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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:41 am 
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Keeping track of current affairs had led me to the belief that it's time for atheists to put aside respect for diversity and multi culteralism, and to start fighting to end religion before it manages to end us all. We are but 10% of this nation, and we usually keep quiet out of some ridiculous respect for the fairy tales that others believe. But it's time to get militant, time to preach the word that the Word is bogus.

We have a president who believes that his god is going to end the world shortly, and is associated with true-believers who are trying actively to bring about the conditions for the end of everything. We continously go to war with people in foreign land who have a *slightly* different god, and therefore hate us. We let people who believe in bible literalism and therefore that Jonah lived in the belly of a whale, and that the world is only 5000 years old, and that man lived contemperaneously with dinosaurs (dragons) steer our public discourse and decide how to teach science. These same people continously deride logic and science as unprovable and false while enjoying the benefits of modern medicine, powered flight, and watching thier false preachers on television.

And meanwhile we sit tight and let them insult us and lead us to war and mislead our children because "faith" in this obviously false tripe is somehow sacred and important to diversity.

We need to start to convert people. We need to bring our brothers and sisters to the light, as they would try to bring us into thier twilight world of make-believe. Even if it shatters thier belief in Santa Jesus and makes them more aware of thier mortality, we must let them know that the time to live is now, and the best way to live eternally is to make THIS world a better place. We need to bring the people of this world to reason, logic and science, and fix the world now, because no heaven is waiting on the other side. No Jesus or Mohommed or Sheva is going to welcome them smiling into thier bosoms after they burn this beautiful world into radioactive ash on the basis of the boogey-man stories they were told to keep them from eating pork or having sex.

RISE UP WITH ME!

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:50 am 
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Y'know, if you're gonna insult someone's god, you should at least spell his name correctly. It's Shiva. The Destroyer.

And it's a lost cause. I think that people are predisposed to believe in religions. It's just one of those things about humanity. Humans. Sexually dimorphic, about 60% monogamous, extended childhood, tendency to live in groups and form hierarchical social structures, strangely attracted to religion. Look what happened when the Communist Party loosened its grip on society in China after 45 years of enforced athiesm. Religions pop up left and right. Poof. Just like that.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:53 am 
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People used to believe in Zeus. They used to believe the sun goes to bed in the ocean. People used to subsist on whatever they could dig out of the ground with a stick.

It's time to change. It's time humanity took the next big step and stopped being so afraid to die that they ruin thier lives.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:56 am 
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Ooooh! I know, let's start by dissolving America, reinstituting slavery, and making Nazism the official government!

Oh, and read the Bible sometime. Nothing anyone does is going to affect when the "End Times" happens. It's already planned out. I'm of the belief that the rapture will occur before the rest of the stuff in Revelation. The rapture could happen tomorrow, 50 years from now, or in the next second. The point is that NOONE knows when!

And there's actually a lot of evidence that the world really isn't all that old. Jonah didn't get swallowed by a whale; it was a fish. There actually has been someone swallowed by a whale who was later rescued.

Dragons and dinosaurs are two different things, and I have yet to hear an acceptable theory on how everything got here in the first place.

Unless you're being satirical, you sound in your last paragraph a lot like some people (Pat Robertson comes to mind) that you so obviously despise.

EDIT: The above post is in response to the first post.

Oh, and my life is quite fine, and I am not at all afraid of dying. In fact, I expect to be quite happy after I die.

Big-O wrote:
told to keep them from eating pork or having sex.

I don't know of any religion that prevents sex (besides outside of marriage, which is harmful anyway), and Christianity doesn't say no pork.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:04 am 
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From the other thread:

CCC wrote:
Fairy-tales?

Which fairy-tales?

The ones that say "Thou Shalt Not Kill"?

The ones that say "Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself"?

The ones that sponsor relief efforts, do charity work, and raise money for those who can't afford food?

The ones that gave the world people like Mother Theresa?

Personally, I wouldn't consider any of them to be fairy-tales. And I don't think they make the world a worse place to live in, either.


The "People of the Book" obviously don't believe in thou shall not kill, or loving thy neighbor. For every real Christian there are 2 guys who drag someone to death behind a pickup because he had "the mark of Cain". Morality is seperate from religion. We can study the Bible and apply it's wisdom and morals to our society without believing Christ is the son of god.

Atheists give to charity, and I'm insulted by the idea that the only generous people in the world have to be motivated by religion. And again, which world would you rather live in, Medeival Europe with plenty of religious charity or now with plenty of pennicilin?

And religion also gave the world people like Louis IVX, Pat Robertson, Osama Bin Laden and David Koresh.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:13 am 
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Personally, I'm no fan of religion, for a number of reasons, both in terms of its practice, and the basic way of thinking it depends on.

But not only do we not have a chance of abolishing religion, I don't think it would be particularly productive to do so. It would not end war (the largest armed conflict the world has ever seen was motivated largely by secular ideologies), it would not end prejudice (there are plenty of bigots with no particular religious views), it would not end social injustice (most major religions are in favour of altruism, at least nominally), it would not end stupidity (people just are and will always be stupid).

vampirebunbun wrote:
And there's actually a lot of evidence that the world really isn't all that old.

No, there really isn't.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:21 am 
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vampirebunbun wrote:
Ooooh! I know, let's start by dissolving America, reinstituting slavery, and making Nazism the official government!

Oh, and read the Bible sometime. Nothing anyone does is going to affect when the "End Times" happens. It's already planned out. I'm of the belief that the rapture will occur before the rest of the stuff in Revelation. The rapture could happen tomorrow, 50 years from now, or in the next second. The point is that NOONE knows when!

And there's actually a lot of evidence that the world really isn't all that old. Jonah didn't get swallowed by a whale; it was a fish. There actually has been someone swallowed by a whale who was later rescued.

Dragons and dinosaurs are two different things, and I have yet to hear an acceptable theory on how everything got here in the first place.

Unless you're being satirical, you sound in your last paragraph a lot like some people (Pat Robertson comes to mind) that you so obviously despise.

EDIT: The above post is in response to the first post.

Oh, and my life is quite fine, and I am not at all afraid of dying. In fact, I expect to be quite happy after I die.

Big-O wrote:
told to keep them from eating pork or having sex.

I don't know of any religion that prevents sex (besides outside of marriage, which is harmful anyway), and Christianity doesn't say no pork.


Someone swallowed by a whale and survived? Pinocchio?

I didn't say anything about slavery or nazism, just preaching the word just like the christians do, and educating our brothers. I'm saying we need to put aside our veneration for quaint beliefs.

Bush is connected to Tim LaHaye, a true believer in apocalypse. These people support Israel and zionism not because they respect them Jewish people having a homeland, but because they need to rebuild the Temple of Solomon as one of the events leading to the Apocalypse (and the eradication or conversion of the entire Jewish nation, Nice Guys) because relevations is to be taken literally.

There is no evidence the world is only 5000 years old. There is plenty of evidence the world is close to 4.5 billion years old. Belief the world is only 5000 years old is faith that the bible is literal and that god likes to play clever tricks on his followers because he's a jerk.

As for how everything got here, well rent and watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos (or read it).

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:22 am 
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Big-O wrote:
For every real Christian there are 2 guys who drag someone to death behind a pickup because he had "the mark of Cain". Morality is seperate from religion. We can study the Bible and apply it's wisdom and morals to our society without believing Christ is the son of god.

Atheists give to charity, and I'm insulted by the idea that the only generous people in the world have to be motivated by religion. And again, which world would you rather live in, Medeival Europe with plenty of religious charity or now with plenty of pennicilin?

And religion also gave the world people like Louis IVX, Pat Robertson, Osama Bin Laden and David Koresh.


Oh, I see. You don't care about "real" Christians. Just the people that say they're Christians and happen to fit your worldview. The whole concept of morality is inherently religious, and the entire Bible points to Jesus as both God and the savior of mankind. Yes, atheists give to charity, but that doesn't discount religion. What the heck does penicillin have to do with anything?! Did you know that the reason the scientific method got started was because a group of scientist said that God made the world rational, and therefore there should be a way of investigating it rationally. Bud-a-bing! Roots of the modern scientific method. And you can't prove OR disprove either evolution or creation. Darwin himself admitted the neccessity of a Creator!

Oh, by the way, atheism gave us people like Hitler and Stalin, as well as all sorts of other people.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:27 am 
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AxelFendersson wrote:
Personally, I'm no fan of religion, for a number of reasons, both in terms of its practice, and the basic way of thinking it depends on.

But not only do we not have a chance of abolishing religion, I don't think it would be particularly productive to do so. It would not end war (the largest armed conflict the world has ever seen was motivated largely by secular ideologies), it would not end prejudice (there are plenty of bigots with no particular religious views), it would not end social injustice (most major religions are in favour of altruism, at least nominally), it would not end stupidity (people just are and will always be stupid).


Yeah, but it would end a lot of wasted effort and minds. We are trashing the world and tripping merrily along the road to annihilation while believing that this is just a way station before we get to heaven. Fighting against religion would not end the world's woes, but it would get rid of some of them. People are stupid, and it would help give them one less reason to hate each other.

I'm not advocating government pogroms to destroy churches, just more organized missionary work on the part of atheists. We do need to temper it with some morality lest we wind up with hedonism instead.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:33 am 
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Let me see, where to start...

Big-O wrote:
We have a president who believes that his god is going to end the world shortly, and is associated with true-believers who are trying actively to bring about the conditions for the end of everything.


...and how exactly is that going to help them? Just because the conditions are right does not mean that the world will necessarily end. It's been made quite clear (biblically) that the world will end when God wants - not when anyone else expects it to.

Big-O wrote:
We continously go to war with people in foreign land who have a *slightly* different god, and therefore hate us.


...have you considered that this might have something to do with American foreign policy over the last several years? Funding terrorists to try to ensure the communists didn't get a foothold, invading other countries on flimsy excuses later proven false, etc., etc.?

Big-O wrote:
We let people who believe in bible literalism and therefore that Jonah lived in the belly of a whale, and that the world is only 5000 years old, and that man lived contemperaneously with dinosaurs (dragons) steer our public discourse and decide how to teach science. These same people continously deride logic and science as unprovable and false while enjoying the benefits of modern medicine, powered flight, and watching thier false preachers on television.


As to the first one, the thing about miracles is that they tend to be miraculous. As to the second, the use of parables is well-known. Therefore, it may very well be that the creation week in genesis is, itself, a parable, and that the actual work may have taken a bit longer. (A few billion years or so). As to the third, I haven't heard that one before, but I assume it's supposed to be a consequence of the second; in which case, see previous comment.

Big-O wrote:
And meanwhile we sit tight and let them insult us and lead us to war and mislead our children because "faith" in this obviously false tripe is somehow sacred and important to diversity.


And how exactly do you get from "the earth is not 5000 years old" to "all religions, even those that have officially agreed that evolution might just be possible, need to be destroyed"?

Big-O wrote:
We need to start to convert people. We need to bring our brothers and sisters to the light, as they would try to bring us into thier twilight world of make-believe. Even if it shatters thier belief in Santa Jesus and makes them more aware of thier mortality, we must let them know that the time to live is now, and the best way to live eternally is to make THIS world a better place.


The last part of last sentance sounds rather familiar to me. Specifically the bit about the best way to live eternally being to make this world a better place.

It's not exactly a new concept. I believe it was previously referred to in the famous quote "Love thy neighbour as thyself".

Big-O wrote:
We need to bring the people of this world to reason, logic and science, and fix the world now, because no heaven is waiting on the other side. No Jesus or Mohommed or Sheva is going to welcome them smiling into thier bosoms after they burn this beautiful world into radioactive ash on the basis of the boogey-man stories they were told to keep them from eating pork or having sex.

RISE UP WITH ME!


Well, for a start, turning the planet into radioactive ash goes directly against "Thou shalt not kill".

And secondly, just a few paragraphs ago you were talking about living eternally. If there's no Heaven, then where would people live eternally?

Big-O wrote:
It's time to change. It's time humanity took the next big step and stopped being so afraid to die that they ruin thier lives.


What is there in religion that makes people afraid of death?

Big-O wrote:
The "People of the Book" obviously don't believe in thou shall not kill, or loving thy neighbor. For every real Christian there are 2 guys who drag someone to death behind a pickup because he had "the mark of Cain". Morality is seperate from religion. We can study the Bible and apply it's wisdom and morals to our society without believing Christ is the son of god.


There's good religion and bad religion. And there's people who would take anything and twist it to their own selfish desires.

But people didn't abandon air travel after Sept. 11. And I don't think that abandoning religion is a good idea, either.

Big-O wrote:
Atheists give to charity, and I'm insulted by the idea that the only generous people in the world have to be motivated by religion. And again, which world would you rather live in, Medeival Europe with plenty of religious charity or now with plenty of pennicilin?


True. Very true. But religion has been known to cause people to become generous (or, in other cases, more generous). It might not be the only contributor to generosity, but it can be a fairly major one for some people.

As to the second part of your question, I happen to be allergic to penicillin... and there's still a certain amount of religious charity in the world. It hasn't died out completely yet. (I still think I'd prefer to be alive now, though. Now is when I grew up, and I'd have difficulty fitting in in the Middle Ages.)

Big-O wrote:
And religion also gave the world people like Louis IVX, Pat Robertson, Osama Bin Laden and David Koresh.


The only name on that list that I can associate with any deeds is Bin Laden. And as far as I recall, several imams have pointed out how he's misinterpreted important bits of Islam... I can't unfortunately recall the details at the moment.

Who exactly are the other three? (I think I've seen Robertson's name on these boards somewhere before...)

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:33 am 
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Big-O wrote:
People are stupid, and it would help give them one less reason to hate each other.

I'm not advocating government pogroms to destroy churches, just more organized missionary work on the part of atheists. We do need to temper it with some morality lest we wind up with hedonism instead.


You know, that's a lot like the original rationalization for slavery. "Those poor black people, they're so stupid they don't know how to live. We'll be nice and control their lives for them." Go read "The White Man's Burden" for a better look.

Missionary work, eh? Careful, you're starting to make atheism sound like a religion. Eh, who am I kidding, it is a religion, in the sense that it is a set of beliefs that cannot be tested empirically.

Where do you get off telling me what's right and what's wrong. What does your authority come from to determine that. I thought atheists were all into moral relativism anyway. Of course, that runs into it's own problems when you start asking questions like, "What exactly is wrong with killing people?"

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:37 am 
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vampirebunbun wrote:
Oh, by the way, atheism gave us people like Hitler and Stalin, as well as all sorts of other people.

But Hitler inherited 1500 years of central European hatred of the Jews, and the Catholics and Protestants stood around and watched Hitler kill 6 million people. Hitler was a religion, he was the messiah to the Germans, and no amount of hand waving will get you out of that vise.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:38 am 
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Hitler's also the one who supported Social Darwinism and eugenics, both of which are fully founded in atheism.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:38 am 
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vampirebunbun wrote:
Oh, I see. You don't care about "real" Christians. Just the people that say they're Christians and happen to fit your worldview. The whole concept of morality is inherently religious, and the entire Bible points to Jesus as both God and the savior of mankind. Yes, atheists give to charity, but that doesn't discount religion. What the heck does penicillin have to do with anything?! Did you know that the reason the scientific method got started was because a group of scientist said that God made the world rational, and therefore there should be a way of investigating it rationally. Bud-a-bing! Roots of the modern scientific method. And you can't prove OR disprove either evolution or creation. Darwin himself admitted the neccessity of a Creator!

Oh, by the way, atheism gave us people like Hitler and Stalin, as well as all sorts of other people.


Morality is not inherently religious. Plenty of atheists exist who are moral, good people. I don't need your boogeyman to tell me how to behave, to scare me into being a good person. There have been thousands of cultures in the world that were made up of basically good people who existed before Jesus was born. Look at Helenic Greece. Different morals, yes, but not based on Chrsitianity.

I respect real Christians, but they are rare. I also feel they are deluded. The scientific method started in a region of the world with no exposure to your god, and it got pretty screwed up by your god until the enlightenment, when religion became a little more tolerant of reason.

Pennicilin is the result of science and scientific "theories", therefore it exists in spite of the more hard line religious thought in the world.

Of course you can't disprove creationism, it's based on faith and "god works in mysterious ways". As for evolution, it is a theory, yes. But so is gravity. Both can be potentially disproven, that is the point of science. But next time you see a big finger come down from the heavens and create a new species, or see an apple fall up into a tree, you give me a call, and I'll win a nobel prize.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:41 am 
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Okay, and next time you actually see non-living material spontaneously become living, you let me know. What are you talking about an apple falling up into a tree?!

I noticed you neglected to tell me why you think you can tell me what is wrong and what is right. You also didn't answer the question of why people think killing someone is bad. After all, if we are no more than advanced animals, why do we matter any more than they do? We kill animals all the time, and for a lot worse reasons than killing people.

Oh, and your beloved penicillin? Discovered more by accident than actual investigation.

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