Are Atheists Air Brushing History?

Originally posted by Conspiriology
No, I think it would be allowing speculation into the argument which would enter a cross examination on a reverse premise that an Atheist killed someone because of his lack of faith.

Ok, cool. I can jive with that. But if you want to justify opposing abortion on anything to do with the bible, then you easily show how faith can affect behaviour.

What about what happened to someone like Galileo? a dude who just argued against geocentrism. Was that due to the faith of his accusers? Or something else?

Sorry for asking questions. Sometimes better than just stating 'I think x'.

Today however, lesbian Atheist raise kids no worse then Christian families.

In many ways, yes. However, they probably give a less prejudiced view of homosexuals than some xians.

I think this faith issue is extremely mis-understood by Dawkins and his having a bad experience with religion as is the same story with Hitchens may have something to do with their attack on it.

Possibly. I think I said something like this myself. I know a few atheists who really hold a grudge about they stuff their heads was crammed with.

No that again would be his belief that for the sake of not cramping some teenage girls "lifestyle" she wants to kill her baby while it is still legal. The fact that it is inside her makes it so sterile so unseen and so much easier to do. So you can see it in other ways as someone willing to go to jail to save kids from being murdered in a state where that becomes morally ok.
I know the more we treat human life like a lab rat the easier it will get debased and more and more become acceptable.

So, it is based on a moral decision? and where do these morals come from? Are these the objective/absolute bible/god-based morals I keep hearing about? The lack of which can lead atheists to be immoral?

Jeez Mel,, do they really think Christians are like that??...The moment I saw I was saying something that upset em in anyway I would feel awful I mean just awful.

That's great, con. And I agree that not all do. Which is why I had no issues sending my sprog to a faith school (more convenience than anything).

But some do. It is common in a certain type of approach to faith.

If he feels that way he ought to call the damn cops or shut the hell up.

He doesn't have an issue with kids being taught about religion. I've said before, he supports good religious education. The sort that teaches about all kinds of faith. A nice rounded view of religion.

We don't do like dawkins says Mel

We don't

- Con

Some do.

You must have seen jesus camp? That's the sort of thing that can be problematic. A bit like this:



And I know of people on here who think that kid is just fine and dandy. I also worry about the sunflower dude, heh.

I'm sorry, con. I fear for the mind of that 7 year old child, and that dude is abusing an ex-innocent child - 'Worms that eat your flesh up'

Watch all 5 parts. It's an interesting watch. And I know that not all parents are like that.

[edit on 23-3-2008 by melatonin]

That poor kid.

It's funny though, he actually gives a very interesting response to the first question the interviewer asked him.
"Why did you decide to preach?"
"Because people listen"

This speaks volumes about religion. Sometimes nobody can explain things any better than achild, because they answer with no spin. He likes the attention, and preaching gives it to him. He's sad that somebodies not saved? Why would he be? His little brain can barely take in a busy new york street, let alone appreciate the consequences of going to hell for all eternity. His dad probably figured this kid would get more attention and drilled him on what to do. And the dad probably did it out of some misguided intention of pleasing god, so he basically did it in the name of religion.

But don't worry, I don't blame their religion, cuz that would be silly

Poor kid.

[edit on 23-3-2008 by Gigatronix]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
reply to post by Damien_Hell

 

The proof is all around you in American society. Increased Divorce rates, increase in violence and murders in our cities and schools, drug abuse, STDs. If we are evolving as a species and religion is the problem, why these issues getting worse as we move further away from God. If Dawkins is right these things should have decreased as more and more people stopped attending church. The exact opposite is true. People are a lot more secular now and our society is far worse in a moral sense.

The divorce rate is actually falling - and has been for some time. It's the lowest that it's been since 1970.

And even if that weren't the case, divorce rates are higher in marriages of those of faith than they are in Athetists, though there is the arguement that the statistics of those living together and parting ways aren't taken into account, and less religious couples would be more likely to take that route.

Crime rates, including violent crime, have been going down as well. 2005 was an all time low for violent crime.

Drug use, and abuse, is falling. It's ten percent less than it was in 1979.

STDs are a mixed bad. Chlamydia is the only one with rising rates, and there's some thought that that is mostly due to better reporting and diagosis rather than some epidepic. AIDS and HIV are both falling, and in fact as nearly as low as they were 20 years ago after peaking in the early 1990s.

reply to post by Jadette


You may be right about recent history... over 10-20 years its naturally going to fluctuate up and down.

I mean more as a trend since say 1950 or so... divorce was less common the further back you go. There had never been a mass school shooting. Now there have been several. When my Dad was in school there were no drugs. Now there are dealers in the hallway. Now schools have metal detectors. Wasn't necessary when I was in school.

It's definitely much much worse.

We going the way of ancient Rome. We are following the same pattern they did. Values decrease the civilization falls.


[edit on 3/23/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
reply to post by Jadette

 

You may be right about recent history... over 10-20 years its naturally going to fluctuate up and down.

I mean more as a trend since say 1950 or so... divorce was less common the further back you go. There had never been a mass school shooting. Now there have been several.

We going the way of ancient Rome. We are following the same pattern they did. Values decrease the civilization falls.

Yep that sounds about right. Except for the part where all that is because of Atheism. Blame television if you really want to blame something, or bad parenting, or just the fact that there are more people now than there were then. The more people there are the more the weird crap occurs. But it's not a because of an unbelief in god thats for sure, or an absence of god as you like to say. Really, I mean, wouldn't you rather blame Satan for everything thats wrong? Let me guess, Atheism is Satans work.

reply to post by Gigatronix


I grew up in the south and I knew kids that grew up like that. Most of them turned into wild asses in high school to rebel. I am the opposite I grew up in the home of an agnostic engineer and I went form wild to religious - hahaha

What if the kid Dad was a carpenter. Would it be wrong for his Dad to teach him how to drive a nail? This kids Dad is an evangelist. Who are we to say?

I don't think it's appropriate, but it doesn't qualify as abuse.

reply to post by Gigatronix

Atheism is Satans work.

His crowning achievement.

I abandoned this thread a number of pages ago because the people I was conversing with or attempting to converse with were either ignoring me or were busy with other conversations. Additionally, I needed to take a step back and make sure I wasn't hypocritizing myself. I think to small extent I was, in that my emotions were getting the best of me and I was speaking before I had a chance to control them. Most of what I've said I would've said anyway, but perhaps not all. I'd like to now, for my own purposes, summarize my stand on these issues and what I've learned from this thread after reading the many pages since my hiatus.

The thesis of the OP was that there is an atheist conspiracy to revise history. This is based on the views of the "radical" atheist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins has led some to believe he wishes to eradicate faith from the psyche of the human race, and I think that's a justified inference. This has also led some of those people to believe that he is setting the stage for a physical genocide of the "faithful". I think that what has happened is some of the faithful were offended by Dawkins theory, and are thus blowing it out of proportion. Dawkins does not suggest at any point that killing is a justified way of eradicating faith, and says he wants to eradicate faith because of the killings he thinks it plays a part in perpetrating, so I find that inference highly unjustified. Just because his theories threaten your beliefs, does not mean he is threatening your life.

On the subject of killing, it has been suggested that atheists have no reason to be moral, and are thus more likely to be genocidal or homicidal. One of the posters said that atheists cannot view life as "sacred" so they would have no problem killing another human, (saying we're "just mammals" because of Darwinism and are thus have no basis for not killing somebody.) (I'd like to interject quickly that Darwinism does not equal atheism, and vice versa, but I'll refrain from elaborating since I already have in prior replies.)

Yet I have pointed out on several occasions that I, personally, am proof that that is false. I do not believe in a supreme being, yet I have morals. (Morals, whether any specific Christian believes it or not, can, in fact, be subjective. I do not believe in the institution of marriage, so to me pre-marital sex is not taboo. You can say that I must have no morals then, but I could say the same for you because I believe marriage itself is immoral. I find it degrading to Love to have to go through an institution such as the government or a church in order for me to rightfully declare my love for somebody. This does not mean I do not believe in monogamy, though.) But morals themselves are not the product of a belief in God, they are a product of ingrained common sense instincts.

You can argue they were put there by God, which I could not disprove, but for you to say that a person who does not believe in God cannot have morals is a complete fallacy. I know many atheists who go even farther than not killing other people, they're even vegans. Atheists do not have a set standard for their morals, so it could be said that they must design their moral structure for themselves. You claim that this is what caused the regimes under Stalin and Mao to think it was okay to be genocidal, but you would be ignoring the fact that these are individuals making decisions for themselves, and even theists must do that. You can claim that the genocidal dictators who were self-proclaimed theists were not theists based on the fact that you can't believe a person who believes in God would commit such atrocities, but you would be revising history and putting your own words in somebody else's mouth.

This is what some of the previous posters have talked about, and that I have come to conclude also: theism or atheism is not the issue when it comes to these atrocities; it's the individual in question. Each individual makes conscious decisions to acts on those, not on the decisions their religion (including Atheism), have made for them. Each person makes their own decisions. I will never blame Christianity for the Inquisition, because Christianity as a whole did not perpetrate those things, it was the decisions of the men who actually did it. Likewise, I think it wrong to blame Atheism for the deeds of Stalin or any other individual.

This also goes to what has been mentioned is happening today: increase in divorce rate, etc. These things are not happening because more people are becoming atheists, (I would like to see a statistic that says all or even the majority of these things were done by theists-turned-atheists), they were done by individuals. These statistics, (which I haven't seen yet, I'm taking the poster's word for it), do not reflect an increase in lack of faith. There is no supporting evidence for that claim.

This idea of Christians committing child abuse has been brought up. I think that I consider it a mild form of child abuse when parents inculcate any religious beliefs in their children, including Atheism. I don't think it is severe enough to be punishable on any account, but I disagree with anyone doing it. However, I don't think it's anyone's place to tell somebody else how to raise their children, except in extreme cases of child abuse.

I've been appalled by many things said in this thread, from both ends of the spectrum. I've quickly learned that arguing all of this is not going to change anyone's mind about anything. It is usually not my intention to change anyone's mind about anything, but I really did want to convince Bigwhammy that atheists can have morals, too. I cannot believe that a person would think that without God there can be no morals, because I am a man of morals, but certainly not a man of God. But my attempts seem to have been in vain, and I suppose it doesn't hurt me for him to think that. All in all the narrow-mindedness has been apparent from both sides, and I think I regret participating in these debates sometimes because it stirs emotions within me when things like the aforementioned happen and I jump the gun and say something narrow-minded also.

Time for my concluding statement, need some emphasis in case people skipped over my post because of it's length so that maybe they can catch this: I stand by my statement that faith in your own beliefs being superior to that of others is the evil which was at work in Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Bush, and even every single one of us every time we do something "wrong". My personal belief is that we can all achieve a Heaven-like state if we can all learn that our beliefs are not superior, and that we should just leave everybody else's beliefs the hell alone. (Unless their beliefs involve hurting other people or denying them freedom, which is becoming a problem from both the theistic and atheistic sides...but I won't go into that as I'm tired of typing.)

reply to post by Bigwhammy

Tell me why you think its not appropriate.

I don't think it's abuse either btw.

reply to post by Gigatronix


He's too young to really understand what's going on. Plus he's going to be exposed to the abuse his Father is taking out on the streets of NY like that. People cursing at them etc. His Dad should know that and shield him from it. That will probably scare him more than anything else...

Originally posted by Gigatronix
But it's not a because of an unbelief in god thats for sure, or an absence of god as you like to say. Really, I mean, wouldn't you rather blame Satan for everything thats wrong? Let me guess, Atheism is Satans work.

Heh, prescient?

This is the important thing I tried to point out. Being an atheist doesn't lead people to remain in life-long marriage, or have 4 divorces. It doesn't lead people to kill puppies or take in strays. It doesn't lead people to create gulags or give to charity. Doesn't speak to those things at all.

What these sort of comparisons can do is show that atheists, on the main, are not immoral church burners. No more moral or less than theists.

Of course, depends on the moral standards you hold to. If not believing in god is immoral, then all atheists are, heh.

ABE: And to those who think little 'fear of worm-eatin' boy is not being abused. It is a form of mental abuse, IMO. It is an extreme form of indoctrination into faith, fear-mongering. Why do you think the saying goes something like, give me the child before he is seven, and I'll give you the man. But, of course, this is permissable in the service of some people's faith.

[edit on 23-3-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by Bigwhammy
Imagine my amusement that my belief that there are no gods was created by a god lol. Or something like a god, or belonging to a theory involving gods, whatever. Again, it's fine that you believe all that. Just sounds really funny to me.

reply to post by an3rkist

Yet I have pointed out on several occasions that I, personally, am proof that that is false. I do not believe in a supreme being, yet I have morals. (Morals, whether any specific Christian believes it or not, can, in fact, be subjective. I do not believe in the institution of marriage, so to me pre-marital sex is not taboo. You can say that I must have no morals then, but I could say the same for you because I believe marriage itself is immoral. I find it degrading to Love to have to go through an institution such as the government or a church in order for me to rightfully declare my love for somebody. This does not mean I do not believe in monogamy, though.) But morals themselves are not the product of a belief in God, they are a product of ingrained common sense instincts.

An3rkist, you know I luv ya, and you make a lot of sense. But here is the point where we mostly disagree. Your morals WERE instilled in you by your parents, whether you realize it or not. I happen to know you were raised in a moral family with strict adherence to a faith (won't mention which one here). So you may be an exception to the rule, not the rule. And I'm sure there are others like you who have had the same type upbringing, and left that upbringing to become atheists. This is the point I was trying to make in the other thread to you. That morals either come to you by parents who raise you that way, or there has to be an inborn conscience that was put there by someone, i.e. a higher being with a conscience and knowing of right from wrong. Make sense?


[edit on 3/23/08 by idle_rocker]

I keep saying this but I don't think it;s being heard.

I am not at all surprised that Atheists have morals and a conscience. They can't help it, they are created in Gods image. Part of it comes hard wired in the package. The reason people seek is because God wrote eternity in our hearts.

Originally posted by idle_rocker
That morals either come to you by parents who raise you that way, or there has to be an inborn conscience that was put there by someone, i.e. a higher being with a conscience and knowing of right from wrong. Make sense?

I think much about morals are learned. But interesting questions for you, before I hit the sack. Ignore if you want.

What about kids who were raised in a pretty bad home, with little moral leadership? Do you not think some people can learn their own morals? From others, by reason, from the social milieu?

Conversely, do you agree that some people can express immoral behaviour due to innate or physiological deficits even when raised in a good xian home (e.g., psychopaths)?

[edit on 23-3-2008 by melatonin]

Originally posted by Gigatronix
reply to post by Bigwhammy

 

Imagine my amusement that my belief that there are no gods was created by a god lol. Or something like a god, or belonging to a theory involving gods, whatever. Again, it's fine that you believe all that. Just sounds really funny to me.

It does sound funny. But Satan is not a joke. He hates you even if you are an atheist. He loves no one. He just wants to destroy.

It's all over his pride. He rebelled and he got smacked down. So he wants to ruin his Daddies creation. The best way to do that is convince everyone Daddy never existed. Plus it's easier for him to get away with deceiving if you don;t believe in him either.

reply to post by idle_rocker


It makes sense, but as I said, I abandoned many of the morals I was taught. So if the morals are the work of my parents alone, then how come I abandoned some of them?

And if they are an inborn thing, that does not prove that they are from God. Bigwhammy was suggesting that atheists do not have morals, and that we are more prone to killing people because we don't consider others' lives "sacred". I'm not going to argue where morals come from, because it doesn't matter and it really can't be proven. I just want to argue the fact that without a belief in God a person cannot have morals. Bigwhammy also suggested that the increasing divorce rates, etc. can be blamed on atheists, presumably because atheists cannot have morals. This is my beef with whammy, and anyone else who believes that. Without God, there can be morals, whether they are evolutionary instincts, God-given inborn beliefs, or whatever, you do not have to believe in God to be a moral person.

And likewise, you can be an immoral person and believe in God. You can even be a genocidal maniac.

reply to post by Bigwhammy
Personally I dont like the though of being pre-programmed with a particular notion of morality. I prefer to say that I learned which things are socially acceptable through my environment and experiences, which is a lot more flexible and allows for variations in cultures. We're like animals in that, the dog doesnt know not to chew the slippers until hes learned the hard way a few times, he doesn't know that when hes born. If he was, what use would that rule be to a dog that was born in the wild and will never see a slipper?

reply to post by Bigwhammy
Well in my case, I guess ignorance is bliss, since I don't believe in any of that backstory or it's characters it doesn't concern me and it's no threat to me. I will feel better in the meantime knowing that I didn't have any rules and regulations software pre-installed in my brain, and that I can go about my way discovering myself and my reality on my own terms.

reply to post by melatonin


those videos are really disturbing. are they supposed to prove that christians
do this to their children as a matter of course?

we tell them,
if you break the laws of the home, you may get punished.
if you break the laws of the government, you will get punished.
if you break the trust of your friends you may get punished (by them).
if you break the laws of nature, you will get punished. (yes run head long into a brick wall, physics dictate you will not be able to knock it down unless you are using an equalizer, and it's likely to knock you down instead).
if you break the laws of God, he forgives you if you ask.

that's really how simple it is. alot of these laws and trust issues overlap because they are mostly common sense.



[edit on 23-3-2008 by undo]