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Permalink Reply by VanCity Skeptic on June 8, 2010 at 11:16am

" Are we not allowed to hold a so-called god to a set of reasonable (for a diety) standards just because said diety can supposedly damn you when you die?"

For the record, any theist who say this would probably tell you (in order to sound "reasonable") that God doesn't damn you when you die -- you damn yourself by not accepting him. I just wanted to point that out so you might be prepared to fight that argument in the future. I'm a former Christian of 10 years, I could debate things from either side of the coin if I had to, which is why I am the most painful thorn in the side of any Christian ;)

To answer your initial question: The reason "God" is allowed to hold humanity to any kind of standard is because the religious are more organized and more outspoken than the non-religious. Non-theists are so disorganized they can't get anything accomplished, and the religious organize in droves and demand unequal (preferential) treatment from all facets of society.

Is it a shock? It isn't to me.

If non-theists got their crap together and pulled together and fought in a focused manner, maybe we'd be better off. But I've said it before, and so have many other non-theists: Organizing atheists is like herding cats.

A large portion of our society's population is governed by superstition and mythology. It is diminishing but not nearly fast enough IMO. If we pushed harder and fought louder we could speed things up a bit.

Even if we don't though, religion will eventually die out -- I'm confident of it.

You're right in what you say. Religion is a bit like giving the police all the powers and then deeming them above the law.

But what argument do you have? God is God, as the religious will say. God is above everything and can do whatever he damn well pleases. We don't have much argument against that, except the facts. And the facts don't get heard because the religious are too loud.

You know, I recently spent hours scouring the internet for some kind of organized non-theistic group I could join for the purpose of fighting the evil forces of religion, and I found: Nothing. Oh sure, sporadic groups strewn throughout countries or throughout the world, barely organized, "trying" to do this, "trying" to do that.. holding feeble conferences where we all agree with each other and pat ourselves on the back, and talk about how religion will one day be gone and science will prevail.

What are we doing to prevent it? Best I've ever found were organizations like Foundation for Freedom From Religion which is great and all, they are actually DOING something, but even they are relatively small compared to the loud, obnoxious, whiny voices of the religious in large groups (and they don't even really exist in my own country, everything is so America-centered, what's a Canadian to do?!). On the flip side: Try to spend just a moment searching for christian organized groups fighting for changes in their favor in government and politics and society, and you won't have to search very long.

They are louder and more organized. Sure they believe the most absurd things, but what is that compared to sheer volume? Apparently not much. It doesn't matter how absurd your beliefs are, as long as you are organized enough to push them on others -- so no matter how many of us there are, we can't do a damn thing in the state we're in IMO.

Anyway, I'm off on a tangent..

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Permalink Reply by Paul T. Bennethum on June 8, 2010 at 1:41pm

Thank you! You are very ingelligent and wise. Your right, too! I think focus might be part of the problem for us non-theists. Believers (for lack of a better term) constantly concentrate on being believers and incorporate their theology into everything they do in public life while those of us who believe there is no god just kind of leave it at that and focus on other things, work, school, getting laid etc. Of course the religious have had a very big head start as far as getting organized is concerned. For most of the millennia non-believers had to keep their ideas to themselves or risk societal rejection at best or incarceration, torture and death at worst because big religious groups have usually insisted on ramming their beliefs down other people's throats through military actions and economic terrorism, destroying whole civilizations that didn't conform to their doctrines. Of course, plundering was also a motivation for groups like the catholics, who wiped out native tribes in the Americas and hauled away all of their wealth, doing it all because the Pope told them that God said it was ok.

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Permalink Reply by Secular Forces 2013 on June 11, 2010 at 6:29pm

"organized enough"
exactly, to push not just the 'words' of mythology-truth; hey what the?
to have the 0's and 1's in the bank is key and the actual 'truth' of the matter.
maybe just the way some CEO's like it; keep em' down bowing and chugh ching the crap outta them w/the chinese made myth-goods n' services... hey, now I'm tangenting out, cya!

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Permalink Reply by Secular Forces 2013 on June 11, 2010 at 6:27pm

not bad, yeah, cops don't do god, if they do they should be debriefed on reality!
take care!

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Permalink Reply by Gerald Scott on June 11, 2010 at 7:52pm

It seems to me, (don't you hate it when someone says that), science has won the war against the bible, but it will never win the war against religion.

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