Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: December 22, 2024, 4:58 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
I work for a church and I can't stand it any more.
#21
RE: I work for a church and I can't stand it any more.
(December 25, 2014 at 8:23 am)strawdawg Wrote: I've always held the opinion that atheist were like drug addicts, the weakest of the weak. If you want to believe in polytheism then the children of a lesser god.
That sounds a bit like "I always thought that the people who don't believe as I do are flawed in some way." For a very long time, my only impression of atheists was a very short clip on a TV show sometime in the 1970s or very early 80s. It was of a talk show where they would get the guests in three or four seats next to one another. In the clip I saw, an atheist was standing over a theist and shouting "god doesn't exist, and if you're too stupid to understand that, then it's your problem" and stomping off the stage. So for the longest time, atheists to me were very angry and irrational people who used rage to mask their fear of the truth. Religious people, of course, like to feed those perceptions, so until I got to know some actual atheists that is what I believed about them.

It's tempting to put people into groups and categorize groups very narrowly. It's one of the ways that our brains help us to sort through lots of information-- by simplifying some of it to an extreme. It's one of the things that makes it very difficult for societies to overcome certain prejudices. We do it to people of various races, religions, political affiliations, and so on. When we are a part of the group in question, our desire to reject such restrictive labels allows us to view the group more comprehensively. Your view is --as mine was-- a convenience that has a side effect of confirming a bias that is not true for the group.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."

-Stephen Jay Gould
Reply



Messages In This Thread
RE: I work for a church and I can't stand it any more. - by Tonus - December 25, 2014 at 9:10 am

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Church sex abuse: Thousands of paedophiles in French Church zebo-the-fat 8 1594 October 7, 2021 at 1:49 am
Last Post: Rev. Rye
  Missionary work, proselytizing Figbash 6 1373 July 30, 2021 at 7:43 pm
Last Post: Brian37
  Sinning, as Jesus and the church say, is good. Turn or burn Christians. Greatest I am 71 8363 October 20, 2020 at 9:11 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Pope Francis condemns child sex abuse and Church cover-ups zebo-the-fat 23 4494 August 20, 2018 at 5:33 pm
Last Post: Pat Mustard
  Pennsylvania Church asks couples to bring in their AR-15's so they can bless the guns Cecelia 63 12487 March 17, 2018 at 7:30 am
Last Post: Gawdzilla Sama
  Money raising through child work Der/die AtheistIn 12 4055 December 11, 2017 at 3:08 pm
Last Post: Neo-Scholastic
Big Grin Texax High school students stand up to Atheists: Zero Atheists care Joods 16 3786 October 23, 2017 at 1:55 pm
Last Post: Minimalist
  And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. vorlon13 14 3476 August 1, 2017 at 2:54 am
Last Post: ignoramus
  If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink vorlon13 11 3121 August 1, 2017 at 12:25 am
Last Post: ignoramus
  And Yet, They Work For A Fucktard Like Ham Minimalist 22 3876 July 18, 2017 at 3:50 am
Last Post: The Valkyrie



Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)