Atheists and anger

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/atheists-and-an.html

I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.

I'm angry that atheist conventions have to have extra security, including hand-held metal detectors and bag searches, because of fatwas and death threats.

I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases -- again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers -- yet again, in the U.S. armed forces. And I'm angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, "there are no atheists in foxholes." You know why you're not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.

There was an interfaith conference in Dallas a few years back which included Wiccans, voodoo priests, as well as mainstream religious folk. They were looking for peaceful solutions to the world's problems, especially in dealing with indiginous peoples. They had to have police protection because of death threats from fundamentalists.

It infuriates me that those kinds of attitudes have begun to define 'faith' for too many; that kind of shit is what gives Christianity a bad name. I HATE it that I am sometimes reluctant to acknowledge my faith because I don't want to be associated with that kind of hatred and intolerance and judgmentalism.

whispers.. lose the bumper sticker. i had a Free Tibet sticker on my car.

god bless america is a crock

for not attending promise keepers with the rest of the boys.

They fired me for lack of competence as a programmer.

Two years later, I was coding for the company that made the Object Pascal compiler they used.

Last I heard, they went under without ever getting the Win version of their DOS
loading dock management software out the door. It was a highly faith based design.

Karma, it's a bitch.

"Well, just leave it as it is, and we'll pray over it before it ships."
"Okay, boss. Oh, I still haven't been paid for last week."
"I know. I'm still praying for god to put money in our payroll account."

I knew a musician who said that he would hear racial slurs whenever he toured the South.

That theists are rude and defensive around atheists is no surprise. That they've never read the book they hold in superstitious awe and use like a weapon is no surprise. That so many (but not all, thank goodness) have adopted exactly the opposite of the teachings they profess to be such paragons at following is no surprise.

There are just no surprises any more.

I'm grateful, however, to live at a time when people, especially women, aren't marched off to church every Sunday under penalty of law.

There isn't much to be grateful for as an atheist living in the god soaked USA, but there is that.

dislike atheists because they've invested all that energy in worshiping their invisible guardian. If the atheists are right, they've wasted all that time and energy.

Then there are the ones who claim that they'd rape, pillage, and murder if it weren't for their faith in their skydaddy. Since we don't believe, they think we're just craving to have our way with their wimmins.

I think we should work to get atheists classed as a minority group, so we can piss 'em off even further by getting things like contract preferences, etc.

Yeah...that's the ticket...

But that doesn't help much unless you have the time and money to endure the long, drawn out adjudication process.

That Tammi Fey is such a hottie!

Their legal-aged sons, however.... :evilgrin:

there are more atheists then acknowledged. many are afraid to say so.

Well, having lived with evangelical Christians, they just tick me off all the time now. Who would've thought that going to one of their colleges would turn me off of their version of the faith for the rest of my life? Humph. They are beyond rude and annoying, and I'm disgusted by their actions in the military.

This should be the Land of the Free where it shouldn't matter what you think or believe. It really should be.

Here's a kick for those of us who are happy and whole without superstition. :toast:

But I confess that sometimes I sit on the left side of the couch in order to "help" my team win the game. So, do I get to say cheers too? I know, the answer is probably not. But it doesn't hurt to try.

:toast:

:toast:

don't stoop to debasing others' beliefs in order to support our own!

Really. When you do that, you move to the side of those who would discriminate against you - same syndrome.

Or race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. It means that we still have a long way to go in order to achieve true equality, freedom and tolerance in our society.

eom

suffer Samsara; the cyclical suffering of karmic rebirth, old age suffering and death.

since they are also locked into Samsara and their unimaginable powers, which they waste, can not save themselves it follows that they cant save us either..

and meditation, a method of training the mind to not associate emotions with thoughts, the foundation of Buddhism, makes it easier to deal with assholes of all flavors. the Mahayana Buddhists try to view all being's bad behavior as their suffering, and have compassion for them as tho they were our own suffering mothers.. i have to admit i'm still work'n on that one.

However, some have trashed quite a few Hindu temples in Sri Lanka. For some reason, the very idea of fundie Buddhists is way creepier to me than their People of the Book equivalents. I guess when nationalist conflict calls, you make do with what you have.

http://www.tamilnation.org/tamileelam/fundamentalism/hindutemples.htm

Why did members of the Buddhist Sanga, including the prelates of Asgiriya and Malwatta actively involve themselves in fostering and promoting Buddhist fundamentalism? Why do Buddhist monks join the armed forces to kill Tamils, and why does the Maha Sanga donate money to the government's war fund?

http://www.tamilnation.org/tamileelam/fundamentalism/hindutemples.htm
sounds like some of it was a small group of wing nuts.. cultural pressures and this group is not at all representative of any Buddhist's, they are Hinayana, referred to as the lesser of 3 schools of Buddhism, Buddhism has evolved and adapted in each culture it has entered, unlike religion. the example you used is actually the only Buddhist culture that see's Buddhism as a religion

your use of Sanga here isn't really appropriate.. sanga there is the monk community, it's the laymen causing the problems.. you wouldn't be very happy if i associated all atheists of the crimes of a small bunch of inbred neo-nazi athiest hill Billy's running amok in some back water valley in the Deep South..

It got tied up in nationalism there, and that hasn't happened anyplace else AFAIK.

Buddhism has a pretty bloody history. While of course there's lots of perfectly peaceful buddhists out there in the world, I just bet annoyed every time someone tries to show it off as the flawless religion. We're talking a faith that got its start trying to exterminate Hinduism in India, and getting its ass kicked into the Himalayas.

The Japanese use Shinto for that.

And of course, there's the conflict between the two Tibetan sects. And who can forget all those Buddhist monks kicking each others' asses in Korea a year or two ago?

Japan's kind of amusing. Buddhists and Shinto busily kicking each other's asses... The common folk start converting to Catholicism because Christianity is the most peaceful religion they've seen in a long time... and the Shinto and Buddhists join forces to start smacking the Christians around.

Religion is a weird and wacky thing.

I think most religions have a violent history when they are trying to basically take over other lands and forcing folks to convert. The only ancient religion that I can think of as being consistently non-violent is Jainism. Am I wrong?

browbeating people into converting. It also has its own political party.

is a cult.. i just dont see them a Fundi.. some are more traditional, call it what you will fro what ever reason..

I think Zen has converged on a world-wide tendency shared by Sufis and other mystic practitioners. That would for sure be away from Buddhism proper.

Hindu celebrations, etc, ..he was the Chant Master for the Dali Lamas Monastery, and an attendant to the Dali Lama.

we went to an SGI Meeting... it "Disturbed" him. later we asked him what he thought..
he said,"no Dharma, no Buddhism". those guys were not happy we were there. my wife is NSA, i have been sideways involved with it since 1970. Ikeda is is a nut case, SGI is a $15 Billion corporation
he lies to the members and controls them.

NSA was born of Political unrest, Niechern created it to help and protect the peasant class in feudal japan, it later the leadership was a political movement to take over the government in japan, the practitioners are just pawns. Ikeda used to be the Layman leader of NSA, which has a monk/monastery tradition back to the middle 1800. they are ok for the level they operate at. i always thought they were a cargo cult...

Zen is ok for what it is.. Buddhism basically has a niche for most mental predispositions,

Buddhism is simply an overview of how the world works, it is based simply on 1 logical statement..

4 Noble Truths..'there is suffering in the world, suffering is caused by attachment, if there is a cause there is a cure, the 8 Fold path/middle way. Siddhartha proposed the solution it is a system of living that prevents grasping/attachment/wanting things to be different, while you train the mind thru meditation to reach a state of awareness where you live in the moment, a state of mind where one perceives Object and Subject as one. everything else is the collections of teachings to other people, within that collection is described a Cosmology/mysticism. no one is required to go there. but i find it really fascinating, i enjoy the ritual, it is part of a methodology, not required.

i attended 3 meetings a week for 4 years before i ritually became a Buddhist, our Center had a Lama from the Galupa tradition that was a Refugee from Tibet. i quit drinking, my life came together, after 3 years of practice and meditation i had a Revelation during meditation that Buddhism was like an A.A. Program, only an 8 step program for people addicted to conventional thought.


people are told to try it if they are interested, if it works..good, if not no problem you don't burn in hell


achieving the goal in Buddhism, being completely "Awake" is not expected to happen in this life or even the next... so 99+% of Buddhists are fundamentally just figuring it out, Being a Buddhist doesn't mean you have anything special it means you don't know anything, many in the west are just Wing'n it, so to speak, where as Xings/etc feel its ALL given to them between a heart beat.. my mother is one of the really good Christians, a Mother Teresa. she is a truly compassionate person who is a Christian. we've had some great talks about Buddhism, mom said,"... its interesting, and i have to say it sounds more like christianity than what some of the people at my church talk about..

i believe if jesus existed he ran into Buddhism having lived at the crossroads of the Silk Road.. it probably moderated his Schizophrenia or Bipolar condition.

Though more than one person may have the same spiritual insights. As Crowley used to say, "It steam-engines when it's steam engine time."

he was a charlatan and despicable person, he became pitifully addicted to Heroin that was prescribed for his Asthma.. caused his descent into Bazaaro World

Aristarchus beat Copernicus to the geocentric theory by 900 or so years--it just wasn't a good time back then.

I am an AMERICAN Christian who believes firmly in the separation of church and state. I don't want my religion or anyone else's shoved down ANYONE's throat, enacted into law, etc.
I think there are some things that are so institutionalized and secularized (Christmas, for one) that we'll probably continue to have that as a federal holiday and that folks of all kinds of beliefs will "celebrate" it (I know a number of Sikhs who are all big on Christmas...)
But I think you're right that Atheism is going to be one of the last, highest, hardest hurdles to overcome when it comes to public office.
I wish it were not so damn difficult for people to realize that morality, ethics, honesty, decency, etc. are not only NOT EXCLUSIVE to those who "got religion," but that those qualities are often missing altogether in the folks who holler the loudest and who most ostentatiously flaunt their supposed beliefs.

--who quit with just "believing" in it. I swear, I've actually seen one of those idiots claim that Jesus never could have said anything like the Beatitudes.

Everyone does ethics, one way or another. Many do spirituality also. Neither require faith, although many get where they are ethically and spiritually by means of some specific faith tradition.

(preacher's kid) and a former director of youth ministry in the Lutheran church, I've been pretty well steeped in it for most of my life. I used to really struggle with the contradictions in Scripture (God is vengeful, God is loving; the whole Law/Gospel dichotomy...) and my dad summed it up for me really well. He always said, "Honey, as long as you come down on the side of love and not judgment, you've got your theology straight."
Works for me.
I also love the quote from Henri Nouwen -
"Go this day and preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words." For me, Christianity is about living and modeling what Christ would be living/modeling if he still walked bodily among us. It's not about ranting, proselytizing, excluding, hating, moralizing...it's just LIVING to the best of one's ability. And that's not to say that Christians (or any other group for that matter) have any kind of exclusive claim to the "right" way...it's a personal choice and to each his/her own.
:hi:

...PK from a former PK!!! I know from which you speak about being "steeped in it."

But I was Fundie steeped. It wasn't pretty.

:hi: - But that's all behind me now....

Yeah, I was lucky...Daddy was the best (IMHO)
I'm glad you have recovered from the fundie upbringing...

faith a bad name, with their ignorance and intolerance.
Pretty sad.

Good ol' ffrf gives an award for that very thing.



More:
http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/2008/dec/jeremyhall.php

Edited for inevitable stupid typo.

And I see you've logged-in to Greta Christina's blog. She has a wonderful take on all things atheist, and provides some of the most thought-provoking topics. Although she's a lot more accommodating to religionists than I could ever be. But I click her blog everyday because usually, I always learn something from her.

Yeah, I'm angry as well. I'm angry at the stupidity of it all, where anyone can convince themselves that it's okay to discriminate or even kill someone to placate their f*cking Bronze-Age Sky-Buddy. Or to "defend" this omnipotent "impostor god" who apparently can handle the creation of universes, make human beings from scratch, slaughter whole cities, the killing of babies whose parents forgot to put the blood sign over their doors, but he still somehow can't handle me and keep me and my big mouth from trashing the whole idea of him and that little book on "creative mind-control and killing" of his.

But I'm also not surprised that warriors would be the staunchest defenders of 'ol Yahweh. And all those other gods of yore. Since antiquity, warriors have always made supplications to and asked favors of their gods, because that is the only way to make the emotional leap and mental adjustments that are necessary in most people, when one has slaughtered and killed and maimed. Because once god has sanctioned it, they can forget about having to justify what they're doing.

- K&R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZVRpqm0Cl0">''A SHORT LIST OF GODS''

The underlying phenomenon is our built-in tendency toward xenophobia and in-group solidarity. This can be traditionally tribal (in-group solidarity based on blood relationships), or on many modern equivalents. This comes first, and religion is just one way of expressing it. The Soviets used Marxist "historical necessity" that way without any necessity for an "imaginary friend in the sky."

The basic ethical divide is this. Do your ethical rules only hold within your own in-group, or do they apply to everybody, no exceptions? Quite a few religious prophets, and plenty of secular advocates as well, have over the course of history come out in favor of the latter.

The examples with soldiers also violate the religious-test-for-position-of-public-trust prohibition too.

I'm tired of people using that cliche. To me it's a lot like the homophobia and sexism that still plagues most of the military. It's a lot of the outdated tough guy stance, "we'll only win if we have god on our side" mentality.

It's demeaning and well, just plain ignorant.

But it also says a whole lot more about the speaker than it's intended subject, you know?

Just like any other prejudical statement. Good point. :thumbsup:

you have a right to be upset, I think.

I'm a Pagan and I would prefer an atheist as President because I woulnd't have to put up with all the Xtian references in government, speeches, etc. I feel the same way many atheists do because while I believe "An it harm none, do as ye will", so many Xtians in this country feel they have the right to ram Christianity down everyone else's throat. Atheism harms no one--Xtianity, especially fundamentalist Xtianity has a long history of harm and it's continuing, often with governmental approval.

:cry: