Dear Bible lover:
These are some of the reasons why we atheists don't like your biblical posts, and tend to accuse you of being a troll.
1. Most of us were believers once, and we've already read and studied the Bible or most parts. You are not discovering us a whole new world. You can add to your comment a short verse if you want to make a point, but there's no need to get people bored.
2. As a rule, being a theist is something your parents decided for you. You were indoctrinated in your childhood and that's why you think the way you do (just as we did). If you were born in another country/culture, you would have another faith.
On the contrary, we went through a conscious, pondered, very difficult -sometimes dangerous, and in some countries, even life-threatening- change of thought. Becoming an atheist is not a rush, gratuitous or irrational decision.
3. We think your holy book may be very interesting literature, a way of studying our past, but it's just a collection of old mythology. If you were really interested in the content of the Bible, you should study some Mediterranean cultures' mythology, the ones who lived long before the Bible was written, who told some stories quite similar to the ones in your book (an example:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg2nB5mrZbE).
4. We're not trying to de-convert you, because -based on our own experience- that's something no-one else can do but yourself through critical thinking: Do your own (honest) research, analyze the facts, and if you think they're irrational or hurtful to other human beings, defy your own intimate convictions. Again, no-one else but you can do it. Once you let your brain works, and overcome the cognitive disonance, there's no coming back. That's why preaching doesn't work on an atheist anymore.
They've taught you to ignore the facts, by saying that's just the devil testing your faith, but that feeling of nervousness, of insecurity, of being in the edge of a cliff, it's just your common sense trying to forge its way out of the brainwashing.
5. Do you remember the scene in Matrix when Morpheus shows two pills to Neo and asks him to choose between the dreamt and the real world? The truth is ugly, yes, and dishearting. But you have to choose between a life of comforting lies or to man-up/woman-up, just face the truth and feel really proud of yourself.
6. Good luck.
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Good post, my only objection would be "away of studying our past"
I would refer to actual historical books or at the very least, books with some credence such as from the Romans... who coincidently only ever mention Christ once... in a vague way too, and almost a hundred years after.
You're absolutely right, Randomhero, it was wrongly worded... I wasn't referring to the historial character but a way of studying the way people thought in the past...
As a matter of fact, in an early post http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/what-do-you-hear-readi... I gave some links to Bible scholars' opinion regarding this issue. There are few historial facts or characters in the Bible.
Thanks for reading.
2. So long as you realize you are not exempt from societal influences, then I'll grant you your point. Odds are if you are atheist, then you were born in the past hundred years, in a westernized country. Odds are you will be white, a male, and a liberal. And in accordance with your first point, odds are you will be associated with Christianity, as opposed to Hinduism or Islam.
So much for reason and free-thinking. Its almost as if I could put all these ingredients in a blender, and have higher likelihood of popping out an atheist.
P.S. And that's without getting into all the psychological predispositions. Such as autism: http://www.bahaistudies.net/neurelitism/library/mentalizing_defects.pdf
Firstly, Atheism is simply the lack of a belief in a God or gods... what social background you have has no significance.
Of course most atheists will be born in western countries, i wonder why???
Now tell me, what is the punishment in some certain areas for apostasy?
This forms a human conditioning where is becomes extremely difficult to think freely.
"Atheism is simply the lack of a belief in a God or gods... what social background you have has no significance."
Everything you think and do, from the language you speak, the clothes you wear, to the very thoughts you have and the person you marry, is directly associated with your social environment. There's no escape from that.
I was writing the post at the same time and I didn't read that until I finish it. Of course, social background has no significance (there are atheists with different backgrounds)... So why is it more probable to become an atheist for a white catholic european than to a black islamist north african? Because they are submitted to much more dangerous threatens than I am. I have faced my mother and some of my relatives annoyance, mocks from some friends, some pressures when I speak with honesty at work... But things that are completely bearable.
I think that if I had been born in Saudi Arabia, it would be a different issue. Would I be not an atheist? I don't know, but what I do know is that's very difficult to express your doubts in an oppresive environment, when everyone around you are (or seem to be) a believer, when you risk your life if you speak up...
The problem is that you don't need to express doubts to have them. You don't need to disclose disbelief to have disbelief. I'm unfamiliar with how statistics are gathered in these countries, but there are ethical guidelines in place to ensure anonymity when answering surveys. If it weren't so, people wouldn't feel safe, and any data collected is automatically invalid.
But there's also of a contradiction here. Western countries are predominately Christian, correct? That's why the US hasn't had an atheist president yet. So does our Christian society permit free-thinking or not? It appears that it does, otherwise there's no difference between US/Europe and Middle East.
If our Christian society permits free-thinking. How is it that when an atheist decides to leave Christianity, its of his own volition. But if a Christian choose to stay, then its his childhood shackles, blinding him to reason?
False dichotomy. Clearly this is not a binary attribute of society or whatever.
It's not that Christian permit free-thinking, it's sth that Law and Civil and International Rights guarantee (and for those many people -black, women, gay people, immigrants, etc.- have suffered or died). I remind you that most slaves owners were Christians, because the Bible allows slavery. I'll give you an example of the christian "consent" fo free-thinking in USA today:
>"The constitutions of seven U.S. states ban atheists from holding public office:
Arkansas: Article 19, Section 1 "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court."
Maryland: Article 37 "That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; nor shall the Legislature prescribe any other oath of office than the oath prescribed by this Constitution."
Mississippi: Article 14, Sect. 265 "No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state."
North Carolina: Article 6, Sect. 8 "The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God."
South Carolina: Article 17, Sect. 4 "No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution."
Tennessee: Article 9, Sect. 2 "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."
Texas: Article 1, Sect. 4. "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."
(source: Wikipedia)
Let me give you another example: When George H. W. Bush was a presidential candidate, to a journalist's question, he responded: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God." WOW!!! What a freedom enhancer!
I applaud your research, but this appears to go counter to your point. Because you seem to have suggested that we (Western countries) allow free-thinking, but Muslim countries do not. That being the reason why atheist tend to come from western countries more than middle-eastern countries or what have you.
But you just presented 7 examples and 1 quote in which we are not better than Muslim countries.
Hi, John, in my country's Constitution (Spain) and in yours, as in every Western country (including those in which more than 50% of the population are atheists), freedom of thought is guaranteed. I was answering to your claim that it has sth to do with being "Christian". Notice that these restrictions are in "Bible belt" states, which suggests precisely the opposite.
Of course, Islamic countries are far worse, but countries with Christian majorities are not a paradise for freedom of thought. I post a map attached, so you can reach your own conclussions.
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Attach Image/Video?:
Of course, and I would 100% agree with everything you have said there! Spot on sir!
I would add though that atheism is just a position... your making it into something it isn't.
It's like being in a pub and someone rocking up and saying "I have an imaginary friend that created everything, from the beer you drink, to the chair you sit on!"
And everyone then looking at the guy and saying, "shut up you twat and have a beer, chill out!"
There is nothing special about atheism, I would equally be an a-leprechaunist, a-toothfairyist etc...
Personally if I'm truthfully honest, I would say I actually disbelieve in anything that requires me to require the laws of nature to be suspended.
Perhaps from a political or philosophical stance you are correct.
The problem is that from a psychological perspective, belief and disbelief both require information going into the brain, both require that information to be processed the same, and both require a behavioral or cognitive output. In other words, deciding if something is factual or not looks the same inside the brain.
The method by which all information is processed, like everything else the brain does, is shaped by genes and the environment. So yes atheism is just a position, but to have a position at all means information was filtered through your brain. And that's where things like where you were born, and what your sex is, come into play.
@john, basing an idea on odds is too mathematical for the points made in the post. For example, odd are, Christian baptists are most likely black and charismatic (not true). Further, odd are most any religion has a diety that has consequences for behavior, so, as an atheist, there is no burden of shame or some unfounded theory based on assumption that if we do wrong that we will be harmed in any way. Our worst nightmare is the reality of those who use a sky wizard to depict our future and way of living. So in sum, one cannot count on odds if one were to truly pursue a personal belief system....experience and time provides the knowledge one eventually decides to follow in either direction.
Hi, John. I'm not sure if I quite follow you, but I'll try to make it clearer, so let's review the text...
1. "Most of us were believers once, and we've already read and studied the Bible or most parts."
I grant you that I should have added: "Most of us were believers who at the past have read the Bible" (Of course, I realize that not every believer in this forum is from weternized countries or that all of us have read the Bible, but since the Old Testament is common to the three major religions, and Bible is a reference to many other religions or cults, it's probable that we have). Also, remember the name of this post is not to people who post verses from holy books, so that's why I made the distinction.
2. I was certainly born in the past hundred years, in a westernized country, I'm almost as white as Ed Sheeran, a female and I believe in Human and Animal Rights and I'm an active defender of true democratic principles of equality in every aspect, and of freedom of thought, speech and action, except when that interferes with someone else's rights. Since the word 'liberal' has different nuances depending on the country, I don't know if that makes me a liberal in the way you mean.
3. As I was trying to explain in the second point, becoming atheist has been a long and hard process for most of us, so that's why popping out suddenly an atheist isn't probable.
I am also trying to make people think that their imposition of their comforting lies has cost so much to people throughout the History. In my country, for example, Inquisition killed and tortured hundreds of thousands (some historians say that they could be even millions) of people for 400 years because they were believers of another religion, non-believers, or just for being an woman who had learnt how to read or who refused to get married...
Nowadays, religions still are costing too much to so many people (please, read posts such as http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/loosing-battle-my-life) and we're just people who wants others to understand the damage religion is making to human rights, to human lives and to their intellect itself, just to put their faith under a logical loupe, because it's an absolute injustice to make any human being suffer, for not believing something that's is based on non-evidence claims.
3. I'm too lazy to look it up, but there's been a recent wave of research suggesting that parenting is an illusion. Meaning that you can try to raise your child the best way you can, but their biological tendencies and their personalities will eventually win. In other words, whatever effort you put in won't matter.
You should always assume that other people are the same as you, because they are. They have the same brains as you. They develop through the same psychological stages. Attempts to find biological and psychological differences between groups has always ended in disaster.
So when you begin to realize you are the same as everyone else. You realize that the same struggles you may have faced, are faced by the other side as well. The same doubts that made you think, and choose to leave, will be the same doubts that make others think, and choose to stay.
Always assume others had the same experience as you, because odds are that they did.
I would be interested in seeing this research, everything has tended to be pointed towards conditioning... even to the point it explains religiosity in certain people.
Along man's timeline there is but one work contributed to by scribes, story tellers, politicians, theists, journalists, in the contexts of their separate and distinct sensibilities of what that work should contain, irrespective of an evolving world dispensing with folklore as facts empirically and successively dismiss them, and yet that work begs to be believed as a record of truth for all mankind to revere.
One crummy book is supposed to be believed by all mankind as a testament to the existence of a god.
As it's currently written, the conflicts it contains are not telling of a god but rather telling of people telling of a god.
People never fail to fail. Gods don't and certainly a god can write his own perfect work without innumerable (upwards of 150) human contributors mucking up his perfect greatness with all manner of everything but. Theism cannot excuse the hand mankind had in this work but rather dodges it by grasping at straws. Losses from interpretation, indeed. No god needs to be interpreted or otherwise be relegated to man's failings. But, theism does reach for the straws often, with exaggerated piety and ascription of devilry upon those who oppose such pious back-peddling.
One book. Like Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings - Countless images and one to rule them all.
Angiebot, you should know that theism cannot support its claim on a god, or otherwise qualify it through the brandishing of the bible. It's self-flagellating and at its very best a form of tolerance that atheism gifts to theism to state its case. You taunt them and in response they run the Good Book up the flagstaff as if it had the worthiness for such effort. It's all they have.
The church tried to burn the evidence in countless records attesting to the real story (Library at Alexandria) but failed to destroy the numerous copies of them. One such set of records survived the ages giving us the Nicene Creed (325 CE) story in all it's secular glory which, by it's sheer weight of detail, let's us all know that Constantine's law directed the writers of the bible to record Jesus as a god. Prior to that account the early christian architects (bishops and presbyters) failed to agree what the jesus image should be or convey. You won't find that politically-charged truth in the bible. Moreover, the church made it a law to keep the bible in Latin, which was a near-dead language at the time, to prevent the world from discovering its flaws. It pursued and killed the people who attempted to interpret it as an act of blasphemy. Lot's of tongues ripped out, stake burning, head rolling, etc, at the church's behest.
Using the bible as a standard bearer for the existence of a god is a fool's game waiting to be popularized.
"One crummy book is supposed to be believed by all mankind as a testament to the existence of a god."
It ought to be common knowledge that the Bible is composed of 66 separate books (73 for Catholics). You used the modifiers "one crummy..." as if to suggest a decrease in value with a decrease in quantity. Sort of like a hundred wasps deserve attention, but a single wasp is insignificant.
If one book for all mankind isn't enough for you. Are ten books? Are 50? Are 66 or 73?
I know your question was not addressed to me, but I'd like to answer that no, not even 73 are enough books for a single person, not at the very least, so imagine for humanity! That's approx. 1/4 of the books I currently own, and I've read most of them, plus the ones that I no longer have, the ones I got from libraries and the ones that I've read online...
And I'm not a scholar, just a normal person with curiosity.
But why? You most likely don't hold everything else you believe to that standard. Many Scientific revolutions began with either a single book or less, a single journal article. Darwin's Origin of the Species is the foundation of evolutionary biology. Einstein's Relativity was a single paper published in a journal.
So how do you correlate truth with a number? If 66 books are not enough, then I must assume neither are 66 published papers on evolution. So what's your magic number?
It's not about number but quality of course. But the more you read, the more you realize that the truth is not in one book or two or 73, but nowhere and everywhere and you have to infer it through critical thinking. You may have some convictions today, that you'll defy and overcome in some time from now, if you keep reading, analyzing, questioning and therefore, learning and changing. That's one of my goals in life, learning more and more, getting wiser and wiser... And if I put all my trust in a book (or 73) I'll get more convinced and more stubborn about their content, and not more open to new ideas or wiser.
As long as I'm alive, and my senses don't fail, I'll keep defying what I read and what I know.
And for making a piece of paper (or a single book) that becomes revolutionary, it requires the author to have read lots of books beforehand!
@ John,
With all due respect, being a numbers person, explain to me how one God in his holy book can be the only answer for all of humanity?
"...can be the only answer for all of humanity?"
Answers depend on the question, so what is the question?
I made a point, did not ask a question....do you have further point?
No.
John 6IX Breezy.
Don't you know that the Bible contained 80 books until two English guys decided to delete the 14 Apocrypha books in 1881-1885? So if your Bible only contains 66 books it's incomplete and basically a fake Bible.
@ along.
You have made to most cogent sense since i began perusing this site. Thank you for your well written and fact driven diatribe. One of my favorite quotes is from the movie " The Samurai" Tom Cruise states : I am beset by the ironies of my life" this profound and insightful message says a lot to me. Irony, life in its infinite wisdom offers us a true look at our inherent purpose. For me, this means as originally posted that we will make our reality and its injustice malleable depending on our experiences and understanding of fact and reality. Simply put, your post truly made so much sense however, and nonetheless; theists will find some loophole and twist things around which make no cogent sense at all. I think fear and the inability to quantify fact with fiction the true sadness with theists. Thanks for your well thought out and important post.!
If @along is supposed to be me (?) thanks to you for your kind answer. xD
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