Atheists who attack Christianity

I don't know the ultimate truth, I know there is no god. Thats is not the same thing. There is a possibiity that middle-earth exists, and there is a possibility the sky will turn to lime jello tomorrow, yet it is possible for me to know neither of these possibilities is true.

God is like the sky turning to Jello-as a matter of truth, it is impossible. There simply is no room in the cosmos for a divine, transcendent intelligence. At one point, god served as a convenient illusion to explain the world and provide a system of ethics. Some people still cling to this illusion. I respect thier faith, if being christian aids you for a time in your path to enlightnement, then so be it. I am not telling you to not be christian.

Nor do I attack christians and christianity in the same way they attack, and have attacked practicioners of my faith, and the core politcial and judicial values of my country. I sumiply say thier beilef in god is misguided attachments to illusion. One can also be overly attached to a tomato.

God is not necessary to explain creation, to be spiritual, or to provide a system of ethics. People have accomplished these things all on their own, without resorting to the christian god. Yet christians regularly say the only path to salvation is through jesus christ, thus, once you are a christian, you are inherently caliming to know the "ultimate truth". I simply refute that.

See my argument about the sky turning to jello, Just because something is the realm of possibility..i mean it is possible that under all that dust, the moon is made of green cheese..does not mean it can not be categorically denied.

There is about as much evidence for the existence of god as ther is for the moon being made of green cheese, and thus I am well within reason to simply say that god does not exist. I accept the posibility that I might be proven wrong..and thus it is up to somome to prove my assertion wrong. I can safely say it is not going to happen.

In nterms of beleive, I am absolute. The possibility of a divine, transcendent being simply does not exist in buddhism. At the very best, a buddhist would say everything is god and god is everything, but god would be what is, not a transcendent being.

I would please ask you to study buddhism and all its form before you marginalise its cosmology as "Meh you come back as a butterfly until you get it right. No Biggy." Clearly you lack even a rudimentary knowleged of Buddhism.

I may have arrived at a point where i deny the christian god, but I am well versed in the principles of the christian faith.

Buddhism is a religions practice, but does not involve worshipp of a transcendent divien entity as part of its practice. If you need a god to have a religion, buddhism is not a religion. But if you speak of religion as a system of practices the provide a metaphysical and ethical foundation for beleifs, then buddhism is a religion.

You can ask a lot, but you might not get it. I've actually studied Buddhism quite a bit, I wasn't marginalizing, I was being pithy. There is a difference.

Either way the end result is the same... endless splintering into sects that stand in opposition to each other and become a justification for conflict and rejection of humanist principles. Any time people place allegience to something intangible over allegience to their fellow man it leads to trouble. It makes people more tribalistic and more susceptible to manipulation by leaders with tribalist agendas. People seem more willing to turn a blind eye to injustice when it's done in the name of god. Is it really about a personal relationship with a deity or is it more about the comfort of being part of a herd and having choices made for them?

It's not so much the mythology itself I have a problem with (though I do have problems with most of them). It's that kind of thinking that I find so disturbing; That willingness to surrender rationalism to an artificial salve of self-aggrandizement through group membership. A good example would be what's going on now in this country as people seem to thoughtlessly give away their civil rights, or to deny them to others, and give tacit approval to barbarism (invasion, "collateral damage", torture) in the name of nationalism. That's a form of relgious fundamentalism. It works by exactly the same mechanics.

It seems all our leaders have to do is preach the feel good belief that we live in the greatest nation on earth and that we're some kind of beacon of hope and righteousness and the resultant religious fervor puts rational thought to sleep to disasterous result. I see no difference between American flags on people's cars and Jesus fish... they are badges of tribal affiliation... excuses for people to divide and through those divisions feel superior without doing anything to actually justify it (obedience over deeds). I know that's not a complete or completely fair summation because religious people do a great deal of good in the world through charity and altruism. I just find it impossible to ignore the more negative aspects that are common to all such systems of belief.

Perhaps I'm just the world's biggest cynic because I can't see surrendering one's self to a higher power as anything other than becoming a tool to serve ultimately selfish agendas, even when the dogma of the tribe is one of selflessness. In every case that ends up being just window dressing that hides something far less palatable.

I wish I had the time to respond in more detail to your posts, Chip, because I do agree with a lot of what you have to say. Usually what I object to is your absolutism. "All such systems of belief", for instance. The act of submitting to the will or judgement of another is not common to all religions. Many insist on you examining things for yourself.

I do think you'd find much of interest in the Zen or Taoist ways of looking at the world.

Oh, I definitely do. I actually find a lot to like about them, and Buddhism too. When I rant about relgion I'm mainly talking about Abrahamic monotheism because that's what I've spent my life immersed in and am most impacted by.

Pithy..if that what you call it....

Effete platitudes may well be closer.

Well Ulrika, you raised good points in support of the notion that Jesus, did not exist. I will conceed he did exist, because if there is no god, then the question of jesus' existence is academic.

I mean we can also debate the existence of marius the baker in ancient pompeii.

It may well be, conceptually, were it an alternate universe and an alternate me speaking, but since it isn't, such is not the case.

Starting off with the original statement...So, not only certain atheists but also certain Christians. The problem is mutual, and pretty much even (per person). Occasionally some on one side accuse the other side of having it worse, which only serves to further heat up the debate.

What amazes me is the inability that a whole lot of people (on both sides) everywhere (definitely including here) have in arguing their perspective (on religion, politics, or whatever) calmly and with respect. To be fair, I sometimes surprise myself too by slipping up and saying something inconsiderate.

I think the trouble simply is that, while we all have the freedom to stand up for our beliefs, some overstep rational boundaries by complaining that their right way must be signed into law. It's clearer how Christians are doing this, which I find is not only because of their commonness in America, but because it's clearer how their ideas are part of some big Right Path they follow. So, typically what happens is that a group of atheists speak up in response to a Christian idea, complaining with equal passion that they're tired of this right way (a few being understandably irritable due to past experiences with overzealous religious teachers). The argument can also start with an atheist tired of religious themes, such as use of the word "God" in such places as US coins. This turns into a clash between the 'unnecessary placement of God in government' and the 'needless attack on all of theism'.

I'm sure there's no small reply I can make to calm the whole debate, but at least I can remind my fellow Christians how Jesus taught us to behave. Love your neighbor, even if he is your enemy. Offer God's way to the unknowing, but if they do not accept it, leave them be.

Oh byt read your quote again..it is a platitude about buddhism, and not even accurate. And it is one that is used quite often, and to my ears, effete. You might find yourself witty, but that may well be a solitary path.

My wit is singular, but I'm comfortable with that. But, no, I wasn't trying to be witty. I stand by the statement of "pithy", and I chose a commonly used statement, knowing it was at best vastly oversimplifying a very complex belief system, precisely for that reason.

The problem is, you were not, in fact being pithy. To be pithy is to cut simply to the heart of a matter. Buddhism is not "comeback as a butterfly until you get it right" in its core form. That is like saying christianity is "go to church every sunday until you die and get to heaven." Its inaccurate and charicaturistic.

to be Pithy is to be tersely cogent, and well your stament was wrong, not cogent. All the substance and point you might have wished to be present in the statment was stolen away by the funademental inaccuracy of the statment.

In short: to be Pithy you must also be correct.

Not quite. Pithy can also refer to sardonic statements.

Um no. Pithy and sardonic are entirely different concepts. You were attempting to be sardonic, meaning disdainfully humorous. I did not find it so, but others might, so lets say you were sardonic (i think skeptically humorous might work too for sardonic).

But pithy is not sardonic, though would could be both pithy and sardonic at the the same time. If you are looking for a synonym for pithy, it would be concise...though Pithy implies a certain wisdom.

I invite you to the dictionary if you'll not accept my word.


However to vaguely make an effort to bring this thread back on topic, I do not think it is the atheists who attack christians. Rather we are day to day under a christian assault in this country to drive out those who are godless heathens, like myself.

We debate the teaching of the christian creation myth as part of school science, when it is not a generally accepted scietific theory. We do not debate teaching the greek creation myth in school, the eqyption one or the hindu one. Yet as an athieist I do not say the bible stories have no place in in school: the bible is part of the core canon of western thought, and it should be taught in every humanities class. But don't call it science.
Yet the christains want it elevated to science, at the expense of time spent teaching the real science.

As a Buddhist I am morally opposed to abortion, but I don't believe my choices should be imposed on others, yet the christians want to reverse the womans right to chose the medical proceedures a woman uses on her body. Thus they would eneact a law that makes thier morality everyone's morality, and this would deny an atheist woman her right of choice.

If you want to teach eithics, do it in the church and home, not the court room. The failure is not in the law and medicine, the failure is in the home. The cristians would pass laws that plce thier god in charge of my country. They relate again and again how the USA is a christian nation, under god. Does this mean that if I am an athiest non-christian I cannot be an american? Why are my family values not represented in discussion regarding "family values." I am marginalized as a "Godless liberal."

Why do I have to live in a nation wheree free speech is compromised because janet jackson's boobie is offensive to puritan christian snesibilites? Why do I have to live in a nation where the attorney general puts curtains over the statue of justice, because justice is a bare breasted woman? I like breasts, I think we should see more of them, but the christain don't like them and thus they pass laws and demand tougher enforcement to coincide with thier values.

Thus the way I see it, the christians are not under attack..they are launching an all out assault on everyone else. And when the assault meets resistance, they get up on that big ol martyrs cross and whine about how they are being attacked. Hell I have never felt we should kick the christians out of america, but they cannot say the same about thier position on athiests.

Pithy is a funny word. By itself it has almost no definition, if you look it up in a dictionary. The most common definition is something like "a forceful and brief comment" (Varies by dictionary, obviously). I'll accept Sardonic as being a possible interperation of pithy, because I often see pithy used to mean just that, but I wont argue the point - fine, I was sardonic. Either way, my point stands, since I chose the word pithy long after my comment was made: My phrase was deliberatly chose, not out of ignorance.



But you would agree, I would think, that some laws are nessasary for a healthy functioning of society, right? I think its unrealistic to ask people to completely seperate themself from what, by your own admission, makes up a core of their belief system. To most christians, abortion and murder are /exactly the same thing/, and no, to them, it is not something that can be explained away by semantics. But would you say a law against murder is unfairly imposing someones morality on another?



Your looking at the extreme elements, though, just like Kevn is looking at the extremist athiest elements.

Ooh. Cool name for a band, the "extremist atheist elements". We'd rock on accordians.

~Ulrika~

Those extreme elements happen to control all three branches of government. That would tend to indicate that they're not extreme but in fact mainstream.

I have an accordian, but I'm not an athiest. Where does that leave me?

Naahh, the mainstream doesn't waste time with dubious activities like trying to take over the world.

Not really.

First of all, I would argue the "extremists control all three branches" thing, but thats an arguement for another time...

But leaders of a country, even in a democraticly elected system, do not mean that a majority supports all their views. I disagree with bush on a lot of things, but I still voted for him. And no, not because he was the republican canidate, I vote for democrats quite frequenetly (Never yet for president, but not because of any fundamentaly reluctance to). Hell, I know athiests, agnostics, etc who voted for Bush. There are reasons for a persons vote beyond agreeing or disagreeing with their religious views.

One day we even might hope to rise to the level of The Leningrad Cowboys

Scale that down for petes sake, Zulu!

Only if you spell my name right