At least you believe in the power of prayer to actually do something...instead of..you know...doing it.
Unveiling of Atheism Monument in Florida is a f*cking mess :russ:
- Thread starter Julius Skrrvin
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At least you believe in the power of prayer to actually do something...instead of..you know...doing it.
but...keep rocking... 
This is just stupid on your behalf.
Religious organizations don't do those things. Charitable organizations do.
You don't need to be religious to engage in altruistic acts.
Because all you're really saying is that ORGANIZED GROUPS do these things. Religion has nothing to do with it.
Yeah, ALL religious monuments are 'silly'.......
Silly in what the represent, beautiful in execution...sometimes.
Brown_Pride
All Star
Mr. Somebody
Friend Of A Friend
At least you believe in the power of prayer to actually do something...instead of..you know...doing it.
That monument wouldnt be anywhere near me friend. Believe that like things that are true as in facts that are factual like things backed by undeniable evidence. Feel like nerve endings, friend?
You must not be following. the link was posted that to say that an atheist group is a charity. That so called atheist charity group has something called minsters?? So I was just curious about that shyt.
However, religious groups do - do those things. Muslims are required to do them and most other religious organizations participate and encourage some type of charity or community service.
The vast majority of charitable groups and groups that travel the world helping the needy are religious. I don't have an exact %, but I'm going to guess that its damn near 100% of them have religious backing.
It's true that You don't need to be religious to engage in altruistic acts, but we were discussing organizations, and I was just asking a simple question.
So don't pose your initial question in such a dubious and underhanded light.
You know exactly what you were doing.
Nothing you've said is relevant.
If people choose to be Christians, then they're welcome. But Atheists are making a monument to the idea that they may be free from compulsory belief. Throughout history, religious rules have been foisted on people either through explicit government law or through extreme social pressure. The idea that someone can't force any religion on you is an idea worth commemorating.
You're engaging in the typical anti-Atheist doublespeak; confusing the argument and pretending like all Atheists want to do is "not conform."
The idea that man does not "need" to be bound to a set of unprovable religious superstition in order to live a health moral life is relatively new. Many people, including myself, find it to be an empowering idea worth celebrating. It heralds a rich history of advancing philosophy, the sciences, and general human knowledge, for no sake other than the beauty of man's endless pursuit of knowledge.
There's really, REALLY no reason to call it "silly" unless you just don't like Atheists. In that case, you'd be playing into the same religious biases that make Atheism an appealing choice in the first place.
Again....still waiting for a good reason as to why this monument is "silly."
Brown_Pride
All Star
so you accuse me of double speak while saying atheism is a new idea with a rich history? Explain how something is NEW with a rich history?
anyhow that's more a semantic game.
Like i said i really don't care either way, believe what you want, i've no horse in your race so your choices are on you. My comments were directed mostly at your assumption that Christians haven't made a choice, a choice they base in reason.
You're an idiot. I said it was RELATIVELY new. As in, it is new relative to all of human history. As in, it's been around for only a couple hundred years as opposed to thousands of years. That doesn't mean it doesn't mean it the history behind it isn't rich.
They can make a free choice to be religious all they want, but:
a) The choice isn't based on reason. It's based on faith. It's not possible to base religion in reason.
b) They should be legally prevented from imposing their religion on anyone or anything, including (and especially) the government, because faith-based government is always and forever a terrible idea.
Brown_Pride
All Star
fair enough
It's based in belief, which can be extremely real to those who experience certain things. No it cannot be based on quantifiable evidence in many cases but the experience again can be real as all hell. So their "reasons" for their choice are reasonable, if only to them. And because of those reasons it is logical in that you are able to trace the logic of their choice. But no, you can't quantify faith, nor can you prove faith, doesn't mean you can't explain it...logically even.
agreed.
Ironically if people actually stopped and asked themselves WWJD, i seldom think the response would be, "lobby government at various levels to force Christianity on people not ready or willing to allow God into their lives"
...except you CAN'T explain it logically. As the great Bertrand Russell once said, "Where there is evidence, no one speaks of 'faith'. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence."
A person can have certain experiences, and use those experiences to rationalize beliefs, but that doesn't make his premises reasonable. I passed out and saw a light the end of a tunnel. Does that mean God is real? Does that mean Jesus is real? Does that mean my brain was just ODing on dopamine?
I can have a freak car accident right now and rationalize to myself that the only reason I survived was God.
But that doesn't make my faith in God reasonable.
....and again, I still see no good argument for why a monument to Atheism is silly.
Brown_Pride
All Star
Which is why i said reasonable. If you have a near death experience and see that light and that light tells you to do something; when you come to and do that something it's reasonable as to why you did it. You can trace the logic behind the action. Now you can't say that your motive nor how you used your experience to arrive at your "logical" conclusion make sense but they action itself is logical based on your experience.
If someone says believe in nothing or you die. And you believe in nothing for that reason you can trace the logic and reasoning behind that.
Emotions are not quantifiable, but they are real are they not? What's the reason for denying they exist by saying they hold no weight in making decisions?
Denial of emotion is like denying half of yourself exists, there's nothing logical about that to me.
Let's talk about experience....
I had a dream in high school that i was turning in this large paper that was due, it was like 75 pages right. In the dream when I turned it in the level of stress in my body went down, so much so that when I woke up it took me a good 5 minutes to realize that I'd only had a dream about turning in that paper, in actuality i think I had like 2 pages done.
Now personally i experienced turning in that paper that night. I confirmed this on the actual day i turned the paper in because when I handed it over to the teacher I had the same release of stress. I experienced turning in the paper twice.
Faith in God can be reasonable, just not provable.
See this? This right here is the problem.
I said that "Faith could not be grounded in reason." And it can't.
You're saying that "faith can be reasonable" which is to say that you can sympathize with people who have faith.
But that doesn't mean that anyone can ground religion in reason. It just means that they can come up with rationalizations to support their faith.
No one is telling people to "deny emotions." But the bottom line is that you cannot ground religion in reason. You can ground empirical conclusions in reason. You can ground 2+2 in reason. You CANNOT ground religion in reason. Period. It's faith. At some point, it always becomes 100% faith.