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Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 1, 2010 at 2:34 am
Hi again,
I read this article and thought this too would be interesting. It's an article on why atheist and agnostics are unfairly represented today in United States. I have to agree to most of it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/2...ncol;lst;2
I am only here to discuess issues with like minded people.... even if I do go off and rant, lol. I have my beliefs as anyone else but I also try and respect anyone who is not secular here as best I can without offense while trying to make a point. :-)
Bull Poopie
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" Letter to von Humboldt, 1813
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 1, 2010 at 2:51 am
It's hard to start off a serious discussion when I blatantly agree with everything that that article states.
One thing I found of particular interest was this:
Column: Atheists, Agnostics Unfairly Represented, CBS News: Politics Wrote:The most infuriating notion is that the U.S. was founded by Christians on Christian ideals. Nearly all serious studies of the religious preferences of the Founding Fathers conclude that they were fiercely secular. Most were deists or influenced by deists, who were equated with atheism and barbarism by most Christians at the time. This certainly is infuriating and the most blatant show of ignorance of history by the religious right in this country when they talk about the constitution, the founding fathers, and generally anything about this being some sort of 'christian nation' - either now or as if this nation was intended to be founded on Christian Ideals.
Absolutely and infuriatingly inane drivvel that deserves to be highlighted in the public eye as often as possible to counter the rampant stupidity that is broadcasted by people who talk about things on those terms.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 1, 2010 at 3:00 am
Ignorance and religion go together like stink on shit. You are never going to change that.
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 1, 2010 at 4:56 pm
That is so true but that means that in this country religion will always have the upper hand?  I like Thomas Jefferson for that one reason, one of the presidents. He was of course in the closet but he had his right beliefs about christians.
Poopie.
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" Letter to von Humboldt, 1813
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 1, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Xtianity is slowly dying in Western Europe. There is hope.
But the religious power brokers will never give up their collection plate too easily.
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 1, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Europe is slowly becoming free of bondage where I think america will never have that freedom. You are lucky
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" Letter to von Humboldt, 1813
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 1, 2010 at 7:12 pm
I answered the question in my mind before reading the article.
My answer?
We don't have a voice.
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 2, 2010 at 6:23 am
I agreed 100% with that article. I don’t live in the US, but from what I read on the intertubes plus what people on this very forum have said it sounds bloody awful.
Here in the UK if you tell someone you are and atheist they are more than likely to either not care or they are also atheist. In the area I live it’s the religious nut jobs who are the exception not the norm. Round here really religious people tend to be view as either quaint old fashioned types or if they are really militant in their beliefs they are viewed with open suspicion.
It terrifies me what is happening in America right now. The country that put men on the moon, has made some of the greatest scientific discoveries in human history seems to be sliding towards theocracy. Its like they way Europe was 200 years ago…..
"A man who keeps one eye on the past is blind in one eye. A man who ignores the past is blind in both."
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 2, 2010 at 12:16 pm
(September 2, 2010 at 6:23 am)AnunZi Wrote: It terrifies me what is happening in America right now. The country that put men on the moon, has made some of the greatest scientific discoveries in human history seems to be sliding towards theocracy. Its like they way Europe was 200 years ago…..
As an American I can easily say that it scares me too, but movements as bad as this and worse have come and gone over the years before people start doing the next big thing. Honestly, this is probably considerably less worse than times like Mcarthyism back in the 40s and 50s.
But times are tough over here right now, so there's a lot of angst against everything right now and these situations always give rise to the crazies.
Though I could easily be wrong and in a few years planning on moving to another country as soon as the shit hits the fan, but it'd have to be pretty bad for that.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Why Atheist and agnostics are misunderstood in America today.
September 3, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Atheists are scapegoated in America, in general for the same reasons why any group is scapegoated: to distract from the real issues.
Hate is cheap. You don't need to have any results as long as you incite fears of the other. It worked for Irish for Italian for Oriental for Catholic for Mexican for Muslim.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
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