The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
Shuggy:
--- Quote from: Impish on May 26, 2006, 07:57:18 pm ---So I've decided I'm going to come out as an atheist, and have bought some T-shirts so that people will know my stance when I wear them.
The T's say
"Friendly Atheist" (my favorite, as it's the least "in your face")
"Lord, Protect Me From Your Followers"
"I Think, Therefore I'm Atheist."
--- End quote ---
About a week ago, before I read this thread, I created some images for T-shirts etc on anti-religious themes:
"Nobody knows - agnostics admit it"
"Monotheism - one god too many"
"Polythestis worship too many gods - so do monotheists"
"I believe in Intelligent Design by Jupiter!"
etc
They're at http://www.cafepress.com/wero/1440313
(I'm going to change those grey letters to yellow to make them more legible.)
I'm also tempted by "You don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church"
delalluvia:
--- Quote ---I respect those of you who are tolerant of others' religious beliefs very much. I am, too, until they try to sell me on them. I've always seen religious beliefs (or lack thereof) as being personal and private and nobody's business but our own.
--- End quote ---
Ah, if only those people who adhered to those religions believed in the same.
But they don't.
At the recent World Religious hoedown, some representatives of the Protestant/Catholic/Muslim religions all got together and decided it wasn't a good idea to kill anyone who wanted to convert, but hey, it was OK to try to covert people.
Go figure.
The two big religions totally believe in proselytizing because they are exclusivist by design.
You're either for them or against them. There is no in-between. So it's their duty to try to 'save' you. It's their religious job to butt in, invade your privacy, brow beat you, just beat you, change your government, whatever it takes to get the 'right' religion in power.
Because if they do, the world will become a 'heaven on earth' and in the meantime you heathen sinners are the problem. ::)
Yeah, I know. Scary as shit.
Even though I am a theist myself, my religion doesn't proselytize and is all about maintaining a pax deorum through personal behavior, not through making everyone ELSE do the same.
Impish:
--- Quote from: Lynne on May 30, 2006, 01:29:33 am --- Still, I label myself 'agnostic' because I have this inherent resistance to telling other people that I think they are 'wrong'. And anytime I say 'I don't believe in God' to someone I know does believe, I feel like I'm criticizing their own personal choice.
--- End quote ---
I know what you are trying to say, and "get" what you are feeling. But, my dear Lynne, if you examine your statment very carefully, you'll find that it doesn't hold up to scrutiny (I'm trying to say this in as non-confrontational way as possible.. not sure I'm succeeding.... :P).
When we make statements in general -- about anything -- we're always stating our personal truth as we know it, and I suppose if our statement conflicts with someone's else's truth, that other person could always choose to be offended by it, to take it as us saying "you're wrong." But that's isn't our intent when we made our statement, and if we altered our statements (in a way, not telling our truth completely) for fear of offending others, then we have started down a slippery slope of mis-representing ourselves about everything.
We have to trust others to be able to distinguish between telling them they're wrong and telling them we disagree. Vic, for example, told us (above in this thread) that she believes in a god, and expected us to understand that she was disagreeing with us, not insulting us. And she was right to do so... I didn't take offense, and I don't think anyone else did either.
After all, we all know how to tell someone their wrong if we DO want to offend them, right? It's one thing to say "I'm an atheist" and another thing to say "you're wrong to be an deist." If you stick to only making claims about your truth, then if the other person takes offense, it's not because of what we said, but because of some insecurity in the other person.
You're a sweetheart, Lynne, and I know you're just trying to avoid offending anyone. But I do get a bit concerned when that effort leads to modifying the statements you make; modifications that actually "bend" what you believe to be true. Your opinion counts, and you shouldn't make it subservient to anyone else's.
Love ya,
Imp
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 30, 2006, 07:30:14 pm ---Even though I am a theist myself, my religion doesn't proselytize and is all about maintaining a pax deorum through personal behavior, not through making everyone ELSE do the same.
--- End quote ---
My mother had a faith very similar to your own. She believed in God, but the God she believed in loved every human being unconditionally - even murderers and criminals. Sure, they made him sad, but he loved them all just the same. She saw him as the parent to us all, who forgave us all if we just were sorry when we did something wrong. No baptism required. Just a wee bit of remorse. And the last thing she thought he wanted us to do was to impose our beliefs of any kind on anyone else. Now, if everyone of faith believed like she believed, well, then it'd be a perfect world. Or at least a far better one than what we've got now.
Ellemeno:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on May 27, 2006, 07:44:10 am ---When churchies ask me where I go to church now,
--- End quote ---
Barb, I haven't been asked that since I left the South. It sure was one of the first three questions people used to ask there.
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