Elliquian Atheists

[MasterMischief]

Hurr hurr, I see what you did there

I do not think you really do.

[Oniya]

I can take that two ways - as in, 'There is an actual Oniya out there to be found,' or as in 'There is an actual Oniya out there that I would even bother looking for.'

(And I'm going to completely leave out any supernatural implications of my user-name which would only confuse the matter.  ;D)

[Ironwolf85]

I wanted to be totally sure, talk to people, do further research before getting into the 20th and 21st century as that is where most of our massive opinions originate.

Religion (your faith again, is somthing diffrent) as an organization has often mirrored the people within it.
N. America:
In the early 20th century the Activist churches in the U.S. were involved in the popular crusade against substance abuse, everyone, from unions, to churches, to women's rights groups, and more united against the "scourge" of substance abuse that they saw on the streets of america.
This was a good thing because patent medicines (aka the "magic elixers" made of 80% morphine 10% water 9% sugar, 1% other stuff) and pure drugs like opum were truely getting out of hand. However as is well known many temperence groups carried the restrictions too far, and their various campains worked a little too well. Leading to the banning of booze, and the restriction of sugar, tabacco, and caffine (the booze was the only heavily enforeced of the four.) alongside cocane, heroin, and opum.
The great depression shook things up greatly, some turned on each other, many worked harder, or looked for a quick cure. everyone clung to whatever they held dear, be it bible, booze, or boxcars. This also saw the rise of the first Radio-Evanglists, Firebrand preachers who mixed their chrisma with mass media. this meant that ideas that would have previously been isolated good and bad could spread farther.
Coupling this with the remaining "Moral Crusading" spirit, Ministers could now become politicans from the pulpet.

This was also about the time when the rift between Religion and Science in the US was cleft, Brown VS the Board of Education made headlines and this was when the evolutionary debate began. To many people in america (including many of my town's elderly) it wasn't so much the idea that creatures evolve over time that caused the problems but the idea that "Humans are just monkies" that really stuck in their craw.
this was percieved as "you are not important, and you are an idiot." That does not go over well with anyone, let alone a rural american farmer.
I believe that this feeling is the origin of the constant debating over evolution in america. both groups in the debate have become increasingly entrenched over the years due to the preceptions...
to sum things up
Perception of Denyers: "Those people are telling me I'm nothing but a monkey, and my opnions don't matter... what an Arrogent Prick!"
Perceptions of Avocates: "Those people tell me god created everything... they are ignorant and stubborn, I must educate them!"

You see the problem... regardless of the facts these are the perceptions, and these entrenched perceptions are why it has never been completely settled.

This debate as always been a way to stoke the passions of both sides, and makes for great entertainment, which is why it gained greater publicity.

WW1 and WW2 saw the inclusion of chaplins in the US army, tending to the men's morale abroad, in many cases Chaplins were heroic in saving the lives of their fellow soldiers. Everyone, black, white, asian, native american, Latino, mormon, cathloic, prostant, athiest, had a common foe in the world wars. Old fueds were put aside.

after the war regimentation was the order of the day, from the pulpet to the supermarket line, Orthodoxy set in.
then came the hippies  ;D

Organized Religion in the US changed drasticly with the influx of eastern, and new age ideas. this was where many New Age ideas such as Neo-paganisim, Wicca, along with spiritualisim returning to many churches. this also saw the advent of mass media television, and the creation of the Televanglist alongside other TV tropes of the 60's and 70's, however the debates remained the same, often being a battle not between old faiths and new faiths, but Reformation VS Orthodoxy.
Not all of the new types of ministers were good men, but many were, these new advocates ranged from MLK Jr. to James Jones. From Civil rights marches, to Waco.

However one priest changed the religious landscape, Billy Gramm, the first man to found a Mega-church, one that reached across the country, and eventually across the world. he was not the first to creat a large religious organization, he was the first to found one in a modern era. and his model became the model of the political mega church that we see today. the Roman church, Mormons, and (sadly) Scientologists have all replicated his model on some level.
While his church helped a great deal of people in the third world, and in the United States, his views on abortion and gay marrage have been mirrored by many ministers, and sometimes taken to extremes he would have appaled, we are still coming to terms with them today.
It was Gramm's connections to politicans in washington in his later years that created the marrage of politics and faith that is now known as "the religious right" in the republican party.

all Grammites belong to christan churches, but not all christian churches follow the model or doctrine espoused by billy gramm, I know that my generation is largely unaffected by his views, my parents however grew up with him.

[Sabby]

A Girl's Message To All Christians

This actually made me cry a little bit :)

And Ironwolf, thank you for shovelling so much learnings into my topic :) it's very appreciated.

[Ironwolf85]

that is freaking sad.

also you are welcome Sabby, the world is always more complex than people think, I realized that and ever since try to fully research a subject when I'm talking about it.
Nothing irritates me more than people who say "all religion is corrupt, we should get rid of it all." most often they are speaking from a bad experience or learning your opinions from TV or The Internet instead of formulating your own.

Organized Religions are man made institution based on trying to understand his place and purpose in the universe, and like all man made instutions they rise, fall, change, and morph, they grow pure, corrupt, rebuilt, and changed. It is a complex thing, like all things man has built.

The same cathloic church that people like to poke at as an example of backwardsness, and religious corruption is also the largest non-profit group on the planet, whose missionaries and teachers go into third world countries with intent to not just convert, but to better the lives of others. (the cathloic church often stands apart from the aforementioned missionary circle jerk 10 posts ago.) and the Cathloic church is the third aid giver on the planet.
The same instution who has what are by modern standards backwards sexual taboos (I understand they are afraid of endorsing condoms, thinking that they bring promsquity and hedonisim. I also know it's blatantly not true.) is also the only group doing the more esoteric research on stars, physics, terraforming, and space travel because vatacan researchers don't have to turn a profit from their research.
The Vatacan alongside the U.S. E.U. and private universities helped fund the Hydricon collider, and discover the higgs bodson particle, as well as work with black holes.

I've been doing the research on europe, and it's a biggun to try and untangle, the Cathloic church still plays a large role there, in africa, asia, and south america.

People love to try and simplify things, and with religion, faith, and politics, you can't do that. it just doesn't work, or you will be wrong on some level.

[Frozen Flame]

People love to try and simplify things, and with religion, faith, and politics, you can't do that. it just doesn't work, or you will be wrong on some level.

This is so true. A good friend of mine always tries to paint every religious person (and I'm not even exaggerating) as a backward, antisocial threat to progress. He also tries to pigeonhole me as a an atheist because of my ardent opposition to some of the views espoused by the Abrahamic faiths. When I explained to him that I considered myself a Deistic Humanist with pantheistic leanings, he still insisted I was an atheist because I don't believe in an "actual god." Hoo boy.

Nothing wrong with the label at all, and I have nothing but respect for it. But if a shoe doesn't fit, there's not much sense in wearing it.

[Saria]

I have been trying to follow this story about a 14 year-old girl, possibly with Down's Syndrome, in Pakistan, who was accused of blasphemy. From what I've heard, she had been gather papers to burn to cook a meal, and picked up some pages of the Koran. An imam saw it, called her out, and had her arrested, then was pushing to have her executed - the maximum penalty for the blasphemy law in Pakistan. (Although, apparently, even if you get let off, your lifespan can be measured in hours, because mobs will wait for you to leave the police station, then murder you.)

Last I heard, the same imam who had accused her of the crime was arrested for planting the pages. The girl was set free (though taken away by helicopter to a secure location, with her family). But that's all I've heard. Is anyone else following this story?

Nothing irritates me more than people who say "all religion is corrupt, we should get rid of it all." most often they are speaking from a bad experience or learning your opinions from TV or The Internet instead of formulating your own.

Or maybe they've formed an opinion on their own, but it happens to be different from yours? Perhaps you should actually wait to hear their opinion, and their arguments for it, before you leap to calling them so ignorant or foolish that they have to get their opinions from TV or the Internet rather than forming them on their own?

You're probably going to have a hard time finding anyone who actually says that the Catholic Church does NO good, whatsoever. What most people will say is that the good they do is massively outweighed by the evil they do. Or that whatever good they do can be better done by secular institutions, without all the additional nastiness caused by the Catholic Church. In other words, despite your claims that their positions are simplistic, their positions are actually more complex than your "they just hate the Catholic Church because it hurt their feelings".

Organized Religions are man made institution based on trying to understand his place and purpose in the universe, and like all man made instutions they rise, fall, change, and morph, they grow pure, corrupt, rebuilt, and changed. It is a complex thing, like all things man has built.

Complexity and history are irrelevant to the question of whether something should be tolerated. Slavery was an incredibly complex system, too, with different eras giving rise to different types of slavery, with different kinds of rights for slaves, and different means of obtaining and selling them. But slavery's complexity means nothing; it was time for slavery to go. Maybe it's time for religion to go, too. What purpose does it serve that cannot be better served by a secular alternative?

The same cathloic church that people like to poke at as an example of backwardsness, and religious corruption is also the largest non-profit group on the planet, whose missionaries and teachers go into third world countries with intent to not just convert, but to better the lives of others. (the cathloic church often stands apart from the aforementioned missionary circle jerk 10 posts ago.) and the Cathloic church is the third aid giver on the planet.

The other side of that coin is that the Catholic Church missionaries often get permission to go into third world countries by financing the horrible tyrants and dictators that are oppressing the people. That was the case in most of Latin America, for example, until the various revolutions kicked them out.

There's also the fact that the Catholic Church is taking advantage of people at their lowest ebb (usually, as mentioned above, by causing their lowest ebb). Much worse, though, is that Catholic missions muscle out other missions - because why send regular aid to a country that's already getting Catholic aid; might as well send it somewhere else - and enforce their own ideas of what aid is on the population. The net result is that while there are Catholic "hospitals" in poor areas, they're not really hospitals, because they refuse to offer certain treatments. A famous example is Mother Teresa, who built hospitals where painkillers were forbidden, because "suffering brings one closer to Jesus" - witnesses said that you could hear people screaming all day as maggots were being picked out of their festering sores with tweezers - and the "medical" options were often worse, because most of the staff was not doctors or nurses, but nuns. But the problem is that once a "hospital" is there, even if in name only, it's harder to get the motivation and resources to build a real hospital. It would have been better for everyone if the Catholic Church had just stayed out of the hospital building business and given any cash they wanted to spend on it to a real medical organization, like MSF... ah, but then they wouldn't be able to impose their moral judgement on the patients, and take further advantage of them at the lowest points in their lives.

And while you've just hand-waved over the problem of their stance on condoms, the fact is that their crusade against them has caused the unnecessary and avoidable deaths and infections of millions, and been part and parcel of the subjugation of women in third-world countries by taking away their reproductive rights and control over their bodies. And that's just condoms; don't forget the fact that the Catholic doctrine also forbids all other kinds of birth control, and abortion, too - even in cases where the mother and the baby are at risk. The suffering caused by their "aid" worldwide is probably immeasurable, because it's so widespread.

It's amusing that you accuse people who disagree with your position of "simplifying" the problem, when your argument for the Catholic Church's benevolence is simply "they give aid". The world is more complicated than that. It's a mistake to simply count the dollars thrown out by an organization as a measure of their charitability. (Incidentally, why is it so surprising that the the Roman Catholic Church is the third biggest aid giver in the world? They have the second biggest population of any organization or country in the world, second only to China. They have twice the population of all of North America combined, and barely any country or infrastructure to support.) There's also the question of the quality of the charity. Are they actually spending that money on helping the people... or on proselytizing to them? Here's a not-so-simple fact of charity: it can often do more damage when a misguided charity goes into an afflicted area and does something half-assed, than if they had never gone in at all; better still if they'd just give the money to an organization that specializes in they aid the want to give, which means if the Catholic Church cared more about doing good than about spreading their message, rather than sending their half-trained, mediocre medical missions to end up in disasters like Mother Teresa's, they should give the money to MSF.

The same instution who has what are by modern standards backwards sexual taboos (I understand they are afraid of endorsing condoms, thinking that they bring promsquity and hedonisim. I also know it's blatantly not true.) is also the only group doing the more esoteric research on stars, physics, terraforming, and space travel because vatacan researchers don't have to turn a profit from their research.

That's just a flat-out lie. A ridiculous flat-out lie.

The Vatican is not even close to the "only" group doing cutting edge research into physics and astronomy. Every single major university... IN THE WORLD is doing cutting edge research in those fields, some more cutting edge than others. I don't even know where to begin pointing you toward counter examples... because they're everywhere. What about Cambridge? They have Stephen Hawking, after all, and they're a public institution (as opposed to something like Caltech, which is private).

No, I think the one and only counterexample necessary is NASA. You mentioned research into terraforming and space travel? That began at NASA. Who put the rover on Mars, the Vatican or NASA? Who put a man on the moon, the Vatican or NASA? Who sent a probe father into space than anyone else has even come close to, the Vatican or NASA? 'Nuff said. NASA's budget is around 30 times the entire Vatican science budget, and NASA researchers don't have to turn any profits on their research either. (In fact, pretty much every country in the world has a science program that is pure research - that doesn't have to turn a profit. The Vatican is hardly unique in that.) All of NASA's research (that isn't classified) is freely available in the public domain.

As for funding in general that doesn't require any profits... you must have no idea how much free money is out there for scientists doing good work. Here is just page "A" of an "A"-"Z" index of grant sources for research, from the American National Science Foundation; grants, let me stress, not investments - this is free money that will be given to you if you present a good research proposal, money that you don't have to pay back.

You have seriously overblown the Vatican's science programs. They have like, two small observatories (one in Italy and one in the US)... oh, but they're funded by private donors, not the Vatican itself. There is also the Vatican's science academy, the Pontifical... something or other to do with sciences... but that's only one of hundreds of scientific organizations around the world - I'm a member of two myself!!! - and not even close to one of the most prestigious (which I would imagine is the UK's Royal Society). There's nothing special or unique about the Vatican's society: look, Albania has one, too.

The Vatacan alongside the U.S. E.U. and private universities helped fund the Hydricon collider, and discover the higgs bodson particle, as well as work with black holes.

"The Vatican alongside...". XD

Here is a detailed breakdown of who funded what for the Large Hadron Collider, right out of the mouths of CERN, the people who built it. The primary funding groups were the host nations (the countries the ring actually runs through - France and Switzerland), and the major external contributors: Canada, India, Japan, Russia and the USA. Look, see for yourself. Other major contributors mentioned were China, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK.

Look, I'll be honest with you... I can't even find any contribution by the Vatican. XD So I can't refute that maybe they chipped in a couple of bucks. But portraying them as a major contributor, as in "The Vatacan alongside the U.S. E.U. and private universities...", well that's just being dishonest.

The Vatican is a country, a state, so of course they have a science program... virtually every state has a science program - certainly every state with as much money to burn as the Vatican has. (Good grief, Nauru has a science program! XD) There is nothing of note about their science program. Sure, it's kinda nice that they have one, good for them, but that hardly makes them a noteworthy contributor to the sciences.

[Sabby]

Didn't a horde of people come into the town to arrest her and they burned down houses at random?

[MasterMischief]

I was intrigued so I went looking for corroborating stories that the Vatican funded the LHC.  All I found was stories of the Pope visiting it.  Would someone please provide references.  I would be very interested.

[Oniya]

The only place I've seen that claim is in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.  While that may have been where I learned about CERN in the first place, it's still a work of fiction, as much as The DaVinci Code.

Color me interested as well.

[Ironwolf85]

as I said, I am in mid research... and I've largely abandoned the project as I was researching history for a game and the game literally exploded...
the adventurer group in question blew themselves with a necklace of fireballs.

the more I look at the roman church and try to crack it... the more complex it seems... and makes my skull ache trying to reconsile where to place a group that has had some of the best and worst people in the history of organized religion pass through it's doors.

[Sabby]

Since the topic has kind of gone to sleep here, thought I'd drop this here.

How Evangelists Sound to Atheists (The Atheist Experience)

[Oniya]

There is a famous story told in Chassidic literature that addresses atheism. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson.

One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”

The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs and act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”

“This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

source: Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 by Mar

[Caitlin]

In the EU they want to prohibit freedom of speech now, in favour of protecting religions from getting insulted...

There is no such thing as a god and now I wouldn't be allowed to say that? But isn't atheism also a form of religion, and wouldn't that limit all believers from saying that there is a god, since they'd otherwise offend me?

I'm pretty pissed off about a non-elected person deciding what I can or can't say, and I hope my country's representatives will smack some sense in the person's skull.

[Ironwolf85]

did some interisting looking into theology and mythology a few months back, came across a nugget.

Hell... that place that evanglists tell you you go for disobeying god...
well it's more mythology than theology, influenced by four major things.
Nordo-germanic hel: the place where anyone, and everyone, who doesn't die a warrior hero winds up.
John Milton and Dante's books published in the rennisance and enlightenment era
Centuries of interfactional wars within the Roman church and the dark age moments of terror.

Jesus did imply via metaphor there is a negitive afterlife, but the requirements to get in are FAR more stringent than your local evanglist would have you believe.  IE: murderers, blood soaked warlords, Cult leaders like James, ect. get kicked into "the pit of fire"
Bin ladin, caligula, Stalin, Hitler, all likely got the boot downstairs.
The gay guy who lives in apartment b3 wouldn't have, or the athiest who goes "meh I've seen no proof" isn't damned to a lake o fire.
Nearest I can tell, prior to the Conclave of Constantople, people would have said "you just get reincarnated"

[Oniya]

The Greeks had a definitive hierarchy for the afterlife.  If you were really good, you went to the Fields of Elysium.  If you were really bad, you went to Tarterus.  If you just sort of 'were', you went to Asphodel.  All three of these were part of the domain of Hades, and were considered to be 'nine days fall' underground.  The very rare (Heracles, Perseus, Orion, Andromeda, etc.) might be placed among the stars, but you generally had to be exceptionally memorable (not always positively) to get that fate.

[Ironwolf85]

I'm guessing that had a large effect on thinking during the Conclave, as many of the first converts were greek

[Oniya]

I wouldn't doubt it.  The idea of the afterlife being underground is fairly universal (I'm pretty sure that there are some Native American tribes that place it in the sky - there's at least one tribe that puts the deceased on a raised platform until the body is returned to nature.)  Reincarnation is usually found (at least from my studies) in more Eastern religions, with a little wrap-around into some (not all) Native American traditions.  Ancient Egyptian tradition was that you went to the afterlife with all of your grave goods, and lived there - a bit of a combination of the two ideas.  There's one story in Celtic myth of a 'rebirth' (Taliesin transformed himself into a grain of barley and was consumed and then 'born again' - I'll see if I can find the verse if anyone cares), but in general, the doors to the Afterlife have been one-way in the West.

[Caitlin]

I've given death itself some thought while on my way in the car to work two days ago. I've always pictured myself getting buried underground, but the idea I had in my car was very appealing too; getting cremated and than have my ashes strawn in the ground, where also a young oak would get planted. That way my ashes would help nurture the tree and in a very indirect way, part of me would still live on. It's sort of completing the cirle of life. I also thought about having prepared a letter that would get read on my funeral and have the suggestion in there to have a yearly picknick below that tree to remember me by. The thought was tranquil to me and I'd be at peace with such an ending. I mean, living on in a tree is a pretty good way to go, it's as close as you'll get to immortality in this life as anything else, since oaks can live for hundreds of years. Not to mention, I happen to like trees a lot. :-)

Did any of you consider something similar to this?

[Ironwolf85]

you should see the mongolian varient that existed before it was wiped out by the Communists when russia took over during WW2.

I simply want people to remember me via the lives I've touched, and the good deeds I've done. don't mourn me, I'd be in a better place.

[Caitlin]

Well that of course too, I want them to remember me and live on in their memories, but I don't believe in any form of after-life. When I die I'm gone. My body is still there, but it's just an empty case. That what made me who I am is gone by that time. I've accepted that for a while now and felt a lot more at peace ever since. I'm also simply enjoying every day I get to live. Life itself is a lot more fun without worries of any sort of after-life. :-)

[Oniya]

I had a friend who opted to have his ashes scattered in a wild place.  It's a fine idea, whether you believe in an afterlife or not.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

[MasterMischief]

What ever parts of me might save someone else's life, take them.  Whatever is left over, let medical students cut me up in small pieces.  I have told this to Mrs. Llama and she always says she does not know if she could do it.  I will not care because I will be dead.  If my lifeless body can do some good when I am gone, fantastic.

[Oniya]

Make sure you've signed the paperwork for it (sister in the medical field - sees this all the time.)

[Caitlin]

I really liked the poem Oniya and I share your feelings MasterMischief. I used to be against being a donor because of religious beliefs, no I'm in favour of it since it'll be useful to others. Also, a part of me would live on, so at least part of me would not be dead yet.

In my country there are already too many volunteers for science though, so I don't really consider that option. I also like going out with a bang, and since shooting my corpse into space in the direction of the sun is a bit expensive, I figure a cremation is about as much bang as I'll ever get. :-)