(September 8, 2012 at 11:07 am)Simon Moon Wrote:(September 8, 2012 at 8:41 am)greneknight Wrote: I am totally confused and I can't seem to fit into any category. I am a Christian, and quite devout too seeing that much of my life revolves round the church and I serve at the altar too. But I don't believe in anything supernatural. I don't accept the existence of ghosts either and I am totally without superstition. I will happily give and happily given bits of my hair and bits of finger nail to a friend who knew a voodoo practitioner but I'm not the least bothered about the supernatural because I'm so sure it's all bunkum. Just as I don't accept ghosts and fairies, I don't believe in a supernatural God either and along with that, I dismiss all the heavenly hosts and God's retinue of supernatural attendants. I'm ok with seeing God as a cultural metaphor just as angels must be metaphorical - I think even diehard fundies don't believe angels exist.
It appears my dismissal of anything supernatural is even more complete that that of some atheists and yet I'm a devout Christian. It's neater if you divide people according to church affiliations. Things become clearer then.
Do you have some sort of aversion to the term 'atheist'? Do you feel that if you call yourself an atheist, people will attach all sorts of negative baggage to you?
It doesn't really matter if you call yourself an atheist or not, by definition, you are an atheist.
As others have said, you may like the culture and the ritual of Christianity, but make no mistake, you are an atheist.
No aversion at all. I'm not American and so nobody will attach negative baggage to the term "atheist" in my country. In fact I think "atheism" is positive and I have respect for atheists. Everyone knows 93% of scientists in the Academy of Science (I think that's the name ---- it's the equivalent of the Royal Society) are atheists and there can't be any negative baggage there. The percentage is even higher in Britain and the rest of Europe. So as far as statistics go, you are more likely to be a duffer if you are a believer in the invisible man. Every village idiot in Europe is a Christian. The same goes for village idiots elsewhere. Every Arab village idiot is a Muslim and every Indian village idiot is a Hindu.
So there is no negativity for me. But it's just that I have to be honest. I am a Christian and my church regards me as a Christian. Reason is an important component in my church and we have Archbishops who don't believe in superstition too. As my vicar says, nothing I believe is new or revolutionary and has not been the position taken by some priests in my church.
It is true that if I were an RC, I would have left that filthy church long ago. The RC church has lost all moral right to call itself a church after its paedophile scandal. What is horrifying is not the fact of paedophile abuses by individual priests but the extensive cover-up and evasion of justice that goes all the way up to the Pope himself. The Pope doesn't care for the child victims. He himself was guilty of countless abuses - his refusal to remove old priests because they were his friends and when a priest is known to be a paedophile even by the prelates of that filthy church and he was told of it, he refused to remove him. That's how the priest in that school for deaf boys raped so many children. Even as early as the 1960s, the church enshrined rules to make it difficult for children to complain about paedophile cases. The children had to take vows of secrecy, etc on pain of excommunication. Nobody is allowed to complain to the police or to anyone outside a few designated priests. These rules have not been abolished by the Paedophile-protecting Pope who recently declared that the rape of children by priests is only as bad as the ordination of female priests. That's how evil and morally bankrupt the RC group is. To call them a church is to sully the good name of that word.
Deep down, I have a strong suspicion that all RCs are paedophile protectors. They've got to be if they don't stand up and denounce their paedophile-loving pope. I'm beginning to think that Polaris might be an RC. Polaris, tell me I'm wrong if indeed I am wrong. If you say you're not an RC, I will apologise for associating you with such an evil association whose members cannot help but be regarded as paedophile protectors.
