Discussing Atheism and atheistic beliefs

[Ernst]

I am a quiet atheist. I thought it was ridiculous when people wanted "under god" removed from our money and from the pledge of allegiance. Most people assume I am religious because of my ethnic background and upbringing. After all, when you are this Irish you must be Catholic....


Where I get pissed is when religion interferes with reality. Teaching of creationism and a lot of the anti-abortion rabble is absolutely nuts.

[austinite]

I am a quiet atheist. I thought it was ridiculous when people wanted "under god" removed from our money and from the pledge of allegiance. Most people assume I am religious because of my ethnic background and upbringing. After all, when you are this Irish you must be Catholic....


Where I get pissed is when religion interferes with reality. Teaching of creationism and a lot of the anti-abortion rabble is absolutely nuts.

Blasphemy!

[Times Roman]

I am a quiet atheist. I thought it was ridiculous when people wanted "under god" removed from our money and from the pledge of allegiance. Most people assume I am religious because of my ethnic background and upbringing. After all, when you are this Irish you must be Catholic....


Where I get pissed is when religion interferes with reality. Teaching of creationism and a lot of the anti-abortion rabble is absolutely nuts.

I have no problem with teaching religion in school in the right context and in a balanced approach. I was partially educated in a private Jesuit University for a few years when I was younger. The Jesuits teach religion, and they teach science. They do not confuse the two. And this is where many run into trouble. They confuse science with religion, as if they must compete somehow. they do not. Apples and oranges. Science is a process of discovery, whereby theories are developed in an attempt to explain certain phenomenon. then the theory is further tested to see if valid or invalid. Theories grow and pick up gravity when others can repeatedly test and confirm results. Science also explains why the universe behaves the way it does. There are many branches of science.

Religion is not science. It is not meant to be. Why? I've never seen anyone attempt to explain a burning bush and be able to repeat the results as we assume them to be from the Moses incident.

Religion is neither good nor bad. it is a tool to be used for a variety of reasons.

Spirituality is really where it is at. There are many "religious" people that are not very spiritual, but act more like sheep and simply do what ever they are told by the church without much thought.

I'm trying to develop a sense of spirituality at a deep level. But to do so, I must embrace it in all aspects, not just emotionally, as most do. There is a reason people get pissed off when you try to have a rational discussion about their religion. Because for the most part, they have put little rational thought into their belief system except for what the preacher man and the bible tells them what to think. When you discuss dinasaurs, all you seem to get is that god must have created the earth with dinosaur fossils to trick us for some reason, and that dinasaurs were never really alive all those hundreds of millions of years ago. How could they be alive back then? The earth hadn't been "created" yet!