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[MrWiggles]

...

Don't forget the missionary efforts of modern Christianity that involves building infrastructure in under developed countries.

Sure but that's a minority of Christians. Most just go to church on Sunday and get hot and bothered about gay marriage or women's sexual liberation and tell their kids not to say things like "fuck" or "Oh my God."

That minority, of course, are a little closer to what Jesus was actually about

Well actually, the christian who have religion as active part of their lives are also minority. Most, the so labeled, Liberal Christian have it merely as a label to the thing they think of as god. Most peeples do not place any thought on their religion. They however allow the verbose minority to do as they want, as they view religion as a good thing, as that is the acidic meme being eroded into social morals.

[Euld]

Jesus didn't mean the afterlife when he was talking about the kingdom of heaven, that's why he told the disciples they would see the kingdom in their lifetimes.

Errm? 
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12&version=NIV  Mark 12:24-27:
Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+23&version=NIV Acts 23:6-8
Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead." When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.)

[chaoticag]

I think what Jude was trying to say is, although Jesus spoke of an afterlife, the kingdom of heaven was not it. He didn't say much about how Jesus said absolutely nothing about the afterlife.

[MrWiggles]

The bible is pretty scant on hell as well. Hell as a motivator for religion started in the dark ages, but didnt really pick up until during the plague when the macabre dominant gothic artwork.  Most of what peeples concept of hell come from two sources, the more prominent one is Dante Divine Comedy.

So this is awesome, right. We have one book of oral traditions that been heavily censored, and edited through the thousands of years, who then also cite work of nother fictional work to help with proselytizing.  Hell is fannon.

Most christians dont much about their own religion and from my experience the online champions don't either, yammering off arguments that nearing the century o mark, that havent overcome the original rebuttals equally as old.

I also don't mean to mark out the some sorta of christians as a special example. Living in the United States, it one of the more affluent religions and one of the more populous religions. It more encounter in my daily life then others.

Though if you learn the flaws of one religion you garner the skill to examine it in others.

So a question to those participating. When did you become open with your atheism, or have you? When did you consider this notion of god to be a well fed delusion?

As stated before, I self ID as one when I was 14, but I wasn't open about until I was 22. My family only learned about when I was waxing on about a youtube discussing why atheism was bad because it offer no answer, when it didn't profess to. I off handily commented I was a secular humanist.

That lead my mom to examining her belief, as she was a liberal christian before hand, and she dropped it realizing the woo part didn't impact her life. My little brother likes the idea of god, I try my best to not chide him from learning it, instead I am teaching him critical thinking skills, hoping he'll come to a similar conclusion I did.

Have any of you ever experience issues because of your lack of belief?

I feel that it contributed to my termination with Wal Mart. My boss and I never were friendly, we had a professional relationship. Things did bug the shit out of me. He used to advertise for his church in my work space. His 'office' located in the employee accessible back storage area, had little religious saying over it. I was agitated but I didn't say anything.

[chaoticag]

The whole Atheism thing is pretty recent for me, a year and a half ago, when I was seventeen. I'm not open about it, because it would be suicide. It hasn't caused issues for me yet, since I'm not open about it.

I think my mane bone with Islam would be the order of things created on earth, where rivers were put before mountains, despite evidence that this was not the case. A small flaw, but it is a flaw, and god is supposed to be perfect, so it all falls apart. At least in my case it does.

I don't mean to offend anyone.

[Chris_24]

I don't mean to offend anyone.

You made a calm, evidence based comment. If someone chooses to be offended rather than question their own beliefs, it sure as hell isn't your fault

@Fooj
While I'm sure there are clusters of 'nazi-like' atheists on the internet, you have to ask yourself if it's anything to do with their disbelief in God. You could argue it was to do with anti-theism, but I'd say every belief set has nasty groups of people (I'm talking about the anti-theist group having subsets of nasty people, not calling anti-theists a nasty subset of atheism). This is the same with religion, but I think (the main) religions also play a part in making some people make bad decisions - not just people who'd make bad decisions already happening to be in a religion. Does that make sense?

Oh, btw, in answer to MrWiggles' question I don't ever remember being a theist. My parents weren't theists but I went to a religious (in the loose sense of the word) school for my first few years. I probably accepted it but it never had a big impact on my life (ironically, religion probably has a bigger impact now I'm an atheist then it did then.) I live in England as well, so it's mostly secular here. As to when I knew I was an atheist it was probably around 10 or so.

[MrWiggles]

The whole Atheism thing is pretty recent for me, a year and a half ago, when I was seventeen. I'm not open about it, because it would be suicide. It hasn't caused issues for me yet, since I'm not open about it.

I think my mane bone with Islam would be the order of things created on earth, where rivers were put before mountains, despite evidence that this was not the case. A small flaw, but it is a flaw, and god is supposed to be perfect, so it all falls apart. At least in my case it does.

I don't mean to offend anyone.

The only person who would be offended by that, is someone seeking to be offended. Especially in a thread titled atheism.

This seems like a calm observation. There shouldn't be anything wrong with examining a belief. This is just self defense mechanic the religious meme have adopted to help with survival.

It also doesn't surprise me to learn that it would be extremely difficult to be open about it. Its not understating that coming out as an atheist is similar to coming out as a homosexual a decade and half or so ago for the US. (and still is, case by case.)

[Morrigi]

Oh wow... I thought the internet had this out of its' system by now... silly me. By the way, i happen to be an atheist who believes in nothing without empirical evidence behind it, and my best friend's catholic. We get along fine.

[Timst]

Quoting the bible (or any holy christian books) to debate for or against religion is quite pointless : there has been so many things added, removed or modified since it was first written that you can probably use it to prove (and disprove) each and every subject.


Anyway, it's fun to see that Atheism seems to be a marginal philosophy and something you got to hide from your neighbors in the US. In France, it's the other way around : [passive] atheism is the default state of mind, and people will look at you funnily if you told them you're Christian. If you add that you go to church on Sunday, everyone will probably laugh at you, heh.

[Jude]

There's no biblical basis for hell, really. There are a few things that Jesus says that, if you already believe in hell, you can retcon to mean hell, but really that's all. And Revelation is just some guy's shroom trip about how the imperial powers of the day would be destroyed.

If anything, Jesus' sayings indicate the saved will live forever while the un-saved will simply stay dead. No indication of anything involving eternal torture, other than the cryptic phrase "outer darkness with wailing and gnashing of teeth."

[Jackrabbit]

Jesus didn't mean the afterlife when he was talking about the kingdom of heaven, that's why he told the disciples they would see the kingdom in their lifetimes.

Errm? 
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12&version=NIV  Mark 12:24-27:
Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+23&version=NIV Acts 23:6-8
Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead." When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.)

I hate the idea of getting involved with this thread, but hell, I've never been very good at keeping quiet.

So: I don't get the idea of 'an afterlife', as such, from those too passages so much as the idea that Jesus will raise the worthy from the dead at the second coming, which is then followed by angelification. Actually, I think that's what Jehovah's Witnesses believe.

Either way, I think it's beneficial to me and those around me to do good, so I do. A celestial Santa Clause doesn't play much of a role, because I like to do good and don't see why I shouldn't. The main reason I believe in God is something very much like cowardice. I'm terrified of there being no life after death. Still, my faith is sort of up in the air right now, but I'm going to work it out on my own.

[MrWiggles]

Quoting the bible (or any holy christian books) to debate for or against religion is quite pointless : there has been so many things added, removed or modified since it was first written that you can probably use it to prove (and disprove) each and every subject.


Anyway, it's fun to see that Atheism seems to be a marginal philosophy and something you got to hide from your neighbors in the US. In France, it's the other way around : [passive] atheism is the default state of mind, and people will look at you funnily if you told them you're Christian. If you add that you go to church on Sunday, everyone will probably laugh at you, heh.

Atheisim is marginalize, but its not marginal. We out number da Jews in the US. However, we our under represented though. I think last year, we got one full time lobbyist, which half the time I'm grumpy at when ever I bother to go check up on what he doing.

[Timst]

Strange. Then again, Religion seems to be a definitely more important topic on that side of the sea.

[MrWiggles]

Strange. Then again, Religion seems to be a definitely more important topic on that side of the sea.

It is curios that Europe is growing more secular. I see United States religioness as fall out still lingering from the cold war.

Spain has an official religion. You used to be able to pay your state taxes at the Church. My understanding is that, this has been revoked, and church attendance is at an all time low. England official church also have almost no attendance. It also have more celebrities that speak about their lack of belief. 

I think it was Hitchen that remarked that religious freedom may be the more ethical and moral stance of a free society, but it makes religion competitive for seats thusly actively striving for seat fillers. Official religion states, makes the de fact religion complacent, and does not actively seek out members.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah, the Anglicans are pretty screwed.  Especially with the whole gay/ female bishops/ vicars/ whatever debate.  Seriously, they'll lose a whole load of members whichever way they go.