Why atheists should join religions:

Because without atheists, religions become the sole property of people who actually believe in gods.

 

ba-dum-chh

 

Okay, but seriously: tell me that the societal acceptability of atheism doesn't correlate with the rise of fundamentalism. Religions used to have people who didn't really believe but went along for the ritual and the bake sales to balance out the nutjobs by sheer force of numbers. Unless we seriously believe that religion is going to "go away" somehow, we're all worsening the problem by not declaring a loose and mild religious inclination.

 

can you rephrase the bolded sentences for me...i wanna make sure i understand what you are saying. thank you.

 

I agree.
This is the rise of atheism.
Dumb people think atheism = smart.
And what do dumb people usually want?


Nah, but seriously, the rise of anything will follow a similar path. I didn't want to believe it for a long time, but the masses are stupid. Once they get a hold of something, it becomes dumbed-down. Religion will never go away, because the force that is trying to disestablish fundamental religion is nothing more than a new religion itself.

 

Some atheists talk in terms of "getting rid of religion". It's usually only in passing and without discussing the mechanics and likely consequences of trying to do this, but usually if pushed they'll say that it's something to do with "educating" people not to be brainwashed and then letting them make their choice (and then possibly educating them a bit more if they make the wrong one ).

Personally, I don't believe that that's possible. My inclination is that getting rid of long-standing, familiar religions would just result in even stupider ones emerging in their place.

That's the first part.

The second part is, if we take it as read that "getting rid of" religion might well be counter productive or at the very least pointless, atheists who disassociate themselves from religion in the hope that withholding their support is going to help it to fade away are barking up the wrong tree.

Historically, the church has been full of atheists. They may not have been outspoken, but they didn't believe in God. They were part of the religion, went to church, and shared a lot of the same morals that believers did, but didn't believe in literal interpretations of holy texts.

It is my belief that churches have become less rational, less liberal and less sympathetic and community-orientated as a result of this exodus of unbelievers, undecideds, and so on. I think they needed those without blind faith and with a bit of gumption to keep them on the straight and narrow, to test their faith and so forth. If we who feel we are "rational" dismiss the religious as irrational, then one religious person is as bad as another, and we make little or no distinction between someone who believes in the basic morals of a religion and one who blows up abortion clinics or whatever.

Did that help?

 

I dare you to post this in the Christianity forum.

 

I dare YOU to.

I have to go get baptised is all.

 

exactly!

atheism is a religion just like anything else.

"WHY exactly is it impossible for there to be a god?"

"science."

"yes, but how exactly does the fact that things exist and happen prove there isn't a god?"

"uh. science."

"and scientific theory never, ever changes, right? it's fact?"

"stupid believer."

this coming from one who was an atheist for a few years.

 

It is just one more occurrence in an eternal sea of perspectives.

 

I'm an Atheist myself. And I'm completely 100% against your argument.

 

atheists should buy stocks in religion is what you are saying?

 

Those people still exist in large numbers.

 

Only retarded atheists. Science requires proof-positive: since there is no proof of the existence of God, science naturally must assume that He does not exist. Of course, strict atheism may be getting ahead of available knowledge a bit; agnosticism may be a bit more pragmatic. Still, atheism is a justifiable path to take.

 

I don't think anyone with an ounce of intelligence can understand where you're coming from ... it sounds like you haven't even begun to explore the argument.

For everyone else ... we CANNOT be dependent on ancient religious texts for guidance in the future. Any reliance on them is completely inherently flawed and as a species we need to get away from this nonsense. If your answer as a Christian to Muslims is "no the Qu'ran is obviously not the word of God because the Bible is obviously the word of God", there is absolutely no positive direction to take the argument and progress is stagnated.

Atheism is not a religion, its loose definition is a lack of belief in outrageous claims if sufficient evidence does not exist. It has been proven again and again that science does not regress. Other human beings attempt to discredit any and all new theories constantly and the result is a rigorous, beautiful process that isolates concepts which hold true despite different perspectives, biases, and motives.

Religion was our first, and worst attempt at explaining where we came from. They rely on superstition through tradition and the assumption that because all these wild stories are so old, they just might be true. If the old faiths are completely discredited new ones will not spring up in their place because record keeping in the modern world is actually accurate and objective.

 

the irony of this thread is gloriously unstoppable
I almost suspect Hoatzin of engineering

 

One word Antitheism.

 

Hey, you know these arguments cut both ways. As a Christian, I've been including an atheist freethinkers group along with two Christian groups as one of my fellowship groups. I'm not the only Christian who does this.

 

So do you guy's discount non christian gods in these meeting's or just make points defending your own personnel beliefs in matters concerning the existence of deities?

I remember Richard Dawkins once said nearly everyone is an atheist, many Christians when asked if they believe in Zeus or Mithra would chuckle and say of course not, does this make them atheists to some extent?

Certainly the followers of the once reveled and by many certainly thought of as absolute true dead religions of the world would say so.

Christopher Hitchens said it this way,

"I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."

Well said in my opinion.

 

lol what a douchebag