no i don't

you made a ridiculous assertion

just restating it does nothing to prove your point

...

and please show me where it says that atheism is on the rise

[Edited on March 30, 2006 at 4:20 PM. Reason : .]

3/30/2006 4:18:44 PM

Quote :

"And by the way, you dont know shit about me so quit showing your ass on a website and act like a fucking adult. "

ahh, the statements of a truly thoughtful person

3/30/2006 4:19:24 PM

Quote :

"there has always been atheists but today it seems they're on the rise."

i'm sure it does SEEM that way. what a great scientific study you've done there

I would posit that if the internet has caused an increase in anything involving religion, it's more critical thought and agnosticism due to the mountains of proof against the myths in those old books.

of course, it just SEEMs that way

[Edited on March 30, 2006 at 4:25 PM. Reason : .]

3/30/2006 4:24:44 PM

people thought the same thing of television

that it would "enlighten" the masses

we all see how well that turned out

[Edited on March 30, 2006 at 4:26 PM. Reason : .]

3/30/2006 4:26:14 PM

Quote :

"uhhhhhhhhhh......duh"

3/30/2006 4:34:42 PM

Quote :

"I find your assumption wrong for the reason that during the 60's people didn't delve into atheism when they were high or tripping."

I straight-up said that it was just a correlation. I didn't say it was a causal relationship, just explained why people have this opinion.

Quote :

"I would say the correlation matches the rise in agnostics since I consider thats what hippies are, more so than athiest."

Just like umpteen people here have already said, most people are just going to lump atheists and agnostics together.

Quote :

"Prohibition is another big one because you have to think about all crime that went down because of it."

And how much crime was that, exactly? Sure, the mob and whatnot are all we hear about that era, but how major was its impact on America? And does violating what has been recognized in history as a stupid law constitute that much of a moral wrong?

3/30/2006 5:49:06 PM

Anyone care to point out where I was wrong

3/30/2006 6:49:08 PM

nastoute cant substantiate a reasonable argument with me, by only trying to bash my personal life and simply saying I "made a ridiculous assertion." DirtyGreek said nothing I disagree with nor did he directly disagree with me. Grumpy's changing the subject to crime during Prohibition and I'm still here trying to have a reasonable discussion about whether morals have anything to do with the rise of Atheism.

3/30/2006 7:02:41 PM

3% of people caused morals to decline in america --

Not the other 97%+ of religious folks who realized that it was fucking stupid to strictly adhere to religious doctrine. People always need scapegoats, and pastors fear introspection the most because it reveals the inexorable march away from doctrine.

[Edited on March 30, 2006 at 8:29 PM. Reason : .]

3/30/2006 8:24:37 PM

saying that atheists are causing a moral dowfall of the USA is like Salsbury saying that jews control everything.

3/30/2006 8:57:34 PM

Blame Canada a minority!

3/30/2006 8:59:19 PM

hah i dont feel victimized as much as im feeling more sorry for everyone else

3/30/2006 9:51:32 PM

^^^ Well you're clearly an atheist promoting an athiest agenda. Everyone knows Salisburyboy is infallible.


[Edited on March 30, 2006 at 10:52 PM. Reason : -]

3/30/2006 10:52:08 PM

Quote :

""I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either," Lott said at last week's party. Thurmond ran as the presidential nominee of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party in the 1948 presidential race against Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey. He carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and his home state of South Carolina, of which he was governor at the time. During the campaign, he said, "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches." "

The 60s was such a morally destructive time. It destroyed the just and beautiful segregation laws that all good and upstanding americans worked so hard to put into place.

3/30/2006 11:33:20 PM

^ What is odd, looking back through history it appears to be a continuous cycle.

For example, I suspect the current religious revival would not be quite so strong if not for the social disaster of the 60s.

3/31/2006 12:14:10 AM

Quote :

"The 60s was such a morally destructive time. It destroyed the just and beautiful segregation laws that all good and upstanding americans worked so hard to put into place."

Quote :

"I hoped someone might be disingenuous enough to point out that the Civil Rights movement happened at the same time, just so that I could point out how the overwhelming majority of its leadership and membership were devoted theists, but no such luck, I guess. and then you came along"

Moving on...

Quote :

"Grumpy's changing the subject to crime during Prohibition"

Explain yourself. If you list speakeasys and illegal drinking as a sign of moral decay, you're going to have to demonstrate some kind of major moral opposition to drinking.

Sure, you might label drinking as an immoral act, but given that it's an immoral act that has been firmly rooted in Christian and American culture for hundreds of years, fluctuations in its consumption really don't constitute a moral decline or increase.

[Edited on March 31, 2006 at 3:18 AM. Reason : ]

3/31/2006 3:16:08 AM

i'm gonna go bang my head against the wall 5,000 times


y'know, you'd think christians would spend most of their time bitching about atheists, considering how much time the atheists seem to spend lambasting christianity... but i haven't really seen it yet. most of it's just praying that they're souls are saved.

3/31/2006 3:17:40 AM

if there was a war on christmas this past year, has there been any mention of a war on easter yet?

3/31/2006 9:01:48 AM

^^what? the original post was about christians hating on atheists the most, and no one in this thread has berated christians. Did jesus tell you to be this dumb?

3/31/2006 9:06:08 AM

Haven't read the thread but I've always said that I would rather vote for a President that is devoutly religious than one who is not religious at all. I don't really care what the faith is (no Heaven's Gatists or anything). In other words, I'd feel better about a Buddhist than an atheist. Of course there are other factors but this is assuming I can only consider one aspect. I just feel better knowing the person has a greater motivating/guiding force with a plainly viewable moral code.

3/31/2006 9:54:28 AM

yeah, cause that's worked out so well for our supposedly devoutly christian current President.
I can tell his actions are really guided by Christ's philosophies

3/31/2006 10:05:14 AM

the original post had a point, a point proven in the posts that followed. hell, YOUR post proves the article right. you think i'm gonna trust your ass when you trivialize my faith and make offhand condescending remarks about my beliefs?

Jesus didn't tell me to say that.

HOWEVER Satan is telling me to look up your address, come to your house, piss on your grandparents graves, and rip the fucking tongue out of every person whose ever loved you, liked you, or come close to even thinking you're a decent human being and defiling everything I can before offing myself and joining him.

and it is JESUS that has saved me and keeps me doing from that.


Praise the Lord, have a nice day

3/31/2006 10:22:43 AM

Quote :

"religious people are more likely not to be jerks"

i think thats completely false and baseless...and while every group of people has assholes and nice people in it, i fail to see how believing in god or not makes you more or less likely to be a jerk...you could easily see the opposite...what divine and great power is motivating me to be a jerk? i'm an agnostic...just because if some hardcore religious people asked me if there was a God and I said "I don't know" does that make me a jerk? That I don't take a bunch of peoples' words for something without any evidence?

maybe i can get discriminated on hardcore somewhere for being an agnostic then i can file a fat lawsuit about how my 1st amendement rights have been violated...i'd like to get a few dozen million of the dollars that some church has been extorting out of its followers for years

3/31/2006 10:32:09 AM

you seperate the religious from the everyday lifestyle


in general, christians tend to be the ones that open the door for old ladies, or help the guy who locked his keys in his car, or need a helping hand moving some boxes. alot of people think that all christians do is walk around pushing their religion on people, and judging others. Look, I can tell you everything that has ever been said to everyone, but nothing is gonna convert you to Christ except God Himself. NOTHING else. So, in the mean time, I help others as much as i can, live the life that He feels I should live, and try to make this place a better one before I leave.

Most atheists, agnostics, and Sunday Morning Pewbacks are looking to get laid a few times, escape reality as much as possible, and either make as much money as they can, or push their agenda as far as it can.

3/31/2006 10:38:20 AM

^but see...you are just generalizing...again, no basis whatsoever

i hold the door open for old ladies too and i'm not religious...but the reason i'm not religious isnt because i'm anti religion or anti god or anything...its just I'm humble enough to know my brain can't fully comprehend all the workings of the universe and all of that stuff...I don't take an easy way out by saying "an all powerful being can do anything, so its true" or whatever...an all powerful being might run this whole thing but I don't know that

theres plenty of good people who arent devoutly religious...generalizations like that are highly inaccurate...do you go around saying "generally, black people are poor"?

3/31/2006 10:43:51 AM

you're right. which is why i dont walk up to people and say "hey, atheist, you're a bad person because you're not saved"

because that individual might be a better person than I am... just believes something different. That, to me, is acceptable in the moment. Like i said, let God and you sort it out. However, from my experiences, be it on this site, or in public, in school, whereever, that is the trend that I have noticed.

I'm not implying you're not a good person because damn i've met some really kickass agostics and atheists.

3/31/2006 10:49:09 AM

well let me give you this perspective...if Christianity is the correct religion like you seem to believe...wouldn't God understand my hesitance to lock into a set of beliefs? If He made my brain, He knows what kind of thoughts and innerworkings it can have...He also knows that some people are corrupt, hell, everybody knows that there are plenty of people who have told lies...so the fact that you are hesitant to believe the POTENTIALLY FALSE words of a human, even if its a preacher or something, wouldn't God understand and be able to forgive you?

3/31/2006 10:53:48 AM

unlike some Christians, I won't speak for God.

ask him yourself, man. *shrugs*

3/31/2006 10:54:48 AM

i wont speak for santa claus then'

i'm just asking you what you think, but if you dont want to think

3/31/2006 11:00:26 AM

Quote :

"Jesus didn't tell me to say that. HOWEVER Satan is telling me to look up your address, come to your house, piss on your grandparents graves, and rip the fucking tongue out of every person whose ever loved you, liked you, or come close to even thinking you're a decent human being and defiling everything I can before offing myself and joining him. and it is JESUS that has saved me and keeps me doing from that. Praise the Lord, have a nice day "

Please tell me this was 100% in jest.

Fuck the Christian character-assassination of human nature.

3/31/2006 11:57:07 AM

Well, I gotta admit -- and I was convinced of this long before I became Christian -- human nature hasn't exactly done a lot to impress me.

3/31/2006 1:02:33 PM

Blah fucking blah

There isn't much natural about the imposition of ideals into our society, or about our society for that matter.

Virtually nobody acts naturally, everybody chases after the unnatural and celebrates it as better. The human nature you despise is a creation of the very religions that are supposed to fix it.

3/31/2006 1:08:19 PM

^^hahaha

[Edited on March 31, 2006 at 1:11 PM. Reason : grumps got dem morals y0]

3/31/2006 1:09:36 PM

100% in jest.

3/31/2006 8:24:19 PM

Quote :

"grumps got dem morals y0"

Grumps don't got shit, but he do get angry when people be all actin' like they born inherently good.

Quote :

"There isn't much natural about the imposition of ideals into our society, or about our society for that matter."

Since I've never heard you speak out against the existence of society or civilization, you've just handed me the win.

There was apparently something unpleasant about living "naturally," else we would not have grabbed onto civilization and its unnatural qualities the first chance we got.

Don't act as though, left to your own devices entirely, you would have arrived to the conclusion that it is wrong to rape, murder, steal, beat off in public, touch little children, etc. You have no idea. Now, unless you think common morality is wrong on those subjects, shut the fuck up and recognize that human nature is shitty and that we do need something outside of nature to keep us from sucking like we normally would. Religion serves that purpose as well as secular government.

3/31/2006 10:35:55 PM

^ it is within our nature to set moral rules and enforce them at the barrel of a gun.

So, yes, we are naturally good, in that we naturally develop ways of killing/arresting/isolating the undesirable aspects of a small percentage of the population. This was not mind over matter here. We have always done this and we will always do this, regardless of whether or not he thinks it is necessary. To deny this would be to deny who we are.

[Edited on March 31, 2006 at 11:02 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/31/2006 11:02:00 PM

Quote :

"We have always done this and we will always do this"

O rly?

I think Somalia would be a fine counter-example.

In Somalia, you have people living effectively in the state of nature (no gov't), and what you have is bloody chaos. Or you can look at any area that's thrown into total upheaval by war, civil or otherwise. In Rwanda, when shit hit the fan, it wasn't just Hutus vs. Tutsis -- anyone who had a grudge against anyone else used the opportunity to tie up loose ends. Same deal in Yugoslavia. Same deal in Afghanistan.

The only part of your first sentence that is fundamental to our nature is the "barrel of a gun" part.

3/31/2006 11:59:24 PM

Quote :

"Don't act as though, left to your own devices entirely, you would have arrived to the conclusion that it is wrong to rape, murder, steal, beat off in public, touch little children, etc. You have no idea."

Um, yes he would have. We're all naturally born with some sort of genetic instict as are the lower lifeforms on this earth. Humans have the ability to learn from observation and from their mistakes. Trial and error of course. People know when they're being ostrocized by others for their actions, and this is not even fundamental to humans. It can be seen in monkey gatherings. If monkey A acts like asshole pushing around baby monkeys then you can be pretty sure that the female monkey side of the primate troop is gonna have some issues and will show that through whatever it takes to get monkey A to stop, whether it be aggression calls, advancing threats, to all out beat down (biting, chasing). And not only that they'll do it in numbers to really get the message through. What i'm trying to say is that religion does not come from the same branch as morals. While the two may inter-twine, religion comes from the desire to belong to a group, to have a certain affiliation in the world, identity what have you. Morals come from lessons that only life experience can teach you.

Quote :

"shut the fuck up and recognize that human nature is shitty and that we do need something outside of nature to keep us from sucking like we normally would"

This is not an admirable look on human nature in the least bit. That need for something outside, as you put it, hasn't really done so well when it comes to bettering the human nature which you refer to as "shitty." Need an example? Sure you do. This is Grumpy, is it not? Go ahead and type in the words "Religion" and "War" in your google search field and see what you find.

4/1/2006 1:27:00 AM

Quote :

"I'd feel better about a Buddhist than an atheist."

I'd like to point out that Buddhism is not a theistic religion.

4/1/2006 2:09:19 AM

^^ don't bother. Grumpy is a crazy who believes that morals only come from the divine. All lines of argumentation end by invoking the supernatural. You can't really call is "argumentation" at that point.

4/1/2006 3:01:19 AM

[Edited on April 1, 2006 at 3:29 AM. Reason : ]

4/1/2006 3:28:47 AM

can someone explain to me how athiests can even be considered a minority..... wow.....

4/1/2006 11:06:04 AM

I ought to know better than to post in this thread, but oh well.

AxlBonBach said:

Quote :

"y'know, you'd think christians would spend most of their time bitching about atheists, considering how much time the atheists seem to spend lambasting christianity... but i haven't really seen it yet. most of it's just praying that they're souls are saved."

Oh, come on, Donny. That's just Pollyanna-ish of you.

msb2ncsu said:

Quote :

"Haven't read the thread but I've always said that I would rather vote for a President that is devoutly religious than one who is not religious at all. I don't really care what the faith is (no Heaven's Gatists or anything). In other words, I'd feel better about a Buddhist than an atheist. Of course there are other factors but this is assuming I can only consider one aspect. I just feel better knowing the person has a greater motivating/guiding force with a plainly viewable moral code."

So you're MORE COMFORTABLE with someone who takes orders from an old storybook written by anonymous men who believed in an omnipotent imaginary friend than you are with someone who has a rational basis for their morality? And don't play that "plainly viewable moral code" shit, son—it's called social contract.

AxlBonBach said:

Quote :

"Look, I can tell you everything that has ever been said to everyone, but nothing is gonna convert you to Christ except God Himself. NOTHING else."

I'm not one to argue over tenets, but:

1. I thought Christianity was an evangelical religion.

2. I thought salvation through Jesus depended on your conscious decision to accept him as your savior. Your decision to come to God is supposed to come from your free will. Since when does God just go around converting people? And why convert some while letting the others condemn themselves through inaction? Your statement doesn't make sense.

GrumpyGOP said:

Quote :

"Since I've never heard you speak out against the existence of society or civilization, you've just handed me the win. There was apparently something unpleasant about living "naturally," else we would not have grabbed onto civilization and its unnatural qualities the first chance we got."

See, I hear this a lot, and it doesn't make sense, either. What the hell makes you think that we aren't living naturally? Shit, we're creatures who tend to congregate in large numbers, mine the Earth for inorganic materials to build shelters to live and work in, and build pathways of commerce all over the land. You know what else does that shit? ANTS. Our houses and roads and clothes and crimes and language and weapons are all concepts found elsewhere in nature. What the fuck is "unnatural" about anything we, as creatures who are a part of nature, do?

4/1/2006 11:36:14 AM

Quote :

"Your decision to come to God is supposed to come from your free will"

4/1/2006 11:40:10 AM

[Edited on April 1, 2006 at 11:45 AM. Reason : red x ]

4/1/2006 11:43:01 AM

4/1/2006 11:46:34 AM

Quote :

"In Somalia, you have people living effectively in the state of nature (no gov't), and what you have is bloody chaos. "

Yes, but you must look at WHY it is bloody chaos. It isn't because there is no attempts to construct oppressive order, the problem is that there are too many attempts. The whole of society is actively engaged in attempting to oppress "evil", by whatever violent means they can muster.

It isn't enough to say there is chaos when the existing elite collapses, you must look at why.

So, like I said, "it is within our nature to set moral rules and enforce them at the barrel of a gun." And that is what the people of Somalia are attempting to do. But before they can fullfill this most human of needs, they must eliminate all the other people attempting to dimunate their authority to do so.

4/1/2006 12:21:54 PM

I don't have the time to go through every reason why Grumpy's wrong. I'll just let the other rednecks on the board cheer at his "victory" and let him be content in his win. No time or patience to turn this into a 50 page slugfest where we both walk away unchanged and feeling the victor.

Quote :

"What the fuck is "unnatural" about anything we, as creatures who are a part of nature, do?"

Man is a lot more complex than other creatures. He has a choice as to how he acts. This means he can pick options that are ridiculously unhealthy for him.

4/1/2006 2:28:31 PM

hmmm... if man is not natural, then is he supernatural?

4/1/2006 3:24:58 PM

Quote :

"if man is not natural, then is he supernatural?"

Leprachauns are supernatural.
Man on the other hand...
Well lets just say we've grown too big for the cradle...
but we've still got a lot, and I mean a lot, more to learn.


[Edited on April 1, 2006 at 4:01 PM. Reason : .]

4/1/2006 3:52:10 PM