.
A
Thoughtful
Honest
Ethical
Intelligent
Sceptical
Thinker
Atheist
1. Of the 565 people in Congress non is an avowed Atheist. Most of them are Christians with a smattering of Muslims and other faiths. Why then does Congress hate poor people so much? Why do the members consistently refuse to raise the minimum wage? Why do they fight so hard against health insurance? Why are they against helping women and children? And old folk?
2. "I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
...Stephen F Roberts
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3. "I'm an atheist ... I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Qur'an and I refute them."
...Emma Thompson
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4. "I have frequently, in my writings, made it clear that I have never encountered any convincing evidence of the existence of the biblical God, and that I am incapable of accepting that existence on faith alone."
...Isaac Asimov
The Hubris of Prayer
Prayer is a plea or supplication to the god of one's choice to cause some event to take place.
Either:
1. The god had planned that the event would have happened anyway, in which case the prayer is redundant.
Or:
2. The god had planned that the event would not have taken place. Here one is saying, in effect, "Hey god, I think your plan sucks. Mine is better. Do it my way.
Belief:
Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.
Webster's dictionary defines belief as 'confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof'. This confidence can be extremely powerful, to the extent that anger and other such negative emotions are easily aroused if the object of this confidence is questioned in any way. Proof of any kind is not required by the believer who is so firmly entrenched in his belief that nothing or no one can change his mind.
Why do we believe in something? Very often we are told that something is so at an early age, even before we have developed normal methods of communication so this statement becomes part of our background. It is repeated often enough that we no longer question it. It is repeated by a person who is older, larger, and in some position of authority over us. "There is an Easter Bunny. There is a Tooth Fairy. There is a Santa Claus. There is a God". We accept these statements as we have no basis to disbelieve them due to our limited experience. We accept other statements by this person, "Do this; do not do that", until such acceptance is second nature. Especially if there is some form of 'rigorous proof' that accompanies the telling. "Do not touch that. It is hot. It will hurt you" We only have to touch that thing one time to see for ourselves the self-evident truth in the original statement. It was hot. It hurt us. We therefore accept these other statements. Then we go one step further and accept the original statements from the same source. If they were right here, they must be right there. They are still older, larger, and in the position of authority. There is an Easter Bunny. There is a Tooth Fairy. There is a Santa Claus. There is a God.
We can believe anything we choose. For example we can believe that the moon is made of Green Cheese. Just because people have gone there and found rocks does not mean that there is not Green Cheese underneath. For millions of years, that Great Ball Of Cheese In The Sky has been pelted with cosmic dust and asteroids until by now there is quite a layer of rock on top of the Green Cheese.
A Parable about Religion
Long, long ago, before Man invented the wheel or the brassiere or whatever, some smart-assed, cave-dwelling little kid asked its mother "Mother, where do we go when we die?"
To which the mother replied, "Go ask your father".
The kid went to his old man and said, "Father, where do we go when we die?"
His dad thought a bit and said, "I guess we just rot away like that old deer carcass outside the cave".
The kid bursts into tears, runs back to mother and tells her what dad said, adding "I don wanna rot away".
Now mother has a bawling brat to cope with on top of all her other problems like getting another meal out of the old deer carcass. "Come here, sweetie", (or Ug, or whatever she calls the kid), "Daddy doesn't know beans. Here's what really happens. When we die we all go to a wonderful place where there is plenty of clean water and tasty deer meat and we can play all day".
The kid stops crying and cheerfully goes out to play. Unfortunately, some of the other kids get wind of the story and before long the story is spreading as swiftly as the deer runs. Sooner or later it get to the ears of the other cave-guys. The biggest and strongest of these, guy by the name of al-Fadog, says to the others, "Here's what you gotta do to be real sure that you will go to the clean water / deer meat place. First of all, you all gotta dance like loonies around the fire. Second of all, you gotta all give me a little bit of each deer you kill".
"Why we gotta do that?" say the others.
"Cause I'm bigger and stronger than you and I'll bash your brains out with this here deer bone".
"Oh. OK. We'll do it then".
From these humble beginnings grew all of the world's great religions.
My Favorite Bible Quotes
1 Timothy 2:11-12
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent" .
Jer. 10:2-4
". . . Learn not the way of the heathen,. . . For the customs of the people are vain- for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not... But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities"
Matthew 19:
21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
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A quote from Dave Langholff:
For all the great things Christians should be inspired to do, it's sad that so many choose to judge and persecute. I think it's really a dark part of human behavior, just that hiding behind the Bible makes it feel legitimate.