In Iran, atheism is a capital crime, as it is in much of the Muslim world. Even in America, there have been many, many cases of discrimination against atheists. Why? what did we do that is so wrong?
A lot of them are assholes about the who God issue. In terms of what's people deserve to die for Smugness > Crazed Blithering Evil.
Not to mention atheists are hardly a unified group and you can't talk about what they do to "us" in a really serious manner. And as far atheism being a capital crime, well ya'll pride yourselves on logic, figure out the four simple words needed to avoid execution.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
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By assholes on the god issue, does that mean we are expressing our logical and completely reasonable belief that there is no God (or Gods, or w/e)? I think the people like Ann Coultur, who saie "We should go into their country, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." deserve death (no one deserves death unless they really commited hanous crimes, but for the sake of discussion, i press on) more than, say, Bill Maher for "Religulous", or Dawkins for "The God Delusion"
No I mean responses like that where Ann Coulter is somehow a representative of thousands of very different beliefs about God. Tone is much more important than what is actual said when it comes to actually being an *******.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
There are a lot of people who agree with Ann Coulter in America. What she says, and what a lot of pastors (do i need to name them?) say is completely ridiculous and morally wrong, yet what atheists like Bill Maher say is completely logical and reasonable. He is talking about religion the same way one would talk about politics. He asks "why do you believe in God?" the same way one would ask "Why are you voting for Barack Obama?" Thats not being an *******, now is it?
And yet most atheist, theist, agnostics and ignostics will admit that "a lot" doesn't equal "all" or even "most". They will also inform you that there are nearly 200 independent nations around the world, nearly all of which contain practicing theists.
So? Survival of the fittest *****. If you can't express your beliefs in a way that makes people care/follow them that's really your problem. Stop whining about unfairness and do something about it before you come here and complain like so many people before. Spread some ****ing awareness.
Then, regardless of his actual intelligence of virtues, he's acting very foolishly.
I don't recall insulting Mr. Maher in any way. The question is a valid an fair one. The problem is typically attempts to deal with the response of "because I have faith" or "the Bible says he does". Then people (on both sides, of course) end up making asses of themselves.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
Logic doesn't necessarily say there is no god, in some cases it says there is. Take for instance the clock and the clock maker. I probably won't get it right but it's something like this. Clocks are very complicated; we wouldn't think it possible that some pieces of metal and glass could just jumble around and form a clock. There has to be a clock maker. Boils down to: If there is a clock then there must be a clock maker. The universe is much more complicated then a clock, so by that same logic it needs a maker as well.
Last edited by Bobbicus on Oct 12th, 2008 at 11:36 PM
There are things that self assemble, because of chemical reactions and what not and it being more energetically favorable, but then what makes the laws that govern that self assembly and those chemical reactions? I'm an agnostic by the way, so I really don't think it's possible to prove the existance of some higher being, I just think it's hard to disprove it too.
Oh, of course you cant disprove yahweh, which i believe is the god we are talking about, just like you cant disprove Zeus or fluffy pink unicorns, but i am willing to bet that we are more or less atheist on those subjects. But when it comes to the Abrahamic god, suddenly it is completely different. meh. and the whole clock thing, read The God Delusion. Dawkins explains the holes in that arguement a lot better than i can.
God, the way people celebrity worship Dawkins makes me think there is some truth to the idea of atheism as a religion.
Sam Harris on why we shouldn't even call ourselves atheists:
the woman at the beginning is emblematic of what I'm talking about, but there is generally no difference in saying "Go look at what Dawkins said" or "Go look at what God said". If you can't explain it/understand it for yourself, you are simply believing what is said to you
It is ironic because you post a video on why we should not call ourselves athiests specifically and in the same quote you admonish others not to let others think or explain for you. No?
To take my foot out of my mouth a little bit, I'm against self-identification in general, as it promotes a limited range of openness to ideas, but ya, pretty dumb eh?
I dislike being pigeon-holed into terms that don't really apply. I hesitate to call myself a 'Liberal' or a 'Democrat' because then it is assumed that I follow every party line. What does my position on god, abortion or war have to do with what I think about nuclear power? The wall between camps allows single issue voters to screw with election results.
lol, totally, agree, I just wanted to make sure I cleared up all that looking-like-the-thing-I-was-criticizing stuff.
EDIT: ie, Harris has a more pragmatic approach to why not to call oneself an Athiest, though I guess at the end of the video it starts to get into that with the spiritual stuff... hmmmm