Is Atheism a threat to Freedom

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1.Separation Of Church And State
2. America has no set religion
3. Many of our founding fathers (Including Thomas Jefferson) were Atheist or Agnostic.
4. I'd say Christianity is a threat to freedom as they try to take away the rights of Innocent people for no reason other than their illogical book of hatred and historical, geological, and logical fallacies.

referring to #3 above: many of the founders were Deists rather than Trinitarian Christians. Deists are like Unitarian-Universalist church members. That is neither atheism nor agnosticism. It is a belief that is not aligned with Christianity or Orhtodox Judaism. And it isn't pagan either.

The Deists did not believe God was constantly looking see whether we humped in the missionary position or that we were jacking off.

ruveyn

Well Thomas Jefferson who wrote the mother f**king declaration of independence and the constitution was an open atheist.

Then why did he attribute basic human rights to a Creator. Jefferson was anti-church. He hated the corruption of the priesthoods and the ministries. Show us one document in which Jefferson denied the existence of a Creator or God.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 12 Nov 2010, 7:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Not really. Atheists do not, in general, believe that government can or should have the authority to trample on our civil liberties.


Again, not true. The American Revolution was inspired largely by Enlightenment ideals, which did not emphasize any aspect of theism.


This simply isn't what most atheists believe, so you're arguing against a meaningless strawman. And even if atheism did lead to vapid moral relativism, is that any worse than an utterly hollow and tautological Divine Command Theory?

Fixed it for you. You are welcome.

You are older than I thought!

Who is my creator? My mom, with a little injection of "help" from dad.

Ok, I'm a Christian and have no issues whatsoever with anyone who isn't.

However the OP does conferm the fact that God is all good and just (and ANY human run govenment will be flowed with regards to morals no matter how well they may try) then it's better to follow God rather than just some fellow human with a lot of money.

Yes the Christian Church has (and still does) evil things over the many centuery's but those are the works of men NOT God!! !!

Look at it this way, surpose I was a doctor or a GP who, descied to use the skills and trust that I'd have aquered over the years to kill people.

Does that then mean that I was told to do this by the head of the NHS?

No! Of course not!! !! And the same goes for those who are in the clugery who none the less still comit evil deeds.

And if you think about it, the Bible is very vage about matters conserning as to HOW a being like God can exsit, all we know is that He does exsit and that He means the best for us.

Yes this life can be a toil, and evil can go unpunshed but that is only a tempery state of being, as if we could see the rewards that are in Heaven, and likewise the punshments that are in Hell for ourselves, then I think we would see this 'life' (as the soul is eturnel no one can really 'die' only your body does) as not the be all and end all.

After all although a purely litaruel interatpation of the Bible has long since been dispoven may I add that those are only MAN MADE interatpaions of the Bible, not God's word.

Even the Garden of Eden story can be seen as true, if you look at it as been written in the Bible's famed 'picture lingo' rather than a litaral accont.

As I hve said I have no issues with people who aren't Chirstians, but tell you what we can all do, I bet when the Day of Jugement comes EVERYONE will believe in God (cos they can see Him) if however there is nothing then, well I'm still a winner as I would not know any different.

Goodbye Till Next Time

Have you even read the Bible? It says a lot of things, and very little of it can be interpreted - literally or figuratively - as God meaning us well. As described in most of the Bible, God is a sick tyrant and kind of an idiot who can't do anything right.


Am I right to think that you're trying to make the point that all of the Bible is true in some way or another, if not taken literally?
Alright.
Please interpret these passages figuratively:
Sick of the old testament? Well, then let's go on to the new one!
And that's just the ones on slavery. Once you've interpreted all of these figuratively, let me know, and I'll serve you a batch of Bible quotes on some other topic. Rape, maybe? Or maybe murder? There are so many to choose from!


That's just adorable. What if we're both wrong, and Muhammed was right? What if the old greeks were right? What if the vikings were right? What if some random tribe 3000 years ago on New Guinea was right? Or what you're almost write, and Yahweh really does exist, but doesn't like people who know that? Out of thousands of possible Gods, you pick one because it makes you feel safe, but there's no evidence or logic to suggest that you're any safer than I am.

Ok for a start the things that you just quoted are most likely stuff that some sick, evil Monk made up on orders of his boss's!

Or, if it true then you could just put down to the fact that over the century's those quotes have lost there real meaning now as the lingo was differnt back then.

Or those could have been written by men of God but in error as Satan would have fooled them into thinking they were getting commands from God?

As for the stuff about other God's well whever all powerful being made the Cosmos then He/She/It will just somehow make themselves known to you before we all die (even if it's only on our death beds) and will forgive us for following the 'wrong'
'Datey' in error.

And if none of them are correct, then yet again all of us who are of fath will die happy as no one will know any diffenet...

I'd say it was a parallel movement to Adam Weishaupts' Illumination movement in Europe. Not aware of Weishaupt (I don't think) but certainly a lot of the same rhetoric and logic behind the law.

And I will put it to you that the entire religion is made up of "stuff that some sick, evil Monk made up" and similar categories. God himself is very clearly a fictional character, and not a particularly nice one at that. Have you read the entire Bible? There aren't many parts of it where God comes off as both kind and intelligent. He spends most of it being either evil or stupid.

You clearly don't understand how language develops. It's been translated by experts, taking changes in "lingo" into account. You can look at various translations if you like. They all send the same message.

Or you can look at it rationally and conclude that it was much more likely all written by men, under no magical influence. Some parts, sure, were probably written under the influence of something, but it sure wasn't supernatural. More likely volcanic fumes, rotten food and various psychedelia.

Answer me this: How can you tell the difference between God and Satan? How do you even know that God is the good one and Satan is the bad one? What did Satan ever (supposedly) do that was more evil than anything God ever (supposedly) did? For most of the Bible, God comes off as an evil tyrant who doesn't know anything about what it's like to not be God. Satan's "crime" was to stand up to God and basically say that God is a jerk, and that humans need to start thinking for themselves. Is that not what the fruit of the tree of knowledge symbolizes? Thought? What is wrong with thinking critically? The God of the Bible is clearly against thinking critically, since that's what he punishes both Satan and the humans for. As I see it, clearly God and Satan are fictional characters, but even within their own fictional narrative, Satan (for the most part - obviously there's some variation, as different bits were written by different people with different ideas) seems to be a lot more pro-human, pro-thought, pro-freedom and pro-individuality than God is. God is the dictator, Satan is the rebel. So I give you some God quotes and you say that they were probably said by Satan. Why? Let's say there's a God. How would you know he didn't say those things? Wouldn't he make sure that Satan doesn't sully His name in His own book? God likes the concept of servitude. Satan clearly doesn't - that's why he rebelled. So it's more consistent with God's character to condone slavery than it is with Satan's character.

If he's so powerful, then why would he wait for you to be on your deathbed to reveal himself? Why not just reveal himself all the time? If he exists, and can do anything, and wants us to believe, why doesn't he make any effort what-so-ever to prove his existence? Why not just bring all the world's top scientists, journalists and skeptic documentary filmmakers out into the middle of the Sahara desert for a weekend and make a rainforest in front of their eyes, and let them conduct any scientific tests they want, to confirm that he really does have supernatural powers? Shouldn't be too hard for an all-powerful being to accomplish. If there's a man behind the curtain, and he wants us to see him, why doesn't he just pull down the stupid curtain? It's pretty obvious to me that any almighty being who wants believers would have to be a complete idiot, or at the very least a manipulative jerkass, to stay hidden.

if this is how you feel, vince has some pretty good points.

if parts of the bible were written by "satan," how do you know which parts weren't? ever read job? the book of god-is-dumb-and-gets-tricked-by-satan-into-torturing-a-true-believer-for-no-good-reason?

also: if the bible was written with divine inspiration by god and it's our only source of information about god and "satan," how do we know it isn't a trick to keep us from worshiping the one true god, "satan?"

do you feel that satan-worship is equally grounded as christianity?


atheism seems like the only way to retain any semblance of "freedom."

"Slave" is not really an accurate translation here, given the protections the person has. Modern day Jewish marriage still uses these same rules, yet few consider Jewish wives to be slaves today.

modern jewish marriage allows a man to resell his wife to non-foreigners?

try harder.

edit: in fact, a better translation (with link) would be in order.