Posted on 12/27/2017 8:22:26 AM PST by truthfinder9
Recently a man burst into a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and shot and killed 26 parishioners (including an unborn child). The killer’s former high school classmates described him as a militant atheist.
“He was always talking about how people who believe in God we’re stupid and trying to preach his atheism,” wrote former classmate Nina Rose Nava in a Facebook post, according to the Daily Mail. “I legit just deleted him off my fb cause I couldn’t stand his post.”
Which raises this question: To what extent was the killer’s rampage inspired by his atheist beliefs? Obviously, I am not making the case that atheists as a group condone his act, or would ever consider doing anything like it. All decent, normal people, atheist and theist alike, are horrified by this atrocity. Yet the question posed is still reasonable. If the tables had been turned — if, God forbid many times over, the victims had been atheists at a skeptics’ convention and the killer had been an evangelical Christian — the public square would be filled with speculation about the role that ideology played in his crimes. And properly so. We can’t get inside the Texas killer’s head (fortunately), but ideas do have consequences.
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“Atheist Nicene Creed”? I doubt there were atheists in Nicaea in 325 A.D.
Atheism has its priests, its fundamentalists, its proselytizers and its dangerous fanatics, just like most other faiths. On the other hand, it defines itself by what it doesn’t believe in, while failing to acknowledge its own dogmas.
“Atheism” is the outcome of the ‘old two friends that agree to disagree’, with neither having ‘the winning point’.
“Atheism”, in matters of the divine, defends the non-existence of anything supernatural, and that ‘all’ is a random factor of chance. “It just happens.” Life is what we do, what we think, what we feel, what we become, without any ‘outside determination or intervention’.
Now, “atheism” in politics, a person can believe in splinters of what might form ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’, but not ascribe to ANY so-called pure party dictate.
“Militant atheism” is, as I understand it, a belief that any and all ‘religious systems’ are an impediment to ‘man’ attaining his highest pinnacle of excellence, due to the chains of dogma and created self-loathing of his self-generated imperfections, and must be removed or destroyed.
And it requires a leap of faith, just like other religions.
The 2007 New Life Church Church shooter was also an atheist who was specifically anti-Christian. Of course, the Columbine killers were anti-Christian atheists as well. It would be interesting to see a study.
In the US, atheists tend to target Christians. They are anti Christian versus anti religion.
Some members of the atheist faith have had bad experiences in their pasts and some have a vendetta.
Partial disagreement. There are two varieties of atheism, strong and weak. Strong atheism positively asserts that there are no Gods. This is indeed a leap of faith.
Weak atheism, on the other hand, is the case in which a person does not believe in the existence of any deities but does not explicitly assert that there are none. This is not a leap of a faith, but instead a lack of it.
Atheism is just another belief system and the idea that a person could be militant about it seems ridiculous.
I have had this up on ChristianPatriot.com for years, every Christian should watch it and ponder it’s message.
Yes, I have a relative in this category.
I understand why people are atheists, or have a skepticism about spirituality. But, my relative, a former devout Christian, lost a marriage and family due to his own bad behavior, and blamed their adherence to Christianity.
He now seems on a mission to prove every Christian wrong.
This newer brand of atheism seems to dovetail with modern progressivism. At least, he seems to be a radical leftist, as are many of his atheist friends.
They are not actually “atheists” because they have to believe there is a God in order to feel so threatened by Him. They hate God and the thought that God limits or defines their parameters. They are looking for revenge against God and they can’t see Him to take proper aim so they kill people instead.
Indeed. All that is necessary is to officially recognize atheism as a religion, being one extreme end if the deism index (none as opposed to poly). Then the purge of all things religious from the public square is defacto state sponsorship of religion - atheism.
Atheism lead inexorably to nihilism. You cannot separate the two.
Some atheists are rock solid conservatives that believe religion is a tool. Some use the tool for good, some bad.
Pretty good take on atheism, but there are more than 2 “varieties”.
Well, sure. I was speaking in broad, general terms.
I an understand a person being agnostic. That is believable. But atheism is about absolutes just like other faiths.
Anyway, it is a known amongst Atheists that some are militant and then why would the be militant or maybe a more descriptive term is a zealot.
“Weak atheism” seems to match the definition of an agnostic?
An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves.
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