Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Misty: Baytheist Living! on May 14, 2009 at 9:10pm

Wow! Nice arrogance in assuming that we come here to reassure ourselves, as if we need constant validation to keep up the facade. Hmm.. sounds a little familiar. Wait! I know where I've heard of it before....CHURCH.
That is the place where people go to convince themselves they really do believe that a virgin gave birth to a guy that was really his father who died for the sins that he created us with in the first place and between creation and salvation (and the savior that promised he'd return 2,000 years ago but still hasn't even though it apparently only takes three days to return from the dead) also managed to convince another guy to build a boat, get two or more of every land animal to walk onto it (from the furthest reaches of the poles) and keep them healthy and alive for 40 days so they could repopulate the earth. (Wood makes better insulated habitats for various eciologies than modern day materials, of course) Oh yes, toss in a talking snake, a talking donkey and a few thousand incidents of wrath, genocide, rape, angel wrestling and other absurd stories that YOU, my friend are supposed to take on face value.
Hell, we have a website dedicated to not believing, but there is a reason you folks need lots and lots and lots of buildings.
Besides...if you stick around and have a look at what we DO talk about and post, it's mostly science related (cus we're nerds) or political (because I don't care how crazy and stupid your beliefs are as long as you don't push them on me, which Christianity CONSTANTLY tries to do via government intrusion despite the fact that the separation of church and state is clearly written in our founding documents. You leave me alone, I leave you alone, ok? Oh.. and don't kill your kids by refusing them medical care until they are legal adults and old enough to make that decision for themselves, yeah?) and general socialization.
I also write little bits of fiction because it amuses me to do so, and hopefully entertains others. I find religion to be interesting (juuust like a good fairy tale) and use some of it's themes and stories for further exploration into the human life and belief system as well as a laugh or two if I can pull it off.

In short, we come here because we like it here. It is a good place to vent, talk, laugh, seek advice for dealing with religious loved ones, educate, be educated and vent about the way religion DOES still manage to influence our lives via the people close to us that believe.

So um..yeah.
Take all the reasons why you go to church...for comfort, reassurance, worshiping an invisible sky monster and his gang of winged, multi-headed buddies and the adversary that isn't really one because the creator made him in the first place...
And then reverse it.
That will shorten the answer for you!


See ya around the site!

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Permalink Reply by Johnny on May 14, 2009 at 10:21pm

You're lumping all non-believers into a narrow almost singular type: the angry atheist.

This is cliched, and all to common among believers. They think the only way someone could turn away from god is to be angry with him. Huge misconception! If you really read people's stories (which many of us have posted on our profiles, or posted in the group dedicated to sharing these stories), you would find there are at least as many reasons for lack of belief as there are religions out there.

You also fail to understand what non-belief means if you think people here are 'mad at god.' Are you mad at Zeus for not existing? Are you mad at Odin, Krishna, or Jupiter for not existing? How about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny? Are you mad at them for not existing? That's how we feel about Yahweh.

As for the cliched 'angry atheist' - usually that anger is directed that the people who brainwashed them, oppressed them, discriminated against them, or worse atrocities; or the organization that did these things. You can't be angry at something that doesn't exist; but its easy to be angry at those who do evils in the name of their imaginary friend.

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on May 15, 2009 at 4:45pm

Benjamin,

First of all, I'm not mad at God. I'm also not mad at Zeus, Odin, Ra, or the Easter Bunny. I simply don't believe in them.

I'm also not rabidly eager to go around smiting Christians. There's a couple flaws in that assumption. First, you assume that only Christianity is being smote. I don't believe in the gods of Islam, Hinduism or Jainism, either, and am just as quick to point out their misconceptions as I am that of a christian. Second, you assume that it is a broad, indiscriminate targeting of believers. Not at all. Most believers I don't have any problem with. It's the ones that try to use their religion to destroy what humanity has striven to achieve in the name of their faith that I reserve my opposition for.

As for what happened, at least in my case, the whole story is rather lengthy, too long for a full recounting here. But in essence, as I learned more about the Bible and Christianity, the more I saw the inherent inconsistencies, the lack of evidence supporting its assertions, and in many cases, the fact that those assertions were flying in the face of observed reality. And when reality and religion oppose one another, reality wins.

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Permalink Reply by Rich Meredith on May 21, 2009 at 6:03pm

Hello Benjamin!
I can't help but wonder why generalise that we atheists have strayed from anything? I for one have never had any religion of any type nor any need for one. You also didn't state which God? As the others have pointed out, there are so many to choose from. One can only assume that you mean the Xtian God as you do mention Xtians in particular. You may be pleased to know that I find all deities and all religions just as meaningless and pointless so I am certainly not on a vendetta to be especially mad at your particular cosmic being. As for why I am here on this site, well I belong to a lot of sites. I am always curious to know how other people perceive certain things and also why they do. This "need" or "quest" for faith in something so intangible is a complete mystery to me but it is fascinating.
I don't have "the God Gene". I live a very good and fulfilling life without it's presence in any form. There's not a drop of spirituality in me!
It is a little arrogant methinks, that you would assume as so many xtians do, that some of us have something missing in our makeup.. on the contrary, I fear it is the other way around.

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Permalink Reply by Frink on May 23, 2009 at 1:37pm

The reason I argue and the reason I educate myself is because I actually care about whether or not my beliefs are true. Just as I advocated passionately on the behalf of Christianity when I believed in it, so too do I advocate for science, reason and secular society/ethics.

The idea that people are angry with a god they don't believe in is absurd, and to assert otherwise is to not think things through. The only time you'll ever hear an atheist talking about what an asshole god is is when they refer to him in the hypothetical sense, within the context of what holy books--and his followers--say about him.

If you want people to take your question seriously, find a better question.

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Ninja on May 23, 2009 at 7:00pm

can't*
their*
exist*
an online*
reassure*
themselves*
a lot*
conversations*
upon*

I frequent such a site as it troubles me that the majority are willing to believe ridiculous things. discussing such topics openly is a way to meet rational people, and to allow others to join in, who might have otherwise been "in the closet". If a large majority believed in underground troll people interfering in our daily lives, I'd be at WhatsWithAllTheTrollBelievers.com right now.

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Permalink Reply by Gaytor on April 19, 2010 at 4:42pm

Happy Birthday Benjamin. I noticed you on the list and we hadn't met so i found your post. I know that it's old, but I thought that I would respond anyway.
I have to say that I had a bit of a poor experience at church as a kid, but it was a build up of me saying to myself, "This doesn't make sense to me." While the grandiose stories helped foster the wow reaction as to how great God is, in me it got me thinking that it couldn't be true. So i stopped attending somewhere around 8 years old and that was that. I didn't pay attention to religion from then on.
After 9-11 the US lost it's mind and began the religious rhetoric. I couldn't escape it. I was apathetic about religion and now I had family members and groups telling me that I wasn't an American and that I should get out of their country. Then I saw Falwell, Bill Donohue, and a Rabbi admit on CNN that they, and Islam, all believed in the same god. What? This was revolutionary.
So I started to dig to see what they were talking about. The more I dug, the more interesting this religion thing got. Today I am reading books about the writing of the Bible and the textual criticisms. An example here where a whole conversation is a forgery due to the inability of a double entendre being able to be translated back into Aramaic. I read a piece just this weekend where Dan Dennet says that a joke is "Anybody who goes through seminary and comes out believing in God hasn’t been paying attention" article And you can see it in Religulous when the priest outside of the Vatican says that there is clearly no science in the Bible so it's up to us to figure out what our passages that conflict with science mean (paraphrase of course).
So at times there is anger or vitriol in my speech about religion. It's out of frustration. Frustration that many whom claim that God is the way and the light really know little to nothing about the teachings. It's frustrating that it's misused to oppress me and progress. Take Embryonic Stem Cell studies and Exodus 22:21. It says that if two men fight and cause the miscarriage of a pregnancy, they owe the husband money. Then it goes on to Eye for and eye, life for life... It's a clear admonition that a pregnancy is not a life. In fact without Nephesh it isn't a life. In Numbers 5:18 if a husband suspects that his wife was unfaithful she should drink a poison. If it's his baby, the baby will be fine. If not, it will die. It's a commandment to potentially abort a baby. So these are the types of misuse that I'm talking about. If we don't gather to discuss these things, then who will tell us about them? In fact, it will be used to oppress us for generations until we stand up.
I do not stand against you Benjamin. I stand against the man who stands in front of you perverting the word of of your book against us both for his gain. If you would like to know more, we are happy to share. I know the frustration is sometimes hard to get by. I would suspect that if you knew what we know, and still believed, you would be equally frustrated. We ask nothing in return, we only seek mutual respect.
Sincerely, have a great birthday. I hope that you find great joy in your faith. if you are ever open to hearing the other side of the story, you can even friend me and private message me if you like.

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Permalink Reply by Graham E. Lau on April 19, 2010 at 6:20pm

I was never a devout christian or had any deep faith in a god or gods. Since I was able to start rationally thinking about the universe I realized how big of a joke it really was. What's your story? I don't feel as though any mythical person has wronged me, I mean, seriously, how could it? Why do you fell the need to argue your faith? Is there something about your faith and your god or gods that you feel might appear lacking or flawed? Do you believe that people should not go to church so as to avoid appearing like their meeting up to argue their faiths?

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Permalink Reply by Mario Rodgers on April 20, 2010 at 12:36am

I have turned from my sins, and will reign when Christ returns.

Pulled from your profile. What causes a person to followed this warped sense of thinking?

I, personally, don't want to reign over anybody. And I certainly don't want to groom myself to be pleasing to anybody's god. Is this supposed to be a loving relationship or kissing up to a bully to make sure you hold on to your lunch money?

When I realized that the Bible was utter crap, when I realized that those still defending it claimed one had to "read it correctly", when I realized life was completely random, when I realized that free will was a farce in religion, when I realized that everybody rejects everybody else's gods but the one of his own religion, when I realized that people have created thousands of gods before to explain natural causes, that's when I decided "Hey. Maybe this shit's not real."

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Permalink Reply by Danair Joa Estrare on April 20, 2010 at 12:40am

hahahahhah lol

well, maybe REALITY is not REAL hahahhahahaha

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Permalink Reply by Marshall on May 8, 2010 at 11:04pm

.

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Permalink Reply by Marshall on May 8, 2010 at 11:04pm

Many of us believe that religion is among the greatest evils on the face of the earth, so yeah it's something we take very seriously.

For an accurate description of what drives us, I suggest you watch the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnbXlkNavwo&playnext_from=TL&...

BTW...trying to convince us that we really believe in god is a really tired and lame attempt that most of us have seen a billion times already.

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