@hugbug993 You got that from my one little sentence that speaks generally about (non specific) main stream religions? Well, OK then. I think perhaps what happened is because I dont have overly strong feelings against religion that you assumed I was one of the hated group? If I'm not against I must be for, right?


Those are all, with the exception of Nigeria, Islamic states, if you know the laws of the country then why would anyone try and play with the tigers tail? They surely have the right to govern themselves as they see fit so why is it our job tell them that the way they live their lives is wrong? Thats looking for trouble. Qatar and UAE, for example, are hugely wealthy and have an extremely high standard of living, the entire nation is happy to identify with one religion, cant really see what is wrong with that.

Are you serious?? Postal workers vandalize and disrupt the post of atheists? How do they even discern between the packages? Why would they even care and how the hell would that even be possible? So some idiot proposed shutting down mosques, did he succeed? I doubt it! You cant hold this man up as the representative of all people with a belief system! Dude, you seem severely paranoid!


You are not offending me at all, I kind of like that description! I live in a country with governmental corruption, mismanagement of funds, unemployment and poverty, but human rights are defended to the last letter, we fought a hard and bloody battle and I'm very happy to live where I do.

What was that you said about paranoia? I explained my reasoning, and now I realize that you were just bad at phrasing.



Obviously they're not all happy, if they have laws that state that anyone who's not Islamic should be killed and people are getting executed. They wouldn't have those laws or those executions if the people there didn't want to leave the religion.

And you're saying it's okay for them to kill people for their beliefs? What is wrong with you? Would you say it's also fine for them to kill women for being raped? Because some of those countries do that, too, and the women can't exactly tell their attackers, "Sorry, I'm trying to follow the law and not be raped."

You earlier said that you'd be horrified if someone took away your rights due to religion. So you're saying that it's wrong if someone takes away your rights, but when people in other countries are dying because of their beliefs, it's "Well, who cares?" I don't even have words to describe that.



Atheist Shoes, a company that sells shoes with atheist messages on them, did an informal study on this. They sent two boxes - one with an atheist slogan, one with blank packaging - to the same address each for 89 customers. The ones with the atheist slogan on them took an average of three days longer to arrive. Nine of them were lost, while only one of the regular boxes was.
And the AHA regularly reports that they find crosses and slogans written on their mail.



Of course not. He's not in office. But he is the representative leading in the polls for one of the two biggest political parties in the country. That remark actually got him more followers.

And I said nothing about him being the representative of all people with a belief system. In fact, reread my last paragraph.



I explicitly said that not all Christians are like that. The entire point of my post was about what the people in this country have to live with, and the hateful part of the religion is symbolized by the people they choose to lead us. That man who wants to shut down the mosques? He's the person the hateful part chose, and he has hundreds of thousands of followers here.

Yuck! You so exquisitely offensive I feel sick! I live in Africa and part of my year is spent in Nigeria where women are captured, raped and tortured in the name of a religion that has been corrupted and fouled, so how dare you say that to me!!!! Do you know who is there on the ground feeding, clothing, educating and providing medical supplies and services? Religious groups of all faiths. Not evangelising, theres no time for that!! They haul their arses half way across the world to help the sick, dying and abused, so dont you dare shout your ignorant mouth off when you clearly know NOTHING! You dont even make sense! Anyone can sit in front of Google and consider themselves 'knowledgeable' about what goes on in the world, shouting about injustices and how someone yelled at them in the street! Well boo-bloody-hoo what a tough life you live. And do you know what? I never saw one atheist organization there! Funny that! I have met atheists there, but the more grown up kind, you know the kind that shuts the hell up and gets the job done regardless of who works alongside them! If I had to ask them about how persecuted they are they would pee their pants laughing.




This is the most hilarious thing I have ever heard, I literately spat coffee on my keyboard! What a worthwhile informal study to spend time and money on! Shoes with an atheist message?? Atheists spreading the word!

Please do not bother me again.

You're certainly not offending me, and it's exactly that I realize not everyone can fix the sort of implications I come to inside their head and live with them that I go "Y'know? Maybe some people need something "like" religion," even if it's not exactly religion. Because I know I'm a pretty weird egg of unleashed negativity and unfounded optimism sometimes - I really don't expect anything good to happen to anyone at any time, because there are powerful forces and impulses aligned in this world against happiness and prosperity. But I also recognize sometimes people aren't assholes, in very small numbers, and as an inevitable component of progress "not killing everyone" sort of moves our universe like a glacial juggernaut (coupled by increases in our capability to kill each other thanks to technology) toward a sort of impasse against our basic nature. Some people probably need a buffer for that, an invisible sky daddy to ask favors for or imagine that they're going to make things right for them somehow? It's not for me, but I think I understand the impulse. The world we live in is pretty bleak.

We'll either succeed in not being dicks eventually (like we more or less succeed in being less of dicks than our grandfathers, at least when you normalize the curve) or we're dead. Honestly? I give us pretty good odds just based on past performance. But on the short term I just don't know what you're supposed to do about the jerks in this world. *shrug*

You know, if you didn't want your views challenged or to face any sort of argument you could have just chosen not to say anything. Pouting because someone said things you disagreed with and telling them to shut up really isn't how you debate. You might want to check where you are before you choose to attempt to participate in the future.

OK I can accept that! But there comes a time when you realise you are simply peeing into the wind!

I dont care about my views being challenged, I just found the flippant reference to the rape of young women to further a silly, dare I call it a debate, nauseating.

The same way you dare be so flippant about people dying. People die in some countries of the world because they are atheists, or even just not the preferred religion, the exact same way those women you talk about are raped. You think it's fine to kill people because that's the society they live in? Does that mean we shouldn't tell people that it's wrong to rape or kill?



Well, guess we shouldn't do anything, then!

But no. It's wrong to rape people, and it's wrong to kill people. Doesn't matter who's doing the governing, it shouldn't be done.



Find one of the atheists who are from one of the countries I mentioned - where they could be executed for their beliefs - and see if they do that. But you don't seem to really care about them, do you? After all, they're from a country where it's fine to kill atheists.



So it must be fine that they die, right? Trying to save lives is just looking for trouble.

But the ''funny'' part is that my mother just had to send one letter for quiting her religion, the Protestants. One lousy letter to the HQ of her merger religion. And in our country there's no rule or tax that churches are financed by the state, although it's a hoax we hear from time to time.

Ah, so the state had nothing to do with it. May I ask why you wanted to get out at all? Was it just the feeling of being somewhere you didn't believe in? Nothing wrong with that, it was part of why I wanted to get out as well. I wasn't interested in paying to the church either, and being with the humanists was the only way around it. I couldn't just NOT be a church member anywhere.

Yes, that was the only and main reason to leave the church. I never felt connected to any religion (did my Communion purely from curiosity)or divine power, but it took me years to leave the church. Partly laziness, partly the difficulties of all those letters. Just left the church around 2011, becoming *officially* an atheist. Didn't need to become member of the humanists or something similar, because in my country there's no advantage in law for any religion, political or world view, just like Belgium, Estonia and another country I forgot.

Just going to respond to this part, as it seems things have gotten derailed a bit.



Why would one have to put forward a reason to not believe in a religion?

I don't play tennis. Do I need a reason to justify the fact that I don't play tennis? Of course not.

And on the flip side, I don't spend any amount of my time worrying about people that do play tennis. I don't try to convince them that tennis is a horrible thing and that they are being corrupted by little fuzzy green bouncy balls.

That is how I approach both sides of religion. I don't believe in a religion. End of sentence. I don't spend any time trying to get anyone else to change their opinion on one religion or another, nor do I care about anything on the atheist/agnostic/irreligious side. I don't identify with any of those labels, because why would I? There's no term for people that don't play tennis, so I'm not going to start arbitrarily labeling myself for not being religious.

There could very well be atheists among the people who help. Considering how many religious groups have organizations and label them as religious, it's no wonder there seem to be so many. Maybe the non-believers aren't as organized as the religious groups. But I highly doubt they're completely absent. Why do the organizations need to be religious in the first place? If someone really do need medical help or otherwise, why should it even matter which religion or non-religion the helpers have? Maybe the help organizations with the most atheists don't label themselves as "this one has atheist only" simply because it's not a "freedom from religion" organization, but a help organization - and religion doesn't actually matter.

Red Cross and Doctors without Borders are well known secular organizations, and there are probably both religious and non-religious people in both of them. (The cross in the Red Cross emblem doesn't have a religious meaning, but started as a reverse color switch of the Swiss flag, and is meant to be a symbol of neutrality).

Atheists in some parts of the world can get in a lot of trouble if they suddenly label themselves as atheists. Some will continue being members of a church because they're afraid of the reaction of their families and community if they come out. There's even an organization for clergy (priests, imams, and so on) who no longer believe, but are so deep into it they struggle to get out (the Clergy project).

Not even all the church missions are 100% Christian. I know that some Methodist congregations - and probably ones in other denominations - will allow atheists to join, or anyone else outside their religion or denomination. They do prefer Christians, but there is a bit of a Don't Ask, Don't Tell thing going on in some places. It's partly that people need help, but it's also partly that they hope they can convert the people who go on the mission by showing them what it's truly like to be a Christian.

Yeah, whenever I've worked with the homeless or in soup kitchens or distributed food to the poor there was usually a nominal religious involvement even if it was just "hosted at a church." I don't give a shit where I combat poverty as long as the people aren't being assholes and insisting on sermons. On the other hand, I've shown up and had assholes insist on "pray or don't get food." So fuck that.

If somebody volunteer to be part of an organization where they don't agree with the core beliefs, but does so to help people in need, I think that says a lot more positive about them.

Since religion is a very personal thing, if the organization has no ceremonies or insists on discussing religious matters, I wouldn't mind being a part either. I feel a bit alianated by religious organizations and think it's going to be unpleasant to be there, like they're going to be unkind or something. For that reason I don't go there and help out.

The Christian organizations has been doing this since the start, it's a part of their upbringing as religious people. I often hear people talking about athiest or non-believers having less morals, but I often think it's the opposite. Some religious people have this idea that "those people don't have the right religion, so they don't matter". I don't have a religion, so no one big reason to not like someone is gone ... until they blow up Bataclan that is.



I'm sure most people in this country don't really believe, but don't want to take that step out of it. They just need the church to the ceremonies like weddings and funerals. If they get out they also probably feels like they need a reason to. Why did you choose to get out? Not being able to provide a reason feels awkward.



That sounds to me like you haven't really thought about what the deeper meaning of not believing is. While that might be ok, I just feel like there is a road for you to go there. Not being religious is a very deep feeling, and I sometimes feel the need to discuss it, but most religious people don't want to talk about it because they don't have the answers and don't really want to go into the subject at all. I think there is a lot of feelings there for a lot of people, feelings they don't want to talk about.

If you need a god or spirit or whatever to keep you from doing bad things, and to stay a good person, then it's doubtful if you have morals to begin with. If you can only stay nice if there's an authority watching over you and doing the ultimate judging, and you only behave nice to please said authority, then you're not really doing good out of your own free will, and technically you can't be said to be a moral person. You're just doing it because somebody tells you to, or because you think that somebody is convinced your actions are right.

However, I'm of the opinion that everyone (with perhaps some minor exceptions) have the ability to do good things and be moral people, regardless of beliefs, gender preference, social class, skin color, and other differences. It's how we function as a society, and how we've functioned from before we climbed down from the trees. If everyone murders, steals, lies, rapes, and do bad things all the time, it's not a safe place to live in, and human society would fall apart to a much greater degree than it already is.

One part in being an atheist is to recognize this - that you can function very well, perhaps even better, without that authority watching over you and judging your every move. You are responsible for your own actions, small and large, and there's nobody there to say that "yes, you did a very bad thing - but here, let me die for you so you can go on with your life as if nothing happened". There are no virgins or other benefits possibly waiting in paradise, either. You see that the whole thought about life going on after death is too floating and diffiuse for there to be any truth in it - so you have to make the most out of your life while you have it.

As for religious help organizations, I wouldn't mind be a part of their good work as long as they kept to the task at hand, and didn't go around evangelizing unnecessary.

Well, there is this: you might find it interesting to read.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ular-kids-study

Does Satanism count as non-religion? Because it's basically about not being a dick and respecting others and yourself.

Except the three practicing satanists I've known in my life? Yeah, pretty much dicks. It's not about the religion. Religion is whatever people make of it, their excuse for doing stuff whether it's feeding the poor or strapping bombs to their chests.

Then they're not Satanists but some idiots who think it's cool to claim they are.
Those strapping bombs to themselves aren't true believers either.

Why would I have to? I don't believe in any religion. That's it. I don't have any interest in pontificating on why I don't. I just don't.

I don't play tennis. I don't sit around and think about how much I don't play tennis, and what the deep meaning is for why I don't play tennis.

I don't watch hockey. I don't sit around and think about how much I don't watch hockey.

I don't watch Doctor Who. I don't sit around and think about how much I don't watch Doctor Who.

I don't do yoga. I don't sit around and think about how much I don't do yoga.

(Getting the pattern?)

The deeper meaning of not believing?

42!

No seriously - why does there need to be a deeper meaning? For that matter, why does there even need to be a deep meaning in believing in a religion? I've never found one. The reason I no longer believe (or perhaps the reason I never really believed much in it) is because there wasn't a deep meaning that I could find. Believing made mo more difference in my life than not believing. Humans are (as far as we know, anyway) the only animal (yes, we're animals - deal with it!) that bothers with a deeper meaning of life. What if there isn't a deeper meaning? What if we get this life, and that is it? We're born, we live, we die, and go back to being stardust - and the particles we leave behind will become something different in perhaps hundreds, or millions of years. There isn't even a separate part of the body that can be said to be a soul. The "me" in a body is just the awareness that comes from a slightly more advanced brain structure. The "me" dies along with the body, when the brain activity stops completely. The reason people sometimes can be revived within a limited timeframe is because the brain isn't yet dead, even if the heart stops for a time. But when a person's brain is dead, they're gone. There's also no place for a "heaven". And considering how many billion people have ever lived, how would you fit all those "souls" in one place - particularly if the "souls" have a bodily form? Would probably be very crowded... Anyway, the afterlife bit seems to be a big thing with many of the religions, and a lot of them use it as a selling point. Scratch this, scratch the mostly failed moral systems, and what are you left with? Nothing much, really.

As for gods, they seem to be incapable of giving true information, say about how the Earth was created. Out of all the creation myths from various religions I've heard, maybe one or two have a scrap of truth in them, but the rest is so far-fetched it's laughable. They also don't go about updating their own works, they're incapable to give a logical set of rules for their believers, and for some reason they don't show themselves to non-believers. Until they do (preferably in a spectacular way), I'm not buying into it.

There is perhaps one deeper meaning in being an atheist, I guess - You are sure you have one life, however long or short, however bad or good, and it's for living. So don't throw it away.

I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in charge of which Scotsmen were true and pure Scotsmen.

That's another difficulty in parsing religion, everyone who disagrees with whatever a specific individual or group of religious people are doing despite them self-identifying as members of that religion.

Frankly I find it kind of offensive, like someone going refusing to acknowledge transgender people, or gays who've been married heterosexually previously.

I smell sarcasm without pants. I don't want to go into any religion topic since this is the non-religion thread, and what I said about them not being real satanists was kind of stupid, as there are many people claiming to be this and that but totally miss the concept of their 'belief'. Radical Christians or extremists for example.