RE: Why do Atheists spend so much time debatng the existence of God?
October 2, 2013 at 8:43 am
(This post was last modified: October 2, 2013 at 8:43 am by max-greece.)
Number of reasons really:
1. Christianity and Islam in particular are very keen to convert anyone and also as an atheist we appear to be fair game. Also worth bearing in mind there are an awful lot of Christians and Moslems out there (with a wild variety of interpretations of things).
2. Religious mis-information and the dangers to education. I don't really need to expand on this - Intelligent Design in biology classes - really?
3. Religion varies from one individual to another and from one branch to another. Some accept science and that's fine - science continues. Some, however, don't and that's a problem because those people are extremely vociferous and can do real damage to our development.
4. Religion effectively was above criticism for hundreds of years. You could attack a man's politics and no-one turned a hair, but mention his faith and things got very sticky. Since 9/11 that has changed. Religion is now fair game, as it should be. You can believe what you want to - but if you put it out there expect to have to defend it.
5. Related to 4, above, atheists have largely remained silent throughout history. In previous times to be an atheist openly was to court death. Now that the gag has been removed you have to expect some over-exuberance from the newly free.
That'll cover it for now.
1. Christianity and Islam in particular are very keen to convert anyone and also as an atheist we appear to be fair game. Also worth bearing in mind there are an awful lot of Christians and Moslems out there (with a wild variety of interpretations of things).
2. Religious mis-information and the dangers to education. I don't really need to expand on this - Intelligent Design in biology classes - really?
3. Religion varies from one individual to another and from one branch to another. Some accept science and that's fine - science continues. Some, however, don't and that's a problem because those people are extremely vociferous and can do real damage to our development.
4. Religion effectively was above criticism for hundreds of years. You could attack a man's politics and no-one turned a hair, but mention his faith and things got very sticky. Since 9/11 that has changed. Religion is now fair game, as it should be. You can believe what you want to - but if you put it out there expect to have to defend it.
5. Related to 4, above, atheists have largely remained silent throughout history. In previous times to be an atheist openly was to court death. Now that the gag has been removed you have to expect some over-exuberance from the newly free.
That'll cover it for now.