That’ll teach you to run off and play. I don’t think you will ever get past our irrational beliefs. I do think it’s possible to get past the ‘free pass’ issue. Act irrationally, and you will at the very least, be marginalized. Kicking your ass will depend on how much damage you do with you irrationality.
At best, I think that the only short-run solution is to keep a bright spotlight on the irrationality. If we can’t do anything else, let’s keep it up on stage where it has to defend itself.
Just caught a blurb on the news where the American Family Assoc (a Christian right group) has decided to boycott Ford Motor Co. because of its’ support of the ‘homosexual agenda’. By all means, buy a Japanese car. I’m sure they share the sentiments of the Christian religious right. It is this kind of irrationality that has devolved into (dare I say it?) stupidity that needs to be held up to a strong light. It won’t change the beliefs of this group, but it might give them pause in their public actions. Maybe? Hopefully?
Addendum: The American Families Association just suspended their boycott of Ford to give time for autodealers to talk to Ford about its support of Gays. Supposedly, 110,000 people signed up to support the boycott. Ain’t America a wonderful place?
believe me I understand this. I boycott microsoft (for various reasons) - but was appalled when microsoft bucked to pressures from a local religious group. Microsoft was supporting a local bill that at most gave homosexuals equal working rights, so that they wouldn’t be discriminated against in the work place. NOTHING to do with marriage.
They backed down from being pro- towards the bill to being neutral all because this pastor threatened the christian league of voters would switch to non-microsoft products.
yes where the christians can bully companies and companies can bully congress.
like the recent bill to limit bankruptcy filing… talk about caring for the poor.
I find it problematic that educated people still believe that religion has anything to do with god. It never did and it never has. Any student of history recognizes this. Religions are simply institutionalized systems of attitudes, beliefs and practices. By this definition “atheism†is a religion. It seems to me, therefore, that the atheism vs. religion argument is juvenile. Atheism only exists in juxtaposition to organized religion so the debate is simply a stage on which so called “atheists†can act out their drama with the so called “religiousâ€. There is no difference between belief in a god up in the sky sitting on a throne and dolling out rewards and punishment and the belief in no power greater than one’s self – in addition to engaging in debate about a god sitting on a throne dolling out rewards and punishment. To postulate such a god is preposterous and to engage in a “serious†debate to show that that god does not exist is laughable.
Anyone truly open to discussion and learning would at least have to take pause and consider the god conceptualized in what is often referred to as the Books of Moses: The God of Abraham. This god concept has been mutilated beyond recognition by Judaism, Christianity and Islam equally. All three worship the God of Abraham and in the Book of Exodus this god is given concept in the ancient Hebrew by being given a name: AYEH AYEH.
As I have said before, the word AYEH appears 34 times in the Books of Moses and is translated as present tense on some occasions, past tense on other occasions and future tense on still other occasions. It also is translated as “become†(Deu 27:9) as well as “caused†(Num 31:16). Given the poetic nature of the Books of Moses, the name given to god in Exodus (3:14) might best be translated as “I AM WAS AND WILL BE WHAT IS WAS AND SHALL BEâ€. Though I am not a Jew, it seems to me that that is a most brilliant conceptualization of god. It becomes an even more intriguing starting point concept when one understands that it was not a concept only realized by Moses. In fact, the concept actually may predate Moses in the writings of Lao-tse’s (his concept of the ONE or the ALL). It is also not an archaic concept because it continues through modern thought in such writers as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (who at one point basically says that since god is all, there is no place to kneel down and pray to “himâ€.)
God is, was and shall be what is, was and will be. This is the god of the great western spiritual teachers and their scriptures. This is the god of the Torah, the god of the Gospels, the god of the Qur’an. This is the god of Moses, the god of Jesus and the god of Mohammed. This god, the God of Abraham, was not conceptualized as Michelangelo painted – some chubby guy in the sky with a big white beard and a tiny peepee reaching out from the clouds for man. That rendering is a magnificently executed farce well beyond even the talents of Mel Brooks or Monty Python.
This concept of god (the God of Abraham) is, however, unsatisfying to those who want to use debate and discussion as a forum for a more complex internal agenda because it is really not debatable. There is existence today, there was existence before today and there will be existence tomorrow. We are not in charge of it. We did not create what is. Some other force was and is at play. I think it may bother people that this force is called god – and from a certain vantage point it should bother people because this word god has been so misused in so many painfully destructive ways. That seems to me to be a much more needed discussion: Is it time for an organized effort to reclaim the concept of the God of Abraham and strip it from the self righteous and the self serving (be they Jew, Christian or Muslim) who have usurped it for their own personal needs? That discussion is one worth our time and energy.
I agree which is why I favor the conception of God as “meaning” since it is really what it all exists as.
Couldn’t agree more. The difficulty is finding those that are open to it. It is not a debate about who is right and wrong but the meeting of impartial minds acknowledging the effect of the illusion of knowledge on themselves.
Perhaps you could explain some of the beliefs, practices, and attitudes that constitute the athiest ‘religion’?
I was under the impression atheism was an absense of belief…
Pinnacle of Reason is correct. Atheism is a religion because of the belief (to the point of certainty) that “there is no godâ€. Depending on the particular atheist, they may place their “non belief†in science or nature or whimsy or chaos or whatever explanation they chose, but they do believe in something. An atheist is not agnostic and (I hate the way this comes out… but…) an agnostic is not agnostic. An agnostic starts with the belief that the existence of “god†is irrelevant and builds upon that an individual belief system that is structured and often highly formalized.
Human beings do not exist without belief. We all have faith in something. Faith that the sun will rise when we awaken. Faith that we will awaken each morning. If we did not have faith that we would wake up each morning, I don’t think we would go to sleep! So this completion and conflict between atheism, agnosticism and belief is a fabricated one and only exists if organized religion is part of the equation. Then the atheist can poke holes in the historical accuracy of the Jesus of the Gospels, or the contradictions between the words of the Qur’an and the actions of the Prophet, or the theological inconsistencies of the Torah… and the agnostic can yawn, turn on the ballgame and get another beer from the cooler. This scenario only exists if organized religion is in the mix. Sit with an atheist (there is no god), an agnostic (existence of god makes no difference) and a theist (there is a god) and have each share their beliefs and you might have a fascinating discussion because we all believe in something. It seems more constructive to acknowledge what we believe in and share it with others. We may discover that we all have more beliefs in common than we believe!
I don’t think you will ever get past our irrational beliefs. I do think it’s possible to get past the ‘free pass’ issue. Act irrationally, and you will at the very least, be marginalized. Kicking your ass will depend on how much damage you do with you irrationality.
It is this kind of irrationality that has devolved into (dare I say it?) stupidity that needs to be held up to a strong light. It won’t change the beliefs of this group, but it might give them pause in their public actions. Maybe? Hopefully?