(May 2, 2015 at 10:40 am)mbk734 Wrote: I grew up exposed to several religions and also found Charles Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Sam Harris (End of Faith). There are many atheists that don't speak up around their religious friends so they don't offend them. After all, there is freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion in the USA. I am somewhat torn because some of the nicest people I know are Christians that volunteer, help the homeless, etc. However, most of the smartest people I know are atheists. I think it is the radical people in any religion or political group that are harmful. Ultra conservative Republicans, ultra liberal democrats, radical Islam, etc. But I wonder if militant atheists are bad or religion is worse. It seems as though young people are more secular than previous generations and atheists are on the rise. It will be interesting to see how things progress with the Vatican, Radical Islam, and Israel in this century.
Are you a quiet, respectful atheist, or a militant atheist out to show people how wrong and harmful religion is?
Wow, and people said my poll on a previous thread was too simplistic and boring.
I'm not quiet and respectful all of the time, sometimes for example I will tell Christians I think the story of Adam and Eve is stupid and a blatant myth and that I can't take their beliefs seriously.
On the other hand I'm not always like that, I've worked with Muslims and Christians who told me about their beliefs and I didn't mock them for it.
On the other hand I'm not out to kill Christians or aggressively in pursuit of an argument with them.
I think I could become militant if I was faced with theocratic militant aggression I can't imagine being a pacifist when faced with conflict like that.
It pretty much works the same ways with arguments and debates, in person in my leisure time or work time I'm not very argumentative about religion, but if it was someone on the street who wanted a debate, or someone posted extraordinary religious claims on here or on another public forum I would argue aggressively to get my point across if I thought the claims they were making were bullshit.
Anyway to cut a long story I short I didn't vote either quiet or militant.
Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.
Impersonation is treason.
