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So you're an atheist. Ok, what next?

joobz said:
As FZ and I were discussing a bit ago, even if jesus was against slavery, it is highly unlikely he would go so far out of his way to condemn it, since such criticisms of Roman rule would result in rapid squashing of his teaching and his life.
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He wouldn't just have been going against Roman society, he'd have been going up against Jewish society, and society in general. "Slave" was a socio-economic class just about everywhere, and nobody questioned the fact. It was a fact of life. Come the yadda-yadda all such distinctions will be swept away, but that's not yet, m'kay?

But then again, we were talking of the man, Jesus, and not god in the flesh guy.
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Nor the Holy Ghost.

That whole Trinity thing is about shoe-horning European traditions into a Semitic monotheistic mould. You can see the join. There are libraries full of theology trying to paper over the fact, but to no avail.
 
plumjam said:
so it's basically an emptiness, a nothingness
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A theist who finally gets it. Atheism is a lack of theism, nothing more, nothing less. Morals, charity, behaviour, none of it has anything to do with atheism.
 
Atheism is the same as not believing in Santa, Zeus, and demons... the exact same nothing. And most of us get along just find without invisible friends. We couldn't believe in them if we tried.
 
Tricky said:
Now Martin Luther King was a great man, but he wasn't a slave. Fredrick Douglas was a slave, and the most well-known, well-read and outspoken slave of his era. Who would you say had a better take on what Christianity says about slavery?
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I would say MLK was not a christian in any sense of the word that DOC is using. MLK spent his life fighting against the christianity Doc endorses, specifically the literal interpretation of the bible.
 
qayak said:
I would say MLK was not a christian in any sense of the word that DOC is using. MLK spent his life fighting against the christianity Doc endorses, specifically the literal interpretation of the bible.
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the MLK point is simply a smoke screen for DOC. It was his weak attempt at trying to paint me as being racially insensitive. Amusingly, in the process, he comes off as being a bit more bigoted than he probably realizes.

Despite all that, he still needs to demostrate where in the new testament it acually says directly, "Jesus says, Slavery's bad, m'kay"
 
As long as we're going back to basics as well as following the slavery direction, let me just comment this:

plumjam said:
Let's say you've lived at least a couple of decades, you've examined the options, and you've arrived at atheism.
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You are here describing atheism as one of many equally valid options one can choose, like choosing which flavour of kool-aid to drink. Very clever. Guess what, atheism is different from any variety of theism in that it requires at the very least one less entity. It's simpler. It's the null hopythesis. It's choosing not to drink any kool-aid at all. In other words, I didn't arrive at atheism - it's where I started. And have stayed.
 
articulett said:
Atheism is the same as not believing in Santa, Zeus, and demons... the exact same nothing. And most of us get along just find without invisible friends. We couldn't believe in them if we tried.
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Wait.. Atheists don't believe in Zeus?! I'm going to have to re-classify myself.
 
DOC said:
Blacks know more about the pain of slavery than you or I will ever know.
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Do they really? How? Has every single black person been kept as a slave? No? Then they don't know any more about it than anyone else. They may know more about the long-term cultural effects of many of their ancestors being kept as slaves, but that is by no means the same thing.

This is like saying that women who weigh the same as a duck know more about being burned at the stake than anyone else. It may have happened to some of them in the past, but that doesn't magically make every one alive today have the same knowledge.
 
As to the "What next?" question posed in the OP:

Well, I've scheduled some rioting, pillaging, burning, looting, and raping for this afternoon ... but I see that I'm gonna have to scratch that because I need to pick up my son at school and then get some groceries. Tomorrow's no good for my "atheist agenda", as I need to take my car in to get the headlight replaced and maybe have lunch with my mom. Friday's a complete wash, as it's my family's "pizza night". It seems that all that immoral and wicked atheist activity is going to have to wait so I can live my perfectly normal life in a perfectly normal manner.

I'll tell you what has changed since my personal epiphany of agnostic atheism. The world around me and the behavior of the people in it make a heckuva lot more sense now. I no longer feel like a hypocrite. I feel a sense of peace, freedom, hope, and new-born wonder at our world and heightened appreciation for the people I love. I was able to dump a truck-load of anger, restlessness, disappointment, guilt, shame, resentment, and confusion.

I was also able to finally live without the fear of being capriciously exiled to Eternal Torment by a "loving" god. Of course, that particular fear was replaced by the somewhat lesser fear of discrimination and faith-based bigotry despite the christian theist's supposed policy of "love thy neighbor", "judge not", and "turn the other cheek".

I fear that if, when asked, I were to express my lack of god beliefs, that I would be instantly unwelcome and reviled by many and my six-year-old would have to deal with the fall-out at school. Indeed, it's already begun in a very small but very real way. I recently had the unpleasant task of explaining to my little boy why the Boy Scouts wouldn't let him join. The school had passed out full-color, picture-laden recruitment fliers showing just how much gosh-darn fun the BSA is. When I pulled it out of his daily folder, his eyes light up and he started talking about it excitedly. "Look, I can go fishing and camping with my friends and there's boats and anyone can join!!" I had to calm him down and explain that the BSA won't let him join because we don't believe in the things they think we should. I told him about Scouting for All and Camp Quest, and it did help a little, but he was still upset that he couldn't join up with his friends and classmates. I told him that we don't lie to get what we want and also that I thought the BSA policy of systematic discrimination was wrong.

Atheists are thought of and routinely portrayed as vile, selfish, confrontational, arrogant, immoral, lawless, wicked, perverted, sinful, uncharitable, inhospitable, petulant, angry, unhappy, hopeless shells of human beings. That's quite an image to overcome. The truth is that atheists are people just like you. No, really, we are! We are likely to be as similiar or as different to you as anyone else -- well except for that whole "ending up in jail" thing. We have jobs and families just like theists. We go to school, watch TV, sleep, bathe, get sick, and go grocery shopping just like theists. We experience the full range of human emotions that theists do. We are no more likely to be depressed, mentally ill, selfish, or unhappy than theists. We are your neighbors, your friends, your cow-orkers, and maybe even your family. Indeed, this particular agnostic atheist is a middle-aged, middle-class, minivan-driving cookie-baking, sweater-knitting stay-at-home suburban mom who's been faithfully married to the same man for 17 years. I am not a criminal. I am neither a libertine nor a libertarian. I am not an anarchist and I don't even believe in an antichrist.

I believe in tolerance, respect, and empathy. I believe that talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. I believe that hands that do are better than lips that pray. I believe that "Us versus Them" is a destructive and ignorant mentality.

YMMV, obviously.
 
DmKrispin said:
As to the "What next?" question posed in the OP:

....................< snipped, but noted >............................

I believe in tolerance, respect, and empathy. I believe that talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. I believe that hands that do are better than lips that pray. I believe that "Us versus Them" is a destructive and ignorant mentality.

YMMV, obviously.
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Well said DK!
 
DmKrispin said:
As to the "What next?" question posed in the OP:

Well, I've scheduled some rioting, pillaging, burning, looting, and raping for this afternoon ...
.
.
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I believe in tolerance, respect, and empathy. I believe that talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. I believe that hands that do are better than lips that pray. I believe that "Us versus Them" is a destructive and ignorant mentality.

YMMV, obviously.
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I don't know about Plumjam - but in today's world, with all the challenges a family faces to just get by, to raise well-adjusted children with good sense and a moral outlook - that would seem to be "what's next" for a lot of people.

How about it, Plumjam - do you have children? If not, How much free time do you think you will have to change the world when you do?

It seems to me that this post strikes at the heart of what is wrong with Plumjams OP. A normal life well lived can do more good then ten well-intentioned crusaders.
 
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