You want atheists on your side

You must be unaware of the developments in the present day. Atheism has been growing for over a century and certainly is one of the prevailing ideologies in the present day. Well, I would not have thought I'd say this since I always consider the past but it often seems atheists look a bit too much at the past and too less at the real situation in the present. Being afraid of some new form of witchburning by the catholic church for example is just ludicrous.
Especially in our western part of the world the extremists/fundamentalists are in the minority and although they should be called upon certain behaviour for sure persecution of atheists is certainly not the case anymore. In other parts of the world it also seem to me it is just the same old whatever is different from the ruling ideology is persecuted (a very serious and bad situation always) but not specific atheists neither. So it seems the main thing you guys often want to protect yourselves from is the past

 

Actually, what you are saying is untrue. Extremists/fundamentalists are anything but a fringe group in this country. They are a multibillion dollar industry, and they have strong ties to lobbyist groups of all sorts. They influence politics a great deal. If it is such that athiests are not persecuted, it is because people, religious and non-religious free-thinkers alike, organize to try and protect the constitution against these extremist elements.

Again, when Maelstrom says "You want athiests on your side" I think the idea is that we are generally an intelligent lot that is capable of assimilating information broadly and willing to stand up for what is right, and even willing to protect the rights of others to believe what they will, even though we do not share their beliefs. This has been my observation throughout my life, on the level of personal experience.

Sadly, people with a flippant attitude like yours are all too good at ignoring the past and the lessons it has to teach us, and then nonchalantly berating those who try to point out the resurgence of certain trends, and claim they're just being paranoid. I suspect it's more of a defense mechanism for mr. laid-back-and-not-conerned than a valid argument.

 

"Atheists are skilled at seeing through bullshit."

I completely disagree. There is no information to back this up.

Atheists and religious people are equally skilled in this area.

Religious people will say Atheists can't see through bullshit, because the Illuminati has reached their goal to rid the people of religion.

Atheists will say religious people can't see through bullshit, because they believe in supernatural beings of which no solid proof exists.

 

I had to look flippant up: Marked by disrespectful levity or casualness. I disagree, I don't think I have to explain my defense to such an empty accusation. I admit I am especially falling for the word disrespect which I recognize more in our atheist topic starter. Saying I am ignoring the past can only be viewd as a lame joke though. I have never claimed the topicstarter to be paranoid, but he is disrespecting and hypocritical. I am all for people who are

Hence why I have a problem with people like Maelstrom who seem to generalize and blame the whole christian religion and everyone that's part of it that might have conflicting views where it comes to creation, morals and what not.
I also don't like how he likes to put it that such qualities are absent in a certain kind of religious people just because he has a problem with their beliefs. People and thus also christians come in many different forms and beliefs. You cannot judge them because of the past of their religion.

Exactly why I have a problem with the polarisation of those groups in posts of the OP all over these forums...

 

Yes, we can. The problem with a certain aspect of fundamentalist Christianity, which is a bigger problem in America and throughout the world than most people are willing to admit, is that it has forgotten from whence it came. Christians were once the persecuted, but as soon as they gained in number and power it became the persecutor and oppressor, and it remains so to this day. Entire cultures are destroyed because Christian missionaries believe that everyone must believe in their god. Look at what happened to Ireland, a place that was once alive with magic until the ignorant Saint Patrick destroyed all that.

It is a fact that not all Christians are fundamentalists, but it is also a fact that even the non-fundamentalists will still stand up to a perverted faith for their belief in it rather than despise it for the harm it is causing worldwide.

The government is corrupt, they state as they control the government and fail to realize that their faith is also corrupt. The truth is that until all people of faith realize that supporting their peaceful beliefs also supports the fundamentalism, the world will not be free to experience true peace.

If the world is lacking peace due to a government that misrepresents information and freedom, then imagine how much peace is lacking due to the faith that has a tenuous hold on the rational mind.

 

It is said that the squeaky wheel gets the grease but I say the wheel that works properly doesn't squeak.

First the voting population is not the majority of the population so there is disproportionate representation by the politically active. The politically motivated are motivated by a quest for power, the ability to make a difference. Power is only attractive to the weak. Those on a quest for power find themselves in contention with others also on a quest for power. The more zealous their efforts the greater their inherent weakness in popular cause. Extremist fundamentalists make a lot of noise in proportion to their numbers. Mainstream religious individuals, lay people, are not often political, focusing on personal development as opposed to quests for power over others.

What are the statistics in terms of numbers, fundamentalist to mainstream within the religious organization? The majority, the functioning wheel, remains silent.

 

So you think that any person in any country can admit to being an atheist and not worry about the repercussions? Even in the United States atheists still face serious discrimination. Would Barrack Obama have been elected president if he claimed to be an atheist? But more importantly in other countries (for example any country in which part or whole of the legal system is derived from Islamic ideals) a person can be executed for being an atheist.

 

Yes, but it is the mainstream religious, or the functioning wheels, that are the carriers of the voluptuous chariots on which the zealots cruise. It is the laypersons unwitting acquiescence in the image projected, the power of the name, that perpetuates the cause of those who use it to gain and perpetuate power for their own personal gain.

You see, this is a further illustration of my earlier points with you about the fallacy of your epistemology.

Power is not only attractive to the weak. That is a blatent misnomer which arises from the mystical point of view you profess not to have. The gaining and keeping of power is an art. People who wish to pursue this art have precedents on which to rely that date back to the oldest civilizations. The difference between the strong ones and the weak ones is the difference between success and failure. If you are speaking of power, strength and weakness according to any other definition, in this context, than you are just talking nonsense.

Now if you are speaking of the quiet strength of the individual who goes about their way and takes care of themselves and their own, I personally find that respectable. However, the freedom of those individuals to continue to live in this manner is dependent upon the environment in which they find themselves, and that environment is dictated, in modern civilization, by the government which presides over the nation in which those individuals live, and the extent to which that governing body's influence reaches them.

If one lives in rural or suburban areas, and/or comes from a background of moderate living or affluence, than it is easy for one to assess that things with the governing power are just fine. If one was born in and has had to grow up in a major city, especially if they grew up below the poverty line, they could tell you a lot about how easy it is to get ground up in the wheels of corruption, and through no fault of their own, due to the political power structure.

In fact, it is many of these very people that turn to religion for solace, and understandably so, as religion wastes no time marketing itself to them in their desperate states as a panacea for all their troubles.

There is a certain street in my city which is in one of the poorest neighborhoods. Literally for at least ten city blocks there is a church on every corner (and at the end of that a Mosque!). The churches are gaudy and decadent. The houses and businesses are run-down and falling apart. The churches make their living off the people that live in the broken-down houses. Something is wrong with this picture. It says: Get Jesus or get jail. And that is exactly how it works.

It is no new thing, and no mere coincidence.

 

In this context disrespect does not indicate crudity or vulgarity but rather a lack of circumspection regarding the factors involved, and, therefore, the accusation is not empty. I do not mean it as a personal attack, and apologize if you were unduly offended.

However, Maelstrom goes on to make the point which I also go on to make in my reply to dope, that the mainstream religious still to a greater than lesser degree regard the organized religious power structure as in league with their own views, and Emanresu goes on to make the further point that they would choose to retain solidarity with these power-mongers as opposed to risking what they might percieve as being in league with atheism, in many cases.

This is the problem I see Maelstrom wishing to address, and I think you may be the one having the knee-jerk reaction, and, hence, my regard of your attitude as flippant.

It is improper to judge individuals according to the pasts of the ideologies with which they align themselves. However, it is absolutely vital that you call into question the pasts of those ideologies and ask those individuals to defend their alignment. In doing so, you may (may!) enlighten those individuals and yourself be enlightened, and though disillusionment can be painful now, the consequence of the long-term effects of dissociation from cognitive dissonance are much worse, and spread out to affect people on a scale beyond the individual.

 

Not giving a fuck isnt the same as Atheism.

The not giving a fuck movement has been growing for the last couple of decades, the last century. Atheism has not.

 

I took the whole definition into account and it remains to be an empty accusation to me. I do not recognize myself in it. It may appear in this thread to you that I take these matters lightly but it is quite the contrary. I still don't see why to go more in depth about this though as I mentioned. It is your problem if you project things on me, not mine.
I know the past is vital and yes you can ask and bother people that affiliate themselves with a certain religion just as some religious people like to bother you when they try to enlighten you with the message of Jesus. Is there a point in doing exactly the same as them? Perhaps, but I don't think so.

 

I was not primarily talking about any movement I am not aware of, I was talking about the amount of atheists. Which makes the atheist ideology one of the prevailing ideologies in the western world today.

 

There is a disctinction for which you are not accounting: when one accosts someone with questions about the authenticity of social conventions this is called communication, which is an absolute essential in maintaining a free society. When someone accosts someone (even though at times it is under the pretense of questioning) with an assessment of the absolute truth of their own beliefs, this is called preaching. So they are not exactly the same thing, and it seems to me that your belief that they are constitutes a validation of my premise that your regard for the concepts being discussed is flippant.

If you would care to explain in greater detail as to how my distinction itself is invalid, (thereby invalidating my supposed validation) I am happy and willing to listen.

 

I'm sorry, I don't care to do that at all. I was not trying to make your posts seem invalid by the way, I am just sharing my opinions on your and other peoples opinions. We can differ greatly in our opinions and still both of our opinions could be valid from my point of view.

 

How flippant.

 

Projection.

 

Uh, screen?

 

What personal gain? Everyone is mortal. Having and being are the same truth.
Your life will be a series of sensations, some of which you call pleasant and some not so, regardless your efforts or station in life.

What is mystical about understanding the requirements of condition. It takes two, a male and female creative principle, for a condition to manifest each according to it's kind. For every action there is an equal and complementary reaction

For example, you find the concept of power to be attractive, an art you say. Why, because you see injustice and you desire to make a difference. Why do you need to make a difference, because you think you need an application of power You think those not involved in this pursuit of power are powerless to affect their own condition in a meaningful way and are perhaps living off the efforts of those more significantly involved and this is a blatant misrepresentation of virtue and the qualities of personal experience. We are the masters, us all, in proclaiming the narrative of our own lives, but as I point out we do not create our own parents and find ourselves by chance in our particular situations.

Your life is given you to do with what you will but our phenomenal initial circumstance is inherited. Your biological condition vitally trumps all other vanities. If you have no breath then you can say nothing.

Therefor in my estimation your regard of weakness and power and success and failure is the mystical apprehension of things. It is likely in the case of a mass extinction event that the meek will inherit the earth, a low lying microbe standing a better chance of surviving such than any upstanding human being. Your regard a grandiose image of purpose and being. All the ingenuity of man is ingenuous, that is artless in the mornings light. You can potentially contain nuclear fusion on the earth but you cannot control nuclear fission on the sun.

Politic is shrewdness tact and cunning, not power as at any time you may be overcome by the more cunning. Temporary advantage is not power. As long as you breath you have the capacity to fashion your own experience of the materials at hand and in this is all the power a human being can posses.

Being able to kill another is not power for you may be in turn killed and the length of our own life is never decided by ourselves.

 

Power inspires awe, (grandeur,) never hate, worry, or envy, (grandiosity).

 

And mankind has learned time and again that power of this kind corrupts absolutely and is absolutely corrupt. A bankrupt conception of power.