I’m an Atheist. So are you (almost)!

31 comments

• jackslash

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  5 years ago

  Thanks for the reference to An Encyclopedia of Deities by Michael Jordan. I didn't know he was a writer as well as a basketball player.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  I’m more of an agnostic than an atheist, I think you need to believe in something, even if it’s just Karma, I also believe that ye shall reap what you sow.
• reverendhornibastard

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  5 years ago

  Michael Jordan often said he thanked gods for his tremendous success on the basketball courts. Just to be on the safe side he prayed to ALL the gods. He didn’t always personally pray to all of the gods. That is very time consuming. So, as his success in sports grew and he could better afford it, he hired others to do most of his praying for him.
• reverendhornibastard

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  5 years ago

  Twentyfive, “I think you need to believe in something, even if it’s just Karma.” Why? What would happen if you didn’t believe in anything? Define with as much precision as you can what you mean by “god” and then ask yourself if you believe in that.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  I remember a story Sammy Davis Jr. Told on Johnny Carson’s show many years ago. He was on an African safari with his wife and he heard a rustling in the tall grass, all of a sudden he was face to face with a lion, well he says he prayed in Latin and made the sign of the cross, then he said the Shema, The Jewish prayer, and made a statement to Johnny, I wanted to be sure I covered all the bases;)
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  @RevHB like Sammy I don’t know what would happen if you didn’t believe in anything but I’d rather be safe than sorry;))
• reverendhornibastard

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  5 years ago

  Twentyfive, “ ...but I’d rather be safe than sorry” If there is a god, it probably isn’t easy to fool. It will probably recognize feigned belief motivated by fear.
• Mate27

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  5 years ago

  Agnostic, as 25 puts it, seems to be the term most people come up with. Thomas Jefferson was a self proclaimed atheist, however he even saw the value of people having faith so much that he argued to keep the words “in God we trust” in the founding fathers words. The purpose was because people need the basics of faith, otherwise if you don’t believe in something, how can you organize large groups of people for a cause? How would we have defeated the Red Coats? People have faith because the world we live in is too precious and beautiful to believe it occurred by accident or by chance. I can’t fathom how this world was simply left to randomness, and why our creator would give us such an emotion as compassion, etc.
• reverendhornibastard

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  5 years ago

  It doesn’t take faith or religion to organize or motivate people. But it often requires faith or religion to subjugate them and to make good people do terrible things. The USA and Afghanistan are among the world’s most religious and lawless societies. China, Japan, the U.K., Sweden and Norway are among the most irreligious countries on the face of the Earth. I’ve spent time in all of them. Each of them has a wonderfully low rate of violent crime that I, as an American, can only envy.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  ^ my response to you is that if you’re going to compare societies look at some of the most law abiding countries like Singapore or Tibet where they are very religious and Norway and Sweden are very homogenous places where there is very little mixing of race and class unlike the USA, where even though we do have some defacto segregation we come together and interact much more than the minorities in those societies.
• reverendhornibastard

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  5 years ago

  Honduras has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. Its population is pretty homogenous and highly religious. When was the last time you heard or read about someone committing an act of terrorism in the name of god? When was the last time you heard or read about anyone committing an act of terror sim in the name of atheism? Sorry, but as far as I am concerned, religious thought is an intellectual pestilence. Religion is, by far, the biggest turd in humanity’s intellectual punch bowl.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  Many other factors at play in places like Honduras or Guatemala and the Latin countries Peru is fairly law abiding so is Chile same religious culture but their main sources of terrorism are atheist comunism
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  Not churchy. I figure I'll find out what's what (or not...) immediately after I die. In the meantime, I try to not be an asshole. Organized religion can do a lot of good things at local / community levels. Unfortunately, it performs less than great at national / regional levels.
• Mate27

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  5 years ago

  I think the reverend has deitism fatigue from hearing too many angles on the topic, similar to most of us who have political fatigue.
• REVRAJ

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  5 years ago

  I believe people follow religion to have organised life followed by their family and society where they live. Society influences a lot what one believe. Every religion preaches good things and how to have a balanced life to reach God in one way or another. There is new age concept where it is said everyone is a God and we are in different forms of single soul to experience different things. Our life is based on Karma whether we are having credit (doing good things) or debit (doing harm to others) which leads to our remaining life and may be next incarnations. Irrespective of what we believe if we do good things in general, we and our society will be happy.
• Daddillac

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  5 years ago

  I think it is funny that so many people think it is important that they tell others what they believe and why that other person should believe that way too. I believe you should live your life the way you want to and as long as that does not infringe on others then fine.
• reverendhornibastard

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  5 years ago

  Daddillac, I tend to agree. But religion worries me. I see religions as a threat because they demand faith which I equate with unwavering, uncritical loyalty. Unwavering, uncritical loyalty is unhealthy in any realm but especially in politics and religion. In those arenas it is downright dangerous. History demonstrates this over and over again. I don’t tell my children what to believe other than to never trust anyone who instructs them to “ ... shut up, don’t ask any questions and just trust and believe me.” I hope that admonition will be enough to inoculate my kids from all the foolish superstitions that shackle people’s minds and teach them to hate one another in the name of god.
• Jascoi

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  5 years ago

  i still tend toward the GOD of abraham. absolutely blown away with HIS imagination and creation of woman.
• reverendhornibastard

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  5 years ago

  He could have given them a better sense of direction and less grouchy when they’re on the rag.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  ^ nobody’s perfect
• IfIGottaBeDamned

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  5 years ago

  @25 A guy named Thomas might disagree with you: [view link]
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  ^ 😂
• Daddillac

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  5 years ago

  "I see religions as a threat because they demand faith which I equate with unwavering, uncritical loyalty." So you view religion as a threat because you define faith a certain way.... I would never have faith in something or someone that could not stand up to critical thinking. If your life's purpose, your life after earthly death, etc... is important to you then you will spend the time researching the various religions. I have spent a lot of time comparing and contrasting world religions, looking for cracks. I have developed my beliefs based on my experiences and critical research NOT based on "unwavering, uncritical loyalty".
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  ^^^^^My faith shouldn't make your lack of faith feel threatened, My faith serves to enlighten me and relieve me of some of my burden, my faith in no way is a reflection of your lack of faith. Basically live and let live, believe, or don't as you see fit, and don't try to undermine, my own, as I have no quarrel with yours.
• Huntsman

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  5 years ago

  Don’t underestimate the acts of terror committed by atheists. Hitler, Stalin, Mao.
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all had religion. They just didn't believe in a higher being (other than themselves...) at the center of it.
• nicespice

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  5 years ago

  Here is my absolute favorite quote that sums up my views when I was told how ~SAD~ it was when I outright called myself agnostic in middle school. “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” — Douglas Adams I have long ago since then became an outright atheist. But I wised up and kept that to myself. At one point, I had the viewpoint of religion as a stain upon humanity. But...I’m not so sure. I view a lot of “enlightened” types, especially of the SJW ideology kind, in a similar camp as far as adhering to a group think and not questioning the designated higher power. And being a heretic to that means you don’t care for humanity and you’re terrible and yadda yadda. So maybe it’s not religion inherently.
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  Nicespice said "So maybe it’s not religion inherently." Correct. It's dogma that generates the most problems. Religion is a common dogma delivery device, but it's not the only one. Also, quoting Douglas Adams is actually my biggest PL weakness per Muddy9's other thread. So, from the perspective of financial ruin, it's for the best that you're far away in Texas.
• Nidan111

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  5 years ago

  I follow no Religion. Religion is politics to me. Religion has its agenda. However, I do have faith that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being created this existence and did so in one quick act.
• Liwet

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  5 years ago

  >Don’t underestimate the acts of terror committed by atheists. Hitler, Stalin, Mao. That doesn't prove gods exist. Also Hitler was a Christian.
• Daddillac

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  5 years ago

  I agree with 25