Why Atheism?

[naomi24]

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” Isaac Asimov

[naomi24]

DT, //The divorce rate in the USA is lower for atheists than any other religious group.//

Just a point of order. Since Atheism is not a religion the word “other” in your post was superfluous to requirements. That said, thank you for the statistics. Perhaps the lower rate of divorce among atheists is due to lack of pressure. One Christian wife I know tells her Christian husband every time he swears, “God’s watching you”.

Back to the question. Who here among those who claim religion can honestly, hand on heart, say they’ve read the bible without pre-conceived ideas? Grasscarp? Cannedgranny?

[beso]

goodlife //Even among the most “primitive,” that is to say, undeveloped, civilizations, there is found evidence of worship of some form. //

So religion is a stone age mentality then. Is continuing with irrational stone age practices something to be proud of?

[DTCwordfan]

I had realised that, naomi....

Obviously we are dealing with sampling here too rather than census data, so all the usual statistical variances apply. There are other studies out there but most of them are guesstimates. Agnostics came in at 10 as well, so that takes care of the 'crossover' possibility on that one - i.e. those wobbling atheists.

[naomi24]

DT, //I had realised that, naomi....//

Ha ha! Thought you might have. Just saying. :o)

[beso]

My anti-religious activity is aimed at ending the influence of religion in public policy. I am sick of their stone age beliefs.

[andy-hughes]

Grasscarp - "Andy you say that for the vast majority of atheists, religion is a matter of supreme indiffference, they don;t care about religion, or those who follow it, they are simply not bothered.
Not true on Answerbank - in the Religion & Spirituality section. Atheists start many threads and are far from being indifferent and not bothering.
They care very much about religion from what I see."

Hardly a representative sample is it?

You could turn up at a premier league football match and assume that everyone there is really interested in football - which is true, but they don't represent the entire population of football fans do they?

Debating on a specific section of a website does not mean that all atheists are intererested in debating religion - just those who wish to debate it here.

[naomi24]

Grasscarp, //"Andy you say that for the vast majority of atheists, religion is a matter of supreme indiffference, they don;t care about religion, or those who follow it, they are simply not bothered. //

////Not true on Answerbank - in the Religion & Spirituality section.////

I’d like to pick up on that. I think you’ll find it is true on AnswerBank. I’d hazard a guess that there are rather a lot of atheists here who can't be bothered to contribute to R&S.

[andy-hughes]

Naomi - I must admit I fight shy of trying to debate with goodlife - he's like most religious people with their 'I have something you need' superiority, trying to get him to answer a straight question is like plaiting fog!!

[starone]

I agree entirely. Isaac Asimov was perfectly right. However, there are some good stories in the Bible and they make fantastic films. Accent on the word fantastic! which I hope carries the implication of unbelievable.

[naomi24]

andy-hughes. Goodlife knows. ;o)

[grasscarp]

Back to the question. Who here among those who claim religion can honestly, hand on heart, say they’ve read the bible without pre-conceived ideas? Grasscarp? Cannedgranny
Naomi, there was no question other than Why Atheism? And a quote from Asimov. Why single us out?

[FrogNog]

Grasscarp, you can't have claimed to read the bible in that light either. Your view of it is etched into your religious beliefs. Nobody of religion seems to notice that all other christian religions believe the same, only in different quotes.
Why atheist? as i got older it became more ridiculous to me. I was unlucky, or maybe lucky enough to nearly die and all the religious people said it was when I would pray for my life. I didn't.
That's when my stance was confirmed.
I don't believe in god and no amount of literature will convince me otherwise.

[Answerprancer]

Religious fanatics usually assume that their viewpoint is the 'default' but afaic non-religion ("atheism") is the default and the onus of proof of the accepted existence of "higher beings" and their entourage rests with the religists.
I don't think that the non-worshiping of a "higher being" deserves the suffix "ism", religion is the "ism" not non-religion.
(I'm playing 'devil's advocate' here btw).

[DTCwordfan]

Morning all, dank and dreich again out there.....water man coming today 'sometime' to conduct the water leak detection, even though I know where it is within 3 metres....oh well. The issue will be if they call me on the mobile which they are yet to do despite 3 requests now....anybody know if BT have a forwarding code for moving the landline to the mobile (and to cancel)?

[DTCwordfan]

got that one wrong! Apologies

[naomi24]

Grasscarp, //Why single us out?//

Why not? This is a discussion. Cannedgranny agreed with you, so I’ve asked you both a question that I feel is relevant.

‘Good morning, DT’. Wakey, wakey! :o)

[grasscarp]

Frognog - "Grasscarp, you can't have claimed to read the bible in that light either. Your view of it is etched into your religious beliefs"
Pardon? What light? II made no claim. You know nothing about my views or my beliefs.

Naomi - sorry but I learnt already that you don't do "discussion" it becomes a tedious and never ending thread in which you have to have the last word. I invariably come away from it thinking it was a waste of time.

[naomi24]

Sheesh!

[Clanad]

Well spoken grasscarp... I've experienced being birdlimed to the point of rarely visiting this thread.
At least Eddie51 understood my attempt at countering the usually sucinct Chris...