Basically, I was brought up in a very non-religious household/family. We didn't go to church and my parents are pretty secular I guess. Agnostic maybe. Definately not dogmatic.

Anyway, compare that with my wife, who was brought up Catholic, although she isn't practicing. Her father (and mother to a lesser extent) are very Orthodox about it and she believes is God (which isn't really surprising).

So to get to the point, this book has inspired me to become more athiest I guess (rather than just ambivilent and agnosting) and more critical of all religion in general. However, although I've never confessed to being religious, I have found it a bit uncomfortable to 'come out' as an athiest (I guess mainly on my Facebook profile) for fear of offending my Christian friends, family and aquantences that might find the whole athiest thing offensive! I never really thought about it until now, but am begining to suspect that there may be a bit of anti-athiest sentiment about.

So I thought I'd put it out there and see what the response is from this forum of diplomacy players and see what happens.

If you haven't read the book, I recommend it to everyone. Very enjoyable and enlightening.

Anyway, let me know what your stance is and how you feel about athism. I feel after reading this book that athiest should be more vocal, united, organised and political about bringing about reform and standing up to the religios moral guardians that seek to speak for all of us.

(I'm sure this post is going to stir up some trouble, so please keep the crazyness to a bare minimum and keep the argumants relevent and informed.)

Better than what?

Sorry for the bad spelling, my spell checker seems to be on the blink!

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php

For your giggle for the day

I'm agnostic. I think that the thesis of some atheists, that religion can be 'evil', is overblown in this day and age. A lot of crap can be evil if it's abused, and the theocratic regimes in places like the Middle East (and sorry guys, that's Israel too, democracy or not) make me uncomfortable.

My attitude is pretty consistent with my generally libertarian view on things - leave me alone about it and I'll leave you alone. I don't see any particular reason to believe, but I don't care if someone else does, and since 'faith' is by definition untestable, there really isn't any point in getting into a pissing match over it.

Religion in itself isn't evil, it is the people who warp it to justify their own evil that cause it to appear evil. Take for example radical Islamists, if their viewpoint was the reality of their faith wouldn't most Muslims be radicals? Or child abuse in the Christian Church by priests, and preachers? Rather you have to approach things on a case by case basis rather than make a blanket statement such as religion is evil. Otherwise you will wind up being as biased as if you made a statement that prejudges people based on their ethnicity.

I guess I don't really see the benefit of religion. Good people will do good regardless of whether or not they believe in some sort of invisible sky wizard. That said, science can never say anything about the supernatural, so I am inclined towards agnosticism.

texasdeluxe: Better than ending your statement with an ellipses and leaving an open thread for me to sneak in and post nonsense onto. ;-)

But I am an atheist. My mom is also an atheist, and my dad is agnostic. Of my four grandparents, only my paternal grandmother attends church with an regularity, and even she isn't very religious. I was baptized, but that doesn't mean much because pretty much everyone in Spain is baptized. I've never attended a church service outside of a single wedding. In fact, I've never even seriously considered the existence of a god, the idea is so nonsensical to me. Yet for 9 years of my life, from 2nd through 10th grades, I lived in the oppressively blind Cincinnati, Ohio. After I moved I also made a close Mormon friend. So despite my complete atheism, I have been around many religious people. But it doesn't matter whether I'm talking to one of the many fundamentalists I've met, a representative of a Mosque telling visitors with all the assuredness in the world that angels both exist and are infallible or listening to Bush or Osama make a speech. I always get the same feeling: a certain fear or horror. To be honest, I believe there is no place for religion in the world. Don't get me wrong, I would never try to force anyone to abandon his or her faith, but I certainly believe that governments shouldn't sponsor religion. (IN GOD WE TRUST, the fact that churches are considered non-profits and therefore tax-exempt, etc.) But because I don't see the government doing anything without a large segment of the population turning atheist, I think the best we can do is show the few atheists out there that they're not alone, and try to show believers that atheists are quite the opposite of evil people. I wrote this all in one shot, so I'm sure I've missed a lot, but here are are few of my beliefs. I've never read The God Delusion, but I've heard of it.
By the way, you need to see Religulous, by Bill Maher.

And I forget were I heard this quote, but loosely paraphrasing it: "Religious people wonder how atheists can come to terms with the fact that they will fall asleep forever. The real issue is that religious people have never woken up." OK, I think loosely paraphrased is a little too generous. I feel like I really twisted that wording.

Here is a real quote: “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.” -- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/us/28religion.html?_r=1

I like stratgos I'm agnostic and see religion as not inhertently evil but often abused. It can even work the good.

And to see something of what Cincinnati is like: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/enquirer/access/1900053741.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Nov+13%2C+2009&author=Jessica+Brown&pub=Cincinnati+Enquirer&desc='Godless'+billboard+relocated+due+to+threats&pqatl=google

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/11/13/Atheist-billboard-is-moved-after-threats/UPI-87491258091561/

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/enquirer/access/1899258231.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Nov+12%2C+2009&author=Jessica+Brown&pub=Cincinnati+Enquirer&desc='Godless'+billboard+greets+I-71+drivers&pqatl=google

http://www.atheistrev.com/2009/11/cincinnati-christians-threaten.html

http://cincinnati.unitedcor.org/node/33

http://cincinnati.unitedcor.org/node/34

******************************************************************************
Here you can watch Religulous:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3791007322683758535#

Oh, and something I forgot: Religion is dangerous. Anything that gets people to follow orders without questioning them is extremely dangerous. Faith in god and organized religion is as threatening as Fascism in this regard.

I personally don't delve into whether there is or is not a creator, I just don't believe religion is a good thing, and shouldn't exist but (as JECE said) I don't think anybody should be forced to give it up now that it is so ingrained in our society.

@JECE - I must point out that the church *is* non-profit. There are no shareholders nor stocre and around the worldk nor anyone making a profit. The money raised by a church is used for upkeep, to help it grow, and to fund charitable causes like feeding the hungry he, clothing the poor, providing healthcare to the sick, and comforting and caring for the widows and the orphans.

Honestly, if there was some omnipresent, infallible creator, I don't think it'd need us to worship it to feed his ego.

Or it's not quite as perfect as religion makes it out to be.

Wow, something went bonkers with my keyboard... no shareholders nor stock nor anyone making a profit. The money raised by a church is used for upkeep, to help it grow, and to fund charitable causes like feeding the hungry here and around the world...

Religion exists because people exist. God exists regardless of what religion espouses or does.

Draugnar: Churches are rich as hell. THeir leaders live extremely wll with that wealth. For an extreme case of a wealthy curch, see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sure, some of these proceeds go to charity, but so do those of many corporations. And corporations, like churches, use most of their money "is used for upkeep[ and] to help it grow".

@JECE - churches are not wealthy. Religious oprganizations are. But churches aren't all affiliated with these corrupt organizations. A church is a single congregation that meets in a single meeting place. Very few (not to say none) are as rich as you think. The church I go to has about 500 active members and we carry 6 months of operating expenses in reserve should an emergency arise (and of course we pay all our bills like electric, water, mortgage, etc.), but all the rest goes to charitable causes.

I respect your right to have your opinion, but it is not founded on fact and is, instead, paints a braod stroke that, were this a group of individuals, would be considered an -ism.

Religion is the only known contagious psychosis.

I like the above comment, not because of what it said, but because I find the username of the person saying it and the comment funny when put together.

I'm a strong agnostic.

That means I maintain you cannot know if there is a God.

So atheism is just as misguided as theism given that the atheist cannot in good conscience claim to know there is no God. To do so and then attack religion is hypocritical. Better to give as good as you get, and attack both theists and atheists for being dogmatic (which they both very much are).

So in that sense I think you should rethink your move from agnosticism to atheism. Do you really think you can know there is no God? Because if you say you are atheist, that is what you are claiming, pure and simple. Are you prepared to make that claim with full certainty?

Thucy +1

I'm more of a Deist, but choose to affiliate myself with a church whose focus is on charitable works and helping the needy and puts less focus on making its members follow some script or plan or they'll go to hell or purgatory or some lesser heaven.

Draugnar: Alright, I concede that unaffilliated churches lack funds, but these are a minority. The organizations, however, should definitely be taxed.

Additionally when it comes to appraising the overall effect on religion on the world.

Overall, as in throughout history it is very hard to comment, though I will say that if religion had never developed civilization likely would never have developed. Debate me on that if you want, I'm prepared to argue that point.

As for the recent history though I think the effect is still quite positive.

Mission schools often represent the only schooling many people get.
Religion can give people hope who otherwise would kill themselves essentially.
Religious political advocates have more often than not been a force for liberalism and good in the world.

Example: religious groups in the United States have throughout our history lobbied for increasing the rights of aliens and increasing the caps on alien inflows.

They usually amount to humanitarians.

There are of course extreme elements as in any movement. Fundies, terrorists, and so on. "Values voters" and the like.

But this is not the norm, again at least not of late.


So to stand around and claim that religion is purely a force for evil is blindly ignorant and quite insulting even to those who are not religious.

Religion, taken together, is a neutral force.

That is, if you are approaching the topic with a level head, without a bias.

So.... in that sense Richard Dawkins is an extremist who loves his polemics. A less harmful extremist than bin Laden to be sure, but an extremist nonetheless.

So.. to recap, that's why I repudiate atheism in the same breath as I remind a believer they know none of what they claim to know.

Thucydides:
1. It cannot be said that something might exist of there is no evidence to support this claim.
2. The simplest answer to questions, according to science, is almost always the correct one. The idea that life formed on its own and evolved into what we see today from individual strands of RNA is a much simpler explanation than to claim one supreme being created everything. This latter claim begs the question of what created this being. Because that being couldn't have just been formed (because the evolutionary or spontaneous start of life theory is claimed to be too unlikely to have created us), some other being must have created this supreme being. It's a never-ending cycle.

Thucydides: Religion is not a neutral force if it has people accept its beliefs and act in certain ways while remaining entirely unquestioning.

Ok, so just to keep on topic a bit: Has anyone felt any backlash or had any concern about declaring their atheism? What I mean is, do the atheists out there feel like they should just keep their beliefs to themselves so they don't upset the religious in their social group?

As for agnosticism vs atheism, there is a fair section in the book devoted to this topic that basically declares agnostics as watered down theists and goes on to try and prove the non-existence of God (by rationalising that anything able to create the universe, must be more complex than the universe, although I'm not going to outline the whole proof here obviously).

Anyway, the book makes some good points.

Also, Dawkins goes on to declare that moderates, by championing faith, allow radicals and extremists to exist, since if moderates can stand up for faith in the absence of evidence, then they can't exactly argue against those that use faith to justify their ends.

I agree that religion does do a lot of good, such as charity etc., but I also think in this age of reason (if that's where we're at), then we need to wake up and see the bad too (and religion is responsible for a lot of that, I think everyone would agree!)

I find it perplexing to tell the truth, not so much the belief in a God (which I can understand), but more the belief in an interventionist God and that intelligent, otherwise sane people can hold their religion up as the true faith, even though they must know that they weren't born with that faith; they were raised into it and indoctrinated. After all, the most staunch Muslim must realise if their parents had been Catholic instead, they would be very unlikely to actually be a Muslim!

I agree Dawkins seems to hold some radical views, but it certainly gets a person thinking. Are they really that radical in the face or scientific reason?