Of possible interest.
Why are they so angry? Because, when they die, they’ll be all dressed up with nowhere to go.
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Heh. Lots of people on this forum, particularly on the evo threads, might take heed, but won't.......
I’ve heard a ton of aethists opine in 12-step meetings, and it’s my sense that they are mad because addicts hate to be told what to do, and they think that religion wants to fence them in.
It is a nice sounding theory that when you separate the Christian Church from the state, you get stability, but it does not pass the common sense test.
For instance, I know it is the first words out of any atheist mouth when you try to talk with them about Jesus, “Explain the Inquisition,” and “Look how evil the church was!” and “Look what they did in the name of Jesus!”
It is true that about 500 years ago, Christian fanatics killed about 10,000 people over a 100 year time period (about 100/year) in the name of the Roman Catholic church. It is a shame on the record of an organization that claims to be promoting the ministry of Christ. Now compare this record to the example of the countries that have officially done away with religion. To the countries that have outright banned religion and imprisoned those who try to practice it (the ultimate test of the theory of separation of church and state).
Yes, I am talking about Communist countries. In the Communist Manifesto, Engel and Marx declared, “Communism abolishes all religion.” In my father’s lifetime, the numbers of people that officially atheist countries have murdered in the name of no-religion is staggering; the USSR slaughtered 20 million, China slaughtered 10 million, Communist Cambodia slaughtered 2 million, Communist North Korea has/continues to murder untold numbers, Communist Cuba has/continues to murder untold numbers, the list goes on.
The grand total is over 50+ million dead in the last 80-year time span (over 600,000/year). Even comparing the worst time of “Christian Persecution” to an average time of a just one country that has officially and forcefully separated church and state, the conclusion is obvious: Christianity has a huge calming influence on government.
Atheism always strikes me as a noun that sugggests a limiting venue.
Such atheists don’t really believe in their hearts that there is no God. They hate God for laying down rules. Atheists who really believe there is no God tend to be much more even-tempered, knowing that others’ belief is simply irrelevant to them.
everyone knows that all bullies are cowards.
I warn you that 1) I can't speak for Hitchens, Dawkins, et al, and 2) exploring a non-religious viewpoint requires a degree of broadmindedness that some religious people seem to find quite uncomfortable.
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Misery loves company.
Because these athiests are Marxists who’s god is the State, and the state is a jealous god.
In one case it is merely insanity; on the other, it is simply an extreme case of "misery-loves-company."
If I know that I was nothing before I was born, I am nothing now, and I will be nothing when I die, how dare anyone else have the hope of a higher fate?
Why should I embrace laws, ethics, morals and even civilization? Who decided it's important anyway?
As for science, it's settled. Just because it can't answer the most fundamental questions of creation doesn't mean we are closed minded, or anything...
I think one of the reasons for the anger is that the “freethinking utopia” has been such a disaster. The collapse of Christianity in Europe was supposed to usher in a new golden age of enlightenment, but instead it’s created an atmosphere where Islam, one of the most primitive religions on earth, is poised to become the dominant force there within a century.
Western atheists in the 19th & 20th centuries never gave Islam much thought because it wasn’t a significant factor in most Western nations. Christianity was the sole enemy as far as they were concerned, and once it was driven from a central role in community life, a new golden age would supposedly arise. Instead, those European nations are filled with secularized drones who merely want to live out the rest of their lives on a nice pension and then die. They don’t give a damn what happens to their nations after they’re gone. Militant atheists have come to realize that Christianity was a necessary ingredient in the success of the West. Knock Christianity out and you don’t get utopia, you get a shallow, empty culture filled with people too pessimistic and hedonistic to reproduce, followed by Islam.
And so there’s an increasing rage among atheists. As Mark Steyn once put it, for secular, socialist nanny states to survive, they need the family values and birth rates of a religious society. Otherwise the ponzi scheme collapses. So having purged Christian values from Europe, the secular elites have had to import fundamentalist Muslims to try to keep the scheme going. It’s frustrating to atheists that their societies are, for all practical purposes, dependent on religious people. So they lash out in rage, the way a spoiled child hates his parents.
I’m almost 58yo, and I the closest I ever came to meeting an atheist (that I know of) was in Hammerfest Norway, and she said she was a pagan. Where are all of them, and how do you get people to say they are?
For atheists, THIS is “all there is”. They have nothing to look forward to or anyone to lean on with power. It’s a ad life for them - but it is THEIR choice.
If anything, the constant need of the new atheists to belittle religious belief suggests a defensiveness, a need to reassure themselves that they are right.
Can we say "Teeny tiny gonads?" Of course we can, unless the Religion Moderator smacks us in the teeth.
The end will have the final say. I happen to believe life has a purpose, and I feel sorry for those who think that this is all there is. I just say a quick prayer for them and move on.