From William Munney:
1:21 am May 8, 2011
“If people believed as I do, maybe we could finally have peace on Earth. Religions have had thousands of years, thousands of blood-soaked, hate-filled years. Let’s give reason and rationality a chance; superstitions have had theirs and failed miserably.”
Right BB, because atheists and other “rational” people of that kind never hate anyone, right? Apparently you have either not seen or have turned a blind eye to the real hatred(having an opinion opposite to yours is not hatred, much to liberal’s chagrin), in the form of anti-Christian hatred from people who hate you(or try to intimidate you, or discriminate against you, or kill you) just because you believe in Jesus. Just as Jesus said would happen. Why don’t you rally against the real bigots?.
“for as Einstein said, genius is limited, but ignorance is infinite.” Indeed. And maybe you should take a cue from him. Einstein also said: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
If you have such faith in your atheism, why do you come here to try and persuade others to abandon God, whom you think is nonsense? Just be confident in your religion(which is what atheism is). Your “god” doesn’t ask you to spread it’s gospel to “non-believers” – as Jesus did for Christians – and there is no hope for salvation in your religion, thus no reason to “help” others reach salvation, so why do you come here to try “to pervert the right ways of the Lord”, “oh child of the devil “?
And My Response:
I am truly sorry that you and many like you have been inculcated into the "suffering Christian" mythology. As you put it, "...anti-Christian hatred ... try to intimidate ... discriminate against ... or kill you ... just because you believe in Jesus." This is, in fact, Christian propaganda.
Have Christians been persecuted as a result of their adherence to their particular dogmas and doctrines? Of course, mostly by other Christian sects. Have Christians gone to war over the belief in a particular god or prophet? Again, yes! Only, it was with every other institution of superstitious claims known throughout history, and they persecuted as harshly (even more so, that's why Christianity disseminated) as they were persecuted. Worst of all, Christians have persecuted their own, based on claims of supernatural authority, ie. God(s) commanded it, eg. the Bible says (Exodus 22:18) we should not suffer a witch, (or Sodomites, or Amalekites, ect. ect.) to live.
You see, first and foremost, religions, all religions, are tools of politics and have been since their inception. This is not to say all governments, as should be the case in the US, but it is manipulation through fear, segregation through in-group vs. out-group (ie. racism, nationalism, denominationalism, Christian Supremacy, etc.), as well as most of the other baser emotions such as xenophobia, homophobia, etc. Also, thought control so that, "it doesn't matter what the evidence shows via science, history, anthropology, archaeology, palaeontology, etc.; the (pseudo) facts are as this Evangelist, Politician, Mormon, Creationist, Capitalist, Libertarian, Corporatist, etc., etc., purports," is something other than totally [insert expletive here] laughable.
Politicians have known for millennia that nothing turns a group into an easily manipulated mob (for fun and profit) like claims of persecution from those belonging to an out-group. (By using fictitious claims of persecution about the Roman Emperor Nero, a Roman Church of some 3 centuries hence was able to simultaneously get Romans to denounce their Roman-ness and embrace Catholicism; thereby, converting Roman citizens into Roman Catholics in short order.) They've also known, for almost as long, that similar claims have worked preemptively to justifying the implementation of policies that lead to atrocities whether those claims are fabricated, exaggerated, or merely elaborated, for the mob mentality is nothing, if not, frenzied impetuousness amplified to the point of mindless violence. Yes, the persecuted Christian is a fabrication.
But, to answer your question: "Why don’t [I] rally against the real bigots?" Considering that a bigot is a person with strong and prejudiced views who will not listen to opinions differing from their own, I can only conclude that—I am, all of them.
From my point of view, a person's opinions should be held up to the light of verifiable knowledge and weighed in the free market of ideas against the evidence and the facts gleaned therefrom. That's what I like about logical thought, it strives to eliminate opinion from the conclusion by putting a high value on evidence. This actually puts a twist on an idiom that is currently circulating in the zeitgeist that "a person is entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts." In my view a person is entitled to their opinion, or belief, if they can substantially support it with facts based on evidence. Furthermore, because people act on their opinions in ways that affect us all, ie. the political, commercial, environmental, as well as public arena, those opinions, those beliefs, should be scrutinized, debated, in the free market of ideas by people with respect for evidence. Else, a self-proclaimed prophet that believes he can claim several pre-teen and teenaged girls would be free (from jail) to do as he pleased, or maybe, like Mohammad, become the mythological basis for a world religion. Or, how about misquoting famous figures out of context to gain authoritative appeal?
Your quoting of Albert Einstein is nothing short of an appeal to authority made worse by your misapprehension of its meaning as to be, in some way, referring to one of the Abrahamic religions. It was not.
It is from, Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941
And I quote, in part:
"Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein
So it is that many religiose misinterpret Einstein's famous statement suggesting that Einstein was evincing respect for religious credulity. Science without religion is lame, merely because "science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion." Whereas religion without science is blind because religion has no access to the truth—it was, as Einstein expressed it—nothing other than the "source of feeling" this aspiration toward something greater than itself cannot be generated via the scientific method that is gleaned from the same sphere as religious aspirations. A purely human motivation in my view that when combined with an educated faith in the concept that the natural parameters we currently understand through evidentiary means can very easily be projected over space and time that is currently understood to be exactly like the here and now. This statement both removes any claim to truth from religions, and at the same time, imbues the human psyche with both the origins of higher aspirations, and the foresight to discern and understand truth of our universe.
Nowhere is this sentiment more succinct than in this statement: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."—Albert Einstein
You have obviously garnered your misapprehension of atheism from those of a biased bent on the subject. Understanding that there isn't any evidence supporting anything supernatural, let alone a personal deity, is not even remotely religious. Alas, I understand that your comments are an attempt to elevate your belief system by equating atheism with it; do you not see the logical absurdity? Do you not see that religions have used this same method, either purposefully or unconsciously, with everything that has always been human, natural, even culturally innate? You write of salvation as though it was something "out there" something that is attained from a religion; it is not. Humanity is the guardian of its own authority, creator of its own morality and it has always been so. We are the guardians of our universe. I have no lord, no master and neither should you.
As one with an atheistic view and the education that supports it, I understand that the characters portrayed through the Abrahamic religions, which is how you most likely understand them, are, in reality, literary constructs, which have only survived due to their political usefulness. So, in addition to stopping the manipulation of you by way of your emotions and opinions, through evidentiarily unsupported claims, known as religious dogmas, which I addressed above, there is but one reason why I am here: to help others!
In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, I am attempting to free our priest-ridden civil government from the lowest grade of ignorance of which religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. Thanks.
EOB
Now, if you're not interested in my previous comments, I can understand as I am honestly over-it myself. But, I would recommend reading some of them as I didn't bother responding to the absolutely moronic cracks. Hopefully, they have been, and will be, educational.
Thanks
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