Posted on 12/08/2013 12:35:03 PM PST by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Imagine if an activist group blanketed a major city with 55 billboards urging that illegal aliens go back to their own country. Or that homosexuality is a crime against nature. Or that Muslims are responsible for most of the world’s terrorist attacks.
The mainstream media would be all over the story. Organizations – like La Raza, like GLAAD, like CAIR – would organize protests. President Obama would publicly condemn the billboards (while defending illegals, homosexuals and Islam). And the sponsors of the billboards would be branded a “hate group.”
Yet, there has been little outrage over the 55 billboards that started going up last week in Sacramento, California that mock Christians, that blaspheme God. They are sponsored by the so-called Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist organization based in Madison, Wisconsin that truly is a hate group.
“I don’t believe in Odin, either,” sneers one billboard. “Studying the bible made me an atheist,” disparages another. “Without god I am full of love,” declares still another.
Yet, Judy Saint, director of FFRF’s newly formed Sacramento chapter, insists that the 55 billboards are not anti-Christian, not anti-God. They just thought it would be a good way to encourage atheists on the down low to “come out of the closet”
“There are thousands of us here,” she said, “and we are reaching out to them because it’s such a maligned minority. If the message at all is to believers, it would be that we are good moral people, too.”
But, by her own words, Saint reveals the nefariousness of the atheist movement in this country.
She suggests that atheists are an unfairly maligned minority. But if the noisome atheist community – which constitutes less than 1 percent of the U.S. population – is maligned, it’s because of their attacks on Christians by in-your-face atheist groups like FFRF.
Indeed, not only are the atheists putting up 55 billboards that bash the religious faith of more than three-quarters of Americans, they have deliberately chosen to do so during the Christmas season, defecating on a holy day on which Christians celebrate the birth of Christ the Lord.
Saint also claims that she and her fellow atheists are both “good” and “moral.”
But there is no good in the atheists’ (un)holy war against Christianity, using billboards as their weapon of attack. And there is no morality in the atheist community’s endorsement of such practices as same-sex marriage.
Indeed, one of FFRF’s 55 billboards features Saint, the atheist hate group’s Sacramento front woman, and her wife with the message: “Reason. Equality. Doing Good – All without gods.”
That’s the arrogance of atheists that they inherited from their father, the devil. They think that “doing good” means they are good. But the Bible advises that their good works, whatever they might be, “are as filthy rags” before the Almighty.
The Word of God also tell us, everyone, “There is none righteous, no not one.”
The difference between unrighteous Christians and unrighteous atheists is that Christians are born again; their sins covered by the blood of Christ. Atheists, on the other hand reject Christ, and shake their fist at God.
And for their unrepentant, unforgiven sin, the unGodly will spend their existence beyond this fallen world in everlasting torment.
If you don’t hate me because I’m Christian, then I won’t be, will I? Sometimes the praying helps the person doing the praying. :)
When I’m praying I can’t be telling the person who hates me because of how I believe— $!@*%&^! It gets my mind off things and adjusts my attitude.
I agree with you.
But, the way I see this specific topic, the atheist bill boards are hostile. There’s an anger about them.
Ultimately, atheists I wouldn’t trust any more than Islam if atheists were the dominant belief in a society.
In the US, atheists generally retain judeo Christian ethics due to their environment. But as that influence wanes and atheist numbers and strength increases, I would be worried to be subject to such a society.
Not nearly enough; the death penalty is a joke in most states (such as my state of Colorado) these days.
This still leaves massive injustice, not only for what evil we affected here,
This is the historic norm, is it not?
but in God's realm it effects eternity, and has eternal ramifications.
I have no belief in such things.
Then there is the problem of having no proven transcendent moral standard common to atheists, outside their own varied moral reasoning.
No man is an island...even atheists such as myself are enormously influenced by the society the grow up in and (if they're philosophically adventurous enough) those whose writings influence them. My default position on most things is the writings of Robert A. Heinlein. From my point of view, he just makes sense. That's not to say I consider his writings to be the Gospel, but they have influenced me.
As for a transcendent moral standard...as far as I know there's no such thing. Some (most) may claim they have access to it, but of course there's the problem of the guy down the block who says he has the Real Truth (you heathen!). To quote Heinlein: "One man's religion is another man's belly laugh".
See the "Argument from inconsistent revelations" for more on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_inconsistent_revelations
And on that note, I'm going to have to call it a day. Fun thread!
Well, then, perhaps we could just consider the Freedom From Religion Foundation the atheist equivalent of the Westboro B****** Cult and let it go at that.
I would be curious to know how you know something that not only you haven't experienced yet, but how you obtained universal knowledge.
Cordially,
An atheist has no belief in a deities or deities. An antitheist is hostile to the idea of anyone believing in a deity or deities.
While an antitheist is of necessity an agnostic or atheist (unless they're very confused), the reverse is not the case.
Well, they're not that bad (few are). They are obnoxious, granted.
And on that note, I'm really calling it a day!
This is the historic norm, is it not?
But not in God's economy, as it takes everything into account, and judges righteousness according to light and ability, etc., and nothing his hidden, even if you disagree with the eternal aspect and the severity from what we see .
No man is an island...even atheists such as myself are enormously influenced by the society the grow up in
We all are somewhat eclectic to some degree, but as with the Constitution, the Bible is the standard, and even the kind of reasoning its sanctions, and while there can be disagreement to varying degrees, as with the Constitution,yet there is a supreme standard to interpret.
In contrast, for the atheist nothing is binding, and all conclusions potentially are viable. Even related to the billboard issue, a few uphold free exercise of religion, others think the children of evang. Christians should be dealt with like as with children of drug addicts. And few would sanction Christian based morality as opposed to atheistic ethos being installed today in schools.
While you might say that, introspectively I believe you harbor some doubts. Every atheist does. Just as every atheist has some sort of moral code for which they have no explanation of why they feel something is right or wrong. Or something is good while something else is evil. Otherwise Gandhi was no different than Hitler. And being "content" to know you'll wink out of existence is meaningless since no one would care, least of all you.
Morality is written on our hearts and is evidence of the nature that God endowed in us. And, yes, you do have a purpose in this existence-for good or for evil.
Do you remember Madaline Murray O’Hare? She founded the original American Atheist Movement. An obnoxious old bat who took her activism all the way to the Supreme Court, and made them take prayer out of public schools. She raked in tons of money from other anti-Christians, and got filthy rich. Then she came to a very bad end. She and her entire family were kidnapped, murdered and buried in the desert by some psycho who she had hired to manage her finances. It took the feds almost ten years to find the bones and bring the perp to justice. And then he died a year after they busted him. Is that Karma, or what?
I don’t remember her, but I have seen the story on some crime show in the last few years. She was insane, imho.
Kip: “The proper answer to this question is “Since I have no belief in any deity while not affirming that no deities exist, I am an atheist of the weak variety rather than a strong atheist. This is distinct from being an agnostic, is it not, who when asked if God exists answers, ‘Maybe’?”
My reply:
The intellectually honest agnostic answers something like “I don’t know, really. I suppose it’s possible God exists, I’m just not convinced of it”. He could answer “maybe” as a short-cut to his true answer, of course.
I would propose that your “weak atheist” categorization is another way of saying “I don’t believe there is a God, although I’m not saying he doesn’t exist either”. Leaving open the door to the possibility of God existing. Sounds like an agnostic with an identity confusion issue.
In any event, I agree with you that each individual is free to hold whatever beliefs he chooses to hold.
They HATE us?
I’m shocked, I tell ya.
Well, I don’t hate them back.
>> Morality is written on our hearts
Existence is intrinsically ‘evil’. But your metaphor describes the intangible means through which we deform it into something meaningful — something ‘Godly’.
“I get mildly annoyed when I see a billboard touting any kind of religious belief. A billboard touting religious unbelief is just as annoying. If you think you possess the secrets of the universe, fine. Just don’t feel the need to edify the rest of the world.”
I see billboards advertising products I find detestable and just don’t buy them. I don’t have a problem with atheists advertising atheism, or churches advertising Christianity, or casinos advertising gambling. No annoyance whatsoever. I just wonder why the atheist has to advertise against “god(s)”.
In the same way, when one of us chooses “to edify the rest of the world” you don’t have to buy it. Meanwhile, we MUST tell the rest of the world the good news. If you are offended, well, that, my FRiend is a choice.
They don’t after Muslims because they know the risk of becoming worm food if they do.
Tragically, the federal government has grown immensely in size and scope and those that hate religion have insisted that religion get out of its way. As more areas and aspects of our public life are considered to be under federal authority, they insist all such areas be a haven of religious non-expression and neutrality since it is by extension somehow the government that must be separated from religion. The clear actual meaning of the First Amendment is their enemy, for it limits the federal government rather than religion. Hypocritically they seek to have the federal government advance their own philosophical world view on the grounds that it is non-religious and therefore the welcome epitome of what they argue the founders thought should be promoted by government--another point on which they are profoundly misguided or dishonest.
Moral relativism rules in such an environment without absolutes. It is the “survival of the fitest” moral compass. If one or a few can attain the influence and power to project their system on others, they become the “absolute” for good or bad.
On the contrary, its a lot of skin off your ####### if you are wrong. Is it possible, even remotely possible that you could be wrong on this subject?
I thought she had been murdered by her children and they found her body, hacked up and placed in 55 gal drums, after stealing her gold.
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