lately" Middle Eastern volcano god that is clearly NOT the oldest 'god' on the planet. I experience it myself, when I cannot understand how others can continue worshipping "Johnny-come-lately" Middle Eastern 'gods' and blithely ignore the vastly-older gods and goddesses that are more likely to be "the true gawd"... I experience it myself, when other people continue buying into the whole idea of the "Johnny-come-lately" Middle Eastern 'gods' being a 'real' deity, when the existence of so many older 'gods' and 'goddesses' clearly indicates that there is NO real 'gawd/deity' over this planet...
And don't even get me started on what the discovery of all those other galaxies - and the possibility of life on other planets - SHOULD mean to people who still believe in the "Johnny-come-lately" Middle Eastern 'gawds'...
Misperception of other peoples' realities is way too common amongst humanity... It is the basis of the violent Muslim arrogance towards ALL non-believers [they can't understand why WE wouldn't want to live like THEY do...], it was the basis of the Christian persecutions, it is the basis of the difficulties of the JWs who 'can't understand' why WE have left the WTBTS...
I've often wondered - wished - that the human race COULD develop telepathy... But a universal telepathy would be VERY PAINFUL for the human race to experience, as it developed - evolved...
Probably would also involve a great deal of violence, too... Knowing humanity...
Zid
atheism is based in logic and rationality.
faith is ot
atheism is based in logic and rationality.
Amen........thank god I'm a atheist .
On the one hand I kind of admire those who have no hope beyond their present existence. On the other hand I find them most pitiable. They are quite right about railing against abuses by evil men done in the name of religion, but they neglect to understand that some of the great men of science were also great men of faith. Men like Isaac Newton, who wrote probably as much on religion as he did science. http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=135&name=1. And what a faith that must have inspired men like Galileo. Yes, there's obviously much we cannot know, but sticking our heads in the sand either by declaring our disbelief in anything is just as nonsensical as wanting to live in the dark ages as evil men in the Middle East would have us. It's like black light on one extreme and no light on the other.
Rev 3:17 "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."
Freydo, even consider that what is written in the bible might actually be uninsightful or just plain wrong?
