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2007-02-26 10:07:22
Kmar
Truth is my Bitch
+5,695|6601|132 and Bush

I had always understood the primary beef most atheist/agnostic had with the everyone else was that they felt others were pushing their religion on them. To me recently it seems to be quite the opposite. I understand this is a debate forum and it is a sensitive subject, but there is nothing that gets under my skin more than someone trying to impose their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) on you. Even with words like "undeniable, scientific, and fact". A persons faith and family are probably the closest things they hold to heart. Show some respect. Make your point and let it be. If you want to debate evolution or creationism there are ways to approach it without being condescending. I'll be happy to join in. People like Bertster and topal63 have demonstrated that you can have a grasp on this without trashing on a persons faith. I was going to post the threads I had in mind but I am not going to turn this into a personal attack.
Xbone Stormsurgezz
2007-02-26 10:09:44
IRONCHEF
Member
+385|6491|Northern California
Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
2007-02-26 10:11:00
Varegg
Support fanatic :-)
+2,206|6810|Nårvei

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
Would think that to be an atheist and firmly believe in nothing it takes knowledge what not to believe in, dont you think ?
Wait behind the line ..............................................................
2007-02-26 10:11:18
mKmalfunction
Infamous meleeKings cult. Est. 2003 B.C.
+82|6540|The Lost Highway
Good post man. Your intentions are good, but if this post goes anywhere, I have a feeling it'll take the same route as all of the other 'God' threads.
2007-02-26 10:17:22
Kmar
Truth is my Bitch
+5,695|6601|132 and Bush

mKmalfunction wrote:

Good post man. Your intentions are good, but if this post goes anywhere, I have a feeling it'll take the same route as all of the other 'God' threads.
Ironically that is what I am trying to have people ease up on.
Xbone Stormsurgezz
2007-02-26 10:22:16
sfarrar33
Halogenoalkane
+57|6619|InGerLand
well i have been beaten up on way more than one occasion for not being catholic
by the same gang of catholics though
how much more pushing do you want?
2007-02-26 10:22:17
CameronPoe
Member
+2,925|6555
Everyone is entitled to worship a block of cheese if it pleases them in my opinion, I only take issue with those who seek to impose their views on me. I often criticise religion and use quite inflammatory language when talking about it but those views are what I personally think about religion, they are not an attempt to win anyone over to atheism.

Government secularity is a big thing for me: if someone imposes their belief system on me throught the organs of government then it pisses me right off.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-02-26 10:24:06)

2007-02-26 10:23:12
Bertster7
Confused Pothead
+1,101|6582|SE London

Kmarion wrote:

I had always understood the primary beef most atheist/agnostic had with the everyone else was that they felt others were pushing their religion on them.
That's not my problem with it. It's religion combined with power that concerns me. The only good government is a secular government.

Religious people I have no problem with, but when religion plays a part in determining national policy, I'm dead set against it.
2007-02-26 10:24:07
IRONCHEF
Member
+385|6491|Northern California

Varegg wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an atheist, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most atheists seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
Would think that to be an atheist and firmly believe in nothing it takes knowledge what not to believe in, dont you think ?
I would say that 100% of the "atheists" I've known and befriended all got that way because of some stupid little offense they took from "someone" who practices religion and NOT doctrines or principles practiced by any particular religion.  It twists and turns them so bitterly that it evolves in them a general hatred which they end up masking with a made-up "intellectual" attitude towards the existence of god or "a supreme being."  But within a couple sentences of speech defining their evidences against god, you can easily see they are completely lost and without basis for their thoughts.  But that's just me and my observation.  Maybe I've not really met a true atheist!
2007-02-26 10:25:26
PureFodder
Member
+225|6286

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
You find out why from alot of peoples comments. It's a growing social trend in the West and was my personal experience. Many atheists were brought up by religious parents to be religious but decided later in life that the religion was wrong. This is why they can know a whole lot about a religion but think it's incorrect. Plus there's religious studies in schools.
2007-02-26 10:27:04
IRONCHEF
Member
+385|6491|Northern California

PureFodder wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
You find out why from alot of peoples comments. It's a growing social trend in the West and was my personal experience. Many atheists were brought up by religious parents to be religious but decided later in life that the religion was wrong. This is why they can know a whole lot about a religion but think it's incorrect. Plus there's religious studies in schools.
Agreed.  It is a very "popular" and almost "cool" thing to be an atheist among young people.  It's the new "smoking is cool" theme it seems.  But listen to me, i'm making myself sound old and shabby. lol
2007-02-26 10:27:16
CameronPoe
Member
+2,925|6555

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
I was raised as a Catholic, what was I gonna do: ask my parents to 'stop with the indocrination please' at age 3? Not to mention that the Vatican funds the Irish primary school system - not really much chance of escaping Catholicism now was there?

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-02-26 10:28:08)

2007-02-26 10:29:26
ncc6206
=BIG= BAD AND UGLY
+36|6479
I can say that I do not try to impose my religious beliefs on others but to defend it.  I find that most posts are Anti-God and Anti-Religion. In response I attempt to show those that their views are not absolutes and I try to bring the opposing viewpoints to others who read the threads. To each their own but if you dis my beliefs I cannot stand by silent. 

Last edited by ncc6206 (2007-02-26 10:29:57)

2007-02-26 10:30:20
IRONCHEF
Member
+385|6491|Northern California

CameronPoe wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
I was raised as a Catholic, what was I gonna do: ask my parents to 'stop with the indocrination please' at age 3?
You may be confusing what I'm saying as I'm merely casting my opinion of what I view in atheists' lack of validity, not so much their origin.

As for the notion that children raised in a religious/semi-religious household being free of their parent-forced church life when they leave home and have their freedom to choose religion (or not), that's different.  That doesn't make you atheist..it makes you "free to choose" religion as well as not to choose one.
2007-02-26 10:30:36
norge
J-10 and a coke please
+18|6470

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
100% false.

being an atheist doesnt mean you need to be ignorant.
2007-02-26 10:32:49
PureFodder
Member
+225|6286

IRONCHEF wrote:

PureFodder wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
You find out why from alot of peoples comments. It's a growing social trend in the West and was my personal experience. Many atheists were brought up by religious parents to be religious but decided later in life that the religion was wrong. This is why they can know a whole lot about a religion but think it's incorrect. Plus there's religious studies in schools.
Agreed.  It is a very "popular" and almost "cool" thing to be an atheist among young people.  It's the new "smoking is cool" theme it seems.  But listen to me, i'm making myself sound old and shabby. lol
I seem to recall in the case of the UK, there is a fairly strongly patterned decline in religious belief that's been going for a couple of centuries now. It doesn't look like a 'fad', it looks a lasting social change.
2007-02-26 10:34:27
KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
+2,973|6632|949

IRONCHEF wrote:

I would say that 100% of the "atheists" I've known and befriended all got that way because of some stupid little offense they took from "someone" who practices religion and NOT doctrines or principles practiced by any particular religion.  It twists and turns them so bitterly that it evolves in them a general hatred which they end up masking with a made-up "intellectual" attitude towards the existence of god or "a supreme being."  But within a couple sentences of speech defining their evidences against god, you can easily see they are completely lost and without basis for their thoughts.  But that's just me and my observation.  Maybe I've not really met a true atheist!
I decided my current views on Religion after being baptized, receiving first communion, and getting confirmed.  I was raised in a pretty solid Catholic household, by a devout father who "found" his religion after back problems and a mother who was raised Baptist and later earned a PhD in Theology.  I attended Catechism classes until I was 16 years old.  I think I have a pretty good grasp of the doctrines and principles of Christianity in general.  I also understand that in the end, it is a belief system.  Until one of us can provide indisputable proof one way or another, neither can dismiss the beliefs as absurd.

Just like my father "found" God from a hospital bed in a time of hardship, I "found" no God through my own trials and tribulations.  So you could say my beliefs were evolved through my own thought process, something I hope to pass on to my kids one day.
2007-02-26 10:35:35
CameronPoe
Member
+2,925|6555

PureFodder wrote:

I seem to recall in the case of the UK, there is a fairly strongly patterned decline in religious belief that's been going for a couple of centuries now. It doesn't look like a 'fad', it looks a lasting social change.
It's a Europe-wide trend. Only the developing world and, oddly, the USA buck the trend.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-02-26 10:36:15)

2007-02-26 10:35:48
IRONCHEF
Member
+385|6491|Northern California

CameronPoe wrote:

Not to mention that the Vatican funds the Irish primary school system - not really much chance of escaping Catholicism now was there?
Well, there's "catholics" in your most catholic neighborhoods that aren't exactly model catholics.  I can't imagine ANY religion where you're held to a standard or you'll be ridiculed.  LIkewise, children raised in a home of a particular religion aren't tested on the doctrines being force fed to them.

My children are being heavily indoctrinated in the religion of our family (the one my wife and I live).  But along with that heavy "brainwashing" as many would put it, is also the teaching that they have their free agency to abandon all that we've taught them and expected of them, and even that they must learn FOR THEMSELVES the validity of what they've learned all their lives.  I don't know of many religions or people that do that, but I believe it's the correct way to raise children if you're religious.  I wasn't raised that way and left the religion of my family (Lutheran) because it had no substance, no meaning to me, and I had no reason to "just belong" to a bunch of people.
2007-02-26 10:39:02
CameronPoe
Member
+2,925|6555

IRONCHEF wrote:

Well, there's "catholics" in your most catholic neighborhoods that aren't exactly model catholics.  I can't imagine ANY religion where you're held to a standard or you'll be ridiculed.  LIkewise, children raised in a home of a particular religion aren't tested on the doctrines being force fed to them.

My children are being heavily indoctrinated in the religion of our family (the one my wife and I live).  But along with that heavy "brainwashing" as many would put it, is also the teaching that they have their free agency to abandon all that we've taught them and expected of them, and even that they must learn FOR THEMSELVES the validity of what they've learned all their lives.  I don't know of many religions or people that do that, but I believe it's the correct way to raise children if you're religious.  I wasn't raised that way and left the religion of my family (Lutheran) because it had no substance, no meaning to me, and I had no reason to "just belong" to a bunch of people.
In a similar manner I came to realise, as I viewed it then and now, that religion and the concept of a higher being were illogical/delusional and that the dogma surrounding the religion I was raised in was empty and meaningless as a consequence, although I regarded, as I do now, that the general message (love thy neighbour, etc.) was positive. I became a realist if you will and abandoned religion in favour of an absence of it. I view all faiths as 'mental conditioning', neurotic behaviour that I do not wish to become reliant on for my well-being.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-02-26 10:49:06)

2007-02-26 10:41:22
Bertster7
Confused Pothead
+1,101|6582|SE London

IRONCHEF wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
I was raised as a Catholic, what was I gonna do: ask my parents to 'stop with the indocrination please' at age 3?
You may be confusing what I'm saying as I'm merely casting my opinion of what I view in atheists' lack of validity, not so much their origin.

As for the notion that children raised in a religious/semi-religious household being free of their parent-forced church life when they leave home and have their freedom to choose religion (or not), that's different.  That doesn't make you atheist..it makes you "free to choose" religion as well as not to choose one.
So you're saying atheists views are invalid?

Why so? A lot of atheists know a lot more about the history of religion than most religious people.

Last edited by Bertster7 (2007-02-26 10:42:18)

2007-02-26 10:43:22
IRONCHEF
Member
+385|6491|Northern California

norge wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an athiest, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most athiests seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
100% false.

being an atheist doesnt mean you need to be ignorant.
I'm sorry, but have you met the atheists I've met and come to the same conclusion that I have?  Then if not, then your assessment of my post is unnecessary and totally out of line.  I have said nothing of atheists being ignorant.  I've made my observation known that the atheists I know seem to know more about god, and bring up religion as the crux of all problems in their life, than others.  Seriously, it's boring to see professed atheists totally enveloped in religious topic about every aspect of their life..blaming religion and believers in god for this, and blaming religion for that..never taking upon themselves accountability or reality.  Some sad stuff to be atheist.  They're like black people who never shut up about how the white man is oppressing them and keeping them in the ghetto and in jails, etc.

Now there are also people who simply have NEVER been exposed to religious ideas or talk of God and are truly "atheistic" in nature who don't believe there's a supreme being as we would suggest, and they go about their day not blaming everything on god (or the lack thereof) and religion.
2007-02-26 10:45:08
ATG
Banned
+5,233|6529|Global Command

IRONCHEF wrote:

Varegg wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Goes to show there's no such thing as an atheist.  If you are an atheist, you shouldn't know so much about God, or the lack thereof.  You should keep to the things you know...not things you are professing to not know.  But as it is, most atheists seem to know more about religion than those professing to live one.
Would think that to be an atheist and firmly believe in nothing it takes knowledge what not to believe in, dont you think ?
I would say that 100% of the "atheists" I've known and befriended all got that way because of some stupid little offense they took from "someone" who practices religion and NOT doctrines or principles practiced by any particular religion.  It twists and turns them so bitterly that it evolves in them a general hatred which they end up masking with a made-up "intellectual" attitude towards the existence of god or "a supreme being."  But within a couple sentences of speech defining their evidences against god, you can easily see they are completely lost and without basis for their thoughts.  But that's just me and my observation.  Maybe I've not really met a true atheist!
True, but a lot of self proclaimed religious people are equally clueless and judgemental about ' alternative" religions.


IMO, the only rational choice is to be agnostic, therefor debate is pretty well mute.
2007-02-26 10:47:05
jonsimon
Member
+224|6495
Honestly, no one is pushing atheism on anyone, except a small sect in like, california. Try and find some examples of atheist recruitment, I know of only one.

Edit: Oh, and Ironchef appears as adamant in his opposition of atheism as he would have us believe atheists are against religion.

Last edited by jonsimon (2007-02-26 10:50:57)

2007-02-26 10:48:24
IRONCHEF
Member
+385|6491|Northern California

CameronPoe wrote:

IRONCHEF wrote:

Well, there's "catholics" in your most catholic neighborhoods that aren't exactly model catholics.  I can't imagine ANY religion where you're held to a standard or you'll be ridiculed.  LIkewise, children raised in a home of a particular religion aren't tested on the doctrines being force fed to them.

My children are being heavily indoctrinated in the religion of our family (the one my wife and I live).  But along with that heavy "brainwashing" as many would put it, is also the teaching that they have their free agency to abandon all that we've taught them and expected of them, and even that they must learn FOR THEMSELVES the validity of what they've learned all their lives.  I don't know of many religions or people that do that, but I believe it's the correct way to raise children if you're religious.  I wasn't raised that way and left the religion of my family (Lutheran) because it had no substance, no meaning to me, and I had no reason to "just belong" to a bunch of people.
In a similar manner I came to realise, as I viewed it then and now, that religion and the concept of a higher being were illogical/delusional and that the dogma surrounding the religion I was raised in was empty and meaningless as a consequence, although I regarded, as I do now, that the general message (love thy neighbour, etc.) was positive. I became a realist if you will and abandoned religion in favour of an absence of it.
Excellent!  I knew that deep down, you weren't really a god hater as you sometimes come across!  And because you espouse some religious principles (which of course aren't considered "religious" or derived from religion to you) yet abandon worship of a supreme being, you have adjusted perfectly despite your upraising and consequential "indoctrination" or "brainwashing" from your family and community.  This supports my thoughts that atheists are mostly people who were at one time religious who had become offended by someone or something and became bitter towards those type of people and their belief structure..right up to the very existence of god.  In short, it's a reactive principle more than it is something they sought after out of their own innocent search for truth.  And when you react towards something like this, you validate your emotions of hate and disdain for a religion from ANY source regardless of its accuracy.  Or so I've observed...

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