Atheist Uprising! we need a book burning ourselves... of the bible. and when the media asks why? we can list the offensive things in the bible that most of these fundies are ignorant to and that the media never acknowledges.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” -Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion

>> ^MINK:
dawkins is wrong. bringing up a child with a religious background is absolutely nothing like child abuse.
typical dawkins "intellect" on parade again. dawkins is an extremist himself.


Many forms of religion are psychologically abusive (especially here in the south), while others are even physically abusive.

Sure, there are very positive and loving denominations of religion, but bringing a child up under the premise of "believe what you are told despite any objective evidence to the contrary" seems somewhat intellectually debilitating.

Hmmm. This is a hard one. I'm surprised I don't have more works of fiction on this list.

1. Robert R. McCammon's Boy's Life
2. Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyer: The Power of Myth
3. Ron Paul's The Revolution:A Manifesto
4. Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion
5. Simon Singh's The Code Book

i read the entire discussion on her youtube page.

some random bits that i thought were interesting:

she listens to books because she is dyslexic and she has the bible and the OT on cds.

one good comment from an atheist was that the christians themselves are trying to get their views or whatever accepted as science, then they should tolerate it when real science comments back.

many people trying to point out to her that the god delusion is not a science book

the woman who made the video has two or three main answers to every critic:
- so you are an elitist atheist who follows the religion of evolution? how dare you think you are better than me!?
- only the chosen few gets the real meaning of my message, i am a chosen few.
- and the classic: where do you get your morales from?

she is planning (or has already) on making a series of videos where she debunks professor dawkins and evolution

she is well versed in, although predictably so, the "standard" christian rebuttals of science and.. you know.. reality.


what scares me most though, is how apparently willingly she dives into her ocean of ignorance. she must be using her legs to swim, because her hands are firmly over her ears.

Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power

The god delusion

Hagakure

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

I am reading a lot on ethics and law. If half of the worlds authority had taken an ethics class or held ethics to a higher standard we would be doing very well today.

When the white house asked the DOJ to make a memo on how to lawfully torture some one, they didn't realize how unethical that was. We would be doing the constitution and our reputation a disservice for not prosecuting a single perpetrator and mastermind.

I think you'l find that's a tape.

And that the god delusion isn't a book so much about science, that's what scientific journals are for, its more of a book on philosophy/theology.

Indeed it was. I think you sometimes more easily could come up with an answer in meditation, but I don't think it's impossible to come up with the same answer without meditating. Clearing your mind can make things more apparent, but not reveal otherwise impossible to reach truths.

In reply to this comment by CamW:
was it the meditation question? thats the one I was wondering about the interpretation of in trying to answer.

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I loved it. I scored 0, or arguably 5 depending on my interpretation of his question.

was it the meditation question? thats the one I was wondering about the interpretation of in trying to answer.

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I loved it. I scored 0, or arguably 5 depending on my interpretation of his question.

>> ^Sagemind:
It is designed to separate.
Not that a "non-creationalist" would disagree with the outcome, but those who have faith are pidgeon-holed into the test-makes "batsh t Crazy" description on the basis of answering one question.


I'm pretty sure that's the point of the "test".

>> ^NordlichReiter:
Utter Stupidity.
To think that porking a woman is going to protect your from a bullet or an 105 millimeter air burst howitzer shell.
I am going to go back to reading the god delusion.
The stupidity is, astounding.


Actually, a lot of times they are still using machetes to clean out villages the old fashioned way

Utter Stupidity.

To think that porking a woman is going to protect your from a bullet or an 105 millimeter air burst howitzer shell.

I am going to go back to reading the god delusion.

The stupidity is, astounding.

>> ^MINK:
dawkins is wrong. bringing up a child with a religious background is absolutely nothing like child abuse.
typical dawkins "intellect" on parade again. dawkins is an extremist himself.


Read The God Delusion. John Cornwell is a lying sack of shit, his entire argument in this video is based on complete misrepresentations of what Dawkins has actually said. Most of the "summaries" of Dawkins is entirely taken out of Cornwells own head ie: "He parallels religion with a cultural virus* that's so evil** that he says its even worse then pedophile abuse***"

What a lying sack of shit. Dawkins has never said that. Anywhere. Ever.

*Yes, he calls religion a virus, but unless you're an ignorant lying piece of shit like Cornwell, you should know that the word "virus" in this context is not used in the negative, insulting way. He refers to memes, cultural ideas, including scientific ideas, by the way, as a form of virus, in the sense that, like a virus, it replicates through occupation of hosts, and like viruses, the only prerequisite for their existence is their ability to replicate.

**Viruses are not evil, nor are they good, they just are.

***No, he has never said religion is "worse than pedophile abuse", this is simply a fabrication that ranks with the last public statements of Comical Ali.
Dawkins has, with considerable restraint, and careful distinction, said that SOME forms of religious indoctrinations, (such as threats of hellfire) and the overt way of forcing religions upon children by labeling them "catholic child" or whatever, can be called a FORM OF CHILD ABUSE. He has never compared it to pedophilia or any other form of abuse.

Btw, go to the school's website & look up their admissions requirements. You have to list all of the books you've read.

I should apply for fun. Do you think they'd be offended if I listed The God Delusion??

>> ^rougy:
It is, for some perverse reason, the goal of almost every Christian that I know of to convince an atheist to believe in God.


I wouldn't say perverse. Evangelism is a tenet of Christian faith as indicated in the Gospel according to Matthew: "Jesus drew near and said to them, 'I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.'" (Matthew 28:18-20)

So all Christians are expected to spread the Word and bring more people into the Church. I was raised in a pretty liberal parish, but I've been to services in more conservative areas where they take an almost militaristic tone in converting others. I remember hearing a priest in a particular conservative parish say during a homily once that "25% of the United States is made up of Christians, so if everyone could just go out and convert three people..." and I forget the rest of the sentence because I was so disgusted.

I'm Christian (Roman Catholic, specifically), but I don't go out shoving my religion in others' faces. This is because (a) it's ineffective, (b) it assumes other beliefs are misguided or sinful, which I feel is wrong, and (c) I have an incomplete understanding of the Universe. So instead I use my time to question my faith and understand the world around me and only inject my own religious beliefs when the conversation turns to those ends, like it did here. I'm not exactly sure how that story was relevant, except to say that not all Christians are crazy, and that evangelism is a natural part of Christian dogma.

Besides, I wouldn't say that atheists never force their beliefs on others either. I use as my examples the two prominent atheists Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher, who both scoff at atheism and seem to take every opportunity to make their case for how ridiculous religious belief is. Dawkins wrote "The God Delusion" which is pretty self explanatory, and that's without even mentioning his own evangelism (lecture circuit). Maher pans religion every chance he gets on his show, and there's that movie he recently made on the subject. I don't find anything wrong with these things, as it's natural to want to turn others on to your point of view, but it's not fair to say Christians are rather pushy over this and atheists aren't. It's just that there seem to be a lot more Christians and certain sects tend towards intolerance.

Quite the book I wrote up there -- Congrats on reaching the end of my rambling.

No, gorillaman. That is a horrible, horrible attitude to take. They are children. They have not allowed themselves to grow up to become rational adults, but they are not monsters. They are simply immature. Every human has the ability to throw off the shackles of delusion and join the ranks of the mature, rational beings. Please, please, stop dividing human beings into them and us. That is the kind of immorality preached by religion. As an enlightened being, you should know better; unless you are simply a fallen believer, clinging to another "faith system", ultimately destined to return to "the church".

And as for the usefulness of people like Dawkins and Hitchens, I called myself an agnostic before I read The God Delusion. Now I proudly call myself atheist, with the full knowledge of the internal contradictions that make faith-based beliefs untenable.

It may be fundamentally obvious to those of us who have rejected faith, but for years I was one of them. Please do not become the demon you think you are rejecting by seeming to advocate, or at the very least condone, some sort of violent cleansing. It must be done with peace and rationality, or we do not deserve it.