BS: Militant Atheism Threads

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Feb 14 - 08:20 PM

Its like a slow motion train wreck.

Coming from you, that's a bit like an arse bollocking another arse because it looks like an arse.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Feb 14 - 11:44 AM

Musket,

Keith's tactic seems to be to point out where you have said things that aren't entirely true and let that speak for its self. I doubt that you can find a recent example of him calling you a liar. I think that he is often unfairly pedantic and spends too much time on trivial differences in data and definition. But I think that he has got you on this one. No use fighting it.

Also I think that you are often unfairly pedantic and spend too much time on trivial differences in data and definition.

Don't you two tire of this?

It is painful to watch. Its like a slow motion train wreck.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Feb 14 - 07:53 AM

Musket, you claimed I called you are liar ON THE WW1 THREAD, when you just paraphrased me or something.
THAT IS THE THREAD I SEARCHED!

Nothing.
You made it up.
What is wrong with you Musket?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 27 Feb 14 - 07:46 AM

"However it seems to you Jim, statisticians, the polling industry and their customers all find such a sample gives an accurate indication of the views of a population."

1. Taking my VERY recent comment and blaming it on Jim, shows just how much attention you pay to what youy are reading.

2. You can only judge the accuracy of ANY poll where there is an en result (such as elections) against which the accuracy may be gauged. In this case, not only is there no such control, but the point that non believers are more likely not to bother answering than believers is not adequately addressed.

Both you and apparently the pollsters have ignored it, leaving no possible way to show that the was or was not bias caused by it.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Musket
Date: 27 Feb 14 - 06:57 AM

You've been searching the threads?

Just when you thought it was a good day, it becomes a great one.

Let's get this right... You can't find anywhere where you have called me a liar?

It explains why you can't find anything else I suppose. For you, a single source of health data or a historian's extract really is definitive. It's all relative really.

I apologise for overestimating you.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Feb 14 - 06:10 AM

Musket I have done some searches of that thread for the last few weeks for "lie" and "liar."
Jim's posts were massively over-represented, but I could find no incident of me calling you a liar.
Did you make it up, or perhaps dream it?
Perhaps you could explain exactly the incident you referred to?
I will want to make a grovelling apology if what you say is true.
If it is not true, I hope you will do the decent thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Feb 14 - 11:48 AM

That is your future if you continue on the path you are on Musket. Don't walk away from it, run!!

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Feb 14 - 11:44 AM

And you admit to it?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,concerened
Date: 24 Feb 14 - 11:42 AM

Oh by the way above post was I......

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Feb 14 - 10:00 AM

Musket, look at concerererenered's last post, let it be a warning to you. That is where you are headed.

Being ignored and information starved and making up gibberish to fill in the gaps. This is your Dickens moment, like Scrooge, you are given a second chance. Turn back before it is too late.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,concerened
Date: 24 Feb 14 - 05:01 AM

I cant believe 'ole barnacle balls has actually accused someone of talking through their arse!!

I could just about tolerate some of his buffoonery on this site, whilst offensive, smug and judgmental in the extreme, nevertheless mildly amusing, such as being told yer granny had died and find all they have left you a small stuffed stoat.

This nautical fraud has been running riot through this thread with his nautical pretensions, his half baked semi digested crap about religion, strutting around in a self elected capacity as a thread police man and rule enforcer.

On top of everything else he is now posing as a musician and Irish chap; HRAN firmly clenched 'twixt cheeks , he roams the Folk clubs hailing every one with his shit eating grin and a breezy "faith and begorahh", cob-been rakishly tilted on his silly head in the mistaken believe he is a broth of a boy.

Catch yer self on 'staynes you are fooling no one..We have all got your number ducky..

Brilliant post sweetcheeks, love the bit about cheese spray and chicken in a bucket by the way..now Cap'n Average why not take a leaf out of musketts book and do summat sensible?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Feb 14 - 11:10 AM

If that belief gives you comfort, but it is even less rational than the beliefs you vilify and ridicule.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Musket
Date: 23 Feb 14 - 11:04 AM

No. If atheist means not believing in God, then i'm with the overwhelming majority.

Prat.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Feb 14 - 04:35 AM

So you were wrong about atheists being a majority anywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 23 Feb 14 - 03:32 AM

Musket doesn't drive to or from any church and certainly doesn't drive to or from the pub next door to it. Granted, its a fair walk to the pub but I sacrifice my body in the good cause.

So. Everybody who goes to weddings, funerals and christenings are liars? Do you really think that upholding traditions without actually believing on fairy stories is wrong? Churches can't afford to have their infrastructure based purely on the members. They need to provide community services to the general public if they aren't to be turned into bingo halls and private dwellings.

I fully accept that religion is a big thing in The USA but so is executing society's failings. You can't compare. I accept there are more chances of adults considering religion in The USA because there is usually more exposure and a concerted effort to see it as the norm.

You only have to look at cheese in a spray can and chicken served in a bucket to notice you can't compare levels of sophistication with that over here.

Have you ever thought that saying Jesus and God are this that and the other may indeed be lies themselves? If you can't distinguish, stop distinguishing.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,JTS
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 09:38 PM

You two can learn a little about polling or you can continue to talk out of your asses. I don't care which.

If you think that what Musket observes when he drives from the church to the pub Sunday mornings is more accurate, more power to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 12:01 PM

Surely "large" is subjective and 1 in 7000+ doesn't seem that large.

However it seems to you Jim, statisticians, the polling industry and their customers all find such a sample gives an accurate indication of the views of a population.

What is the value of your opinion on survey techniques and methodology?
Who the fuck are you?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:47 AM

Troubadour,
Neither Musket (as far as I know) nor I (definitely) are talking about the USA, living as we do several thousand miles from the lunacy of the bible belt and Utah.
What we know best is the UK.

Musket's claim was for "the western world."
How can that not include USA!?
I also showed reputable polls for EU.

You can not avoid the fact that there is hard evidence that Musket was wrong, and zero evidence to support him, because he was wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:47 AM

"A large random cross section of the population is surveyed for their views."

Surely "large" is subjective and 1 in 7000+ doesn't seem that large.

Also, how do you allow for the likely disinclination of those who are entirely uninterested to bother answering, given that the vast majority of those would be the non religious, of whose lack numbers YOU are so damn certain?

Your record is one of latching on to the opinions of "authorities" of widely variable qualification and building their opinions into an argument which you then defend to destruction. When it is destroyed you claim it was their opinion, not yours.

Why should anybody give credence to your utterances?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:39 AM

My comments re te accuracy of polls when one side of the argument is unlikely to bother answering still stand.

Statistical analyses are often self fulfilling, thereby displaying an entirely spurious "accuracy".

There's a world of difference between political polls (which frequently affect election results) which can be compared to election results, and polls such as this, in which there is no end result against which accuracy may be measured.

The former are arguably useful, the latter just acceptable to those who got the result they desired, but totally unprovable and highly suspect.

If I asked the question of one person and extrapolated the answer to 7,000+, you would rightly call it idiocy, but Pew have simply done that 35,000 times.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:32 AM

Troubadour, you have funny ideas about polling!
The sample is not self selected!

A large random cross section of the population is surveyed for their views.
It is how public opinion is assessed by government and by industry and commerce.
If the results were meaningless, vast sums would not be spent on them.
If different polls show similar results, it is a powerful indication that they are correct.
That is what we find here, with no poll showing any serious variation.

If you reject that hard evidence, you are just in denial.
Musket was wrong, and all you so desperate to support his false claim are also wrong.
Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:29 AM

"The factors you cite may be worth noting. But do you think they can be that far off changing the overall result in Musket's favor from 78 % of the USA "keeping an imaginary friend" to more than half not?"

Neither Musket (as far as I know) nor I (definitely) are talking about the USA, living as we do several thousand miles from the lunacy of the bible belt and Utah.

What we know best is the UK.

K A just likes to expand what he hears beyond what is said, to have some chance of being almost right.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:20 AM

>>From: GUEST,Troubadour - PM
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:09 AM

"Christening makes you a Christian, tentatively, until you are old enough to have free will. Confirming is when you join the Church. And CONFIRM your commitment to Christ."

Christening makes you a Christian, tentatively, until fourteen years of indoctrination has made it virtually certain that you will make, not an informed, but the REQUIRED decision, thus proving that you are thoroughly under control. <<

That observation does not match my experience.

:-D What magical place do you live where 14 year olds are "thoroughly under control"? LOL!!

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:17 AM

"
The Pew poll you posted involved a sample which is only 1 in every 7714.286 of the population, and is intrinsically skewed by the fact that the people least likely to bother answering are those with zero interest in the subject of the poll, i.e. Atheists and the simply irreligious like me."

Pew publishes their methodology.

The factors you cite may be worth noting. But do you think they can be that far off changing the overall result in Musket's favor from 78 % of the USA "keeping an imaginary friend" to more than half not?

I urge all of you arguing against the validity of a specific scientifically conducted poll like this one to consider the arguments that have been used against pete. Do you have data of your own? Do your conjectures and anecdotes trump observation? Do you think that http://www.pewresearch.org/ is in some sort of conspiracy to juice the numbers.

I don't think you can argue that "people are lying to the pollsters" or your side "must be refusing the surveys" with any validity, professional pollsters can and do account for that. That is often a very early chapter in reference books on how to poll.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 11:09 AM

"Christening makes you a Christian, tentatively, until you are old enough to have free will. Confirming is when you join the Church. And CONFIRM your commitment to Christ."

Christening makes you a Christian, tentatively, until fourteen years of indoctrination has made it virtually certain that you will make, not an informed, but the REQUIRED decision, thus proving that you are thoroughly under control.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 10:46 AM

"The pew poll, I posted had fair questions and a huge sample size."

The Pew poll you posted involved a sample which is only 1 in every 7714.286 of the population, and is intrinsically skewed by the fact that the people least likely to bother answering are those with zero interest in the subject of the poll, i.e. Atheists and the simply irreligious like me.

Anybody who thinks that those to whom religion and deities are an irrelevance are going to rock up in droves to answer, is delusional in a quite different way.

Mr K A of H would be well advised to learn that the absence of a diametricaly opposed poll result is not evidence of the accuracy of the poll under discussion.

With his delusions of infallibility, one might conclude that he thinks HE is God.

The Pew poll tells us, reasonably accurately, how many people EXPRESSED a religion, or lack of same. It doesn't, and can't, say how many non religious, as opposed to religious, couldn't be arsed to answer the question.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 10:08 AM

Oh I don't know, a revivalist singing in a traditional style is a bit of a put on as well... Such is the religiosity of folk, which can be great fun until the purism & pedantry starts up.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 10:04 AM

Musket, You say you don't need religion for morality, yet you lie in front of witnesses. I'm assuming that the ceremony was in a language you understood. You knew what you were promising and that you were promising.

CHRISTening is CHRISTIAN tradition. The purpose is to "indoctrinate" the children and get the parents and one other couple to promise to "abuse" them by bringing them up with Christian values such as not lying. I was Christened in the United Church of Canada. There was no confirmation process, I never took a vow to the Church. When I was of age, I stopped going to church and I told anyone who wanted to know that I did not believe. At the time I was a bit of a flip side of pete, I thought that what mattered was whether or not one believed the stories, literally. I grew out of that phase.

In answer to your question. All you have to do to be an atheist is believe that you are and stick to it. Getting your kids Christened does not seem like a commitment or as Frank might say a demonstration of non-belief. Doing so would get your booted from Darwin's witnesses for sure.

I ask again, do you have a written moral code? Does it allow lying? If you did come by morals independent of The Church, How and Why? and what moral code?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 04:53 AM

Falsely making solemn promises, in front of witnesses, is not the same as singing in traditional style.
It is lying.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 03:01 AM

No, I have a sense of tradition.

A bit like sticking your finger in your ear on a Tuesday night in a pub and droning on about reed cutting in Norfolk when you are a retired social worker and haven't been anywhere near Norfolk. Or me playing an Irish slip jig.

Still worthy of polite applause. Thank you. That's a pint I owe you.

Anyway, assuming your parents had you baptised, how can you say you were ever an atheist, by your logic above?

If you think that a church full of wedding guests actually take in the mumbled words they are invited to repeat after the vicar, the term "delusion" strengthens.

Repeating ancient phrases in pursuit of tradition and not taking them seriously isn't lying, it's an example of a use for a church in a secular society.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 11:57 AM

>>Of course I made vows when I had my two christened. It's traditional to do so! They don't mean anything though. I don't need to thank a mythical concept for giving me the gift of moral guidance or altruism. I believe I have my genes etc to thank for that. <<

What moral principle allows you to tell a whole set of bold faced lies in the "name of" "Tradition?"

When I was an atheist I would not have considered Baptism for my kids, if I had had any. My sister did not have her kids baptized nor did she pretend to be Santa. Do you have a codified set of moral standards?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 11:48 AM

"Interesting perspective on Einstein's quote."

Obviously Einstein did not confine his thinking to the reality of the time. Perhaps he meant fairy tales encouraged unorthodox thinking. OTOH, he is by far the smartest person ever to be asked so many profoundly stupid questions. Maybe he was just screwing with the reporter's head.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Musket
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 11:47 AM

Babies make commitments to rusks, the Gruffalo and the nappy industry.

Dawkins keep repeating it, so I am in good company when I say there is no such thing as a Christian child, just a child conforming to Christian parents.

There are no vows. It's all bloody make believe. Of course I made vows when I had my two christened. It's traditional to do so! They don't mean anything though. I don't need to thank a mythical concept for giving me the gift of moral guidance or altruism. I believe I have my genes etc to thank for that.

I honour the memory of my father and mother. I don't honour the traditions of their time. I share the tradition.

"Antiquated." Mmmm. I thought that was a phrase you used to describe hatred not superstition?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 09:55 AM

Christ + en = Christen

Christening makes you a Christian, tentatively, until you are old enough to have free will. Confirming is when you join the Church. And CONFIRM your commitment to Christ.

Be aware,
I don't care
what the C of E
says on the BBC.

But Christening in a Christian church, indicates a commitment to Christ. The cleric makes that clear in the ceremony. There are vows and everything. Obviously you were Christened due to your parents "antiquated" views. The fact that they and your God parents broke their vows, made on that day to raise you in the Church, in no way represents hypocrisy right? Making a promise you intend to immediately break is "rational" in your books is it? So please, honor your father and mother. Don't dismiss them as "irrational" for enrolling you in an organization that they did not believe in.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Ed T
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 07:56 AM

Interesting perspective on Einstein's quote.

Setting aside differing views on whether the various global religions are fairy tales or not, are there not useful messages in the core texts of most religions (my observation is major religions have similar messages) that one could learn as a youth and apply as an adult? Would that not be as useful as positive life messages in traditional fairy tales that Einstein refers to?

I ask this question recognizing that many (if not most) of the negative aspects of organized religion, come from later interpretations designed to serve a specific interest (many outside those core messages). Unfortunately,negative aspects of tribalism and greed still over-power most organizations, and likely always will.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Musket
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 07:21 AM

I wonder which memes went through star fish's thoughts as they evolved?

Do trees have a heaven where dogs that cock their legs aren't allowed in?

Dawkins makes a point and the prevalence of religion seems to bear it out. Amazonian and Indonesian communities that have not made contact with western values still have their superstition, and if they meet westerners they tend to be impressed.

You don't need to study dry text, just watch a Carry On film or two, you soon get the picture.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 05:43 AM

Wiki.
Richard Dawkins called for a re-analysis of religion in terms of the evolution of self-replicating ideas apart from any resulting biological advantages they might bestow.

"As an enthusiastic Darwinian, I have been dissatisfied with explanations that my fellow-enthusiasts have offered for human behaviour. They have tried to look for 'biological advantages' in various attributes of human civilization. For instance, tribal religion has been seen as a mechanism for solidifying group identity, valuable for a pack-hunting species whose individuals rely on cooperation to catch large and fast prey. Frequently the evolutionary preconception in terms of which such theories are framed is implicitly group-selectionist, but it is possible to rephrase the theories in terms of orthodox gene selection."

—Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival.[6]

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 05:36 AM

Religions that encouraged co-operation, trust and mutual support did that.

No they didn't. Otherwise there wouldn't have been so many differing ones, and even the inconsistencies within a single stripe would have been ironed out long ago. Religions survive as a superintendence of superstition owing to the vested material interests of those powerful few who promote them, be they economic, or militaristic, or (in the case of the RCC) both.

The overarching Godless reality exists regardless; it is not an idea as such, but a fact. All human life might be wiped from the planet in a single solar flash, and if anything survives at all it will be tangible nature, not supernatural mumbo-jumbo, at least not until the next wave of humans emerge and start making things up again.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Musket
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 05:14 AM

Err.. Jack.

Being christened does not make you a christian. Christian churches acknowledge that and have done since Clapton knows when.

They call it confirmation.

I am not a christian, and never have been. My parents went through the tradition of a christening. After all, the lure of fish paste sandwiches and scotch eggs afterwards was about as decadent as it got then. I doubt, even with their cultural brainwashing of their time that such a ceremony brands a child. An adult makes a decision, and that is how you become a christian. As an adult.

Mind you, considering the recruiting that goes on amongst the vulnerable, it mass you wonder if the test of informed consent should apply?

Keith. You really wade in feet first don't you? "Beliefs that encourage selfish individualism die out.." The selfish individualism of Catholic priests and protestant vicars that bugger children and abuse vulnerable adults flourishes at the same level as the organisations that shield and protect them from the authorities.

tell you what though.. Dissent, or heresy or whatever you want to call it (atheism??) seems to be winning in the first world. Possibly due to altruism without a price tag eh?

zzz

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 04:55 AM

No Blandiver.
Ideas are subject to natural selection too.
Beliefs that have survival value for groups displace those that do not.
Religions that encouraged co-operation, trust and mutual support did that.
Beliefs that encouraged selfish individualism died out with any groups that adopted them.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 04:36 AM

We are living in a post-Religious age. No one truly believes in God any more - certainly not the way they did (say) 700 years ago when God was common to all and faith was a matter of knowledge. In this day and age belief in God is a reactionary affectation that flies in the face of prevailing reason. Indeed, it is the fear of reason that inspires one to suspend disbelief and adopt religion and delusion as an alternative to reality in the first place.

Human Beings made up the idea of God as a Myth of Nature. Then when we got cockier we began to see Nature as a Myth of God. It is only when we learn the facts that we realise Nature is the whole of the case, and Myth is just a string of mildly entertaining metaphors, folklore and anthropomorphisms in which we have created God very much in our own image as the ultimate conceit to justify our very worst attributes.

We create the divine to reflect our own ineptitude and dysfunction, to seek comfort in it on the dexter hand, but, on the sinister, the divine is there purely as a means to justify those most Godly characteristic : persecution and intolerance. God is the stuff of our tantrum-ridden infancy and those who no elect believe in him do so with deliberate folly, like the reluctant pubescent who still gets dewy eyed over the Santa Clause he KNOWS to be a little white lie he must let go of now that he is becoming a man.

But even those who say they believe in God, do so in the knowledge that there is no God to believe in. Just a vague concept that has long since had its day.

We are all atheists now.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 04:33 AM

Steve, I acknowledged that church attendance is dwindling.
Other religions are increasing.
The polls show that people with no belief in any kind of spirit are still a minority, so Musket's statement was factually incorrect.
Or wrong.
Where is the idiocy?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 03:05 AM

Oh, I don't think. Steve. I have faith that the Messiahs will tell me what to do :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 08:45 PM

I suppose that the children were meant to know that the tales were fairy tales. If not the day they were read them, at some point before they were grown-ups. The fairy tale which is religion does the very opposite. The older you get, the more entrenched it becomes. Not just entrenched, but scary. Power and Glory keeping you in line, rapidly replacing babies in mangers and sheep in the pastures.

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Ed T
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 08:31 PM

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
― Albert Einstein

Question:
What did he mean by that?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 07:17 PM

Schisms already? Y'all are a religion alright. :-)


"The Church of England will take your christening as proof of you being a Christian."

That's kind of the idea isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 07:08 PM

Actually, Dave, do you think we should call our new faith "The non-Givers Of The Shit"? You may not agree, of course, in which case I don't g....       !!

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 05:39 PM

Actually, I think I'll sign up to being a Catholic again, then promptly proceed to not give a shit.

I never gave up, Steve. Hence I can honestly put 'Roman Catholic' on all my forms without fear of contraception yet not really give a shit whether the man with the white beard is God or Gandalf. It's great :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 03:28 PM

You're being particularly idiotic on this, Keith, even for you. Take this wiki snippet:

Society in the United Kingdom is markedly more secular than in the past and the number of churchgoers fell over the second half of the 20th century.[48] The Ipsos MORI poll in 2003 reported that 18% were "a practising member of an organised religion".[42] The Tearfund Survey in 2007 found that only 7% of the population considered themselves as practising Christians. Ten per cent attend church weekly and two-thirds had not gone to church in the past year.[45][49] The Tearfund Survey also found that two thirds of UK adults (66%) or 32.2 million people have no connection with the Church at present (nor with another religion). These people were evenly divided between those who have been in the past but have since left (16 million) and those who have never been in their lives (16.2 million).
Currently, regular church attendance in the United Kingdom stands at 6% of the population with the average age of the attendee being 51. This shows a decline in church attendance since 1980 when regular attendance stood at 11% with an average age of 37. It is predicted that by 2020, attendance will be around 4% with an average age of 56.[48] This decline in church attendance has forced many churches to close down across the United Kingdom with the Church of England alone being forced to close 1,500 churches between 1969 and 2002. Their fates include dereliction, demolition and residential conversion.[50]

We can argue 'til the bloody cows come home about who's an atheist and who isn't (I don't even know whether I am fer chrissake!), but there's no escaping the evidence presented by the bums-on-pews stats. There may not be billions of us militant atheists, but there are truckloads of people who don't give a flying monkey's fart about religion. In fact, very few people do (and, did you know that, in this Christian culture of ours, more Muslims go every week than Christians?). Considering that most people are brought up in religion to fear the power and the glory, it doesn't say much for the pull of religion, does it?

Actually, I think I'll sign up to being a Catholic again, then promptly proceed to not give a shit. I reckon the non-givers of a shit are the happiest people of all. After all, they're the people who are merely reverting to the true default position of the human race!

Subject: RE: BS: Militant Atheism Threads
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 12:58 PM

Christian congregations are dwindling, but not as fast as others are growing.
The polls show that atheists are still a minority.
You were wrong.