are you an atheist?

throw your hand in the ay-er
if you eschew prayer

I dunno, I am in awe of so many things even while being an atheist. I forget how lightning is formed every time I watch a thunderstorm (this seriously happened to me, like, yesterday. It was all like boooom! and I said to myself "wow, how does that even happen? Oh wait, right." But lightning is still kind of mysterious because how on earth do clouds get their charge anyway? I guess everything has an electrical charge and maybe clouds are just super unstable because it's all this water vapor hustling around? Is this completely inane?).

The idea that the universe has always existed and will always exist, that it expands infinitely, and that every thing is made up of and connected to everything else is pretty magical to me.

I know, and in an intellectual sense it's orthodoxy that interests me, because the Evangelical movement pretty much washed their hands of literacy and reading comprehension in the '70s with the rise of the Moral Majority and I still kind of find the idea of "respecting tradition and putting any stock in the writings of the great minds of history" to be a charming novelty.

But woe to him or her that actually BELIEVES any of it. Ritual is a great tool but I'm pretty sure there are several hundred aphorisms about a good tool turning in the hand of its user.

xp to Adam

dunno, I am in awe of so many things even while being an atheist. I forget how lightning is formed every time I watch a thunderstorm (this seriously happened to me, like, yesterday. It was all like boooom! and I said to myself "wow, how does that even happen? Oh wait, right."

but surely most theists are ok with "that sort of science", though?

(I hope?)

Hmm, atheist, with the added belief that female followers of Abrahamic religions might as well be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. Have mellowed in that I don't mind other people's religion if they're not using it to enable bigotry, sexism or the control of some other person's behaviour by threatening them with Hell.

Anecdotally, all the people around me who went Evangelical in the '70s were not very bright, with stupid parents to boot, and were as scared of a three-syllable word as THE DEBBIL himself.

female followers of Abrahamic religions might as well be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving

haha yeah :/. i don't really think of myself as an atheist and am close to many female followers of Abrahamic religions, so this is a thought i usually only give vent to privately but yeah.

i was always p. neutral on this but i have been getting like militantly atheist in the last year or so

but surely most theists are ok with "that sort of science", though?

Science & religion are alot closer than popular (political) opinion seems to think. Big Bang first theorized by a Catholic priest and all. Increasingly science describes a universe that is more and more magical, interconnected, unseen, etc. The more dogmatic, mythical stories in the Bibles of the world may be incompatible with archeological/geological findings, but I think the spiritual & cosmological makeup of the universe (particularly in Eastern religions) tend to benefit immensely from scientific study.

If science directly contradicts the bible then its wrong (evolution)

If it wasn't something people who wrote the bible had any concept of (gravity) no big problems.

obv some religious people accept evolution and some don't that's the problem with religion multiple grey areas and interpretation means its not really comparable with science apart from for extremists.

I think there's enough leeway in Xtianity to take what you want if you personally are able to reimagine it without the patriarchal elements. But it's also possible that the foundations of the language and theology are too much based in patriarchy/male power to ever be truly gender-value-neutral and still call it Christianity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg

female followers of Abrahamic religions might as well be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving

love this. yup.

i'm not a fan of dawkins-style militant atheism but i'm way way less of a fan of organised religion making its presence felt in my life, and the latter's rather more dangerous, so railing against dawkins seems a bit wrong-headed in a "fight the real enemy" way

....and women wonder how come they fall into abusive relationships, convinced that there is some redemption to be had for being involved. The major western religions pretty much show me how that happens, whatever the religion.

I like being atheist *but* it's no fun unless you've read the Bible, at least, just to put the wind up the annoying end of the God-botherer brigade. Any human being that's ever tried to emotionally blackmail me using their imaginary divine friend has gotten a big earful of 'no, actually you're the blasphemer here, trying to say what God wants or needs from me, a third party, to suit what you happen to need or want from me yourself'.

I'm Irish Roman Catholic (IIRC)

But that's a background as opposed to practicing. I'm happy enough that nothing happens for a reason, that there are basic constants in this particular universe, and that there is no overarching consciousness controlling it all.

I can dig Dawkins as a science writer, and I kinda enjoy that he's out there pissing off organised religions, but I think he'd be better off chilling out with some bones in a lab somewhere doing some actual work.

Are there any mainstream rappers outed as atheists?

I like being atheist *but* it's no fun unless you've read the Bible

yeah! i'm an atheist/anti-religion because i was raised in a religious household with all the attendant crap that comes with that, but i'm so glad i do have that knowledge of xtianity and its workings

Without god how would rappers win Grammys?

oh, mainstream

haha I'm gonna post this anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii1dtebj24M

amazing track, mebbe they got personal religions tho

I can't think of any public figure atheist who happens to be black, interestingly enough.

this will end well

I'm Irish Roman Catholic (IIRC)

But that's a background as opposed to practicing. I'm happy enough that nothing happens for a reason, that there are basic constants in this particular universe, and that there is no overarching consciousness controlling it all.

i like Dara Ó Briain's thing about being catholic, which i totally agree with.

"I’m staunchly atheist, I simply don’t believe in God. But I’m still Catholic, of course. Catholicism has a much broader reach than just the religion. I’m technically Catholic, it’s the box you have to tick on the census form: ‘Don’t believe in God, but I do still hate Rangers.’"

I feel like Obama's religiosity is a marriage of convenience, and still count him on the team.

also (and I have really no reason to think this, but I do) I suspect Kanye is secretly agnostic.

there is no overarching consciousness controlling it all.

To me, this is like denying your own role in the perception & creation of this quantum dance of energy we call reality.

suspect your quantum dance and Darraghmac's quantum dance aren't the same?

I'm Irish Roman Catholic (IIRC)

that's Irate Irish Roman Catholic

I think Mrs V's Catholicism is much as darragh describes. I self-identify as atheist because non serviam, basically, plus all the world's established faiths are so obviously human inventions.

Science is a human invention too.

Uh, science doesn't claim not to be. /No Dawkins

my favourite of them all (along with red pepper hummus) xp

yuck. waste of perfectly good hummus.

not to negate your personal hummus experience, of course.

god dawkins sucks so bad

Prefer Jalapeno or that North African one Sainsbury's do

was talking about militant atheist evolutionary biologists there

Are there any mainstream rappers outed as atheists?

― Philip Nunez, Monday, June 7, 2010 12:32 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"I run with a thievin squad/and none of us believe in god" - Big L

In the last year or so, I've really been opening up to faith in God, however. It's the beginning of a journey and I'm still shaky on a lot of it, but it's there. Just to clarify my "no" vote as not being agnostic.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:39 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Egad, what a weird time in my life. I was doing heavy praying at the time - saying the Lord's Prayer in my head over and over again on the bus. The praying was fun! I'm back to being just a plain old boring agnostic nowadays though.

kingkongvsgodzillavsgod

but surely most theists are ok with "that sort of science", though?

The lightning thing was just an example to display that not all atheists are militant, non spiritual, non magical rationalists.

i don't even think atheist is the right word? mostly i say i'm irreligious or not religious. sometimes i say i'm a materialist but then people think i'm into money.

in a long discussion about this a few years ago i realized why i have trouble calling myself "an atheist": it's not because my views on the limited question of "do you believe in god" are at odds with atheism, it's because i don't think that limited question is really very interesting. i have trouble identifying myself with a label that mostly just says what i don't believe, and nothing at all about what i do believe. i'm not any kind of theist at all, a- or otherwise. i mean, there are lots of things i don't believe in, but i don't go around calling myself an a-unicornist or whatever. whether there's a higher intelligence, a supernatural force, a judgmental deity handing out gold stars or damnation, none of those things intrigue me. i think scientific and philosophical questions are much more rewarding and challenging than specifically religious questions. microbiology, astronomy, theoretical physics, ethics, those things are fascinating to me. "does god exist," not so much.

yeah but who goes around introducing themselves as "hi I'm an atheist!"? the word only arises in a conversation about whether you believe in God or not

yeah but who goes around introducing themselves as "hi I'm an atheist!"?

surprising number of sex-starved libertarian truthers

I don't like Hawkins' militantism -- it ought to be a big tent and basically if on some level you appreciate there's BS going on then I feel you can ride the atheist train.

xpost

yeah I meant to elaborate that as "what sort of civilized human being introduces themselves as etc etc"

After reading William James, I can't help but feel like human beings lose a lot of really incredible phenomenological experiences by ditching this long historically embedded way of interacting with each other and the world (through spirituality/religion/etc). That said, if you make your religious/emotional decisions intellectually instead of emotionally, losing something like that might feel less important to you. But for me, since it intellectually seems like a wash (along the lines of tipsy, I just don't see the value of arguing about whether God exists), I make my decision using an emotional topography. Does it give me rituals and ways of understanding things like marriage, life, death, community, etc to believe in God? And in my case it does -- I love reading the Bible for archetypes + ways of being in the world. That doesn't mean that I feel compelled to follow strict religious jurisprudence, but more like it means more to me to learn about the individual and community from reading about Joseph in Egypt than it does to read about Antigone + Creon (tho I love reading both). And it helps me understand where I came from, and who my ancestors and people are and what they believed, and keeps me in touch with a broad history of common human experiences.

nb I'm the guy on the conspiracy theory thread who said he loves conspiracy theories because they seem to be a really important part of the human experience. So YMMV.

whether there's a higher intelligence, a supernatural force, a judgmental deity handing out gold stars or damnation, none of those things intrigue me

I don't really understand this. If you thought there might be a grain of truth in any of it, I couldn't imagine anything more intriguing. Even as a study of historical/cultural behaviours/philosophies/traditions, religion is a helluva subject. So are hobbits, though.

well for one thing how could you really grasp conceptually an intelligence greater than yr own...? defies logic in many ways