Atheist Propaganda Effectiveness

Oh... I was actually thinking that Roland was referencing the topic that Chip brought up somewhere about atheists having more trouble in life than other groups... Course, I could very well be wrong.

Is Roland religious (hence the right-wing thing)? I had the impression that he was not... But, again, I could be wrong there too.

And, why do we have to label them left and right wing? I hate the taste of fowl...

I don't know if he's religious or not although I can see how one would think that. The right-wing punditry and thinly veiled homophobia do correlate with one being religious.

~Ulrika~

Yes, actually I was referencing Chips claim that gays were actually better off and more accepted in our society than atheists.

I'm not religious myself. I don't believe in God, although I don't rule out the possibility.

I think it just confused Ulrika. Sorry about that.

Godless commie.

~Ulrika~

Being gay absolutely. I've never had an apartment manager not rent to me because I was Buddhist. But when he saw the nelly friend I brought along to view the place, all of a sudden all four available units were taken. But if I wore a shirt that said "Godless Buddhist" maybe I'd catch more flack.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they're better off or more accepted, but over the last fifty years they've done an excellent job of making people aware of their plight. Things are changing for the better and their issues are part of public discourse. That's really not the case with atheists. There's been very little change, and most of it's been losing ground rather than gaining it. These are bad times for both atheists and gays with the christian fundie right trying to change the US into a theocracy. I know more gays who are out than atheists, and I know more atheists than gays. Then again I'm much more aware of atheist issues because I'm involved in the atheist community directly.

Ya, this is kind of what I suspected (as I'm an atheist according to Chip, and I've never suffered any kind of persecution at all for it).

From what I've seen in society, gay people tend to catch a LOT more crap from society than atheists.

Perhaps they have succeeded more in getting their problems noticed by the media and society, but I think that a major reason for that is that they actually have MUCH bigger problems than atheists. I think saying the bigotry suffered by the two groups is the same (or even similar) is kind of trivializing the depth of bigotry regarding homosexuals.

RE: can intelligent people believe in god AND the sameness of wisdom traditions AND the individuality of beliefs (mostly Suze and Zuzu, I think)

There are qualities of human existence that cannot be measured or comprehensively defined or labeled, a mystery that becomes apparent whenever one looks into the nature of experience and asks Big Questions: What is this? What am I? What's going on here?

There are established paths for engaging with this Mystery, some addressing it as god or gods, others focusing on the process of engagement itself, but none of them are "right" or "wrong." Christianity doesn't disprove Buddhism or Secular Humanism any more than 1+1=2 disproves 5 minus 3. If one employs any of these belief systems while facing the central mystery, any of them can function to adress the experience of a human life.

My own view of monotheism is that, while it can be effective on an individual scale, the effects on society are unconscionable. History shows us that monotheism yields imperialism which yields endless war. What's worse about Christianity is that it has armageddon built right in, and I tend to think that if enough people clamor for the apocalypse, they might just get what they want.

Nice post Vudu.

For the record though, I don't belive in god. But I do think that religious teachings still have value. They were arrived at after long periods of trial and error and seem to work. So in a sense they survived a sort of "natural" selection process.

But of course the best part of your post is after I got to the bottom and saw the mention of Cthulhu in your sig.

What am I? I know I'm a godless capitalist pig who has liberal views and like what I sees in more Socialist countries as well as beinga a U.S. Army veteran who wishes for world peace and thinks killing is wrong as well as being a chess club geek and computer nerd as well as a muscle head jock in High School all at the same time. Where do I belong! I think only you the great Ulrika will know.