Jim Jeffries talks about Atheism

Jim Jefferies! The funniest fucking Atheist Comedian!!

Jim Jefferies! Best Atheist Comedian!

This comedian is just hilarous!

Sorry, I found this way too funny! LOL

A list of 40 harmful effects of Christianity

A list of 40 harmful effects of Christianity:
1. The discouragement of rational, critical thought.
2. Vilification of homosexuality, resulting in discrimination, parents disowning their children, murder, and suicide.
3. Women treated like second-class citizens based on religious teachings.
4. Children growing up to hate and fear science and scientists, because science disproves their parents' religion - leading to appalling scientific illiteracy.
5. Tens of thousands tortured and killed as witches (a practice which still continues today).
6. People aren't making the most of this life because of their belief in an afterlife.
7. People dying because they believe their faith makes them immune to snake venom, or other lethal aspects of reality.
8. People dying - and letting their children die - because their religion forbids accepting medical help.
9. People choked, starved, poisoned, or beaten to death during exorcisms.
10. Genital mutilation of babies endorsed by religious texts.
11. Psychological and physiological conditions blamed on demons, preventing believers from seeking medical care for themselves and their children.
12. People disowning family members for leaving their religion.
13. Friendships and romances severed or never started over religious differences.
14. "Abstinence-only" sex education, resulting in five times the amount sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies - often leading to ill-fated "emergency" marriages.
15. Women having septic abortions—or being forced to have unwanted children they resent—because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.
16. Censorship (often destructive) of speech, art, books, music, films, poetry, songs and, if possible, thought.
17. The demonization of other religions, e.g. Christianity demonizing Pagans ("They're devil-worshipers!")
18. Children spending the period of their lives when the brain is most receptive to learning new information reading, rereading, and even memorizing religious texts.
19. People who believe the world is about to end neglect their education, are not financially responsible, and in extreme cases take part in mass suicides.
20. Long-term environmental issues ignored because of beliefs that the rapture/apocalypse or something will happen soon, so they don't matter.
21. Wives told they will be tortured forever if they leave their abusive husbands (and vice versa).
22. Holy wars - followers of different faiths (or even the same faith) killing each other in the name of their (benevolent, loving and merciful) gods.
23. The destruction of great works of art considered to be pornographic/blasphemous, and the persecution of the artists.
24. Slavery condoned by religious texts.
25. Children traumatized by vivid stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion.
26. Terminal patients in constant agony who would end their lives if they didn't believe it would result in eternal torture.
27. School boards having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools.
28. Persecution of "heretics"/scientists, like Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake) and Galileo Galilei.
29. Blue laws forcing other businesses to stay closed or limit sales, while churches can generate more revenue.
30. Mayors, senators, and presidents voted into office not because they're right for the job, but because of their religious beliefs.
31. Abuse of power, authority and trust by religious leaders (for financial gain or sexual abuse of followers and even children).
32. People accepting visual and auditory hallucinations unquestioningly as divine, sometimes with fatal results.
33. Discrimination against atheists, such as laws stating they may not hold public office or testify in court, or in half a dozen countries around the world, laws requiring their execution
34. Missionaries destroying/converting smaller, "heathen" religions and cultures.
35. Hardship compounded by the guilt required to reconcile the idea of a fair god with reality ("why is God punishing me? What have I done wrong? Don't I have enough faith?").
36. Human achievements—from skillful surgery to to emergency landings—attributed to gods instead of to the people actually responsible.
37. Mother Teresa, prolonging the agony of terminal patients and denying them pain relief, so she can offer their suffering as a gift to her god.
38. Tens of billions annually in the US alone spent to build, maintain, and staff houses of worship.
39. Grief and horror caused by the belief that dead friends and family members are tortured as punishment for disbelief.
40. Natural disasters and other tragedies used to claim God is displeased and present demands to avoid similar events (it's like terrorism, but without having to plan or do anything).
Thanks to "copycatgod" on Reddit for this list.
What do you think of this? What are some other ways
Christianity has harmed people and societies?

The first Thursday of May has been designated by the United States Congress and approved by the President as the “National Day of Prayer.” If government only endorsed religion just one day a year and left us with a secular government the rest of the year that wouldn’t be so bad. Sadly that is not the case. Unfortunately, the “holiday” could be called the “Day When Government Unconstitutionally Endorses Christianity Even More Than They Usually Do.”
According to the National Day of Prayer website, their mission is to “mobilize prayer in America.” Interestingly enough, they don’t seem to stop when the day is over. The people who support this “holiday” treat every day as a National Day of Prayer.
The reality is that the first Thursday of May is just an excuse for religious elements in our government to openly ignore the principle of church/state separation. Even though many government officials have no problem violating church/state separation with regard to religious invocations at the beginning of legislative and judicial sessions, voting for religious language in our national motto and on our currency, recognizing religious holidays as national holidays, favored tax-exempt status for religious groups and churches, and allowing purely religious arguments to dictate many of our laws, they at least have the decency to play lip-service to the Jeffersonian wall of separation between church and state.
But on the National Day of Prayer, all that goes out the window. The President goes to a prayer breakfast where he elevates religion over non-religion in an official capacity, and legislatures around the nation actively endorse religious belief, alienating atheists and other secular-minded citizens.
I would almost give the National Day of Prayer a pass if the other 364 days a year religious believers weren't trying to use government to endorse their religious beliefs. As a result, this day just seems like it is an amplification of the already existing problem. It has become a day in which the lunatics are openly allowed to run the asylum.
The worst part is that we know prayer doesn't work, and in some cases prayer can even be dangerous. Instead of a day of prayer on steroids, we need 365 days of a secular government that does not endorse the use of prayer at all. What we really need is 365 days of reason.

Source:  Staks Rosch Atheism Examiner

Stop Thanking God, and Thank Yourself!

Hello All   

 I am here to say that if you accomplish something great, or recover from some disease, or any number of difficult events in your life. Please stop thanking god. You did it all yourself. And you should be proud of yourself. Not God.

  May I put it another way. Let's say that you are in a car with your best friend, and some drunk driver slams into you head on. You both go to the hospital, and you turn out okay, but your best friend was injured and is now paralysed from the neck down. Would you thank God? If you do then you are a egomaniac to think that you are better than your friend who will live a dismal life for the rest of his/her days.

  Are you better than your friend? What have you done in your life that a God would save you over your friend. Let me say that if you "Thank God" that you were not harmed then you are committing the sin of Vanity. Never thank god for anything. Thank Yourself.

  The Bible tells a different story. It almost seems as if the teachings of the bible want you to be a robot, or a mindless lump of flesh. For instance, I will give you one of the seven "Deadly" sins as examples.

Pride (Latin, superbia), or hubris (Greek), is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and the source of the others. It is identified as a desire to be more important or attractive than others, failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and excessive love of self (especially holding self out of proper position toward God). Dante's definition was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor." In Jacob Bidermann's medieval miracle play, Cenodoxus, pride is the deadliest of all the sins and leads directly to the damnation of the titulary famed Parisian doctor. In perhaps the best-known example, the story of Lucifer, pride (his desire to compete with God) was what caused his fall from Heaven, and his resultant transformation into Satan. In Dante's Divine Comedy, the penitents were forced to walk with stone slabs bearing down on their backs to induce feelings of humility.

The Tower of Babel was viewed as a construct of pride for Dante

So what the Bible is basically saying is that whatever you accomplish, or create, or do in your life, you must not be proud of that fact, or you will be sentenced to Hell.

Heart Warming! Isn't it?

MOST atheistic song???

I was trying to find the MOST atheistic song out there and I kept coming back to this one. You tell me if you have a better, more fitting one.

I have also included a song that aptly describes my day to day feelings. If anyone can recognize then please comment or contact me some other way.

Thanks
American Atheist.

And here is how I feel everyday.

Everyone stay safe, and happy!

American Atheist!

Ponca City church leader arrested on child pornography charges

 Joel Bolay was arrested by the OSBI and Ponca City Police on producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, and lewd/indecent acts with a child under the age of 16.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says a man they arrested Tuesday for producing and distributing child pornography is a volunteer leader at a local church.

David Bolay, 27, was arrested Tuesday at his home in the 3300 block of Kingston Road in Ponca City.

State officials say they received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on Friday that someone had distributed images of a naked prepubescent girl over the Internet. The OSBI and Ponca City Police began investigating to identify the child. Investigators worked through the weekend to identify the victim and the suspect.

On Monday, an arrest affidavit was issued for Bolay in Kay County. He was arrested and booked into the Kay County Jail on charges of producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, and lewd/indecent acts with a child under the age of 16.

The OSBI says Bolay was a volunteer youth leader at a church in Ponca City, but the victim is not a member of the church.

Godless Church Services for Atheists Go Global

Congregations for atheists are springing up all over the planet. There’s already a schism: celebrate life without a deity, or preach atheism. The celebration is winning.

Plans to set up almost 400 “atheist churches” on five continents are underway after the extraordinary success of one small congregation that began holding godless services just over a year ago.


Word about the religion-free church spread like wildfire after the first Sunday Assembly was held in a deconsecrated church in Highbury, North London, in January 2013. By September, 100 congregations will be holding services from Singapore and South Africa to Sao Paulo and San Diego. A further 274 teams currently are working on plans to launch their own assemblies.
The church’s first General Assembly is being held this weekend with leaders from all over the world gathered in South London. In 150 years of the Anglican Church’s Lambeth Conference, it’s safe to say none has begun quite like this--with a raucous group karaoke rendition of “I’m So Excited,” but then Sunday Assembly is a very different kind of world religion. Their gatherings resemble traditional church services with singing, lessons and the chance to interact with members of the community. The only thing missing is God.
Sanderson Jones, the group’s leader and CEO, and a stand-up comedian by trade, says the young organization is replicating the traditional church structure as it expands. But he says the empire is also attempting to harness the organizational knowhow and social interaction of Grindr and the National Rifle Association.

“We’re right on the buckle of the Bible Belt. … A lot of people tell me I’m going to Hell.”

“This is the first time we’re coming together like this,” he said. “We’ve had such a short time but I think we’re going to build something magnificent, something that’s going to last.”
The group’s rapid expansion has caught everyone by surprise. It is currently growing by 26 per cent each month but there is no end to Jones’ ambitions. “There are 1.1 billion non-religious people in the world,” he told The Daily Beast. “We want to have a godless congregation in every town, city and village that wants one.” In other words, as he told the gathering of leaders on the opening day of the conference: “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

LEON NEAL/Getty

In order to help as many people set up assemblies as possible, Jones has started to study the mechanics of running a huge organization. “My Twitter feed has got a lot less funny -- people are wondering ‘why is he retweeting a pdf of different corporate governance structures in social enterprises?’” he said. The research has led him to marvel at the N.R.A., one of the few organizations with what is considered the holy trinity of benefits and service, a membership community and a media platform. “Another good example is Grindr and Tinder,” says Jones. “If St Paul was alive today he wouldn’t be writing letters he’d be writing code.”

Jones is constantly exploring ways to create an equally efficient network with even bigger growth potential, but this weekend before he got down to all that, it was time to get down. The lyrics of the second track of Saturday’s musical opening, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy,” were projected on a big screen.

Clap along if you feel,
Like that’s what you wanna do.

They did. Two women from The Netherlands swayed from side-to-side; an enthusiastic chap from Newcastle, in the northeast of England, danced in front of his seat in the auditorium; and a broad-shouldered man with graying dreadlocks from Tennessee clapped in time with the music.

 That man was Landry Butler, 46, a designer from Nashville, who became co-organizer of his local Sunday Assembly back in November. He was raised in a deeply Christian family, who often took him to three different church services every weekend. “I gave it up for Lent,” he said with a deep laugh. “We’re right on the buckle of the Bible Belt. More than 90 percent of people in Nashville are Christian and not everyone approves of what we’re doing. A lot of people tell me I’m going to Hell.”
“My mother didn’t want to talk about it until I appeared in the newspaper, and then she got interested,” said Butler. “She still says she’s praying for me, but that’s okay. We’re not trying to sell atheism - it’s not for me to get involved, no matter what stupid crap people believe.”

While Butler is setting up an atheist bulkhead in a deeply religious area, Jan Willem van der Straten is operating in a totally different environment. The 24-year-old is working to open the first Sunday Assembly in Amsterdam in September. He was brought up in a secular family, and his parents were stunned when he started taking an interest in religion. He still describes himself as a Christian.

“People used to say: ‘Ah, Willem, you can have a good beer with him, but he’s got this funny religion thing.’ For the first time this is a church that my friends might want to come to,” he said. “I don’t have the baggage of religion; I have the baggage of atheism.”

As the assemblies multiply and spread, the disparity between communities has thrown up a series of issues. One of the hot debates to be decided this weekend is whether to continue to use the word “godless.” For those in countries where religion has receded in recent generations it feels more natural to say Sunday Assembly is a "celebration of life." The American chapters argue that everyone would assume it was a religious group if you didn’t explicitly explain otherwise.

The continued prominence of Christian belief in the U.S. also affects the way atheism is seen. The church suffered its first schism earlier this year when New York organizers fell out with the founders over the strength of the anti-religious teaching. “They wanted to do a celebration of atheism not a celebration of life,” said van der Straten, who has been working at the London headquarters for the past three months.

The genius of Sunday Assembly is that it shares far more with an ordinary church service than it differs. There have been scores of atheist groups in the past, but few have attracted such warmth and affection.

“The thing that we’ve got is that we’re the only non-religious service that works. Rationality is part of it, but we also have the emotional connection,” Jones said. “We are speaking to the whole human.”
Sunday Assembly is already talking to an awful lot of humans. Jones wonders if they might manage to start 2015 congregations by 2015. “It might just be a little bit historical if it goes on like this. We could have a profound impact,” he said. “Throughout history there’s been these moments when an idea takes off: the Great Awakenings. We could suddenly create a great moment.”

American Atheist

Embrace of Atheism Put an Indonesian in Prison.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Growing up in a conservative Muslim household in rural West Sumatra, Alexander Aan hid a dark secret beginning at age 9: He did not believe in God. His feelings only hardened as he got older and he faked his way through daily prayers, Islamic holidays and the fasting month of Ramadan.

He stopped praying in 2008, when he was 26, and he finally told his parents and three younger siblings that he was an atheist — a rare revelation in a country like Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. They responded with disappointment and expressions of hope that he would return to Islam.

But Mr. Aan neither returned to Islam nor confined his secret to his family, and he ended up in prison after running afoul of a 2008 law restricting electronic communications. He had joined an atheist Facebook group started by Indonesians living in the Netherlands, and in 2011 he began posting commentaries outlining why he did not think God existed.

“When I saw, with my own eyes, poor people, people on television caught up in war, people who were hungry or ill, it made me uncomfortable,” Mr. Aan, now 32, said in an interview. “What is the meaning of this? As a Muslim, I had questioned God — what is the meaning of God?” He was released on parole on Jan. 27 after serving more than 19 months on a charge of inciting religious hatred.

Indonesia’s state ideology, Pancasila, enshrines monotheism, and blasphemy is illegal. However, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and speech, and the country is 16 years into a transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

But Mr. Aan’s case is one of an increasing number of instances of persecution connected to freedom of religion in Indonesia in recent years. Although Indonesia has influential Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities, every year there have been hundreds of episodes, including violent attacks, targeting religious minorities like Christians and Shiite and Ahmadiyah Muslims, as well as dozens of arrests over blasphemy against Islam. Numerous churches have been closed for lacking proper permits.

According to human rights organizations and various surveys, religious intolerance is on the rise in Indonesia, at least partly because of the growing influence of radical Islamic groups that use street protests and acts of violence to support their aims. Some of these radical groups demonstrated in Jakarta, the capital, before Mr. Aan’s trial in West Sumatra in 2012.

“His case very much ties in with that whole trend,” said Benedict Rogers, the East Asia team leader for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights organization founded in Britain. The group released a report in February warning that religious intolerance in Indonesia was spreading beyond traditionally conservative Muslim bases like West Java Province.

“Of course there would be religious people who would take offense about someone publicly expressing this view” about atheism, Mr. Rogers said. “But I think if it weren’t for this growing Islamism and extremism, Alexander’s case probably wouldn’t have happened.”

Mr. Aan’s troubles began in January 2012 when a mob in the Dharmasraya district of West Sumatra showed up looking for him at a government planning office where he worked as a data analyst.

“They wanted me to stop saying there is no God,” he said. “I told them that it was my right to express my beliefs.”

Police officers were called to prevent any violence, and they instead escorted Mr. Aan to the local police station, where he found himself being interrogated and, within hours, charged with disseminating information aimed at inciting religious hatred. The next day, he was charged with blasphemy and inciting others to embrace atheism.

A court in Padang, the capital of West Sumatra Province, threw out the blasphemy and atheism charges, but it convicted Mr. Aan in June 2012 of trying to incite religious hatred under the electronic information law and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison.

“What I posted was for discussion, not to incite hatred,” he said in the interview.

Mr. Aan’s case was among several controversial prosecutions over comments made on the Internet in Indonesia, where Twitter and Facebook are extremely popular.

A homemaker was jailed and charged with defamation in 2009 after complaining about what she said was an incorrect hospital diagnosis in a private email that found its way online. In February, a Twitter user was sentenced to a year’s probation for “libelous tweets” against a former national lawmaker who had been convicted and sent to prison for corruption.

“It’s funny — we say we have freedom of expression, but it’s only up to a certain point,” said Enda Nasution, an Indonesian blogger. “I think we are absorbing all of these new norms, and with the Internet, we are experimenting with what we can and can’t do. Atheism is a no-no, it seems.”

Christian groups and religious and human rights advocates say that rising religious intolerance is also linked to the efforts to promote regional autonomy in Indonesia in 1999 as part of the country’s transition to democracy after three decades of highly centralized, authoritarian rule under President Suharto.

More than half of Indonesia’s 491 provincial districts have enacted various bylaws inspired by Islamic law, or Shariah, in recent years.

“So much power was given to local authorities, and in many cases — in particular in regions where Muslim organizations dominated — there were violations against religious freedom, and freedom, for example, for someone to say they are an atheist,” said Theophilus Bela, secretary general of the Indonesian Conference on Religions for Peace, a nongovernmental organization focused on interfaith dialogue.

While serving his prison sentence, Mr. Aan lay low, reading books and playing chess, and he said that by the end of his time behind bars, he had gone from being an outcast to having friends among his fellow inmates. Now, he is preparing to apply to universities to pursue a master’s degree in physics.

“My case was a religious issue and a human rights issue, both because Indonesia is a Muslim country and because it’s a developing country and new democracy,” he said. “I was just searching for the truth, and everything I felt, I expressed.”

These days, Mr. Aan said, he is still active on Facebook and Twitter, but he never mentions religion or his criminal case.

Ten errors in the bible.

1. The genealogy of Christ. Matthew 1 and Luke 3 give two very different genealogies for Joseph, Mary's husband. In fact, even Luke admits that he isn't sure that Joseph was actually Jesus' father (Luke 3:23, NIV). You would think that someone who was directly inspired by god would know what he's writing.
2. Scientific errors. I find it suspect that those who take the Bible literally as a scientific text for the larger, cosmological arguments can simply ignore the number of small scientific mistakes the Bible makes. For example, rabbits don't chew their cud and the bat is not a bird. Those are only two. For more scientific and mathematical mistakes in the Bible, click here.
3. The story of Jesus' death and resurrection. Were Jesus' last words “Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit,” “"It is finished,” or “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” followed by a loud cry? Did the rooster crow once or twice? How did Judas die—by suicide or fall?
4. God or Gods? In Hebrew, Genesis 1 mentions “Elohim” created the heavens and the earth. Elohim is plural (the rationalization of this is really extraordinary), and Genesis states that God said “Let us make men in our image.” Also, in Jewish literature, Asherah is the female counterpart to Yahweh, though the Bible condemns worshiping her. Nevertheless, she appears in the same Jewish literature the Old Testament is drawn from, but is completely ignored in Christianity.
5. Faith or works or belief? Ephesians 2:8-9 says that salvation is not of works, “lest any man should boast.” James 2:24 says man is justified by works and “not by faith alone.” Most justify it by saying it is both, but Paul is very clear that salvation is not of works, and even gives a reason why. Then, to add confusion to the mix, verses such as Acts 16:31 claim that belief alone is sufficient salvation. Not only that, but your entire household will be saved just by one person believing. Other verses show various conglomerations of the three.
6. Where is Jesus? In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is quoted as saying that he would return before the end of that generation. There are some interesting theories as to why he has not yet returned, the most common being that there is a gap or a figurative generation, however, it is obvious that the writer's of the text thought he meant that physical generation. I find it hard to believe that a theologian 2,000 years later can better figure out what Jesus meant than the people who were actually there. Some people think it is a mistranslation, and that Jesus actually meant “race,” not “generation.” This probably makes the most sense, but still is dubious and does not explain much.
7. Freewill or not? There is almost no greater theological debate bigger than the idea of Calvinism vs. Arminianism, or freewill vs. predestination. Do we humans have any choice whether to believe in God or not? Though most Christians acknowledge the differing viewpoints, somehow the fact that the issue is confusing because the Bible is so contradictory on the subject escapes many.
8. Does God ever change? Ezekiel 24:14: "I  the LORD have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord GOD." (KJV) But God changed his mind about destroying or punishing people several times in the Bible, most notably in Genesis 18:23-33. The Bible also directly contradicts Ezekial 24:14 in Genesis 6:6: “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
9. Are God's laws good? Many verses seem to suggest that God is, indeed good. There are too many to list. But the Bible also says "Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD." Ezekial 20:25-26.
10. Should we judge? 1 Corinthians 2:15 says "The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment,” but 1 Corinthians 4:5 says "Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God."

For many Christians, these errors are minor, simply explained away, or ignored on faith, and they don't take away from the overall message of the Bible. One site even claims that the Bible can have no errors, but it does have "difficulties." Not everything in the above list can fit into the categories the writer lists to explain away the contradictions, though. Also, an entire book written to explain religion should at least explain it. It's true that many contradictions aren't “serious,” but whether or not we have any choice in whether or not we believe and how to obtain salvation (faith or works or belief?) are two very important, even critical issues. If the Bible is clear on anything, it should be how to obtain salvation. I've heard it explained that the stories and writings sometimes contradict in small matters merely because the writers have different perspectives, but for those that rely on the Bible as a science and historical book, or believe that every word was directly inspired by God, these errors present more of a problem. Remember, too, that these errors and contradictions are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more that are inferred, such as using pi to find a numerical error, etc. Add to that debates over other aspects of Biblical correctness such as who actually wrote what book of the Bible, translation errors, application problems, etc, and it becomes a dubious prospect to believe that every word in it is true, and completely ludicrous to believe it is error-free.

Sources: Infidels.org and Laura Talley Little Rock Atheism Examiner

My Interview with Joé McKen @ Preliator Pro Causa

Hello All,


  I have been reading the writings of  Joé McKen over @ Preliator Pro Causa
for a while now and decided to pick his brain on a few questions because I am always curious
about what other people believe.

  I am going to only include the questions I had for him, and of course his answers. I hope we don't bore you too much, but after reading his answered I believe that he and I share a lot of the same opinions and views. So here goes......

1. What in your own words is your personal view of what Atheism means?
2. Do you believe in any kind of existence after death? (As we both know, energy is never lost)
3. How old were you when you began thinking of yourself as an Atheist?
4. When you started Blogging was it all about atheism, or just for fun etc?
5. What is the ONE thing that would make you change your mind and believe in a God? (If Anything)
6. Do you have any tips for young people who might be struggling between belief, and non-belief?
7. As I told you before you have a very easily navigated Blog. Did it come naturally, or did you, like me have to do a lot of learning?
8. If for some reason you were forced to practice a religion (Any religion you like) and if you didn't someone you loved would be hurt or maybe killed, what religion/philosophy would you choose and why? 

 I stopped at only 8 questions because I didn't want to have him sitting there for hours answering my questions. 


  And here are his thoughts. I hope at least some of you found something that at least made you think.

Here you go. :) I hope my answers don’t run too long. Please get back to me if you have any further questions or comments; I’ll post this on my blog sometime tomorrow whenever my body chooses to wake up.

 

——————————————————————————

Q: What in your own words is your personal view of what Atheism means?

 

A: I think people need to keep in mind there are two definitions for ‘atheism’ nowadays: the lack of belief in deities, and the social movement to legitimize non-belief among the public. The two are often conflated when people use the terms ‘atheism’ or ‘atheists’ without further context, which leads to plenty of miscommunications and headaches. Of course, one can be an atheist without being part of the secular movement, and vice-versa (plenty of practicing believers, such as Rev. Barry Lynn [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_W._Lynn], are also ardent secularists who believe religion and politics, or public life in general, need to be kept separate).

 

Q: Do you believe in any kind of existence after death? (As we both know, energy is never lost)

 

A: No, I don’t believe in any form of post-mortem existence; I see no good reason to. Of course, there may be an afterlife – just as there may be gods and leprechauns; we cannot prove negatives – but it’s quite clear that even if such a thing does exist, there’s really no point in pretending to know anything about (or living with any expectation of) something that, by definition, is not part of the natural, scientifically observable world. (Also, energy may never be lost, but only in that whatever forces and constituents that power our bodies and minds will eventually be used otherwise by nature after we die. There is no need for any supernaturalism in the equation.)

 

Q: How old were you when you began thinking of yourself as an Atheist?

 

A: I really began to consider myself godless when I was about 16, back in circa early 2008. I had never been particularly religious (I never really took the Bible seriously, and I always hated church – boring a child that badly should be cause for CPS, I tells ya), and though I did believe in God (perk of growing up in a nominally Catholic society), that just sorta went away over time. I was always too curious and critical; I suppose God-belief never really stood a chance with me.

 

Q: When you started Blogging was it all about atheism, or just for fun etc?

 

A: Well, you can see for yourself (if you’re a bit masochistic) by checking out my first, archived blog, Respectful Defiance [http://respectfuldefiance.blogspot.com/]. Nosebleed-inducing aesthetics aside, it originally began as overtly anti-religious and rather antagonistic (somewhat akin to PZ Myers’s Pharyngula, which is where I got most of my early inspiration from, anyway), but over time (and particularly since switching to Preliator), I’ve both mellowed and branched out, with most of my current writings surrounding politics and poking fun at stupid people in general. But really, I’ve always just blogged about whatever I felt like; I don’t have any set themes to adhere to.

 

Q: What is the ONE thing that would make you change your mind and believe in a God? (If Anything)

 

A: This is a bit tricky to answer; any such event would be so very personal and subjective that it’s almost impossible to say what would work and what wouldn’t. But, to give a general answer, I’d guess that if something happened that A) was very clearly divine in nature (booming voice from the heavens, oceans turning to cream cheese, I dunno), B) could not be explained by any rational or scientific means, and C) demonstrably affected other people as well (yet beyond what could be attributable to conversion disorder or mass hysteria) – in other words, if we could actually prove beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt that it was the “real deal” and that it wasn’t all just in my head – then yes, chances are I would be swayed, as such a phenomenon would be objective reality. Anything less, though, and I’d probably chalk it up to the human condition (hallucination, delusion, ignorance, inattentiveness, brain fart, etc.). I’m a boring realist that way.

 

Q: Do you have any tips for young people who might be struggling between belief, and non-belief?

 

A: Honestly, I believe that anyone who’s undecided on the matter should be left to their own devices until they sort things out for themself. I don’t believe in trying to push anyone in the direction of any particular belief; after all, we hate it when theists do it, so we should rise above it and trust that people can make up their own minds. (Of course, no-one’s stopping you from giving such people your honest opinions about matters, however anti-religious they may be.) Just expose young people to the widest possible variety of information about different faiths and let them pick whatever suits their particular spiritual needs.

 

Q: If for some reason you were forced to practice a religion (Any religion you like) and if you didn't someone you loved would be hurt or maybe killed, what religion/philosophy would you choose and why?

 

A: I suppose if I absolutely had to pick my poison, I’d probably go with Deism, simply because it’s the closest thing to atheism that still technically counts as a religion.

 

Q: As I told you before you have a very easily navigated Blog. Did it come naturally, or did you, like me have to do a lot of learning?

 

A: Preliator’s current design is the product of 95% trial and error, and the rest comes from searching around for solutions to whatever I wanted to do (rotating banners, various post and comment widgets, colors and layouts, etc.). Blogger Buster [http://www.bloggerbuster.com/] in particular has been a huge help in this regard. As for aesthetics, I just had a general idea for what I wanted – simple, clean and easy to navigate – and tried to make it work, bit by bit. I’m still tweaking details to this day as my tastes change over time. There’s also a third, “unofficial” definition of ‘atheism’, which reflects the fact that not only do many (if not most) atheists today lack any belief in god(s), they actively believe in the non-existence of deities, which is semantically different from ‘atheism’, which is strictly the absence of belief either way. This third variant is really more suitably labeled ‘anti-theism’, but I suppose people just stick to the one label, ‘atheism’, out of convenience.”

Thanks again. I’ll be posting the Q&A on my blog shortly.

 

Regards,

— Joé

Thanks again Joé
American Atheist (Erin Carney)