Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Allen Uribes on May 6, 2009 at 6:28pm

That's just it! Having all the truth is what is so hard for believers to give up.

Thanks for your post.

Permalink Reply by J. A. on January 21, 2010 at 4:24am

If only my brain could “Shut up.”

A relieved sigh, the breathing of my consciousness
From a weight of fear and guilt.
I take a morning walk with friends across our magnificent planet
Hand in hand with digital perfection.
We breathe together, these friends and I
Amazed and knowing
That common sense has touched our mind
Forever.

Random dots on a pastel slate,
Coming into focus for the first time in my history,
These leaves of grass around me
Taking shape around the leavings of last spring.

But wouldn’t be grand and self serving!
To know the ultimate Truth!
To blind it, snuff it and go on without thought
To what its eye sees now.
The figures lay before me
And I prostrate myself no more but for the mental nod
Of Giants whose shoulders I stand upon
And whose cavernous allegories
Now light me face
With the warmth of freedom.

Dedicated to Jcpkanaloa for the idea.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on April 28, 2009 at 11:01am

I share your sentiments, Don.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on February 2, 2009 at 10:10am

Respectful pride from Charles Darwin:

“We must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” Charles Darwin. 1809–1882.

How different is Darwin's rightful view as compared with the god-worshippers who haughtily claim that man was created in the exalted image of an imaginary god.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on February 2, 2009 at 11:38am

This is an apology to Stephanie.

Stephanie, you wrote a very nice, long item about Atheist Pride which I read with interest.

I then wrote a two-sentence answer and, as I tried putting it in, your item vanished into 'limbo', as did mine. So I regret I lost yours. Mine was simply:

"We can be comforted by the number of former ministers who have become atheists and joined Atheist Nexus.
Their stories are enlightening and rewarding for us all."

If you had saved your message somehow in advance, please restore it to its rightful position. It began with the quote:
"Sadly, we accept that most religionists will never give in. Their prejudiced minds are made up. They will not absorb knowledge that is new to them."

Again, my apologies to you. This is a total mystery to me.

Permalink Reply by Richard J. Collins on February 22, 2009 at 9:23am

Dr Meaden writes:
"We can be comforted by the number of former ministers who have become atheists and joined Atheist Nexus.
Their stories are enlightening and rewarding for us all."

In my facebook group The End of Hereditary Religion, I have about half a dozen former ministers and the group has numerous former believers. This is not by accident. I operate on the theory that if you want to hire a guide to get you out of the woods, you need someone who knows the territory. I purposely recruit ex-theists.

I personally think the way to deal with the religious is not on the intellectual plane. In fact that is hopeless. Instead we must find where their wounds are and make them pick at the scabs. Every believer is riddled with doubt and uncertainty and --- they know it. They have to keep up pretenses for the benefit of those around them and to save face. Family pressure is enormous in fundamentalist groups (and Catholics).

Every family has been wounded by religion. Brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, they all disagree and fight over religion; families are actually riven apart as are friends. The divorce courts witness protracted legal battles over which religion will be followed by the children of the divorced.

This is the truth of religion. The narratives on dozens of sites like exchristian.net can give us insights into the deconversion process and help us understand what to say to believers to make them pick at their scabs.

I am not suggesting that we be disrespectful about this process, quite the contrary. We must be empathetic and understanding and offer our help to those deconverting. Getting people to understand and admit they are being harmed, not helped by belief in superstition is the key. Maybe an example will help.

In one forum discussion I followed a Mormon women was agressively defensive in her support of LDS. Then I posted a personal narrative another Mormon women had put up on a deconversion site. This wife was desperate to find a way to leave the LDS church. She finally decided to confide in her husband that she had quit believing 10 years earlier and was simply keeping up a pretense. What a shock. But the real surprise was that her husband confessed that he likewise had quit believing 10 years previously! Think of that.

After I posted this personal narrative, the lady that had been so defensive wrote to tell us on the forum how her father was a stern unforgiving man who she had resented as a child and she more or less poured out her heart over the sadness she felt because the teaching of the church had made a tyrant of her father, who was basically a good person, but woefully misguided by superstitious belief.

Making people understand the emotional distress and harm that religion causes is a key to ending religious hegemony and the indoctrination of vulnerable children. People that are hurting are cut off from the knowledge that there are millions like themselves.

Permalink Reply by Moonbeam on February 6, 2009 at 7:41pm

I am an average person in many ways. However, if and when the subject comes up, I immediately feel as if I am the intellectual and emotional superior of any theist. No matter who they are and how smart they may be, if they admit that they believe in god, my opinion of them is immediately diminished. There is something in them that refuses to or is incapable of realizing the truth, something irrational, and something immature.

I talk to people who are libertarians, for liberty, against any sort of slavery, and they can go on and on about they tyranny that we are subjected to--yet they are also xians! That is the ultimate slavery and brain-washing. I don't even want to hear them talk about freedom---it's meaningless coming out of their mouths.

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on February 6, 2009 at 9:43pm

Don and Moonbeam,
I identify with both of your comments. I do have problems when I hear people talking of their religious beleif, and I wish that I could move them out of their delusions into the light. And I do beleive that atheism is a light that can illuminate the darkness of superstition.

But I also acknowledge that people with religious faith can still have insight, intelligence, judgement, and wisdom. After all, I assume that Darwin at least started out with faith, as did Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, Da Vinci, Emerson, Lincoln, and countless others. If they were religious, that's the way their world was. For people today, too, I don't expect that the tiny percent who are atheist can easily convince the huge percent who are not. I assume that Obama is honest in telling us of his faith, but I consider him a genius politician and leader - whether or not I like or agree with his specific policies. Hillary Clinton too - a profoundly intelligent and driven person, and she also proclaims her faith. So there is no atheism 'litmus test' for me in thinking about intelligence. But there is still a part of me that says, on this subject, those people are deluded.

Permalink Reply by Moonbeam on February 8, 2009 at 12:53pm

Yes Daniel of course it's not like that's all I think about when I talk to people, and it doesn't influence my entire opinion of them, knowing they are not atheists, but when the subject comes up, I do feel like that, even if otherwise they are obviously smarter than me. And the reverse is true too; if somebody is an atheist, I give them a little more credit than I might otherwise.

We'd all be pretty alone and wouldn't know much if we discounted everything theists said! It's just always surprising when it comes up and somebody you have a high opinion of otherwise has a bizarre, irrational belief.

Don, yes it is sad; that's what I said to a Mormon friend recently when he was describing some sort of bizarre rule about not being able to drink coffee yet Mountain Dew being allowed. He asked me if I thought he was pretty silly. I said yes, but also that I felt very sorry for him, and not just for him, but for everybody, that so many people are still living in such ignorance.

The thing with my libertarian friends--the way they are so outraged by the government, but how much does it really matter if you are an xian? How much would anything really matter? I don't see why they care about anything other than serving their all-powerful master. If I thought I was going to live forever in a good vs. bad place based on what he thought, I think I'd concentrate on that a little more than most theists do. That's another reason why it usually doesn't matter in day to day relationships with people--despite the incredible implications that believing in god should bring, it's not a factor in most peoples' lives, the ones that I know anyway.

Permalink Reply by Tedster on February 9, 2009 at 1:32am

I won't stop listening to people because they subscribe to religion; it's like lets stop listing to people who aren't perfect, and that pretty much about everybody. There have been many people who had come from religious backgrounds that had contributed greatly in spite of religion. This is because they also had some personal reasons to change society. M L King Jr. is somebody he has done well. Religion was in fact adventurous for him because he was able to communicate with religious people who might not have bothered to listen to him otherwise. I still would argue that Xianity has helped perpetuate bigotry as it always has and will.

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on February 8, 2009 at 9:16pm

Don,
Me to (smile at them in pity), and sometimes some anger. Because when they give money to their religious institutions, that then give money and support to organizations that influence the electorate to pass discriminatory policies (measure 8 et al), then I realize that they can actually hurt people with their beleifs. And when they vote the way that their ministers recommend and promote, and give money to those ministers to do that, but their churches are tax-free so in effect I am paying for them. And when they vote for people who kiss up to christians, but make awful policies, wars, and dumb down the schools... and they vote for them again because they are outwardly christian....uh oh, Im ranting. Sorry.

I think I'm getting off-topic from the idea of being proud to be atheist, so I'll stop. We should feel proud when we hold on to our convictions even when it seems like most of those of us around us are all following their shepherds like, well, sheep.

Permalink Reply by Ashish Shetty on March 31, 2010 at 12:02am

I think Steven Landsburg mentions this in his book "The Big Questions". Theists get aggravated when their belief system is attacked, because subconsciously they have doubts themselves.

If they were as sure of their beliefs as an educated person is about (lets say) gravity - then they wouldn't get as aggravated. Because if anyone (sane) told an educated person gravity is not true, it would be met with pity not anger.

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