LOL @ another LordsSword blowout. I swear when I stop back every few months to this forum the same shit is brewing each time. Anyway, to reply to the thread:
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Originally Posted by Sceptre X
There is a middle road here. It's the athiests like this that swear off religion completely that annoy the crap out of me as well, because they've become no better than the religion that they left earlier. I have come to terms with the fact that I live in a Christian country, and that I am a minority. I attend church with my family and I celebrate Christmas, because it makes them happy and mkaes the community stronger.
I can see you as people who rip down Christmas trees because, oh fuck, there's religion in my secular life. Oh, no. Get over yourself and realize that other people exist as well, and each has their own perspective.
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I can see where both you and neus are coming from, but I agree more with neus (though not harboring so much rage). I won't rip down a Christmas tree because it's religious. In fact, I'll probably use a Christmas tree during the holidays in the future because it's fun to decorate and brings in the holiday mood.
However, when it comes to
meaningful things like ideas (because, really, how fucking meaningful is a Christmas tree), I stand on neus' side. I believe children should be taught to consider things rationally, rationally meaning weighing evidence against counter evidence and discriminating which is truth and which isn't. However, most people like to make little exceptions to rationality, such as, oh, blaming god for killing your child who was sick with cancer, or believing in a crucified jewish zombie sacrificial-lamb/man-savior that god splooged out one day.
Apologetics say I can't disprove that this is the way the world really functions, so they're off the hook; they get to believe what they want. Wrong. The evidence against the two above examples is blatantly obvious: there is no correlation between religion and whether or not your child gets cancer, and it is medically impossible to resuscitate a body after 3 days of death. "God did it" may be the answer to whatever argument I make, but it comes back to proof. I have proof that it medically can't happen, you have no proof that it medically can happen. Rationality is the opposite of believing things that can't be proven(see: racism, sexism); it is
rejecting them and instead believing that which
can be proven. We don't debate the possibilities of whether invisible-monkey-bird-demons are about to eat our face off, and for good reason. We can't prove their existence, and thus the idea of them never materializes into something we should be concerned about. Why the idea of God never received the same criticism is something to wonder about.
In my debates with others I've come to the conclusion that the real reason that anyone comes to believe in the supernatural is because, well, the alternative is too unimaginative. The ideas of atheism are sobering: no life after death, no god looking out for you (or trying to destroy you), the life you are living is not just a test for the future, it's the
whole sha-bang. And considering how shitty many people's lives have been, atheism isn't going to be the crowd pleaser, the lift me up pill that so many other religions are. However, the place where atheism shines is in it's rationality, which is something no dogma-based system can attain.
The fault of atheism is the way it's message is presented (see: neus). Atheism can be presented in a hopeful, forward-looking context, but too often it spends time using it's energies arguing
against religion instead of
for itself (reminds me of a political campaign).
So to conclude, I do swear off religion completely. I don't swear off socializing, humanitarian efforts, basic traditions, or community strength (the things which religion leeches off of to sustain itself). Those are all positive things and need to be freed from their religious context. If I have kids, they will not be raised in a religion, and they will be taught to think critically and rationally. If I were you, Cellius, I wouldn't worry too much. I don't think harassment of atheists is a big issue for school kids (unless s/he wears shirts that say "Blasphemy is a victimless crime" to school). It seems to me that at this point in schools the majority of kids really don't give a crap about religion one way or the other. When they talk to each other it's about friends, food, movies, music, games, not religion. Unless your kid intentionally hangs out with the School Bible Club I doubt he'll have much to worry about.
Jam it back in, in the dark.
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