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How do you respond to: "Are you against religion?", "Are you against Christmas?"

I was asked by an Xtian if I decorated for Christmas.

When I answered "NO" - I got the questions I have heard before.

"Are you against Religion? Are you against Christmas."

(Religion is bad - so yes I am against religion)

Any of you here get these same questions?

How do you handle them?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mathew T. on January 28, 2013 at 2:43pm

"I think also that if more people read their holy books,then perhaps we would see a surge our way."

Completely agree. I really, TRULY believe that if everyone read through the entire bible without any sort of pastor or vicker to spoon-feed them their personal bullshit spin, many more would lose faith. Some of the most devout christians I know have so little actual knowledge of the biblical texts or history, that they embarrass themselves with their own certainty about God.

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Permalink Reply by Humble Pie on January 28, 2013 at 3:57pm

It's clearly the reason I am here. One of my Christian school classmates said, upon finding out that I was an atheist, "But _______, you know the Bible better than any of us!" They set themselves up for my reply.

"Yeah, that's why I'm an atheist."

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on January 28, 2013 at 4:28pm

Perfect response.

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on January 28, 2013 at 5:49pm

Peter N

Respect individuals means very much to me. I, however do not respect nor will I remain silent in the face of delusions or denial or lies. Silence is not and never has been the answer to tyranny.

Not be antagonistic? That is exactly what I want to be; I want to antagonize those who face me with words that make no sense. No, I have no interest in war paint and hunting scalps because I am not of that character.

My intent is to be specific, clear, articulate, accurate and rational; not to hide behind silly words or veiled meanings.

No, we are not going to change things overnight. The Stone Age didn’t end because humans ran out of stones; they used their minds and bodies and behaviors to move into the Neolithic Age and the Bronze Age and Iron Age, etc. Were there people trying to prevent them from moving into a new Age? I suspect so. Maybe not. However, with Homo sapiens development, came the inquiring mind, the inventive spirit, the risk taking adventure. None of them waited for permission or asked for authority to move on.

Should the burning times return there are enough human beings who know the evil of such values and resist the impulse to be victims of ignorance.

Honor? There is no honor in remaining silent and doing nothing in face of domination.

Peaceful? When has humankind benefited by exploitation?

Accepting others with different beliefs? Of course each person is entitled to his or her beliefs even as not all beliefs exist as equal.

Giving in to positions of power never, in all history, has been the strategy for survival. Never has and never will be. Even the animal kingdom does not gain by giving in; animals learn how to hide, run, sting, fly, or outsmart other animals.

Who cares about decorations, or displays, or folly, or bowing down in submission to some other or those who relinquish thinking to another or to a dogma our of the Stone Age? That is not what this is all about. These are trivial matters of no consequence.

Creating cognitive dissonance is what I am about. I want people to think before they feel their way and mine into oblivion.

Oh, my dear friend, religion IS the problem. It suited human thinking until we could replace such thinking with new information, new understanding, new knowledge. As we learned, we discarded crutches and mind-binders and moved on with evolution. It is not “just” a theory; it is a theory that explains existence far better than any bible verse or Qur’an verse I ever read.

Abusing priests and ministers did not just happen; they were created by faulty thinking, errors in reasoning, laziness of action, evilness of intention. To call such attitudes and behaviors as “thorns in the flesh”, insults human potential. They discredit human ability to rise above behavior of beasts into what it truly means to be human.

Homo sapiens, the reasonable animal;

Latin hom, man + Latin sapins, wise, rational, present participle of sapere, to be wise.

Peter, I respect your challenge to me and value your input. I appreciate your gentle nature, in fact, these problems need people such as yourself to grease the skids. I, on the other hand, have something to say, I have a history that affirms my thinking and actions and I honor that about me.

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Permalink Reply by Austin Peters on January 28, 2013 at 6:34pm

I think religion is a joke in my world, so yes I'm against it.
"I don't care what you believe in as long as you don't push it on others"- Richard Dawkins

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Permalink Reply by Nicole Keys on January 28, 2013 at 8:58pm

I tell them that Christmas was hijacked and started out as a pagan holiday. so yeah, I decorate a tree and give gifts but I don't say it's in celebration of their god's birth. I celebrate holidays because they have other meanings for me. The theists don't understand that. They think they own the day...they don't.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Michael Pennington on January 29, 2013 at 6:17am

That was a good remark, Humble Pie. I was trained for the ministry and it's this very knowledge that has today put me on the path of Atheism. I doubt that many of them will understand it, but my thinking did a complete reversal sometime in 2012 almost unknown to me. I woke up one day to the realization that I'm an Atheist. If there is a God at all, it's most certainly NOT the God of the Judaeo Christian Bible. It makes no sense. There is no "reason" here. This one "book" is a fabrication of stories. Many "little books" illicitly sewn together as one to end up making the "Frankenstein" of human guidebooks. To study and take this journey, ending up at this conclusion, is nothing more than evolution itself.

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Permalink Reply by GOD'aye on January 29, 2013 at 7:34am

Gr8 remark Dennis, hope you don't mind if I borrow it for one of my posts on

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/TopicList.aspx?b=87&dm=1

As I've been arguing there as goiday_myd, that the Bible is an excellent tool for producing atheists in this age of information. There is so much knowledge available today for anybody like yourself with an open mind, that much of the Bible appears so ludicrous and entirely irrational, that it drives the reader to criticizing it rather than believing it. Eventually producing another atheist.

So I've been collecting evidence of comments from people that have studied the Bible for the purpose of joining the ministry, but, instead became an unbeliever (agnostic or atheist).

I think this is part of the reason Richard Dawkins would like Bibles in all school libraries, so the students can see that when we state it is a ridiculous collection of stupid, naive books, we are not telling fibs. BTW, I didn't use yr full name as the source, just DP.

If you visit that site: ABC Compass, religion series forum and think you have something to contribute, you are by all means welcome. We would appreciate input from somebody different. Lately there has been only a handful of people posting, since the many that left couldn't handle my blunt, rational criticism of their beliefs.

Aye M8! :-D

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on January 29, 2013 at 10:04am

You are right G'Day - read the bible critically and become Atheist.

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Permalink Reply by Mathew T. on January 30, 2013 at 4:35pm

I concur - great post Dennis. I'd love to be able to figure out the breakdown that so many other theists run into when they confront so much conflicting bullshit in the "holy book". In other words, what is it that made so many of the christians on this website keep digging and digging, until one day their faith was gone - as opposed to running in the other direction like so many other denizens of faith do? This is a question I've pondered for quite some time, and may never grow to understand.

I can't get my wife or any of my christian friends to even LISTEN to a discussion about evolution or have a cursory glance at anything scientific, much less take any initiative themselves. In many cases, they've simply stated that they aren't interested, but when met with the question of how they can possibly be so sure that Yahweh is the one true God, they have no answer but faith. It's almost as though faith confounds any urge or desire to dig up the truth. Faith is, in my opinion, the quintessential demonstration of willful ignorance. They carry on with their indefensible beliefs, never asking questions, never considering the idea that the question "what if you're wrong?" applies to them for all the other religions they've rejected, because it brings them peace. Now THAT'S poetic tragedy.