What Atheists Want

The Washington Post ^ | Chris Mooney

[TXLibertarian]

Excerpted from a longer op-ed. Author discusses the danger of legal proselytizing by a few firebrand secularists. Worth a read, IMHO.

What Atheists Want

By Chris Mooney

....

Unfortunately, in my experience, the U.S. atheist and secularist communities contain a number of activists who are inclined to be combative and in some cases feel positively zestful about offending the religious. Madalyn Murray O'Hair, easily America's most famous atheist firebrand, wasn't dubbed "the most hated woman in America" for nothing. Despite her landmark 1963 Supreme Court victory in a case concerning the constitutionality of school prayer, O'Hair's pugilistic and insulting public persona hurt atheists a great deal in the long run. A head-on attack on the pledge seems to epitomize the confrontational O'Hair strategy.

....

[antiRepublicrat]

Now that you've read that article on infinity, you see how the odds come down. If your odds are 50^500,000,000, they are still within the set of infinity because for every number N there exists a number (N+1). This will eventually add up to the point that the probability of any occurrence (e.g., the astronimical odds of Shakespeare's works being recreated) will equal N. In that case, there will be an N+1 and now we are in favorable odds for that occurrence.

[antiRepublicrat]

If your child wants to say a prayer before her lunch at a public school, who is going to stop her?

The sad thing is that sometimes there will be someone there to stop her. In those cases, the person should be immediately fired with prejudice and everyone who cares about freedom should be outraged. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen in this highly PC environment. It is highly understandable that Christians should be upset over these occurrances.

All atheists such as I ask in return for respect for the religious practices of others is to not have those practices and prayers forced upon us.

I am the type that if I had a Christian friend in school, I would help him set up events for the prayer at the flagpole. In actuality, I did do a lot of great work for Army chaplains, mainly because I found them to be very nice and genuinely good people, and I like to help those types. I am already planning to create, for free, a temple web site for my Rabbi friend.

In return, please do not tell me I must be at an event, and then force me to acknowledge your god (or feel ostracized by not acknowledging), or in a graduation tell me that your god helped me get to that point when I know I did it only by myself and with the help of other people. That is insulting just as much as a Christian not being allowed to pray by himself, giving thanks to god for getting him to that point.

[antiRepublicrat]

Was man free to murder prior to receiving God's expressed disapproval in the Bible?

No, but by God's command he was sure able to rape and murder, and do all sorts of things that our modern secular society would find reprehensible.

[MissAmericanPie]

Oh please. Do not attach to atheists a noblility of purpose. It's bad enough that they decieve themselves that their cause is noble, then attach that nobility to themselves. People, people like me that suck the very marrow from the bones of logic will always insist that they face their true destructive image in their own mirrors.

Atheists, deists, and Christians came together in a common purpose to found this nation. They all held between them that the principles found in Christianity were important and good enough to found the nation on, whether one himself accepted Christ as saviour or not.

They all attested to the destruction of the nation should these Christian principles not be upheld. The Fed has determined that society has the right to insist that children receive sex education in school lest their parents fail in their responsibility to teach it, to the detriment of society as a whole.

How much more so should the Fed insist that the principles of Christianity be taught in school lest the parent fail to do so and rob the child of the history and foundations of his nation, as well as rob him of the foundations on which to build his character, even if he never accepts Christ as his saviour? The founding fathers agreed these principles are paramont to the survival of the nation I think they knew full well what they were talking about.

Which principles of Christianity is so hateful to the atheist? Love your neighbor as yourself? Do unto other's as you would have them do unto you? That they find these things hateful speaks volumns. Sounds like a personal problem that therapy might help them deal with. So yes, they are as destructive in their own way to society and the survival of the documents of the constitution that ensure our freedom as homosexuals are destructive in their own way to the same.

[Gamecock]

But what you are not aknowledging is the fact that an error causes a restart. Each restart causes the counter to begin at the original probability. Read again. Each missfire by a chimp restarts the works. Just like DNA, it has to be perfect on each attempt.

Also, we are not at infinity. We are 0 plus some unkown number of years, so that in itself makes your assertation void.

[antiRepublicrat]

But what you are not aknowledging is the fact that an error causes a restart. Each restart causes the counter to begin at the original probability.

And what you are not acknowledging is that no matter how many times the counter resets, no matter how far down and rediculously impossible the end odds are, those odds will result in a number and we'll call that number variable N. And for any number N, in infinity there is an N+1. The probability always reaches 1.

Also, we are not at infinity.

This was for the infinite monkeys discussion, which involves infinity.

[antiRepublicrat]

Do not attach to atheists a noblility of purpose.

No, I attach to certain people a nobility of purpose, whether or not they are religious.

They all held between them that the principles found in Christianity were important and good enough to found the nation on, whether one himself accepted Christ as saviour or not.

Fair enough, except that the principles of Christianity relating to freedom were already old when Christianity was founded. Some aspects of Christianity may be a popular example of these principles that are good to be followed, but Christianity is and was not required.

As you've seen from my quotes, these people were wary of other principles and aspects of Christianity becoming too prominent in the country they wanted to establish for fear of a loss of freedom.

Which principles of Christianity is so hateful to the atheist?

"Do as we believe or we'll get the police to enforce it." "No matter what you believe, our god is in charge of you." "Because you don't hold our god as true, you are not a good person." And my interpretation of a favorite: "Because you don't waste your life believing in fairy tales, you are wasting your life."

[Gamecock]

***This was for the infinite monkeys discussion, which involves infinity.***

OK, you have me on that. ;-)

***The probability always reaches 1***

On that you haven't convinced me. Monkeys wouldn't even type a sonnet, much less the complete works. Repetition does not increase odds.

[Porterville]

It's the same thing communist want, if this is the last of the commiew from the 20th century then I'm not too worried, in fact I spit in their general direction

[antiRepublicrat]

On that you haven't convinced me. Monkeys wouldn't even type a sonnet, much less the complete works. Repetition does not increase odds.

Get it out of your head that odds matter when dealing with infinity.

Quote me some astronomical number of trials it will take for those monkeys to achieve their goal, even if just expressing the number itself fills up my hard drive, although I'd appreciate you not taking up all my space. Just to be on the safe side, square that number a few trillion times (although the whole universe is now out of hard drive space). We then assign that monstrous number that can't even be physically expressed to the variable N.

This is the kicker part, so read carefully. By the definition of infinity, for every number N, there exists N+1. The monkeys are finished.

Of course we're still dealing only with theoretical monkeys.

[Gamecock]

***Get it out of your head that odds matter when dealing with infinity.***

Mathamatical laws do not count in infinity. Got it.

[antiRepublicrat]

Mathamatical laws do not count in infinity. Got it.

They do count, as infinity is expressed with them. It's just really not fair to compare a finite number (such as any odds no matter how big) with infinity. The finite number will, by definition, always lose.

I had to read the article and other sources a couple times before before I could shake off my obviously mistaken previous math classes dealing with infinity. It really is a stranger beast than they told most of us in school.

[MissAmericanPie]

Fair enough, except that the principles of Christianity relating to freedom were already old when Christianity was founded. Some aspects of Christianity may be a popular example of these principles that are good to be followed, but Christianity is and was not required.

Well you may not think it is required, but that is the contract we operate on as a nation. If they had based the nation on the principles of Islam then we would be operating under those principles. And athesits would not dare utter a peep about their feeling sad about themselves. Your pain would be relieved by removing the pressure of your head upon your neck. You must be very fond of straw dogs, do you decorate your yard with them? "If you don't believe as we do you are not a good person, we will call the police on you", how utterly rediculous. It is because of Christian principles of the rights of the individual that this could never happen.

[RichardMoore]

You want me to guess what you're thinking?

[antiRepublicrat]

It's already been covered on this thread. But if you think the universe needs something to create it, you must think along the lines that everything needs a creator. In that case, who created God? You'll say that God is infinite, but then the universe could be so too.

It could also be that our idea of cause-effect (God-creates universe) in a linear time fashion doesn't apply in the conditions at the beginning of the universe. As someone already mentioned, when you get to extremes of speed, heat and size, we see time and time again that our normal laws tend to break down.

[philosofy123]

I guess if you lived in NY, and supported the Miami Marlyns, you will simply feel out of place. Atheists probably would feel better hanging out of other atheists.

[antiRepublicrat]

If they had based the nation on the principles of Islam then we would be operating under those principles. And athesits would not dare utter a peep about their feeling sad about themselves.

Actually, Islam shares a lot of these fundamental principles with Christianity. It makes sense since 1) they are good ideas for keeping a society together, and 2) Islam stole much of itself from Christianity and Judaism anyway. How the country operates mainly depends on the motives and culture of the people interpreting the book.

Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity; if I were to go to a Christian state of 600 years ago I'd be afraid for my head, too, even if I were a devout Christian but just of the wrong denomination. Actually, I'd be afraid if I went back just 300 years in certain places.

[antiRepublicrat]

I guess if you lived in NY, and supported the Miami Marlyns, you will simply feel out of place. Atheists probably would feel better hanging out of other atheists.

Maybe, but in public schools, college graduations and, for me, PLDC and other Army events, we are kind of stuck in that environment. In Basic training there was the thing of we could work Sunday morning or go to church.

An interesting aside was that in PLDC a Wiccan wanted to deliver the invocation and they wouldn't let him.

[gcruse]

I prefer hanging out with people of similar interests. Religion doesn't come into it as a disqualifier. Maybe atheists don't put that much stock in something they don't believe in. Religion might be a disqualifier to the religious, though. Someone who embodies a 'threat' to their beliefs and all that.

[tdadams]

Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity; if I were to go to a Christian state of 600 years ago I'd be afraid for my head, too

This is a good point and one that hadn't really occured to me before. Islam today is where Christianity was about 400-600 years ago in it's struggle for relevance, cohesion, and dominance. If you're curious about this look at the draconian steps the Christian church took in the middle ages to ensure compliance with its beliefs - stonings, beheadings, buring at the stake, and anything else deemed necessary to stamp out dissent.

It eerily mirrors Islam today and followed a similar timeline in it's development.