that takes guts.

and lol at unblessing a highway with unholy water, that cracks me up.

sees overt cult symbols such as crosses and crucifixes as representations of hate, evil, intolerance, and judgementalism. They stand as monuments to the promotion and protection of child rape and molestation, religious crusades against science, education, and intelligence, and the promotion of mind and behavioral control through fear.

The outrageous idea that a entity such as a county or a community, would erect such vile, evil, and divisive symbols, is enough to enrage the most passive of non believers. What sane person would want passers-bye to think that each and every member of their community was so weak-minded, ignorant, uneducated, and stupid enough to allow mind controlling fear-mongers to represent their town? If there are no laws to protect them, or no lawmen brave enough to stand up to these snake-oil salesmen, then what those brave heros are doing by cleansing their highways of such symbols of childish, immature, and hateful, behavior should be used as a template for all true Americans to stand up to the tyranny that the christian religion is in our world today.

Many of them can be found in this thread.

Although the group you describe exists, it by no means represents all "true atheists".

just cutting and pasting from your post:

"hate, evil, intolerance, and judgementalism.

child rape and molestation

behavioral control through fear.

vile, evil, and divisive

weak-minded, ignorant, uneducated, and stupid

mind controlling fear-mongers

snake-oil salesmen

childish, immature, and hateful"

you've got a ton of negative energy flowing through your viens. If you dont want to believe, then don't. But why needlessly burdon yourself with all that anger - the only person you're hurting is in the mirror.

dies it can get into heaven?

The only question was it one before or after the un-holy scrubbing.

Are they actually Atheists if they believe the highway is blessed?

IMO (which is an opinion of one who doesn't give a crap either way), this is more an acknowledgement of a "power greater than themselves" than an atheistic act. To me, both are just water.

...while miming a cranking motion with the other hand.

Except it's at the same time more subtle AND more elaborate.

Performance art, baby.

You are at my mercy now.

That's not how you undo a religious blessing! Give me six gay male strippers, six female strippers, 3 gallons of oil, a video camera, and some handcuffs, and I'll show you how it's done.

It's funny when atheists try to outdo people of faith in the 'look at me!' department. Displays like this and proselytizing just aren't natural fits for atheism as I understand it (and I am one). The 'good' atheist response to a blessed highway would be to drive on it as you would any other road without believing it's actually blessed or caring if anybody else does.

with enough generations of new humans hopefully the young will realize (as they have been over the past many decades) what a crock it is and not subscribe to it.

Then MAYBE in 5-700 years mainstream religions will just have a very small cult following. Kind of similar to the number of people today who don't believe we put a man on the moon


Year 2657- Jason walks out of the skydome and notices a person on his knees with their palms together next to their chest. He asks his partner what the hell the person is doing. Partner states, "Oh, it's real old crazy ritual shit. Some people believe beings that don't exist".

I used to be just like what you described. I loved insulting faith and I thought over-the-top blaspheming was way cool. Then I entered adulthood and realized that all of that was kind of immature.

To me it's kind of a golden rule thing. I don't want my lack of faith mocked or criticized and so I return the favor to people of faith. I've never been shy about my lack of faith and I can't think of a single instance where anybody has ever tried to belittle me for it or use it against me. So respecting faith works for me and is a good fit with personality and world view. Of course, that's just me. For others, results may vary.

I do think that faith will slowly decline in the Western world. But I see no need to do anything to accelerate that process.

Doorbell, dog goes nuts, and they better hope toddler isn't taking a nap...

This past Saturday, two real nice older ladies, of course with the books and pamplets. Before they could launch into their tirade I told them I'm agnostic this week. Of course then I had to explain the difference between being agnostic and being an atheist

They started down the road of did you ever believe, is it the state of the World that makes me see no god blah blah blah..

I proceeded to explain to them on how no, I was saved when I was 13, I just continued my education and realized that it was all bullshit. All religions written by old men who didn't understand the cosmos. Planet Earth is a tiny spec and we are essentially insignificant ants in the really big picture of things. Threw out a couple quick questions like is Jesus made of matter or can Allah survive the inside of a supernova 14 million light years away (or even get there?)

They proceeded to say that was a really interesting take on things and enjoyed our conversation and proceeded to the next house

Then how did god exist? Wouldn't an entity have to create god if there is a god? God can't create himself out of nothing.

Happens to me every two years or so... imaginary & make believe thinking passing itself off as something that should control my life and my society... Political canvasser-- hate 'em!

I however, NEVER encounter people who either seek me out or introduce religion into an every day discussion.

I live the most BORING life...

Again, you DON'T and CAN'T prove that everything you're surrounded by wasn't created by a Higher Power. You CAN'T prove that supernovas a BILLION light years away weren't created by a Higher Power.

Such things are impossible to prove one way or the other.

Riddle me this... How is it that ONE species out of the TENS OF BILLIONS that have existed since the dawn of time evolved to the point of being able to imagine and build vehicles that can travel into space, when the best any other can do is make a bed out of sticks or live in a cave they FOUND?

One. Out of TENS OF BILLIONS.

Commucation by machine rather than by chirps, tweets, rubbing legs together, croaking, etc.

Biological anomaly? Possibly. Design? Possibly. Argue one to the exclusion of the other. You. Can. Not.

"How is it that ONE species out of the TENS OF BILLIONS that have existed since the dawn of time"

You don't have enough information in that question for me to answer it properly. Are you talking specifically just about planet Earth, or the whole cosmos?

If you are curious about how humans evolved to the point where my biggest concern is how to make a blind transfer work on an IP PBX, that's a really long conversation LOL. Also, there are a large number of easy to understand science programs on human evolution and our solar system, galaxy, and universe in general.


Do you ever watch "Through the Wormhole" by chance?

Also, it's not my job to "prove" that some super-duper all powerful intelligent "something(god?)" can create a supernova. That is a claim that is pretty absurd considering we do understand how supernova's are created. Again, there is a lot of material out there you can study with.

"You CAN'T prove that supernovas a BILLION light years away weren't created by a Higher Power. "

Yes, actually, we can prove that, because a supernova is the final act of a dying star. We know how those happen. A supernova is a very specific event caused by very specific criteria.

Here's a better one: I can prove that God- specifically, the Christian God- cannot be the omnipotent being Christians claim it to be.

It's easy, actually. Can God learn?

If yes, God is imperfect, because if yes, there are things God doesn't know.
If no, God is imperfect, because there is something- learning- that God cannot do.

In either case, God is not perfect. QED.

who thinks they know for sure one way or the other, but the reality is we don't know jack, so I for one feel like maybe, just maybe, I should let folks believe whatever they want or gives them comfort or peace rather than mock them.

or be able to write this-

And communicate it via the Intertubes LOL

Galaxy Formation :
Galaxies are the basic unit of cosmology. They contain stars, gas, dust and alot of dark matter. They are the only `signposts' from here to the edge of the Universe and contain the fossil clues to this earlier time.

The physics of galaxy formation is complicated because it deals with the dynamics of stars (gravitational interaction), thermodynamics of gas and energy production of stars. For example, stars form from gas clouds, but new stars heat these clouds, which dissipates them and stops the formation of other stars.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Protogalaxies:

After recombination, density enhancements either grew or dispersed. According to our hybrid top-down/bottom-up scenario, an assortment of enhancements formed of various sizes. Small, dense ones collapsed first, large ones formed slower and fragmented as they collapsed.

The first lumps that broke free of the Universe's expansion were mostly dark matter and some neutral hydrogen with a dash of helium. Once this object begins to collapse under its own gravity, it is called a protogalaxy. The first protogalaxies appeared about 14 billion years ago.

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec25.html

got down on his knees and prayed with reverend Billy Graham, but I bet you won't.

The hypocrisy here is amazing sometimes.

is something you have to do..

I would really like to get him in a room alone where and ask if he REALLY believes in this Jesus dude. Come on, you are an educated man. Think about it. Did Jesus create black holes LOL ...

And, absent EMPIRICAL evidence I have NO WAY of stating without equivocation that black holes are not the result of something created by a higher power.

And, given that YOU'RE an educated man as well, you know in your heart that you have NO WAY of being certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that black holes AREN'T the result of something created by a higher power.

You don't. You have a belief, based on what you consider to be the best educated guess, but educated guesses are not good enough in a court of law.

Mention Tebow here and if you FAIL to connect his name with hate because of his beliefs... you're behind the curve. Mention President Obama... and IF you call into question his claimed "faith", you're a hater.

If President Obama panders, as some claim, then he's a LIAR. If, as HE claims, his faith is pure, then he's a fool, right?

So you and others would claim that President Obama is either a liar or a fool?

Smugness too.

"blessed" this piece of road prayed for?

“If they will not submit to God’s way of living, then the prayer is to have them incarcerated or removed from the county.”

Now THAT's some dickishness.

The proper response would have been to get some Satanists to 'curse' the road.

If you don't 'believe' in something, what good would it be to attempt to remove it?

To make fun of them. I don't have a problem with that at all. This particular religious group says that everyone who disagrees with them should be locked up or expelled, and makes a point to publicize that opinion. They're too chickenshit to do it themselves (it is illegal, and besides, the heathens might resist) so they publicly invoke "angels" to do it for them. They ought to be mocked and ridiculed. I think it's unlikely that these atheists would have done this if the "blessing" had been welcoming and positive, rather than hateful and exclusionary.

is one with a sense of humor.

Why would they even bother?

> "We come in peace!"

And the conservative sky-genii adherent responses will be, "We come for HOLY WAR! Our peace-loving Savior told us to KILL ALL OF YOU!"

Seriously, look for these brave people to get death threats from the "followers of the prince of peace".

The religious nuts will be out for blood. They think they should be allowed to shove their views at anyone at any time, but if people have the unmitigated gall to do a small gesture that they don't agree with they go crazy.

In hindsight it would have been better to get more people for a "we don't need 'blessings' like that" demonstration (the scrub-brush theater is ok) to better underscore the real issue.

But, as I say, that's in hindsight.

As an Atheist, I understand the humor here. Same with the blasphemy challenge.

HOWEVER, all this will do is wash a small amount of grit off of a highway. Atheists might get a chuckle, the Santorums of the world will want to kill us. Because that's what they do.

prayed for anyone who didn't agree with them to be thrown in jail or expelled.

“If they will not submit to God’s way of living, then the prayer is to have them incarcerated or removed from the county.”

You know exactly what they would do if they thought they could get away with it.

Well, bless their little hearts...

They missed a spot....

- as that's one of the most juvenile things I've seen lately.

for good measure

it will end up more blessed than ever before