RE: A Small Census
March 9, 2013 at 5:33 pm
(This post was last modified: March 9, 2013 at 5:39 pm by Simon Moon.)
(March 9, 2013 at 4:03 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Ok, I will answer the survey since someone asked me to:
1. What is your age? 27
2. Are you married? Kids? No
3. Are you angry or disappointed at "God"? No
4. Do you subscribe to hedonism? You mean comfort, pleasure and stimulation? I was a serious drug user when I was an atheist.
5. Are you an atheist because you want to be, without eternal consequences, sexually promiscuous? A drug addict? An alcoholic?
When I used to be an atheist, I had all sorts of intellectual justifications for atheism. I believed in a materialist worldview with no free will. I took science very seriously. I do not believe that sin was the only cause of my atheism, however I see that the nature of my sin caused me to consider some perspectives very seldomly and others take very seriously. I believed that I accepted atheism because of intellectual merits, but looking back I see that my survey of religion was completely biased and I had never really understood the Christian faith which I rejected.
6. Do you like "psychedelic" music? I used to heavily into indie rock / electronic music / some psychdelic movement. I would say that the drug music subculture contributed heavily to my atheism, as I see that it contributes heavily to to others here as I see a guy who is 15 with a name Phish talk about drug use and others post in an ecstasy thread about the rave scene. It is definately a part of the atheist movement. I think the purpose of the counterculture is to transmit left wing values and indoctrinate people in a left wing worldview when they are very young through using music. This is perhaps less in the rave scene than it was in the hippie and punk scene, but the political influence is still there (some of it is pure hedonism).
7. Was atheism "transmitted" to you from a "Marxist"? I was never a Marxist. I was into anarchism and Noam Chomsky at one point and later became a sort of moderate leftist / very liberal liberal. Few leftists that I know actually call themselves Marxists or Communists but of course Communism historically is the most successful left wing movement and exerts massive influence over all the child movements and related movements (such as anarchism) that it either inspired or went alongside.
8. Are you selfish? You mean all the time to the extent that I worry that I might not be normal? When I was an atheist, I used to steal from people and sell drugs and I did this believing that there was no morality and absolutely no reason for people to feel any moral constraints place upon them. I understand some atheists may respond to their socialization differently, I responded to mine by denying it placed any real constraints upon me and acted accordingly.
9. Is your "community" centered around pornography? Sexual immorality and pornography was a big part of my life when I was an atheist. I used to think about sex and talk about it all the time. I do not know if sexuality actually played a direct role in my experience of atheism as a teenager, but it certainly did as I got older, and caused me to backslide. I think that atheists sell atheism by consciously or unconsciously providing an environment where people are free from sexual taboos. I find this to be despicable, and a sign of a corrupt and evil academic culture.
10. Is your atheism a political statement? My atheism was connected to left wing politics. I read Mikhail Bakunin's (the Russian anarchist's) God and the State when I was 16 and thought that God and the state worked to symbiotically establish each other. I have seen Minimalist make similar arguments on this message board in the thread about Hugo Chavez, who of course is a well known leftist leader (interestingly a Christian, as some of the left is Christian).
11. Were you recruited into atheism by the promises of sex and drugs? No, I made a choice to follow athesim. But the way that the culture developed and the peoples desires that are involved and the way the culture turns a blind eye to all the people who die inside of it but shines a spotlight at the church and the government shows its soul: that it is more concerned with building a political movement than it is caring for the people inside its walls, and that it will neglect the care of those suffering in order to funnel more people into its politics. It is not direct, but it is what is inside of peoples hearts, there values, what is important to people.
WHAT IS WRONG ABOUT CARING ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL PROPAGANDA IN BRAINWASHING YOUNG PEOPLE? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY THE COMMUNISTS INVESTED IN THE 20TH CENTURY ON POLITICAL PROPAGANDA, ALL OVER THE WORLD? WHAT IS WRONG WITH POINTING THIS OUT?
Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Stephen J Gould - three of the most influential atheists of the 20th century, all leftists. There are thousands of radicals in higher ed who are atheists. Some of them are probably paid by Communist countries, others are independent leftists or Communists that have been convinced of their positions through interaction with Communist propaganda around the world.
If you think that caring about this makes you "brainwashed" YOU are the one who is brainwashed. The struggle between Communism and Capitalism worldwide was one of the most significant struggles in history, much more significant than the politics of Dennis Kucinich or Bernie Sanders or whatever Democratic Socialist organization or whatever you belong to. I am not a Marxist, I am this or that. Whatever. The fact of the matter is, leftist radicalism in the US and everywhere goes back to the methdical spread of Communist propaganda around the world. It was funded by the Kremlin in massive quantities, I am sure it is still being distributed by various Communist governments throughout the world. The Communists are probably one of the most aggressive propagandists in history.
You say that it is crazy to ask the question of the connection between Communism, Atheism and the counterculture? Look at how many posts on this message board have to do with left wing politics. How many have to do with drugs. How many have to do with obscure music. It doesn't matter if you are a card carrying member of CPUSA, you are influenced by the worldwide struggle between capitalism and socialism.
Atheism is certainly not simply "the absence of belief"
If you see a guy in a health food store with a tatoo that says something about the labor theory of value and has a crazy haircut and looks like a hippie, there is a reason that got that way. It wasn't through him simply reflecting on the truth of Marxism, the guy is 26. He has probably read a few hundred books in his life. He is pursuaded of someones propaganda.
If someone tries to make the pathetic strawman that "not all atheists are leftists, not all atheists use drugs" I am not going to respond because they know in their hearts that this is not the point I am trying to make and they are using dishonest propaganda methods to ignore the main point I am making, which is THAT A WHOLE HECK OF A LOT ARE, WAY WAY WAY HIGHER THAN AVERAGE TRADITIONAL AMERICAN CULTURE.
All you are doing here is talking about your personal behavior and the behavior of the group of people you were associating with. None of your bad behavior is 'atheist behavior', it is just bad behavior.
About 80% of the population of Sweden is atheist. Yet they have lower crime rates, lower drug use, much lower teen pregnancy rate than the US, even though the US has a much higher % of belief in a god.
How do explain that?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
