Atheist Propaganda Effectiveness

That reminds me of one of my favorite Kendra Bancroft quotes:

"Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke pot".

It's true! I was a devout Catholic til I bought a Chip Midnight skin

You're on to my insidious plan!!

Same here.. all Atheists I know are self-made including children of Atheist parents who took their children to church to let them make up their own minds.

But maybe that needs to change, Atheism should have a campain as strong as religion but we don't have a lottery to offer like life-everlasting

Should we go door to door?

Or maybe a simple phone campain.

"Stand by for a very important message from god!.... Hello... you have have.... no... messages"

No way... This board itself is a prime example of atheist propaganda. Look at the general attitudes towards the religious members here. There's this very strong underlying impression that if you believe in God, you must be a moron.

Hell.. there are people who post here and actually specifically STATE that.

What's funny, is that some of these people are generally from oppressed groups, who hold non-mainstream political views, or practice a homosexual lifestyle, or whatever.

It's both interesting and disturbing that these people practice the EXACT same type of intollerence here, that they themselves experience in the real world.

So, maybe it's that while being straight or being christian isn't something that's built into humans genetically, being a dickhead to people who are different than yourself seems to be.

funny... Atheists think the same of those who are religous.

Hmm, I should think my posts through more thoroughly, I've been posting a few sqiffy things recently. You're quite right about atheists deciding there is a god on their own, I was probably thinking about actual religions or something.

And, uh, I was assuming that Suezanne was using the word propaganda to sensationalise things a little and not intending it's exact meaning (hence the quotes).

How about an "Atheism: you don't go to hell for doing the things you like" campaign?

I no longer practice much as I believe I have become quite proficient at this point.

I arrived at atheism through a rather tortorus route. Grew up catholic, attended catholic school. Became disenchanted by the disconnect between the actual behavior of people attending church and the messages I'd learned from the church and the bible.

Then went searching for a better answer, including a Southern Baptist congregation, new age spirtalism, read the Upanishads, and a smattering of other religious and pseudo religious texts. I ended up squarely undecided about the existance of god.

Went to college where I got to have discussions with a wide variety of people and their beliefs, including atheists. Started attending services at a Unitarian Universalist church and realized that all religions have important lessons to teach us about good ways to live our lives. I further realized that these lessons are good regardless of the existance or non-existance of a god. Finally I realized that there is no god, we only invented one because we never realized that people can be good all on their own.

I believe in all of you, and that is a leap of faith greater than any other.

It may have had to do with a developmental stage, or something.

I have a serious question that you didn't answer in your post. What made you decide there is no God? Was it because some religious people were not nice, hypocritical etc? Or did you study something that made you come to a logical conclusion? I'm just interested in knowing what makes a religious person reject God.

I, like you, was raised Catholic. I rejected the faith early on, as I found the faith more concerned with my wallet than my soul. After searching for truth on my own, reading religious texts, traveling, sharing ideas with religious people and anti-religious people etc, I came to the conclusion God does exist, but He isn't Catholic, imho.

Once I separated the notion of a creator from the religious doctrines I learned I could seek Him directly, without a religion or denomination standing in the way. I truly believe much of religion is a tool used by the devil, satan, the dark side, whatever you wish to call it, to side track seekers. Many young people I have spoken with are anti-religious rather than anti-God.

Wow! A kindred spirit, indeed. I have long been a critic of organized religion while still espousing a belief in a Creator.

How can so many people be so sure of themselves *either way* without proof, when it's obvious that billions of other humans believe something completely contradictory with just as much surety?

Simple logic says that most of us Have to be wrong.

And history shows that the world just keeps turning anyway, regardless of what any of us think.

Those two points ought to humble anyone, but rarely do I see that happen.

I didn't "decide" that there's no god its more like I "realized" it. I started my spirtual journey because of the hypocracy I saw, but that wasn't what caused my unbelief.

I have no hatered of the Catholic church. It is a beautiful religion filled with tradition and history, it works for many many people and it does a lot of good in the world that would likely never get done otherwise. An aunt of mine is a nun in the church and her order ministers to the poor, the stories of the things she's seen and done to help others give me nothing but admiration for the Catholic church. Is it a perfect organization? No, I would certainly say not. Does it make me believe there's a god behind it? No, not that either.

Actually, Desmond's post just above sums up the reasoning pretty well.

The real question for me wasn't "how can there be a god when there's evil?", the thing that perplexed me for the longest time was "how can there be good if there is no god"? That's when I came to realize that the majority of the people in the world do hold religious beliefs, and all religions teach basically the same messages, yet they all have very different understanding of what god is. How could they all say so many things right, but disagree about something so central? The reason is because morals and ethics came first, they are survival adaptations that are central to allowing human beings to function successfully as a social species. The practice of religion and religious ceremony is a social act that binds groups together and helps them to function cooperatively. We invented the existance of god to justify our need for religion.

I don't have a hatered of religion, in fact, if I could belive in god, I would love to do it. Its very comforting to believe you have the answers and it makes life much easier. Overall, religion is good for people. I only really have a problem when a specific religion is forced on others.

Imagine a line of people at the top of a large cliff all wearing blindfolds. One by one the people are pushed off the cliff and freefall to the ground where they go "splat". But because they are blindfolded, they have no idea what is happening, all they know is a wonderful floating sensation and the rush of air around them that they can enjoy until that instant when they collide with the ground.

Now imagine someone who pulls up their blindfold on the way down and sees the ground rushing up to them. Suddenly you're filled with fear of what is going to happen. The only thing you can do is accept what is going to happen and try to get back to enjoying the fall. Once the blindfold is off and you know what is happening, its tough to put it back on.

I DO think religious beliefs are silly, illogical, and that blind faith in them is ignorant. I don't believe that or express it in order to insult religious people. It just is what it is. Your comments above demonstrate a strong bias against atheists with the typical stereotype that they're intolerant and cruel. Their disbelief (and expression thereof) is no more intolerant than others' expressions of belief. One of the ways that religion keeps its grip on society is by propogating the unfair notion that any expression of dissent is inherantly mean spirited (or "being a dickhead" as you so dickheadedly put it).

I don't think that being an atheist is inherently intollerant.

I merely beleive that many atheists are intollerant of others... As you say yourself, it's really no different than the intollerance of other religious groups.

While it's not directly caused by atheism, there are self proclaimed atheists on these boards who are the equivalent of religious zealots. They're hypocrites.

Thank you for your answer. But your answer left me wondering... what thing did you realize that made you come to the conclusion there isn't a God? Was it because people have different ideas of what God is? Or is it the fact religion is beneficial to man's survival, therefore it must be an evolutionary trend meant to increase survival rates?

I ask this because I don't understand how either one of those issues would lead one to logically concluding there is no Creator.

What I'm after is the rational for changing from a believer in a Creator to a believer in no Creator. I hope that doesn't come across wrong, I truly am interested.

Can I ask what lead you to logically conclude there is?

Sure.... it started as a child, as I looked at leaves, trees, bugs, people etc... I knew from experimentation complex things don't happen from randomness. I learned that no matter how many times I threw a deck of cards in the air, it never came down in a stack, much less in perfect order from Hearts to spades or from ace to kings.

Later I left my faith, rejected the Bible because of so many unanswered questions. Annd the faith seemed more interested in their new parking lot than the people who were seeking answers.

In my early 20s I found I could dwell on God without religion. The more I dwelled, the more I understood the reality, the fact I was, and that I knew I was, created a huge delema in my belief system. For me to logically assume anything about my conscience, it had to start with the assumption my conscience was far too complex to have come from an accidental bang. My very ability to ponder these deep issues, even as a child, lend credibility to the notion of a Creator.

So, basically I was forced to falsify my belief in a Creator. I sought out logical points that would offer evidence to the idea there was no creator.

The people who reject the notion of a creator mostly were people who has issues with the people within religions. Then there are some who actually argued points within the Bible to suggest it's wrong, which to them proves there is no God. The smallest group I spoke with was the ones who argued God can't exist because of the actions of man(evil, greed, hatred etc), or argued God must be proven before they can accept such a notion.

None of these arguments, or any others I didn't list, were sufficient to negate the positive side for a Creator. They were arguments about religion, not a Creator.

In the end, I am forced to believe in a Creator, from my sense of logic. If someone could prove my conscience is the result of an explosion then I would reconsider my logic. But right now it wouldn't be logical to accept the notion there is no Creator with the perfection of all there is, including my conscience.

What makes me snerk at the very idea of this thread is the forgone conclusion that you couldn't *possibly* have a belief system that *you* decided on your own. Either the Baptists converted you, or you bought into Atheist propaganda, or you grew up Catholic/Muslim/Jewish/Etc. Everyone is brainwashed...no one can think for themselves.

Y'know, for a group of people who believe in independent thought, we forum folk seem rather arrogant in our assumption that nobody actually practices it.

I believe that reasonable and intelligent people can come to different conclusions about faith and religion. I like to assume that as adults, we have thought long and hard about our cherished beliefs. I like to think that we all come to our belief systems by applying our rational minds to our life experiences.

So, I think we should not label other people's faith as silly or illogical. Sure, most of us *will* be wrong in our beliefs. But all of us have come to our set of beliefs because we have come to the conclusion that our particular set is most likely to be right. I just think we should respect that.

Basically, I find no reason to believe in a god and so I don't.

Maybe a better reason is: Why did I believe in god in the first place? That one is easier to answer: Because everyone else did. In other words, the same answer as one would give to the question: If all your friends were jumping off a bridge would you do that too?

This is why I lable myself "agnostic", because at least from my point of view it doesn't seem possible to prove that a higher power exists, or doesn't exist. I am a gemini and I like to second guess myself and play devil's advocate to my own viewpoints, to try to see both sides of the coin. Some days I'll have a strange set of circumstances make me think, "Someone or something out there has to be helping me out here or watching over me" - Sometimes life will kick me while I'm down again and again and just when I think, when I am SURE I can't take any more, things get better... And then some days I am thoroughly convinced that there is no design, no intelligence, and it's all in my head and I'm trying to rationalize away my fear of living in a cold, random, uncaring universe.

My answer to that question would be.... no!

Do you buy evolution? I guess there are a few parts here. There's so-called micro-evolution - that species change over time in response to what's going on in their environment, so-called macro-evolution - new species emerging when one species splits into two, and major changes over longer periods of times. There's also the problem of abiogenesis - how did the first life forms arise (one celled organisms, or even earlier self reproducing things), and finally how did human consciousness arise (and what it is etc.)

People are working on naturalistic explanations in all of these strands, some are currently more convincing than others. Personally, it seems to me that the explanations of how these things could have happened (without the need for divine intervention) will continue to get better and more reasonable, and the gaps in explanation, within which a god/creator idea can stake out territory, will keep getting smaller and smaller. I don't see any "irreducible" problems.