Archives
- April 2010 (2)
- March 2010 (1)
- February 2010 (1)
- January 2010 (3)
- December 2009 (6)
- November 2009 (4)
- October 2009 (3)
- September 2009 (1)
- August 2009 (3)
- July 2009 (1)
- April 2009 (2)
- January 2009 (6)
- December 2008 (4)
- November 2008 (2)
Categories
Tags
acceptance acid adoption afghanistan Al Qaeda America army arrogance atheism barack hussein obama belief Bill Maher caraleisa Christianity christmas crisis death evangelism ex-atheist fear freethought friendship fully realized atheist guilt hippies hope inauguration joy lsd manson meaning murder obama origins of life Politics religion religulous remedies research RNA rudeness speech suicide thanksgiving tolerance
Yes. I think we’ve focused in on the most important thing. I’ll eagerly await your blog post and feature it on energion.com. I’d like to see some discussion from further afield. While I’m not part of the choir to which you refer, I am perhaps an occasional guest soloist, unfortunately solo as most of the polls show. I cannot possibly count the number of times I hear “We’re open to people of all faiths, and when I ask about people of no faith, I either get a blank stare or an “oh yeah” since they don’t want to argue with me.
I think you put your finger right on the issue, Henry… we’re so sick and tired of being called EVIL, that we tend to bite back with mockery, etc. But I agree, it doesn’t really accomplish much – movies and actions like Religulous are – to use a religious phrase – preaching to the choir. We who are already there get it. Those who are not, don’t understand the sources of the hostility in things like this and so, it just drives them away.
What I want to see is an acceptance, a tolerance, a NON JUDGEMENTAL acknowledgement of our (atheists) inherent EQUAL humanity. . . judge us on what we do, not on what YOU believe (erroneously!) about one minor aspect of our lives.
When that happens, we won’t see movies like this. Until then, there will always be those who really are fed up with laws on the books stating that atheists cannot hold public office, etc. that they’ll be shoving their disbelief in the faces of those who ARE the agressors. I hope we’re the next minority to take on the sanctimonious majority and force THEM to give us the same rights they demand for themselves…
c.
I intended to respond earlier. There is much of what you say that I can agree with, yet at the same time, I fail to see much value in this particular approach. It seems to me like firing up the base, and that may be a valid goal in itself. It’s hard for me to say. As we have both commented at the time, while we can agree on many things, there is an obvious and profound divide on belief in God.
I’m lacking anything more profound at the moment. I do hope that all of this will help quell the notion that atheists are evil, as so many seem to believe. If we could get over that one, at least there would be room for dialogue. It’s hard to have good dialogue with those one regards as irredeemably evil.
DAMMIT, I just spent half an hour responding to you. I’ll give it another shot, this time probably less eloquently!
Yes, I know that much of the fundamentalist nonsense Maher shows here is not what most mainstream Christians believe. But there are plenty who do… more than there are atheists, in fact.
I understand your reluctance to agree with the guilt by association Maher suggests belongs to all Christians when some are ‘bad’… but I believe he’s replying to the many statements like “Most Christians don’t believe that stuff, we’re good, honest, hardworking people, and all we really want from our faith is the comfort we get.”
Maher says – at what cost? And I agree. Unless the theist is willing to stand up and state that s/he does not support killing, war, terrorism, etc IN THE NAME OF GODS, then s/he does share in the collective guilt of those who perpetrate such travesties.
I know you, and I know that you’re a Christian, and that you’ve made it your life’s work to educate other Christians and teach them compassion, acceptance and tolerance, so I know you DO understand what I am saying here.
Maher is first a comedian. He also happens to be an atheist who, like me, is pretty sick and tired of always being on the outhouse side of respect from theists. Another blog posted today http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=786209142#/note.php?note_id=114793110182&ref=mf talks about a survey in 2007 in which the majority of Americans equated atheists lower than the dregs of society. Unreal.
Maybe it’s not all strictly black and white, but there is an element of stark separation between theists and atheists, and the lack of acceptance comes from the theists. I don’t know any atheist who wants to prohibit anyone from practicing their faith – but we all want to stop any theist whose faith directs them to take away our rights, or the rights of others who don’t agree with them.
It’s a sad situation and more astonishing that it’s the case in the twenty-first century.
Well, since you asked . . .
I find the majority of it irrelevant to anything I believe, and in fact I would condemn many of the same beliefs.
I then find the “moderates look in the mirror” to be unjustifiable guilt by association.
Should non-religious people come out of the closet? Absolutely. Should you pretend to agree with religious liberals or moderates? No–honesty is good. Should you condemn religious liberals or moderates, who don’t, for example, believe in Armageddon along with fundamentalists? I don’t think that’s right or valid.
As with most binary distinctions, religious vs non-religious is too imprecise to be all that useful.