Atheism and Diversity: Is It Wrong For Atheists To Convert Believers?

There's no way to counter the promise of eternal existence. That's what the popular religions offer and that's their primary selling point. If you're offered eternity, and you don't think about the implications therein, religion is a tough option to pass up.

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first thing you do as that no organized religion can't have anything to do with government.

then sometime in the future you outlaw organized religion.

But you keep selling all the religious books and you say everyone can believe what they want.

and all the hate that organize religions spew will fade away. personally I think that they will create another dark age like they did before.

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You can always recognize a Religionist by his life-long struggle to "convert" Atheist to his religious cause. I don't give a rat's behind what religious people think as long as they don't cross my "tolerance for religious people" line. In other words, I don't want to convert you to my way of thinking. Either you understand the background and History of religion or you don't. Either you accept religion as superstition (faith) or you don't. Either way I have no mandate or desire to change a child into a thinking adult. I'm a Freethinker by the way. I believe in mankind's ability to cope in the 21st Century without any messianic assistance. Those problems we face will have to be solved by rational thinking adults standing on their feet and not bowing on their knees. So Religionist people stop trying to define us in a feeble attempt to convert us to your fantasy world. I have no desire or will to convert you or to be converted by you!

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I gave up on the sky god quite a while ago as it just does not add up for me and I do not see the changed lives that are claimed by so many as evidence. Even Mother Theresa apparently lost her faith in the presence of so much suffering, cruelty and pain. A great woman-BTW.

I have no problem with agnostics and atheists defending themselves and reality against those who would seek to impose parts or the whole of their faith and values on the rest of us. I do, however, cringe at those who revel in cringe inducing tirades against any person who holds to some form of faith. I really do not care if you bend the knee to the god(s) of your choosing as long as you don't try to ram it down my throat or use it as a basis for societal law and such.

The tone of the author seems to be one of the kind who take great delight in baiting those who hold to some form of faith. This, I think, offends many who might otherwise be more sympathetic to those who doubt or have rejected the whole concept.

Otherwise, if someone is being a religious bigot and general a-hole, give them all you have. If they are quietly holding to some faith- let it alone.

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...you'll never persuade me that there's a better explanation for thunder and lightning than the will of Thor.

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You are actually not atheist you are "anti-theist". You see a true atheist doesn't care if someone believes in God or not makes no difference they just don't believe. An anti-theist is someone who is at WAR with God. As Karl Marx said "religion is the opiate of the masses" He was anti-theist, hence he wanted to remove the idea of God completely from the minds of the people. You have just written an article about this very same subject. Using a dialectic process pitting the idea of God (thesis) against the idea of reality (anti-thesis). A synthesis for this is impossible as such has always caused persecution from being thrown to lions in the coliseum to the "reign of terror" during the French Revolution and let us not forget Stalin, Lennon, Hitler, Che' and others who thought to force a synthesis. In reality your argument pits "faith against faith" and nothing more.

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about the apparent hostility of self-proclaimed atheists towards all things religious. And about the misguidedness of many arguments used in the religion-atheism debate (also from self-proclaimed religious people, BTW). In this piece, I see arguments from the beta sciences used against something that, by its own nature, escapes beta-scientific categories. Also, I see a strong bias against all forms of religious beliefs, namely that they are - bluntly stated - forms of superstition.

Coming from a catholic background, I got familiarised over the years with the wisdom of both the source texts of judaism and christianity and that of the great figures of church history. At the same time, Edward Schillebeeckx (one of the greatest catholic scholars of the 20th century) expressed the conviction that God is simply too great for human understanding to grasp completely - which means that no human tradition will ever have the final say about who or what He/She is. This same Schillebeeckx states that the primacy within christian tradition belongs to ethics - the question whether purely human good is brought about or not. The question whether God exists or not is, within this context, actually an irrelevant one. The question is whether God happens, i.e. whether liberation, justice, compassion and love is brought about.

What I basically want to say is this: religion is much richer and more complex than the writer of this piece apparently assumes. As far as christian tradition is concerned, it is not about the existence of God but about the event of God, who is revealed in the liberation, justice, compassion and love that happen to concrete human beings. Therefore, I would personally take offence if anyone sees it as her/his "vocation" to turn me into an atheist. I am very happy not to be an atheist. My life would definitely be a much poorer existence if I were to be an atheist.

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One of the good things about being a Catholic is we don't put much emphasis on proselytizing; it's more of a take it or leave it thing. Apologetics (defending The Faith) is a different thing, which most Catholics take more seriously than evangelizing. Still, since many Christians devote so much attention to converting "unbelievers" to the fold, it's only fair that they not object to attempts at persuasion that are intended to convert them to different belief systems. There's nothing intolerant about attempting to convince someone that they're wrong, especially if you think their ideas have an adverse effect on people other than themselves.

Personally, I welcome religious debate, although I've never seen anyone converted one way or the other through some brilliant stroke of rhetoric. As the author sugggests, an effective way of "proposing" a new belief system is to plant a set of questions in someone's mind that can't be satisfactorily answered from within the belief system they currently embrace. Even more effective is to "be" in the world in a way that makes it apparent to others that your faith is a source of joy, courage, integrity, peace, and most importantly, love.

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All of our beliefs are open to question.The best thing I have seen on this is in the popular free ebook series "In Search of Utopia" in book 4 (On human values). (http://andgulliverreturns.info) The author looks at the many systems of religious beliefs, the questioning of agnosticism and the disbelief of atheism.
We will all put our faith somewhere--so we should understand why.

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Why shouldn't we put the religion question aside and demand that our schools teach ethics and critical thinking?

Religious people put a lot of effort into influencing what is taught in schools, so why isn't there a progressive movement to teach our children to evaluate evidence and get into the habit of thinking for themselves?

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The one idea that wasn't addressed is, why doesn't God appear to us and explain exactly what He wants from all of us. That would clear up a lot of things. Ya think?

Among all the dead and dieing, we have succeeded in planting the idea that "God is love" in our consciousness. Why do we think God loves us? You certainly can't prove it by the way things are on planet Earth. He lets us die of starvation by the millions every year!! Disease claims millions more every year!! War, bitterness, strife, anger, and fear, enslave us and tear us apart at the same time which precludes the possibility of any form of peace within or without.

And, according to the Bible we are supposed to pray for God's will to be done "in Earth as it is in Heaven" (Mat. 6:10), and since we don't know God's will, what is the point in praying? Beside, the last time I checked their was "war in Heaven" Rev. 12:7-8, "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, 8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven". So, if God can't even keep peace in Heaven, why does He expect us to do what He can't do himself? Oh well, now we are getting into the chicken and egg thing; or the "to be, or, not to be" thing. And, the end result is confusion...unless you are convinced that you are right - all the time!! Being right all the time does simplify things a bit. Compartmentalizing your thinking can give you a false sense of security, but that is just another form of self-righteousness - something that is frowned upon by every religion (on paper at least).

Human beings are too complex so, any attempt at reconciling our differences is doomed to failure. God should know that. After all He is omniscient, isn't He?

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I made my transition to Atheism at a young age, although my reasons were certainly tempered by my young outlook on the world at the time. My parents gave me the choice of attending church or not, I chose not to go after one or two times. My long deliberations on the subject lead me, not to any great philosophical truths but to matters of practicality. I realized that by sitting in church, I was missing out on a substantial amount of Sunday morning cartoons. A stunning conclusion like that to a 7 yr old leaves only one possible answer: Suck it church, TV is my new God!

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If you want to express your point of view and disagree vehemently with religious views, I am all for that, and have done that myself, many times, freely, as the first amendment upholds my right to do so.

But if you want all religion to go away, and you want everyone to be like you, then you are proselytizing, just like the most annoying religious people do.

Since I will never know for sure what is going on in someone else's head and whether they are sincere anyway, the only thing that matters for me is, how do your professed beliefs and thoughts about the world motivate you to behave and act toward your fellow humans and the earth. There are "good" and "bad" people of any religion and of no religion.

When you disdain, mock, want to get rid of or demonize people who think differently, whether for a lack of reason OR a lack of faith, that doesn't say good things about you.

I think it is a mistake for anyone to advocate limiting how people can think about god, because the actual end result of that is to force people to hide or lie about what they think to conform. For example, Catholicism in Europe in middle ages, some current Islamic theocracies, Nazi Germany or Russian Atheist Communist State in early to mid 20th century.

I appreciate that some atheists may feel threatened and oppressed in our current culture right now. People have laughed at me before when I, who do not belong to any organized religious group, respond that I revere nature when asked a "what religion are you?" type question. And certainly there is some judeo-christian bias in my kid's public school experience. But turning it around to get rid of all religion is not the answer, only the same problem with a different group on top.

Let people openly believe any reasonable or goofy thing they want about the world, and focus on seeking to ensure fair, equitable and just behavior from people and their institutions.

It's the behavior, not the belief.

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I wonder how the author defines love. (I didn't see any anything on her blog discussing love beyond a spouse, such as parental or world love.)
She wants her reader to disbelieve an "hypothesis" that there is an unseen something that affects "the world".
That 'the supernatural is an unprovable hypothesis' would be much weightier had someone come to this conclusion after much personal struggle. If she had left herself open to God, open to love, and had studied meditation, even astral projection and other "mystic arts" with known and unknown masters, and can "quiet her mind", entering profound silences, and can hold her mind steady on any object for hours, and had received encouragement from all those teachers, and was considered by them to be an advanced, evolved student, and, despite the praise and acknowledgment, she had never actually had any mystic experience. Where is this compelling personal narrative? No atheist Milarepa?
Atheism itself is not an attack, though proselytizing does attack a person's feeling. Atheism builds a wall around oneself, and is convinced of itself as any fundamentalist philosophy does.
This article is restricted to a superficial view of religion as a social event, and not as a science of personal exploration. To engage in any meditative tradition is to engage in science. All science is fraught with frauds and errors (also known as humans). Alfred Wegener, who came up with plate tectonics (and was initially widely ridiculed for it), died believing the earth was an expanding orb. Use science and prove love!

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I was raped by an atheist to prove there is no god.

Since I experienced god, I refused to deny my own experience.

I refused to admit it was a delusion, so I was brutally raped again. After that I couldn't even walk and all my family rejected me entirely.

Atheists like this author encouraged it. She says crap like,

We passionately defend people's right to believe what they want..

While actually doing the exact opposite, insulting and mocking people. Insulting and mocking is all I have heard. In a group setting that is very dangerous for a woman. When it comes from her spouse, it sets the example for the kids and is truly abusive.

Everybody but me knew I deserved to be tortured for my faith, and that I would get it. I had to learn that the hard way. I thought I had freedom of religion and equal protection under the law.

Now I am working on the list of my tormentors, who are they?

This "we respect everybody" message from Atheists is total bull shit, they respect and defend no one. Atheists agree with the christians when it comes to Islamic people, that rape and torture is what 'delusional' religious people deserve. Just ask a local cop, or Boy Scout leader, they all agree. They think rape was what I deserved to put me in my place.

But as I have said lots of times, there is a 'god' experience.

That is why there is so much literature about it, otherwise known as 'documentation' or 'proof' that people have had the god experience and that it was meaningful enough to them, for them to be motivated to speak and write about it, or even to try and teach it to others. (There is actually a lot of interest in that.)

I don't see why ignorant, obsessed people like this author have to be so nasty about it. I consider her arguments to be willfully ignorant, shallow, dogmatic and destructive. It is an experience.

I know, I experienced it.

We also know other people have had this experience too because they write books about it. DUH.

What is delusional (and very, very cruel) is to keep insisting that other people agree to YOUR perceptions and interpretations; that a huge body of literature is without meaning, or presents any actual 'evidence'. That, my dear, is denial.

I woke up this morning, like I often do, wondering just who all was in the vast conspiracy to destroy my life.

Well, this author is obviously in on it, part of the conspiracy to destroy me.

Thanks a lot, bitch.

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'Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?' asked Polycarp, a disciple of John the Beloved, the Lord's disciple, when he was being tried for the Faith in 155 AD.

He went on 'Since you are vainly urgent that, as you say, I should swear by the fortune of Cæsar, and pretend not to know who and what I am, hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian. And if you wish to learn what the doctrines of Christianity are, appoint me a day, and you shall hear them.' Refusing to deny our Lord he was killed.

I've only known Christ sixty and two years, but he's never done me any injury.

And no, my personal experience can never convince you, dear Greta Christina, or any unbeliever or merely religious person, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that God has raised him from the dead.

It's enough for me that the more I read the Scripture, the Bible, the more it testifies to me that he is true, and the better I get to know him the more he testifies the Scripture is true. Yes, this is circular, and you can't know it unless and until you know him. But you can know it.

If I can't show you Jesus in my life, his love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control there's no reason I'd expect you to believe him.

So I'm not talking, and not trying to walk, religion. I'm trying to walk the Way of Jesus and show you what he's like. And if you'd like I'd be happy to talk about him with you.

He loves you; you'd love him. He made you for love and companionship.

But he made you in his image, which includes sharing his free will with you, to serve him or not as you choose.

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Good luck with your quest. May I suggest you focus your initial efforts on the Christian religion? Turning Christians into atheists could not help but improve the world.

Just so you know--I was raised by two wonderful atheists. My father loved nothing more than debating the Jehovah's Witnesses who came to our door. It was a terrific upbringing, leaving me free to choose my own way.

I am no longer an atheist, but love my atheist brothers and sisters and sacrifice a goat for them every day. :)

Philosphically, I see most atheists as naive materialists. They are essentially asking for scientific--i.e., material--proof for non-material claims, which may well be logically impossible.

Here's an analogy to explain my theory. Imagine you're having a lucid dream in which you are trying to convince some dream people that there is a waking reality higher than theirs.

How could you get past the skepticism of the dream people and prove that the waking world exists? Would it help if the dream people got out their dream instruments and took measurements of their dream world, looking for proof of your wild claims?

Of course not. Even if you were cool enough to work some miracle within your dream, it would only give the dream people a mystery. It still wouldn't prove you come from a larger reality than theirs. You might as well save your dream breath.

Maybe you could convert them with your magnetic personality--but that's a different game.

This is only an analogy, but it suggests to me there may be no way to prove a higher level of reality within a lower level. In this respect, the atheists will win every argument.

Just my homespun philosophy. In any case, the atheist cause is a righteous one, especially with all these Christians running around. If you need any help holding their arms behind their backs, I'll be glad to help.

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In the course of my life, I have found that, generally, people who are comfortable and secure in their faith do not have the need to make others believe in what they do. I find this to be true of atheists as well.

My father is an atheist. My late mother was a non practicing Jew/atheist. They raised my sisters and me to respect other people's beliefs, even if that respect was not shared, exposed us to a variety of religious experiences via the celebrations among branches of both families, and left us to decide what we wanted to believe or not.

I am grateful for that. I don't have a need to "convert" anyone to the way I think. I have difficulty understanding people who do.

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Most Christians that I know are pretty decent people. Their main problem, however, is that they are going through life attached to a myth or view of the world that cannot be proven. But, they cling to their faith anyway. It is kind of like going through life believing in Santa Claus. Most of us discarded the idea of there being a Santa when we got older. And, then many of us came to figure out that the God story was a similar myth and idea. But, the Christians and religious people generally held to their belief in God. How come? Why discard one and not the other? They are both just fantasies that make us happy and allow us to feel good about the world. An atheist is a person who has discovered that life is just as much fun and filled with happiness without God or Santa. In fact, when you become an atheist you will discover that you really are set free when you are not required to believe in things that may or may not exist. As ideas all things are possible ( idealism and mysticism ), things like God and Santa. It is fun believing in these things. But, sometimes the business of life becomes serious as well. And, this is the time when you need to be rational and real and honest with yourself. When you are in a perilous situation and begin to pray for help from your God and He does not arrive in time to make you happy then what have you got? You have got a very big disappointment on your hands. As an atheist, in a similar situation, the only thing that you will have on your hands is reality. And, reality can be a very stark thing indeed.

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Greta, I'm an atheist like you and I'm familiar with your blog too.
I'm older than you are, I'd say 10-15 years older. Drop it. You simply can't compete with the promise of eternal life. You see, most believers don't give a damn about a God who might have created the universe. The origin of the universe is just icing on the cake. They want a god that brings them eternal life. And you simply can't compete with that. Literally, their brain is wired in a way that make thinking and not believing impossible. I suggest you do as I do: realize you can't convert idiots and fools. Just shield yourself as much as you can from their actions. Make them not able to reach you in anyway.

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... because you are no different than the religious zealots. Those who do not believe exactly as you do are wrong and should be converted.

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Are Atheists going to have to come up with secular replacements for all the curse words and phrases that have religious connotations? It's a pretty hard act to follow, there's some classics:

Goddammit
Holy Shit
Jesus Christ
By The Jasus
Lord Tunderin' (if you're from Newfoundland)
Oh My God
Lord Help Me
What the Hell
What In The Name of Christ
What In The Name of God

Have I missed any? Feel free to contribute here people.

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Atheism is a religion just as Catholicism, Buddhism, fiat currencies, environmentalism, or pretty much anything else Alternet tends to get it's feathers ruffled about.

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Atheism is an unproven hypothesis. If one chooses atheism and misses eternal life, that's quite a loss. If believing in Jesus is a wrong hypothesis, what has one lost if the belief has led one to a life of love of neighbor and enemy? Oh - you know "Christians" that don't live love-filled lives? Maybe they don't really believe in Jesus then. Of course, if the many eye-witnesses to Jesus' resurrection were not all hallucinating, and there is a resurrection to eternal life, your belief has been profitable.

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Ignorance is boring, and this article is just as ignorant as that of someone who KNOWS there is a god. Same thing, different color. But at least the other person is TRYING for something with a little meaning.

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Judging and condemning a religion by its hypocrites and literal extremists is like shooting fish in a barrel. Calling them idiots is easy -- because they're either stupid, destructively obsessive or most often both.

Now, actually evaluating a religion based on those who are practicing it without hypocrisy or obsession with others' beliefs, that's a much harder thing, and one that even Bill Maher, much as I value his contrarian critical thinking, wasn't quite up to tackling in documentary.

Religions that are by their nature arrogant, militant, intolerant, exploitative, cruel and mentally authoritarian have serious problem and are qualitatively "wrong" -- yet to forbid any faith from simply existing is both impossible and ethically unsubstantiable. If we want to "get rid" of something specific that we know is destructive (sorry, Greta, "religion" itself doesn't logically fit there) than we have to, as intelligent people, identify what it's doing that is negative and work against that -- against the systematic sexual injustice and dictatorialism of Catholicism, against the xenophobia and anti-intellectualism and Rapturism of fundamentalism, against the extortion and subterfuge and thorough brainwashing of Scientology -- and first and foremost of all that any religion or anti-religion has any inherent right or obligation to convert others to its path. "Organized religion" of any kind does not have a mandate to conquer and subdue...if that is accepted, then maybe we can all play together in the same sandbox like civilized children.

Science is one thing -- a methodology, a way of observing and attempting to explain things apart from any bias or sectarianism (as much as the era allows). Atheism is not the same as science, but rather a set of conclusions based upon a certain roughly-contemporary point of scientific reasoning, and without allowing any subjective experience or interpretation into its philosophy. To equate the two is intellectually dishonest, as science is not a completed set of conclusions and atheism is, with its mind as made up and self-righteous (at least in its militant proponents) as with any "religionist" extremism.

So again, I say to those complaining about what others believe -- stick to addressing what's actually wrong with it in the social reality we all share and must make the most of, and leave it alone if it's really not hurting people, oppresssing them and/or warping their human capacities. And if and when it furthers humanity, don't be too bloody narrowminded to give credit where credit is due.

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We humans have this idea that WE are God ourselves. We get a lot of exercise running down others, jumping to conclusions and Never getting to the base of things for ourselves. We want everyone else to give the answer instead of getting down and finding out the reality ourselves. We are really a lazy mob.

When the question is asked by the Atheist about God, or should I say the theory of God, does that enquirere check out the real answers or jump to some conclusion which is so far from the reality that it all looks to be some ridiculous idea.

What does the Bible have to say about itself or God? Actually quite a lot. Can this presented evidence be brought to an evidenced scientific proof? Can it be proved from history? Is it really fact or just imagination?

There are many other statements or questions that can be asked. When a scientist is trying to work out something, first he has a hypothesis to start from. If he finds some information that seems to fit into his hypothesis, he accepts it otherwise he rejects it. Too bad if the information was correct but the hypothesis was wrong.

The writer of the article brought out many points which at times bring pain to some who are trying to back up their "Religious" views. If the "Christian" moves away from the Biblical foundation then they will fall quick prey to the Atheist. The Atheists know for sure that if they can create doubt, they are well on the way to securing another Atheistic believer. It works the other direction also. I think it is called proselitising or something like that

If it wasn't for the Atheists and the Evolutionists, much of the crapp that was supposed to be Biblical would still be believed. These people questioned many of the beliefs that just did not fit into the reality perspective. Unfortunately, they did not go on to find the truth but stopped short and patted themselves on the back for pointing out an error. The world is full of critics, but it is only the people who step out and make the mistakes and finally have victory that are remembered. The critics are forgotten.

I am not saying that the Atheists and Evolutionists have the answers, I am saying that they have some very good solid questions against pew polishing Christians who just accept what the preacher says without checking to see if it is fact or fiction.

The honest Atheist, when confronted with some of the incredible Prophetic information in the Bible, stands aghast at how accurate it is.
There is much in the Bible that is irrefutable when one puts it in its proper perspective and place in history. If there are any honest Atheists out there, I will be happy to furnish some of this information. Be careful though because you might become contaminated if you look at the real facts.

On the other hand, to state thate religion is not falsifiable is hogwash. Why are there so many religions in the world today? They can't ALL be right. The idea that everyone can just believe what they want really is what the author was digging at. They were right.

The assumption of many that "God made us the way we are" is again a lot of poppycock. the assumption that God could not even control the Angels in heaven and they had a war, at best is only a small part of the story. The evidence, when investigated is almost earth shattering.

God was accused of being a dictator by one who was close to the throne of God. What the real problem was in fact was that that angel wanted the worship that was God's. That is another story. This angel created so much undercurrent in a perfect environment that it finally caused a war. Same thing happens here in this world. BUT, IF God is supposed to be in control, why doesn't he eliminate this angel. Why does he let him keep going and making his nasty insinuations IF HE is supposedly all powerful? More next comment

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Good grief, just what we need, another postalizing creed. Atheism is not rational since one can no more prove there is no God than there is. One can believe there is no God but that is just another faith, no different than the believers you decry. Spare me your attempts to convert me to your faith. I am quite content with my agnosticism. What is it in people that stops them from being content with "I just don't know"?

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When someone makes a false statement about you as a person, IF you go to and eliminate that person who accused you, everyone can say, "There you are, that bloke was right! Oppose him and you are immediately eliminated". If God had eliminated satan immediately, the rest of the angels would only have served God out of fear of obliteration. things work the same here on this earth. There is much more I could say on this point but wont at this time.

God does not zap people just because they do not believe in Him. Those who have the personal relationship with God should be God's representatives to others. We have an enemy who hates God and he does his best to subvert anything and everyone that he can. He is what someone else called an anti-theist.

Enough said, IF you are really honest and want to see some information from the Bible that will make your eyes boggle at its accuracy, Challenge me. I have nothing to lose. By the way, I set the subject for discussion. If you want my email address i will happily give it to you but my guess is that laziness will prevail. No one will put themselves into the situation of finding that what they believed is inaccurate. We all want to believe that we are invincible. Well, Don't we?

Well, I am not invincible but I have looked further into this prophecy thing than most have and it sure blows the mind. I don't care if you are not converted to my way of thinking. You would not be any better than me then. to be better acquainted with prophecy and history would help you to be a better person. That is all that matters.

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Atheists as a movement is nothing more than a new religious movement - and it shows all the trappings.

An organization, belief in ones self as god rather than some external force, hate and distrust for other belief systems.

Atheists as a group just seem to be more self centered and less likely to help others - I' not aware of any atheist movement that has done the enormous amount of good re aid etc as say the Catholic church or other religions!

It's a movement for people that think they are the be all and end all of everything! How endearing!

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...don't take away my spirituality which is my gratitude for and awe of all the abundant beauty in the universe which,try as I might,my rational brain just cannot fathum.

Thanks,

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

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I was a proud Atheist since I was about 14.
Simple, everything is understandable with scientific inquiry and when your dead your dead. Ok you might help push up some Posies.
But I was comfortable in my pat answers and snappy retorts.
Then shit started happening that was either a bit of extraordinary luck or utterly unincomprehensible and unexplainable.
Then you start noticing patterns as you watch The Discovery Channel et al- Molecules look like Galaxies. The Beauty of Stem cell.
Then you have to ask yourself, What was not only the prime mover to the Big Bang, but what was there for it to 'bang' together? Chicken and the Egg.
I'm 46 and I am amazed by the realm of the physical world and what ever the hell keeps it moving in a reasonably orderly manner.
Atheist can be just as closed minded when debating this topic.
In my view, the most devote of God's Faithfuls are Scientists. They realize we don't understand shit and by using their human talents we will better understand the 'force' that seems to control everything in some awesome design.
Who didn't, at least for an instant, think 'Eye of God' when they saw that Hubble telescope picture of a Nebula?
When people can have a intellegent adult conversation about 'What' God is, instead of 'Who' God is, we might make some progress on what's become an aggrevating topic.
The disservice pure atheists do to themsleves is take the joy and awe out of new discoveries. Is it a Sin to say "It's rather miracluous that we are here". Haven't found any other friends yet. and even if we do,then we both beat the odds. The Northern Lights aren't Awe inspiring?
Even the things we've comprehended for millenia can still elicit a sense of Reverence- The birth of a child. Why shit on someones parade by explaining the 'material world' fact about its utter mundaneness. Worse if addressing their sorrows. Clinical is cold. Fact, but no more comforting.
I like the idea of discussing this topic with a dismissive Atheist as I do a Born Again Evangelical.
In your Zeal to convert,try to avoid becoming one of them.

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Religionists try to spread religion in the same manner that bandits try to take over countries by imperialism, that viruses, prions and bacteria try to take over their hosts. People infected by these diseases inevitably will head out the door to grocers, fast food chains, and churches to spread their diseases, and those infected by HIV are prone to rape in countries less educated to hygiene.

Life is multi-level marketing by the lowest common denominator of ill health and ill intentions. Spread atheism, but don't be surprised if those deprived of an imaginary Cosmic Warden proceed to do their worst in creating Hell instead of the Heaven to which they once aspired.

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Simply stop telling children that a god exists until, say, 16 years old. Teach critical thinking and ethics. At 16 offer the belief in a god as an option. Religion would disappear in a generation and god would occupy his rightfull place with fairies and goblins.

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The latest in a wonderful series of thoughtful and thought proving pieces by Greta.

and I am an anti-theist, atheist is just too mellow a term for me

I would love to make a animated gay porn feature with Jesus boning Allah and then them both doing it with sheep, that's the level of respect I have for such shit

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"We're offering the option of respecting the important freedom of religious belief, while retaining the right to criticize those beliefs, and to treat them just like we'd treat any other idea we think is mistaken."

This is at the heart of my belief that modern, civil, secular society would not give any credence at all to old men who wear dresses, funny hats and claim to have some sort of direct telephone connection with "god." Of course the old men who fit this description best are the Pope and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

O.K., the Dalai Lama wears dresses too but he's not out stirring up trouble by telling folks he's "god's" bestest buddy. As far as I can tell the Dalai Lama's kind of a regular old guy who just happens to wear dresses.

Those other two, the Pope and Khanenei, however, want everyone else in the world to kiss their ass because they wear funny hats and dresses and have a direct phone line to "god." Yet these two antique clowns have the rest of the world buffaloed into doing just that.

That's not to say there aren't plenty of religious fanatics out there who don't wear dresses and funny hats who aren't just as dangerous. You know, Fred Phelps of "God Hates Fags.com" fame doesn't wear dresses. Nor does the president of the Latter Day Saints, Mormons, Thomas S. Monson, or for that matter any members of the Billy Graham-Family syndicate.

But if we, as a civilization, are going to diminish the undue influence of Medieval institutions steeped in superstitions, i.e. fundamentalist Christianity, Islam and Judaism, then we had better stop taking all religious nuts seriously when it comes to economics and politics. They have nothing cogent to add to the conversation.

So let's start by making fun of the old guys in dresses and funny hats*.

*This includes Libyan strongman Muammar al-Gaddafi who flounces around in something that looks like he's on his way to the local Renaissance Faire.

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Am I the only one here who sees the irony of the religious wanting to hide in the skirts of diversity. They war against others not of their faith, they condemn to death and misery those who break the laws their personal deity exhort, and they strive to convert any who do not share their faith to their one true faith. It looks to me like straw man of diversity is being used as a whip upon our backs by the undisputed serial revilers of that same diversity. This article is correct in every respect and to ignore it's conclusions is to invite misery upon yourself willingly.

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“… the moral consequences of believing the universe not to be guided by a personal god to whom petitionary prayer can be addressed are huge. That is why it is so inadequate to call oneself solely an atheist; one needs some sort of description for what motivates one's behavior afterwards.”

— Bill Cooke
Secular humanist author and activist

I know you've read Free Inquiry, and I know you've read Paul Kurtz, (as well as The Secular Humanism of Star Trek: A Conversation with Susan Sackett). So you must know if you're motivations are truly to inspire people to reexamine their connection to theism, you must give them an alternative, something to think about.
Wether it's the universality of ethics and morals as described by Kurtz, or the rational self-interest of Rand's Objectivism, or even the near madness of the Hyperborean, some alternative to the fundamentals of religious faith must be proffered.
Simply concentrating on the existence or nonexistence of a deity, which can never be proven or disproven, devolves serious discourse to the usual finger pointing, denigration and derision. In the media, this results in sensationalism, good only for advancing personal notoriety and celebrity, not rational inquiry, free thinking. And if atheists choose to mimic and adapt various aspects of evangelicalism, their main antagonist when battling the monster, they should be wary, lest they become the monster.

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We click onto Alternet on Thanksgiving Day, one of the few days of the year reserved for spiritual reflection, and for expressing gratitude, and we get more of this hostility to spirituality. It is sad.

I do wish Greta Christina would develop a more sophisticated understanding of religion. She reduced the entire enterprise to its lowest common denominator then argues with it. She paints her own picture of what religion is, then criticizes the picture she herself has painted.

Since she herself brings up evidence for God, I will quote Aldous Huxley in the Perennial Philosophy when he says that "Knowledge is a function of being. When there is a change of being in the knower, there is a corresponding change in the nature and amount of knowing... The nature of reality is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended by except by those who have chosen to fulfill certain conditions," such as meditation. Or as William James wrote, spiritual or moral "practice may change our theorietical horizon."

Huxley goes on: "Nothing in our everyday experience gives us any reason for supposing that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen; and yet, when we subject water to certain drastic treatments, the nature of its constituent elements becomes manifest." Similarly nothing in our everyday experience gives much reason for supposed there is a God or that the mind of man can know God, and yet, HuXley continues, "when the mind is subjected to certain rather drastic treatments, the divine element becomes manifest."

"It is only by making pshycial experiements that we can discover the intimate nature of matter and its potentialities. And it is only by making psychological and moral experiments that we can discover the intimate nature o mind and its potentialities."

If an athiest cannot discern an immaterial force behind the phenomena of the world, that is because she is not capable of discerning them. She has not fulfilled the conditions for discernment, and she is not using the right instruments to discern them. It is like someone who has never used a microscope telling someone who is actually looking through one that they are crazy for saying there are such things as microbes.

Development psychology is a science, and researchers tell us that fundamentalist religion is indeed on the lower end of the maturity spectrum, but the kind of athiestic blindness to the spiritual essence of human experience isn't all that much higher. A spritually mature human leaves that kind of thinking behind and is able to discern the "divine element" at the heart of life.
See a Map of Spiritual Growth.

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If God is a hypothesis for understanding the world, so is rationality, invented by the Greeks. For all we know, Greek "rationality" could be just as bogus. A "reality" martyr is just as bad as one for God.

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Ain't gonna happen anyway.

Anna

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Greta, you're sounding a lot like "an Exceptional Amerikan".

...sorta like the right to effect "Regime Change" in other countries WE don't happen to agree with.

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Hard-core materialism (what Christina's atheism is) is just as much a hypothesis as she asserts religion is. In fact, the very essence of science is coming out with hypotheses; naturally, the science religion rejects prima facie the hypothesis they suppose religion to be offering as an alternative.

However, she overlooks or doesn't entirely understand that religion is not about "how" and neither about "why" in the sense intended here.

One rightly dismisses religion that explicitly offers itself up as a explanation of observable material and physical mechanisms and phenomena; such an understanding only became common after the development of movable type and the wide availability of printed copies of the bible. Until the modern era, the literal take-away message that a supreme, Zeus-like being manufactured the world in a calendar week wasn't the foremost understanding people had of the opening chapter of Genesis.

Pre-typographic religion wasn't thought of as a "How Things Work" answer place. Rather, the modern mindset reveals a lack of appreciation for evolution when one supposes that, for a span of ~4,000 years ending around the time of the scientific revolution, people were ignorant or had minds less capable of ours. Religion answers a different question than "how does this or that physical phenomenon work?" Today, most folks, including followers of the "just-write-these-off" fundamentalist religions, have forgotten what that question was. That in no way makes it a stupid question or one that only occurs to primitive (or at least pre-modern) peoples.

Evolution doesn't progress very fast at all, according to the time scale humans experience. The earliest groups of people to paint pictures in caves had the same brains -- and thus, presumably, from a materialist/atheist point if view -- the same minds that we do.

Of course this doesn't prove the existence of god in any sense of the word. The point is that up until a few hundred years ago, the idea of religion offering up a mechanistic explanation for the observable world didn't really occur to folks.

The materialist/atheist stance that physical sciences will, one day, completely account for certain indirectly observable phenomenon, namely internal psychological experiences and the phenomena of synchronicity observed and described by Jung, is a hypothesis, one that lately has latched onto quantum physics as the breakthrough through which we'll understand everything. Christina's core argument is that since the science hypothesis is correct, it's the correct one; it's tautological.

The stridency of the polemic of activist atheism has the same tone as hard-core evangelist proselytizing. Both approaches have a "methinks thou dost protest too much" feel to them, signifying just the tiniest bit of doubt -- on both sides.

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Although she throws in astrology at one point, as usual she argues against the monotheistic faiths using mostly anti-monotheistic terminology.

I suppose that's fine, as far as it goes. But she seems to know next to nothing about Buddhism, for instance. I went to a Buddhist talk and the speaker said, in so many words, "We don't believe in God." So where does Greta go from there? There we see a group of people who are at least a subset of a "religion," but who explicitly reject belief in God. I realize that not all Buddhists believe the same things... but already her hypothesis about the hypothesis is shot to hell!

I think she's wasting her time with this stuff.

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As his nemesis, Aleister Crowley, continually advised, G. K. Chesterton was an apologist for the RCC; but if Chesterton caught Old Crow's attention there had to have been something at least entertaining about him. His most famous saying, I think, is probably this: "There is nothing wrong with Christianity, it's just never been tried." He surely knew that this was only partly true, since the early Christians were socialists who rejected the notion of private property and who functioned as a prototypical commune.

I do agree that it is a waste of time and quite impossible to "convert" the religious to free-thinking human beings responsible to themselves and to their better nature and not to some dictatorial, antiquated, capricious, sadistic "God." Secularists believe that war waged with the dogmatically religious has no winners.

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Physicist Victor Stenger published a bestselling book of that title and showed beyond a reasonable doubt that the hypothesis that there is a God cannot be supported by the evidence. I can't see religion itself as being a hypothesis, but its object, the worship of things supernatural, can certainly be shown to be a waste of mental activity. As to convincing the religious to give up their treasured beliefs, here's a quote from Charles Darwin that I think is pertinent:

"I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follow[s] from the advance of science."

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Gosh. Here we go again.
Religion is an unadulterated form of faith.
So what if the masses choose a 'faith' and
rely upon it in good and BAD times?
Just remember, that at least here in America,
agnostics and atheists still comprise only
14% of the population. In a democracy,
a plurality rules. Fouteeen per cent spewing
their views on religion to 86% who choose to
believe in a higher power? Who cares?
Be an agnostic/atheist. Just leave us Christians,
Jews, Budhists, Muslims et al. to
have our faith and you have yours, for when we
die, perhaps none of it will matter anyway.
Live and let live.

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Hey, Greta:

You probably should start by trying to convert agnostics and then work your way up (or down) to Unitarians, and so on. Good luck and have fun.

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I am an atheist, however I see the LOGIC of religion.

One can make all manner of arguments all day long and have the faithful agreeing with them up one side and down the other, but in the end, it still comes down to one critical notion: Does personal faith hurt anybody?

In a the strictly personal sense, where one neither evangelizes nor even shares their personal faith or works to defend it, there is still the idea that one is 'saved' upon their physical passing, and that to have such faith is in fact the logical choice against the potential peril of not having faith.

I still think it's a bunch of bullshit, but it illustrates why the use of logic on the faithful is pointless, as there is always the premise of hedging one's bet to fall back on, leaving such arguments to prove that hedging a bet is a fruitless endeavor. Good luck with that. ;)

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I like the tone of this article, even though I disagree with its main thesis and conclusion. The problem I see is that we all start with basic suppositions on what is real. I tend to start with "God Is Reality". Is reality only what we can see or test or measure? Or does it include an area of mystery that goes beyond our abilities, at least for now? Is there a reality of "spirit"? Or is reality only the material universe that our senses perceive? Two basically different outlooks! In a sense, it's all hypothesis. But the article calls for respect and human dialogue, and I like that.

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"It is a defense of reality".

Si mon tonton tond ton tonton, ton tonton sera tondu.

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As a non-believer I know it takes a strong person to give up the crutch of religion. Many people will not be able to handle the truth that there really is no one listening to their prayers. It is a mental health thing. Many who are believers need that fantasy to carry on in their daily lives. Each must come to the truth on their own path. No forced religion, no forced no religion. To too many people religion is their only reason to hope.

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Religion is a cultural institution in place to provide a worldview to an audience that is congruent with the power elite's need to remain in control of money and authority.

Religion is not independent of the economics, education, and other cultural institutions in which it evolved.

"Be good in this life and you will be rewarded in the next"...has everything to do with protecting those with power/money from those who don't. Period, full stop!

Consider the following:

The definition of faith is belief without reason.
Therefore, the "faithful" and atheists can agree: "No reason for god(s)"

Disproving the idea of an omni-present, omni-potent, omni-temporal, omni-xxx god is simple.

To do what that god is said to be able to do is to defy the laws of the known universe. That "god" must be able to operate at greater than light speed.

"He" is also supposed to have purpose. Therefore, "he" must think and be "an entity".

For information to exist, the information that makes up this "entity", it must have a physical substrate upon which to exist.

Since no particle exists that operates faster than light in our universe, what holds the thoughts of god?

God cannot exist.

Easy to prove, although it does depend on what YOUR definition of god is.

If you synthesize all the best philosophy and theological work on what god is and how "he" operates, you are left with "God works in mysterious ways".

I KNOW nothing like god(s) can or EVEN NEED exist.

I also know that most people seek a higher power.

That seeking may be due to evolutionary and excellent survival behaviors from our distant past. It was of evolutionary benefit to "believe in a higher power", something to blame when one suffocated one's infant by accident during the night for example, and thereby survive what would otherwise be debilitating grief and self incrimination. (Or, to ask for strength from said entity, and thereby gain the self confidence and focus to proceed on whatever difficult task...)

The "need to seek" is what religions of the world prey upon, to get more people
into the tent.

There is no soul
there is no god(s)
there is no afterlife
there is only our own chemistry
there is no shared cosmic consciousness

However, most don't believe that, since they are born with "a need to seek" and have found answers in an irrationality fostered by religion.

Enjoy.

I cannot convince you, even with the most rational and logical and scientific argument (such as the one presented above).

That's because most of you don't have freewill in this matter.

You may, however, enjoy a little article (it's deep and dense, but terrific) regarding the origin of life on Earth...hope it helps you better understand your place in the universe...

Life is a natural outcome of chemistry, therefore, Biology Follows Geology...

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Apparently Alternet has become the Greta Christina website. All aggressive atheists, all the time. I get it I really do. At some point some Catholic, Evangelical, whoever stole her lunch money and now its payback time. You know what they say about payback. I also get why the hoard of Alternet, proselytizing atheists do what they do. Like many of the religious of old they believe they have "the truth" and are hell bent on making sure everyone within a 100 miles agrees with them.

That's great, truly. The reality is this is not going to work. Greta can publish 100 articles between now and 2010 and its not going to make a difference. Many here can go blue in the face trying to convince liberal religious folks like myself that we are "deluded, insane". Not going to work. None of you should truly be surprised by this.

Why? Well because forces larger and more powerful than Greta and any blogger here have tried and failed to eliminate religion. As kenhymes said in reaction to a previous venom filled, atheist screed: "Oh yeah... insults and mockery are going to succeed where the renaissance, the industrial and scientific revolutions, and two major atheist powers (USSR and China) have failed."

Now some of you guys are pretty witty and Greta is a pretty determined but I don't think you have a fraction of the power that the above mentioned entities did.

The sad part of this whole Alternet demolish derby fest that we have here virtually on a weekly basis, is what is lost. Instead of finding some sort of common ground on what we can agree on: environmental issues, progressive politics, freedom of and from religion, civil liberties and social justice, many would rather spend their time trying to convert others to their point of view.

Seems to me that many new groups on the social, political scene go through "screw anyone who doesn't look and think like us phase." Black power, early waves of feminism said whitey and guys were the enemy and could never be allies. Sisters and brothers had to do things by and for themselves. Eventually even Malcolm X came to a greater understanding of a common humanity. That allies could be found in many different communities.

Now if the larger atheist "community" wants separation of church and state and freedom from religion you will get a TON of liberal religious people to cosign. Live and let live and don't preach to people who don't want to hear it and I think we will all be fine. Stop painting all religious people with the same right wing brush and we will stop thinking of all atheists as the same. In a thousand years maybe earth (if its still here) will be one big atheist family, maybe it won't. Maybe we will come to some sort of common understanding and their will be atheists, agnostics and a rainbow of religious believers and nobody will think twice about it, maybe not.

In the meantime knock yourselves out. When the proselytizing atheists are ready to have some rational conversations and let go of a lot anger, we liberal religious folk we will be here, ready to talk about what unites as human beings instead of what divides us. We will be here ready to find common cause against all religious, proselytizing, right wing fundamentalists.

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You claim religion

“has been falsified numerous times, and at worst is unfalsifiable”

Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time trying to falsify the unfalsifiable.

The difficult questions we all ponder are the possible reality of right and wrong, the nature and source of intelligent, purposeful creativity, free will, self-sacrifice and love. If you were attempting to stimulate people to think about such phenomena, I would applaud the effort. However you seem to be merely trying to substitute one rigid set of dogmas for another. Anything that cannot be defined in purely materialistic terms is termed “supernatural” and declared off limits for investigation by science. Evolution is stated to occur by “natural selection” (premature death) somehow organizing a collection of genetic accidents into complex, purposefully interacting, biological structures. Anyone questioning such a ridiculous notion is labelled a “religious creationist”, and many in academia have lost their jobs for speculating about a possible role for intelligent creativity in living processes.

Although I have long considered myself a religious agnostic, I acknowledge intelligent, purposeful creativity as real - not supernatural. I experience it myself, and observe it an all of nature. Most humans have a sense of right and wrong, which I don’t believe can be explained as a mechanical device somehow inserted in out genes. I would certainly like to distance myself from the evangelical atheism going on these days.
Bertvan
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/

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Nice to see that the atheists are preaching to the converted. ROTFL

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OK. So atheists are entitled to their thoughts and perspectives, too. But why try to proselytize believers? That's just as annoying when coming from atheists as from believers in any other system or order. Everyone has to find his or her own perspective in spiritual matters.

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It's people like the author of this article who gives us atheists a black eye!

I'm a lifelong atheist who has never been shy about uttering the A word. At the same time, I don't give a damn if someone is religious. It's none of my business if they prefer to life with this delusion...as LONG as that religious person does NOT attempt to convert me and as LONG as that religious person does NOT attempt to make their religion a state religion or to codify any of their beliefs into law or to base foreign policy or American law on religion. Long live the wall of separation between church and state. May it grow higher and stronger!

The point is to live and let live. Don't even THINK of trying to convert me and I will do you the same courtesy.

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It represents the diversity of responses to the topic of religion far better (except for the comments that just go on and on) than the article.

Yes, the concept of a creator God is a central tradition in orthodox Western religions. Are there other religions for which a creator God is unnecessary? As one comment points out, you can find that in Buddhism.

Common to religion across the spectrum is worship, in its many different forms. Do atheists worship scientific rationality? Some obviously do. They also justify their worship with the fervor of all true believers.

Our plight is not the consequence of religion per se, just immature religion. Greta Christina matches that with immature atheism. Fight nice, children.

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There is no physical basis for ESP. However, honest statisticians can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that ESP sometimes works, and these experiments can be replicated.

What do we do with evidence but without a theory of causation? We throw it into a special category of not science, but not completely false. That's the field of spirituality and religion.

Religion, from its Latin roots, lig, as in ligament, is what binds together. Re-lig is to bind together again. At its best, religion binds the people together so that they are not slaves (in Egypt) but are independent. This theme is repeated in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and reading the Law every 7 days to the entire assembled population, that they shall all know that no king, tyrant or businessman will ever be above the Law. The theme is repeated in Jesus's teachings of how to cause trouble for the Roman court system. "If someone sues you at court for your clothes, give him your undergarment too and go naked, in order to heap shame on him." "A Roman soldier can order any peasant to carry his pack one mile. Carry it two miles!" "Then he made a whip, so as to whip a bull at the marketplace in the temple and cause a stampede, and then Jesus turned over the tables of the moneychangers, crying, 'This is my Father's house. But you have turned it into a den of thieves!'"

One aspect of religion is the science of binding people together to be free of tyrants and crooks. Another aspect deals as best we can with the various mysteries in the world. When devoid of a great deal of political and financial overburden currently laid on them, these simple endeavors are useful and noble. I have nothing against creating freedom and limited understanding.

Now, if you object to the political and financial overburden that some unhappy churches lay on you, that's different.

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I’m heartened to see so many agnostics and atheists who don’t approve of Greta’s tactics. The universe is either a meaningless accident, or it is intelligently and purposefully organized. I can’t think of a third alternative. If intelligent, purposeful creativity exists as an aspect of reality, participation in the process by some god can be neither confirmed nor denied. The unfalsifiable can not be falsified. Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation.
Bertvan
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/

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To all! I am a member of the Church of Reality. The writer sounds like she is already a member. If not, we can sure use her wonderful logic and common sense! YaY!
Larry

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Non-believers claim intellectual superiority and believers claim moral superiority. Believers want to share, non-beliveres want to take. Both are fallible. To deny the effect on history that both have had is impossible, as is telling the future. Science is constantly evolving, proving itself wrong all the time. Spirituality is a individual experience, that is constantly morphing into groups that share common threads and splinters when the differences become great. Science and spirituality operate on faith. You wouldn't drive a car if you didn't have faith in your brakes or the ability of the on coming car to steer in it's intended direction. Believers pray, because they believe in a force greater than themselves, and accept the outcome, whatever it is. While science has given us all sorts of life improving(?) gadgets or advancements, they are also responsible for most of the current problems. Is anyone wrong to think that science will cure the aliments that we face, or is anyone wrong to see the current state the world finds itself in today as the book of Revelation coming to pass in our time. I don't care if anyone believes or doesn't believe, I only care about what I believe. And I do believe.

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Fact: I was born with full lifetime memories of 4 of my past lifes as well as memories of the afterlife world of Duat, a full working knowledge of the language, customs, and geography of my ancient homeland of Egypt. Fact: my father had a ND and saw events from the future and learned secrets about his associates, many things they had told no one~all of the future predictions came true and all of the secrets were accurate. Fact: my father and I still communicate with my deceased mother via EVP. Fact: no one can disporve the supernatural factor in all of these event, all of which firmly debunk athiesm. Yet unlike asshead fundy athiestic-asses I feel no pathatic *need* to convert them from their insanity and delusions. Only he or she who subconsciously KNOWS they are full of shit (ie: fundys ~athiestic-ass and xian~NO DIFFERENCE). Fact: the world would be a MUCH MUCH better place if all fundys were dead~Xian AND athiestic-asses! I have no problems with SANE athiestic. Fundy athiestic-asses can kiss my ass and eat a bullet! They are too fanatical and out of touch with reality, brainwashed and dangerious as any Xian, a danger to the very fabric of society itself, deluded beyond help. Those are the facts, any questions?

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The way I see it is either you have had experiences that are otherworldly or you haven't. The intangible can not be proven using tangible processes, in my opinion. I understand that Quantum Physics/mechanics have indicated there may be other universes, not that I really know anything about that subject.
I came to reading Alternet for alternative news, not listening to propaganda about religion or atheism. It is not up to others to define our experiences for us, or what our opinions or beliefs ought to be.

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I have a question in the four biggest religions I count India in that why do queer people and women want to be in those religious all four want to kill all queers and all women are to be subjugated nothing more than property it confounds me. why you want to be in that organization.

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I was making a brief point, and was referring to The Church in modern times. There have been times when the Catholic Church has been implicated in some of history's worst abuses of other people, often as a result of it's members' aggressive attempts to convert others or maintain the "purity" of the faith. One of the greatest sins, in my opinion, is acting as if infallibility is more important than charity. For that we must sincerely repent, and hope that whatever good we do and have done makes up for it in some small way.

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You can't teach a monkey how to be human.
Religious people just simply failed to evolve and will eventually become extinct. They will do it to themselves through religious wars and Jihads and breeding imperatives and all we sentient 'humans' have to do is stay out of the line of fire.
To try to convince them to be logical humans serves no purpose. It just makes you an Evangelical atheist. Logic dictates that we quit wasting our time trying to convince the terminally stupid to be smart.
The smart ones will figure it out for themselves regardless of their indoctrination and past brainwashing.

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I am a Catholic, and I readily admit that it is impossible to prove the existence of God. Greta Christina is an atheist, and she is just going to have to suck it up and admit that she cannot disprove the existence of God. She talks herself in circles pretending that she's not trying to do that. She says that religion is a hypothesis and that it can be falsified. If you think about this for a minute, it is utterly meaningless unless she is really saying that the existence of God is a hypothesis and that she can disprove it. She can't. It wouldn't even be fair to ask her to, but she keeps trying to do it, so I have to call her out.

Her article contains a link to a piece on her own blog which is held up as proof that religion has "never once in all of human history been shown to be correct". Click the link, and you will find an article which argues that no natural explanation of a phenomenon has ever been supplanted by a supernatural explanation. GC seems to be arguing that religion is no good because it does not serve as a tool for foretelling the future or boiling eggs or something. She rejects it because it does not seem to meet her subjective utilitarian requirements. In other words, she rejected because it is not science. That is as dumb as saying that oranges are bad because they are not apples. (In any case, the distinction between natural and supernatural is a false one. 200 years ago, the most intelligent well-educated person would have been certain that only supernatural power could fly a human being to the moon.)

Wordplay aside, GC really has only one idea: that God does not exist because she cannot see, hear, smell, touch or taste Him. It takes a stunning and unwarranted sense of certainty to cling to this childish idea.

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As you say "if your hypothesis will be shown to be true whether the water in the beaker gets hotter or colder, stays the same temperature, boils away instantly or turns into a parrot and flies out the door -- it is an utterly useless hypothesis." The proof that atheism is logical superior to spirituality is just as elusive as the reverse, and both still remain simply beliefs, not empirical fact. We all want to make sense of the deepest essence of reality, yet in all honesty our knowledge and perceptions may not be as valid or complete as we would like to believe. Sharing our beliefs and ideas is critically important to achieving a more fully developed awareness of what reality is, but doing so without a intent to convert or denigrate is surely more honest and fair.

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yeah man, if more people thought as you do...

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Material vs. immaterial worlds ? Anecdotal testable claims disproved ? Unfalsifiable hypotheses ?

Does not my mind construct a mostly imaginary reality based on the 0.001% of reality which I can perceive directly ? Does not this 0.001% represent an infinitely small portion of total reality ? Is not the sum of all people-knowledge equally minute ? Are we not all 'blind in a dark room?'

I can say '...I don't believe in your god', and, '...creation is unknowable', but no more.

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Anyone who finds he wants to join you is going to find there's very little room in the landscape if your humongous ego is there also.

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I think personal faith can hurt people (mainly themselves) because they believe there is a "father" (for example) that will save you. If people stood on their own two feet and were more responsible for their actions, things might be better; however, I believe religion does play an important role, charity. In the Christina religion people want to emulate Christ and give to the poor and the hungry and do all sorts of other nice things.

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Today, I was at my wife's aunt's house, and guess what we got to do while waiting for the apple pie to cool off?

We got to look through photos of her husband and her son going on "Mission Trips" to South America, and talking to people of the Yanomamo tribe about converting to Christianity.

Christians bitch and whine about having to deal with "atheists talking their ears off about Darwin and Evolution and no evidence for god," etc (even though they don't). Yet, they go off on these Missionary trips, and see absolutely nothing wrong with taking a population of people who have lived in complete harmony with nature for hundreds of years, and turn them into baseball-hat-wearing, steak-eating, rootin' tootin' heavy pollutin' Jesus lovin' Christians.

Glad to have yet one more thing to add to my very long list of evidence that supports my theory that Christians have no sense of irony.

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Here is an ad that I gleaned from a newsletter I get from Thailand: "Bethany College of Missions (www.bcom.org) is a missions training school based out of Minneapolis, MN. We have a team of 5 students currently doing their 16-month internship in Chiang Mai. We are looking for experienced missionaries who would be willing to volunteer their time by teaching 1-3 week courses, such as Local Religions & Cults, Church Planting, Missions Strategy, etc. If you aren't able to give lots of time, but are interested in being a part of this, we could talk with you about teaching just one or two lectures as part of a course."

Now you know why we must fight back because they are not lying down without a fight!

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Of course, the email does not say that ACLU defends the right of religious expression (and has done so for more than a decade). Pious people can lie because they can repent the next day and be forgiven! This is who we are fighting against! These people have no morals! They say they do! Action speaks louder than words!

"Want to have some fun this CHRISTMAS? Send the ACLU a CHRISTMAS CARD this year.

As they are working so very hard to get rid of the CHRISTMAS part of this holiday, we should all send them a nice, CHRISTIAN card to brighten up their dark, sad, little world..

Make sure it says "Merry Christmas" on it.

Here's the address, just don't be rude or crude. (It's not the Christian way, you know.)

ACLU
125 Broad Street
18th Floor
New York , NY 10004

Two tons of Christmas cards would freeze their operations because they wouldn't know if any were regular mail containing contributions. So spend 44 cents and tell the ACLU to leave Christmas alone. Also tell them that there is no such thing as a " Holiday Tree". . . It's always been called a CHRISTMAS TREE!

And pass this on to your email lists. We really want to communicate with the ACLU! They really DESERVE us!!

For those of you who aren't aware of them, the ACLU, (the American Civil Liberties Union) is the one suing the U.S. Government to take God, Christmas or anything Christian away from us. They represent the atheists and others in this war. Help put Christ back in Christmas!"

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Capitalism, lack of education, poverty, and big CHURCH are the problem, not science!

The pope and his friends live well in the Vatican. I assure you!

I guess we all would be better off dying at 30 of some common cold virus and living in a cave.

There are good gizmos too. Are you blind? Speaking of which, glasses and lenses. And what about planes, the internet, solar panels, ac, and water heaters for a start.

Come on! Get a grip!

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is that rational/scientific thinking could potentially lead to a full understanding of life and the universe. There seems to be this assumption that the human mind can potentially and likely will, given enough time, understand everything. Seeing how we can only really think in dichotomies, this seems suspect to many. To be anti-materialist all one really needs to think is that there are likely factors that cannot be reduced, observed, measured, calculated, or predicted . . . I am one who "believes" this, but when you try to come across from this stand point, someone invariably makes reference to sky gods or the tooth fairy - some very deep thinking, in other words. All one needs to do to find this irreducible element is read Jorge Borge or listen to Beethoven's 7th symphony . . . or better yet, take up an art: one sees that his or her growth isn't linear and that there's a creative principle constantly at work . . . and that attempts to explain things like creativity are always highly reductionist, shallow, and laughable.

Sometimes all this back and forth on these threads reminds me of a difference between right and left brained people. The over-reliance (faith) on analysis is something typically left-brained. Right brainers, one would suppose, are more likely to realize that some things can't be understood by breaking them down into their parts.

I've posted this on another recent thread, so excuse the repetition: these posts also remind me of Kahlil Gibran's "The Pomegranate," which is a little parable about the conversations of the seeds inside of a pomegranate speculating on what happens to them "afterwards."

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The yoga sutras (1.23-29) have a testable hypothesis, saying that devotion to god (ishvara) is a (but not the only) way to freedom.
It (ishvara) is defined as a special self, unaffected by mental afflictions (like ignorance, egoism, sensory attachment, aversion, attachment to living), a subconscious, actions and their consequences, or time, and has the unexceedable seed of omniscience within it.
The text then says that the sound aum/om is the verbal expression applied to/expressive of it, and by repeatedly saying aum/om with feeling, one gets free, as well as an inner-self awareness, and the disappearance of things like disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sense indulgence, false perception, and instability. Sounds like a neato, easy to do (though time consuming), testable hypothesis.

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The title used to be, "Why I want to turn religious people into atheists". Good job realizing the wanted eyeballs weren't into the aggression. It is now as removed from the substance of the article as all alternet title should be.

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Read the book, Radical Evolution, by Joel Garreau, and look into transhumanism.
I believe that to hurl humanity past its corrupted, idiotic, animal nature, and for it to transcend to a point where people on this Earth no longer have to argue and war over whose skydaddy is the "real" one, we must change human nature itself (specifically, its stupidity).

How can we combat misinformation and lack of information? How can we accelerate the rate at which children absorb information? I believe we can find the solutions from neuroscience and nanotechnology. Science and technology have improved our standards of living and they may find some way of making us immortal (ex. by uploading our minds, or by becoming synthetic organisms). Of course, religion remains a corrosive to science. Fundamentalists will attempt to oppose science - as always - all in the name of their stone age ideologies and status quo.
This is also my reasoning for why religion is incompatible with science. Religion is conservative, and science (which routinely transcended our understanding of the universe throughout history) is progressive. One side has to give.
So, either the Inquisitions are resurrected (I believe it's already happening ~ book burning, Islamization in Europe, Christian Reich evangelizing, anyone?) , or we finally shake off the shackles of false hope.
And that's it. Religion is a placebo and offers false hope. Science offers very real potential. And you don't even have to die to take up the offer.

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Nice to see that evangelical spirit creeping in.

There's room on the pew for you.

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There is a spectrum of development from religion starting with magical animism through multiple gods through a single mythic father god) to atheism (death of the mythic god) to Spirituality (awakening of The Divine as the Ground of all being and simultaneously the innermost essence of all Beings - simply put, finding the Divine WITHIN as the presence of Love, Light, Forgiveness, Compassion and awareness that we are all ONE.) The growth into rationality is absolutely an essential phase of this. The exoteric, evangelical, fundamentalist Christian right is at a pre-rational mythic level, and thus its influence is to stifle progress (the same goes for pre-rational Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism).

"We are seeing a return of the tyranny of religion. We must complete the task of the Enlightenment [the 17th century European enlightenment - the emergent triumph of reason in Europe and America in the 17th & 18th centuries - separating church, state, and science - [my addition]] for once and all. Only when the Enlightenment is firmly established can we shift upward to a greater vision of humanity." - Ray Harris - http://www.integralworld.net

For the best holistic analysis of religion, atheism, Spirituality, and truth claims based on evidence - read (at least these two) Ken Wilber books:

UP FROM EDEN and THE MARRIAGE OF SENSE AND SOUL: INTEGRATING SCIENCE AND RELIGION. He also is great on unpacking the difference between Integral pluralism (diversity) (healthy) and relativistic pluralism (diversity) (unhealthy - mixing myth and truth into a mish-mash).

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I am an atheist, but it is a side-effect of my love of truth that allowed me to drop the religion I grew up in and thought I lived for. I don't like it anymore when truth trotted out in capital letters or sold like a tabloid. I don't like it confined to the extent of what one brash person can think to say. What I love is the ability to experience, to contemplate, to observe, and then to put it to the test and skim it of wrinkle and flaw.

For this reason, I love science, even if I don't expect it to explain more than it can apply its methods to. I think it refreshing when science loses a theory to disproof; we grow that way. We learn to be a little more honest with ourselves.

Also for this reason, I shun the addition of fantasy to what we know, for supposition to stand on even footing with reality or dare to supersede it. Whatever the universe is, it is great enough to have within it all I wonder at. When we make gods, we merely paint our reflections. Our ideals and foibles go into them, our limits too, and beautiful as they are gods can't lead us on the journey of discovery that truly pressing into the unknown with rigorous observation can.

I am an atheist because there's nothing I can add to, imagine, or take away from the world to match the awe in it. Getting rid of the dogmatic filter allowed me to see more. The article's author is right in this respect; all kinds of philosophical options and questions opened up for me after I took that step. The best I can do in exploring the world is to take no presumption and look to the real and imminent world, to be quick to question and slow to conclusion, and certainly to save conclusions for last. I get to share that with people and other living things. It's good enough for me.

The best way to fight ignorance is with kindling curiosity and wonder. We don't need to fight religion on its terms like this; we need to inspire people. There's plenty of room for awe in this world.

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I'm a liberal progressive and yet I can't believe what I want, according to Alternet, which persists in showcasing dumba$$ super-atheist articles like this.

I don't give a flying fuc k what atheists believe or don't believe, just stay the hell away from me with your toxic smugness.

Whenever I read something like this I'm tempted to become an Evengelical just to piss off all the atheists.

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...then stop wasting time on this cushy website and accommodating forum and go deal with the real brainwashed masses of literalist religion. It's a coward's way to snipe and snark about the moderate beliefs of progressive people who function just fine within a secular society, while staying safely insulated from the actual rabid Bible-thumpers and plotting theocrats.

Now, I just lost a longer and more eloquent version of this post due to site timeout (about which I am quite annoyed), so here's the gist of it: serious missionaries, whatever their belief or philosophy, accept the risks and dangers of (as they would see it) speaking truth to power -- or, in more visceral terms, to outraged mobs with pitchforks and torches. For all your fine words about bringing people to the truth as you know it, you're not really doing anything where it matters -- and neither are all the major radical atheists. If you wanted to root out religion for its social and mental ills, then go where it's actually causing/sustaining those ills, addressing the religious literalists directly on speaking tours and with personal appointments with clergy instead of just selling books and blogging to the already-sympathetic. That's the difference between making a buck and making a difference, and it really bugs me to see you time after time here hassling at the mere existence of liberal religious beliefs (and any spiritual awareness whatsoever), while the Religious Right in this country and internationally is gathering itself up to assault secular society with its demands. There are real theocrats and religious extremists in this country, and none of them are on this forum or bother to look up your blog to get the benefits of your insight. If you're going to preach unilaterally, go where it's actually needed and learn how to persuade that crowd out of their really stupid beliefs, 'cause this one is not in need of your efforts.

Who knows, maybe you might eventually realize that it's better to change people's social perceptions and interpersonal actions for the better than to nitpick about their precise personal beliefs. And if you get a violently bad reaction from the people you're trying to convert...well, if you're serious about spreading your viewpoint, that shouldn't matter, should it? The ideal nature of any irrelinquishable belief, as many have said, is that one should be ready to die for one's beliefs but not to kill for them. If you're going to be a missionary for atheism, you might as well know what real-life evangelizing entails and see if you're willing to go after the worst real problems of religion rather than complaining that intelligent people aren't as atheistic as they "should" be.

Otherwise, of course, you and Dawkins and the rest are all a bunch of lazy self-assured socially-privileged elitist cowards. Get off your asses and do something generally useful to humanity instead of just preaching to the progressive intellectual choir.

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Some atheists are just as fanatic as the worst fundamentalists...and need to understand that their denial of a God or religion is as much predicated on faith as religion is. You believe that there is no God and you have faith that your belief is true...but you have no more proof that God does not exist than a believer has that God does.

Science does not attempt; nor can it, explain everything and despite it being a cliche its still true that the absence of proof is not proof of absence.

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It should never be wrong for people who believe differently than each other to share their feelings and beliefs with each other, and maybe even change each others' minds in the process.

Whether it's a believer who converts a non-believer, or vise-versa.

Religion is NOT a hypothesis, it's a BELIEF. Belief goes way beyond hypothesis. Believers don't sit around going, "Here's my theory." They don't have a theory, they have a strong feeling of faith and belief that a consciousness much greater than ourselves is responsible for our existence, and it generally defies theory, as theory indicates a lack of 100% belief.

I would also argue that the definition of religion as an idea that a nonmaterial world exhibits influence on the material world is a narrow-minded definition.

That completely fails to articulate the feelings that many people of faith have, that a giant, collective unifying force of consciousness COMPOSED OF everything in the material world, and not extraneous to it or separate from it, is what's in charge.

Or that there are energies in this material world that are purely scientifically possible, but that we have no instruments by which to measure, exist.

Just as a couple of examples. It's not always a cut-and-dry belief (or hypothesis) that there are two separate worlds, one material and one nonmaterial, and that the nonmaterial one exerts powerful, magical influence over the material one.

This article is pretty obviously written from the biased perspective of an atheist, by an atheist, so all the description of what religion is is pretty much painted from that perspective.

The question posed, however, whether or not people should be able to share their perspectives and perhaps influence one-another's thinking?

I think it's pretty obviously a free speech issue, isn't it?

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According to this young author's reasoning, there is also no way to "prove" the existence of Love. Therefore, Love must also be just a hypothesis, like God. Poor William Shakespeare -- he wasted so much time writing sonnets about an unproven hypothesis! Thank God we have lesbian bloggers these days to straighten us out on life's verities.

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To the author of this article.

Humans have had religion for hundreds of thousands of years. All the "progressive" and "liberal" articles are not going to change that. In fact, articles like this or on gun control or, well, some of the other flaked out ideas are why half the country can't stand liberals.

So, try not to insult peoples beliefs and maybe you can get a bigger tent for everyone to fit in as a Democrat instead of ceding a significant portion of the US population to the Republicans by default, shall we?.

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For those of us who are Liberal and Progressive believers without a belief in Literalism, the arguments of both anti-theism and Fundamentalism tend to fall flat.

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The article subtitle asks:

"Is It Wrong For Atheists To Convert Believers?"

Not only is it wrong, it is wrong for anyone to convert anyone else to their beliefs. Leave people alone. If they're interested in what you have to say or what you believe, then they'll ask. Otherwise, mind your own business.

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"Atheism isn't an attack on diversity, it's a defense of reality."

How is atheism either an attack or a defense? I thought Atheism was a belief. That is, specifically, a belief that there is no god or higher power. Period.

Religion isn't an attack on anything, neither is atheism. They are simply belief-systems.

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I'd like to point out that calling your unproveable belief system a defense of "reality", not only doesn't make semantic sense, but it displays a severe ignorance of the facts, and a severe bias about your belief-system.

To call atheism "reality", as if it is proven that atheism is the Truth, is just as ignorant as religious people who claim that their belief-systems are the Truth.

I suppose I am more agnostic, as I see all these arguments as moot in an existential fashion. It is impossible to prove the existence or nonexistence of something that cannot be measured objectively. To believe the experience of your senses without question is to believe that your personal experience of "reality" is experienced exactly the same by everyone... which cannot be proven.

All experience is subjective to the interpretation of the instrument measuring it. Who is to say that my eyes produce the exact same visual experience that your eyes do? There is no way to prove this.

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What attracts people is your light' Not your darkness there shall be some that enter heaven that are atheist's though this will be a most peculiar thing' And just look at it closely and you will see why' There are some christian Bootes and monk's -priests and rabies that would never agree with me but my wisdom relies on one thing and one thing "ALONE With witch is love' Not your law or my law or his or her law but the Son of the one law. Who never ever even wrote one word except in the sand.
He is the real man.

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I am a politically liberal, pro-choice, anti-war, religious agnostic. I am in agreement with many of the causes alternet supports. (I was cautious and frugal enough never to send money.) However I am now so disgusted with this juvenile crusade against religion, that I am becoming sceptical of anything published here. If the owners of this web site hope to have any effect upon the public opinion, clean up your act! Everyone’s religion is their own business.
Bertvan
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/

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It's not that your atheist proselytizing might create conformity or a drab, grey world; it's that proselytizers, evangelizers, and "missionaries" of every stripe are arrogant and disrespectful.

You don't belong where you're not invited. You don't set yourself up as a know-it-better. You mind your own business. It's always been considered extremely rude to talk about religion or politics - because all it does is create friction, and friction creates heat, not light.

I don't care if you believe in an iridescent rhomboid carried aloft through the cosmos by two giant green lobsters, a boat carrying the sun across the sky, a monstrous figure devouring his/her young, or even a randy womanizer who likes to wear animal costumes, or a prophet carried through the sky on the back of a horse with a woman's head. It makes no difference to me - I may think someone's belief is wrong-headed, but I can trust or hope or believe that one day s/he'll figure it out for her/himself. Spirituality is a journey.

The political harm done by religion - bigotry, persecution, war, etc. - would have happened anyway: being a jerk is part of human nature. The religious "justification" for jerkiness of every type is usually just a pretext.

The need to prove everyone else wrong (even if they are) is a sign of immaturity, my dear.
Enjoy the benefits of your atheism, and leave people alone already.

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why would an atheist want to convert someone? it goes against the concept of atheism. Convert them to what? The void? Listen, if Sartre was such an existentialist why'd he write about it? Atheism is.

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From where I sit I don't see much difference between atheists and fundies or other religious folk, to tell the truth. Certainly not in Western culture. Both sides go at it in quantifiable and individual fashions, both are strictly rationalistic and materialistic, both are the modern status quo most especially when it comes to community and humanity.

Community and any feeling or thought not readily quantifiable is discarded as being too ineffable to prove scientifically, as if material science might be the only viable yardstick with which to measure anything at all. When I read Dawkins and Hitchens, for instance, I find myself thinking I could be reading LeHaye or Rushdoony just as easily. For all four it's all about a material set of circumstances.

Each woud probably find great hilarity if they were reading some of the late Scholastics, although the basic thrust of modern thought comes direct from Scholasticism. Rather than dancing angels on pinheads, both atheists and religious now argue in material metaphors: gods taking space and being proveable or disproveable due to materiality or it's lack.

The fallacy inherent in both appears to me to be a stark individuality and an even starker materialism. The Zen monk doesn't find enlightenment and leave community, rather she returns to it. She doesn't destroy emotion and feeling, rather she guides them with boundaries to reach enlightenment.

I am not given to seeing that atheism builds human community in any way. The modernist religious (to include pretty much all western religious who base their religion on the scientific revolution, counter- or reformationist doctrines, and merchantilist/industrial output) seem as much a piece of their materialist foes as do their foes. Not much to choose from between them. Quantity is all.

I suppose I could say a plague on both houses, but that would be playing into the illusion that there are two houses when there is actually just one.

There are other formulations, practices that obviate the need for radical individualism or for strict behaviorist musings. Neither atheism nor western religions appear to avail themselves of those avenues.

I cannot see the difference in proselytizing for one or the other. Amounts to a proselytizing for a rather limited and souless pattern of thought and life whichever one of those one chooses.

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Why are Atheists so worried about government at all? Why do Atheists care about anything, if it is based on reality? According to atheists everything is an accident and atheists don't matter a hill of beans. If Atheism is based on reality, why are atheists so worried about everything?

Anybody want to teach your kids they are worthless and meaningless? Then just embrace the pseudo-reality of Atheism! Repeat the Matrix mantra and disappear like the worthless atheists want you to believe! "Everything that has a beginning has to have an ending." Bye Bye, nice not to have known your accidental worthless non meaning existence, as you have no meaning in life, no clue who you are, or why you are here : much less where you are going.

Or, you can stop being afraid of the light and come out of the darkness? There is always that possibility. You have free will. You can use you brain for something besides a cup holder...you certainly can't lead any one anywhere currently, because atheists have no where to go, and no reason to be here. Why would anyone in a reasonable society give atheists ideas the time of day?

Oh, that's right, they did, China (70 million murdered and 1 billion enslaved), former Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam: real world class leaders! Go Atheism, every thing that has a beginning has to have an ending! Keep repeating it! Don't use science and math (like Pi-a beginning with no ending)! Follow the blind leading he blind into darkness. Go on fooling yourselves that rocks can magically spring to life when you zap them with lightning and other atheist mythology! Get a life! Or be an Atheist with no reason to live. It's your free will. Use it wisely.

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Greta, you make some very good points but ignore one huge problem. People believe in religion for emotional reasons, not logical ones, hence they will never be swayed by logic.

People very rarely analyze what they are told to believe in, to see whether it makes sense or not. All they care about is if it gives them the warm fuzzies. It's very easy to get someone to convert to a different religion if his current religion isn't meeting his emotional needs. Just find his emotional buttons and push them.

However, converting from religion to atheism is a very different process. It only happens when someone decides that intellectual honesty is more important than warm fuzzies. There are no buttons I can push to make someone else undergo that process. All I can do is be a resource to someone who is already on the road to freethought, and try to show by example that an atheist can be a decent person with a rewarding and fulfilling life. That is why I don't consider myself an activist atheist. Although of course, in the current religious-reactionary climate, just daring to breath makes me a "militant" "fundamentalist" atheist.

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...but am now a Christian. I don't believe in the divinity of Christ so much as I believe in God, but I definitely believe in attending church services.
Sorry to deflate all your theories, but there is some hard evidence that people who go to church (whether or not they believe in God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit) or synagogue, or mosque, are healthier and happier than those who don't attend.

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OUR beliefs are violated. When someone, a child perhaps, says 2+2=3 we try to "convert" that child into our belief because we are sure that child is wrong. If someone believes that the earth is flat many of us will try to convert them for the same reason, we are sure that they are wrong. When someone believes in an imaginary friend and tries to communicate with them in a way that has been impossible to duplicate by AT&T then many people would try to "convert" that type of thinking. The reason that doesn't happen as often as it might is that the deluded are quite happy to be deluded and resist, sometimes violently, acknowledging that their believes are illogical and unreasonable. Go figure??

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Please give it a rest ... no one cares to hear these same old tired arguments against religious belief ... keep it to yourself

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. . .it is to walk into someone's living room and rearrange their furniture; in fact, it's worse. It's wrong at the most basic level, and on a number of levels. In the first place, work on yourself first. Surely even the purist atheist perhaps needs to read the classics, or clean out their closets, or visit someone they've neglected. When your whole life is in order, only then should you spend one single second worrying about what goes on in someone else's head. You don't get to decide what color car anyone else drives, or what their wardrobe is like, or if they should keep books they've read or get rid of them. You also don't get to mess with the contents of thoughts, and with belief systems. There is obviously no underlying difference between the contempt shown in these attempts at shaping up non-atheists and the contempt of fundamentalist believers. Everyone who attempts to convert others thinks they have the right based upon the correctness of their own beliefs. But it's the attempt itself that is the beginnings of a slew of problems. The attempt itself shows a personal stance and view of others so off-kilter, the person holding it has no business working on anyone other than themselves.

In other words, the fact you want to change someone else's head shows there is something wrong with yours.

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Hazrat Inayat Khan wrote this in his prayer, Khatum. I said it to the Jehova's witnesses who trespassed on my property today. I would love to shout it to the 7th day Adventist missionaries who are doing their best to destroy Shipibo Indian culture in Peru. The arrogance of organized religion is sickening. It's all about power, clothed in seductive mystery.

I don't care if you embrace any religion. I do care that you experience awe, wonder at the beauty and miracle of existence. I care that you have felt love pouring from your heart and realize its power. The names and faces don't matter.

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This idea to "convert" religious people to "Atheism" is nonsense. I"m 65 years old and have never met any Atheist/Freethinker who wished to "convert" anyone. Freethinkers deal with facts not faith. So the author is certainly not one of us.

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Relgion has always been used as a tool to explain the unexplainable and control people. My students just this week asked me a pointed question "Do you believe in God?" Many of them just don't get Christianity as it's been presented to them and most have yet to discover other religious systems that are non-theistic. I fully believe, along with the Dalai Lama, that it is possible to teach people moral and ethical behavior without resorting to the dominant Christian fundamentalist creeds. The important thing is to realize that theism meets the emotional needs of those who live in fear of the idea that there really is no man behind the curtain in control. It also provides convenient blinders for those who don't want the hard work of day-in-day-out looking at oneself and how one's own life and actions have brought about this reality of a rotten culture.

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Is that what happened? You were believers, and someone called you delusional, or pointed out that you worshipped a spaghetti monster or sky god or said you were stupid just one time enough, and that did it? You changed, based upon that?

Because that's exactly what you seem to expect. And as I stated above, you'd probably think it bizarre to attempt to chose for someone else their favorite color, or what radio stations they should listen to, or what to plant in their front yard, or what exercise program they should follow, and yet something far more important, a philosophy of life and set of beliefs you think you should get to impose upon anyone? I'm still looking for evidence that you're worthy of such a noble task, and that you've really shaped up your own lives to the point where there is absolutely nothing left to work on, so you need to turn to shaping up others.

Anyone see any evidence that this turns out well, people coercing others?

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Thank you, I am always looking for good books to read. I can't find 'Up from Eden' on the public library website, but I have reserved the other one and I'm sure I will enjoy it.

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I have no problem with atheists, and I don't even really have a problem with the idea of attempting "conversions" of believers, within reason (pun intended), since most religions attempt the same thing, making it hypocritical to deny others the same.

However, the author is very confused. On the one hand, she speaks about wanting to actively “convert” believers. On the other, she says, “The atheist movement is passionate about the right to religious freedom...We fully support people’s right to believe whatever the hell they want, as long as they keep it out of government and don’t shove it down other people’s throats. We see the right to think what we like as a basic foundation of human ethics, one of the most fundamental rights we have — and we have no desire whatsoever to overturn that.”

“No desire to overturn that?” Really!?! Then what is all this talk about “active conversion” of believers? She cannot even get her OWN position straight.

As well, what “atheist movement” is she referring to? Because the “atheist movement” of which I – and most people – am aware is that of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher and others who clearly do NOT support "people’s right to believe whatever the hell they want."

She then contradicts her own statement by admitting that, “Most atheists would probably be okay with a world that included religion, as long as it was tolerant of other beliefs and stayed the hell out of government.”

So it is apparently not the “atheist movement” as a whole, but only “most atheists” who would "probably be okay" with it. Yet, once again, Harris et al CLEARLY STATE that they are NOT okay with a world that includes religion, and would stamp it out entirely if they could.

What chutzpah for her to speak for “most” atheists (much less an entire “movement”) when she is dead wrong in her claims!

Finally, she asks, “Was it hostile to diversity for Pasteur to argue against the theory of spontaneous generation? For Georges Lemaitre to argue against the steady-state universe? For Galileo to argue against geocentrism?”

I have a question for her: Is she aware that all three of these men were DEVOUT believers? In fact, Lemaitre was a Jesuit priest, and Galileo – despite being found guilty of heresy by the Catholic Church – remained a devout Catholic his entire life.

What continues to shock (and annoy) me about the “atheist movement” is that, despite all their rationality, they cannot make a cogent, INTERNALLY CONSISTENT AND LOGICAL argument for their virulent anti-faith position, and very often end up citing as examples scientists who were also believers – thus undermining both their basic argument, as well as the canard that science and faith are incompatible, much less mutually exclusive.

Peace.

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I completely agree with your views; however, I have given up any discussion of religion with almost anyone because I'm tired of being called "Satan" and all that. I've learned to say "Some people may believe that but I think differently." This technique has developed as I've dealt with my own family filled with nuns, priests and even two converts to fundamentalism with "Biblical World Views." One of them has cut off all contact with me. Additionally, a man I was seeing broke up with me because I said I was agnostic. Very Christian, huh? The truth is that they are going to hold tight to their myths and memes and I leave them to it as long as they, just as you noted, leave religion out of the public square and courtrooms. Too bad they can't but in any case, I'll leave them to the court system, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State,and ACLU. They exhaust me and I've found they are not amenable to reason. I don't want to waste my breath and intellectual energy when they just resort to invocations of the bible. But, good luck trying to un-religion them.

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I have a problem with the attitude that as long as theists don't try to bring religion into government, then they're harmless.

I really do believe that religious belief is behind our government's lack of urgent response to global warming. This is something that is going to affect all of us, and unless we take drastic measures now (like massive expenditures in alternative energy research), we're all doomed, and perhaps in our lifetimes.

I imagine that most people think that it's not worth worrying about because how could a benevolent God let that happen to the Earth, and to all of us? And if it is going to massively fuck up the planet, then perhaps it's the end of the world, and that's a good thing because then all the believers go to heaven, etc.

Not to mention that believers tend to have more children, which will only make our resource/environmental problems worse.

So a religious worldview has huge implications for public policy, and does affect my life. Not that there's much that I can do about it, except bitch in an online comment.

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Greta Christina is no Atheist. Religous belief is a personal and private matter and if I am pressed to offer my own denomination then I can openly say that I am an Atheis, and I am. The thread throughout Greta's column weaves a broken line, however I will conced that she is agnostic and still trying to justify her existence. In my years teaching college I could allow open discussion, but never debate, on the dialectics of all religions without allowing one side to overwhel the other. In the United States we have a polyglot of sects all claiming title to Chritianity, with many of their followers unwashed and ignorant of philosophy being guided by walking, talking heads who mislead and misguide them. The notion of true Atheists bent on preaching in this ring of mass hysteria in an attempt to convert, is ludicrous and dangerous. The religous right, left and centre will find common ground in which to oppose all free thinkers and their great propoganda machines will fight to have Atheisn outlawed, just as they are attempting by neo-McCarthyism to bury Socialism, Homosexuals and the Rights of Women to Abortion. Drop the notion Greta and try walking in the real world.

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From the Council for Secular Humanism website:

If you’ve rejected traditional religion (or were never religious to start), you may be asking, “Is that all there is?” It’s liberating to recognize that supernatural beings are human creations … that there’s no such thing as “spirit” … that people are undesigned, unintended, and responsible for themselves.

But what’s next?

For many, mere atheism (the absence of belief in gods and the supernatural) or agnosticism (the view that such questions cannot be answered) aren’t enough.

Atheism and agnosticism are silent on larger questions of values and meaning. If Meaning in life is not ordained from on high, what small-m meanings can we work out among ourselves? If eternal life is an illusion, how can we make the most of our only lives? As social beings sharing a godless world, how should we coexist?

For the questions that remain unanswered after we’ve cleared our minds of gods and souls and spirits, many atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and freethinkers turn to secular humanism.


Additional Resources

What Is Secular Humanism?
What Are Secular Humanist Values?
How Can I Get Involved?


http://www.secularhumanism.org

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American Atheists do not convert anyone. All Atheism is like math. We do not "believe" 2-2 equals zero, we know it. Believers are obsessed with ideas like alleged deities, alleged devils and fear learning how to navigate away from beliefs with science. When believers and theocrats take action bigotedly against Atheists, we respond with why and cry foul. Our godless US Constitution is worth defending, Theocracy IS TREASON. The xian nation claim betrays good law and is a crime. 843-926-1750 Dial An Atheist Larry

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I think it is a lot easier for us human in life if we believe in something. God. is really wide term and can have different interpretations. This subject will remain immortal the same as question about meaning of life. In our modern world where science and technology expended beyond human believe and this maybe the reason why Religion is loosing it's power. I mean we are attached to our cell phones and computers, we shop online, we smoke Electronic Cigarette, and dating via internet...

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We should all stay open minded and tolerant of others beliefs. To do otherwise would be a bigoted position.

The burden of the religious is to prove the existence of God. Impossible, requires faith.

The burden of the atheist is to disprove the existence of god. Impossible, requires faith.

The decision to be made by each of us is to decide given the information available and to be tolerant of those whom decide differently.

We all have the right to our own beliefs. It’s not really that complicated.

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