Author Topic: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.  (Read 16245 times)

Offline RebelWithASmile

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2006, 09:04:16 pm »
is this for people who are atheists? Because i kind of am ::)
"He was very afraid of being hurt. He was afraid of opening up in case it was turned around and used against him."


Heaven holds a sense of wonder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0VVoScBd4k

Offline Impish

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #11 on: October 27, 2006, 10:56:52 am »
is this for people who are atheists? Because i kind of am ::)

Yes, and anyone's who's interested in the topic, atheist or not. 

Welcome! ;D
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Offline Impish

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #12 on: October 27, 2006, 06:48:39 pm »
Here's the excerpt from "The God Delusion" about the Sodom and Gomorrah story, as promised.  If you're not in the mood to read the whole thing, read my comment at the end.

Here goes:

"In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah [...], chosen to be spared with this family because he was uniquely righteous, was Abraham's nephew Lot.  Two male angels were sent to Sodom to warn Lot to leave the city before the brimstone arrived.  Lot hospitably welcomed the angels into his house, whereupon all the men of Sodom gathered around and demanded that Lot should hand the angels over so that they could (what else?) sodomize them:  'Where are the men which came in to thee this night?  Bring them out unto us, that we may know them' (Genesis 19:5).  Yes, 'know' has the Authorized Version's usual euphemistic meaning, which is very funny in the context.  Lot's gallantry in refusing the demand suggests that God might have been onto something when he singled him out as the only good man in Sodom.  But Lot's halo is tarnished by the terms of his refusal:  'I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.  Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof' (Genesis 19: 7-8).

Whatever else this strange story might mean, it surely tells us something about the respect accorded to women in this intensely religious culture.  As it happened, Lot's bargaining away of his daughters' virginity proved unnecessary, for the angels succeeded in repelling the marauders by miraculously striking them blind.  They then warned Lot to decamp immediately with his family and his animals, because the city was about to be destroyed.  The whole household escaped, with the exception of Lot's unfortunate wife, whom the Lord turned in to a pillar of salt because she committed the offence -- comparatively mild, one might have thought -- of looking over her shoulder at the fireworks display.

Lot's two daughters make a brief reappearance in the story.  After their mother was turned into a pillar of salt, they lived with their father in a cave up a mountain.  Starved of male company, they decided to make their father drunk and copulate with him.  Lot was beyond noticing when his elder daughter arrived in his bed or when she left, but he was not too drunk to impregnate her.  The next night the two daughters agreed it was the younger one's turn.  Again Lot was too drunk to notice, and he impregnated her too (Genesis 19:31-6).  If the dysfunctional family was the best Sodom had to offer by way of morals, some might begin to fee a certain sympathy with God and judicial brimstone."
_________

Amazing, and appalling, isn't it?  Lot thinks having his daughters gang-raped would be OK, and so does God.  After all, God doesn't punish him.  Apparently, God doesn't mind incest between Lot and his daughters, either.  Only homosexual sex offends this icon of morality.

So much for 'family values' !  >:(

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Offline RebelWithASmile

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #13 on: October 27, 2006, 08:03:46 pm »
I don't know if this is relevent, but i got this weeks adition of Times magazine and it was showing statistics of America. Well, on the religions page, i was shocked to see so many christains! And 30% of them believed we have a 'god that is very active in every day life and hates sin' ::)

i found it humorous. I just couldn't believe that we have that many religious people in America. And to be gay, sometimes it feels like your trapped by a four sided room with thorn walls.
"He was very afraid of being hurt. He was afraid of opening up in case it was turned around and used against him."


Heaven holds a sense of wonder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0VVoScBd4k

Offline Kelpersmek

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #14 on: October 27, 2006, 08:21:00 pm »
I was talking to my Christian colleague at work.

The problem is, although she will tick "Christian" on any survey you gave her, and is happy to distribute bible-verse cards to people, she doesn't actually know that much about Christianity.

She's rather shakey on genesis, hasn't heard of Lot, or Job (another favourite), or Ezekial asking God to slaughter children for calling him "baldy" (God then complies by sending a couple of bears to rip up those insolent kids). 

More than that, she didn't know which religion(s) Christianity was replacing, was unfamiliar with any of the end-times stuff (do you go to heaven right away or stay alseep in Christ until the end of the world?), and where dinosaurs fit into it all. 

It wasn't that we were being critical, but every other answer was very much "I dont know, never thought about it".  That large percentage of Christians probably has a huge percentage that are very much Christian in that they want to be good to people, pray a bit, and live a "nice" life.  Unfortunately they lend strength of numbers to the far right.

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Offline Impish

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #15 on: October 28, 2006, 10:33:49 am »
That large percentage of Christians probably has a huge percentage that are very much Christian in that they want to be good to people, pray a bit, and live a "nice" life.  Unfortunately they lend strength of numbers to the far right.


Exactly.  They don't realize that their sense of morality (the real, Good, morality) doesn't come from Christianity at all.  These are the people who have cherry-picked their way through the bible, choosing those bits that they agree with.  How do they decide which parts to follow?  They decide based on their own innate sense of right and wrong, that is, a sense that exists quite apart from their religion.

What astounds me is that when such basically-good people come across the evil in their holy book, they don't put 2 and 2 together and realize that christianity (or judaism, or islam) doesn't really represent their own beliefs about the world around them.  GLBT christians amaze me most of all: all that effort to explain away the simple fact that the bible really does teach hatred toward them.

The fundamentalists, on the other hand, who have actually read the bible AND agree with its "morals" are a different story.  In terms of theology, they're on stronger theoretical ground (as they haven't cherry-picked their beliefs).  But to the degree they believe in the bible as literal truth, they are to the same degree, evil.

Is that too extreme a statement?  It's hard to believe that there are modern-day people in the U.S. that actually agree that Lot was right to offer his daughters up to be gang-raped.  But there millions of such people.

In fact, some of them are running our country right now.
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #16 on: October 28, 2006, 08:31:02 pm »
The fundamentalists, on the other hand, who have actually read the bible AND agree with its "morals" are a different story.  In terms of theology, they're on stronger theoretical ground (as they haven't cherry-picked their beliefs).  But to the degree they believe in the bible as literal truth, they are to the same degree, evil.

Is that too extreme a statement?  It's hard to believe that there are modern-day people in the U.S. that actually agree that Lot was right to offer his daughters up to be gang-raped.  But there millions of such people.

In fact, some of them are running our country right now.

I don't know that it's extreme, exactly.  I'm just trying to figure out whether they're actually evil or just plain stupid.  Can you be truly evil when you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground?  I'm sorry, but fundamentalist Christians just astonish me in their ignorance.  I know several personally and I can't quite call them evil because I don't think they're bright enough to be.  Like Dennis Miller said about 20 years ago when he was still funny and had some semblance of a soul left, these are people who've somehow been so hurt by life that they turn their backs on their fellow humans in favor of some myth.  Now Dennis Miller *is* evil because he's smart enough to know better.  But those other people...  I don't know.
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Offline Impish

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #17 on: October 29, 2006, 10:50:56 am »
A short video of Lewis Black, giving his (very funny) take on the subject:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/10/lewis_black_explains_religion.php

A word of warning to those offended by the F-word:  this video is chock full of it.

Enjoy!
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #18 on: October 29, 2006, 11:50:05 am »
A short video of Lewis Black, giving his (very funny) take on the subject:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/10/lewis_black_explains_religion.php

A word of warning to those offended by the F-word:  this video is chock full of it.

Enjoy!

Oh, and I did.  Too bad it stopped before his anti- anti-gay rant.  I especially enjoyed this:  "I'd like to have faith.  But I have thoughts.  And thoughts'll really f*** up the faith thing.  Ask any Catholic priest."
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Offline Impish

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Re: The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
« Reply #19 on: October 30, 2006, 11:08:38 am »
"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day.  And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.  And if you do any of these ten things, he as a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time....  But He loves you!

--George Carlin
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