Closing Thought–29Sep21

There are reports that Americans are moving away from organized religion….the numbers are declining….Christians may not be the only religion suffering from the loss of faith…..

Ex-Muslims are publicly flaunting their rejection of Islam as never before: a steamy tell-all memoir tops the country’s best-seller lists. One video (with 1.5 million views) shows a copy of the Koran ripped into pieces; another video shows a woman in a bikini cooking and eating bacon; and blasphemous cartoons of Muhammad.

Beyond such provocations, ex-Muslims work to change the image of Islam. Wafa Sultan went on Al Jazeera television to excoriate Islam in an exalted Arabic and over thirty million viewers watched the video. Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote a powerful autobiography about growing up female in Somalia and went on to author high-profile books criticizing Islam. Ibn Warraq wrote or edited a small library of influential books on his former religion, includingWhy I am Not a Muslim (1995) andLeaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out (2003).

Behind these individuals stand Western-based organizations of ex-Muslims that encourage Muslims to renounce their faith, provide support to those who have already taken this step, and lobby against Islam with the knowledge of insiders and the passion of renegades.

Together, these phenomena point to an unprecedented shift: The historically illegal and unspeakable actions among Muslims of open disbelief in God and rejection of Muhammad’s mission has spread to the point that it shakes the Islamic faith.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/atheism-among-muslims-%E2%80%9Cspreading-wildfire%E2%80%9D-193924

This is surprising to me…..my time in the Middle East I observed that Muslims were some of the most devout religious followers that I had ever met.

This will play little in the media when the next bug-a-boo with Islam arises…..after all there is an election on the horizon and fear will be a powerful motivator to generate votes…..most American need an enemy to get their ‘patriotic’ juices flowing.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Free To Believe Or Not

One of the fundamental rights we have as Americans is the right to our religious beliefs or the freedom to have none at all. But the world, which according to some, is becoming more and more democratic…..meaning that the population has more freedoms than it has in the past….but does that mean their religious preferences are respected?

Then I read an article that had me surprised…..Reuters reported…..

Amid a global decline in religious belief, some governments are stepping up efforts to portray atheists and secularists as a danger to society and even as terrorists, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

The study, by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), pointed to “hate campaigns” launched by public figures against those who renounce the dominant or state religion in Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Egypt.

It said “the overwhelming majority of countries fail to respect the rights of atheists and freethinkers” as set out in U.N. treaties, adding that 13 states, all of them Muslim, had made apostasy or blasphemy against religion a capital offense.

In some countries – like Russia, where communist ideology has been replaced by Orthodox Christianity which dominated before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution – any public expression of atheist views can be equated with blasphemy and criminalized.

The “Freedom of Thought Report”, which is published annually on International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, said the past year had been marked by a surge in the number of officials and political leaders agitating against non-religious people “in terms that would normally be associated with hate speech”.

None of which is all that surprising…….

That brings me to my state, the lovely state of Mississippi…….years ago I was inclined to run for the state senate…..but since I was a Gnostic I was considered an atheist and was not allowed to participate in the election…..apparently most do not know what a Gnostic is…..(I could go into a diatribe but ….use Google and save me some time….basically because few will give a crap)……..sadly Mississippi is not alone………

If you’re an atheist living in Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Texas, you’re technically not allowed to hold public office. Those states have articles in their constitutions requiring public officials to believe in God—in fact, in Maryland, even jurors and witnesses are technically required to believe in God—and now nonbelievers are trying to get rid of such rules, even though they are rarely invoked. “If it was on the books that Jews couldn’t hold public office, or that African-Americans or women couldn’t vote, that would be a no-brainer. You’d have politicians falling all over themselves to try to get it repealed,” the chairman of the Openly Secular coalition tells the New York Times. “Even if it was still unenforceable, it would still be disgraceful and be removed.”

Article VI of the US Constitution says no “religious test” should be required for federal office, and in 1961, the Supreme Court ruled that states may not have a “religious test” for public office. Yet the bans remain in those seven states, and activists say they’re unconstitutional. So far, though, no politician has made it a goal to get rid of them. Openly Secular plans to lobby legislators in those states (plus Pennsylvania, which has ambiguous wording about religion in its Constitution) to dump the bans—if they can find legislators open to the idea. The latest notable time a ban was enforced was 1992, when an atheist was denied a position as a notary public in South Carolina; he won the case when it went to the state Supreme Court.

Of course these are the same a/holes that always talk about the sanctity of the Constitution but have No problem depriving others of the rights to believe as they see fit……..

So tell me where the democratic part is with all this? Where is the freedom to believe or not? I am weary of so-called “constitutionalists” that are all about the Constitution as the “law of the land”….but only when it confirms their limited knowledge of what the document is really about.

Time for a convention to make things crystal clear. Are you with me?

Is That An Oxymoron?

Continuing my day of religious stuff…..I read one article that made me ask the typical….WTF?

Let me give you a short synopsis before I go into my rant……

Atheist-church leaders in New York have bitterly broken away from their central church in London, creating what may be the first schism in modern organized atheism, CNN reports. Late last year, Lee Moore and two other members of The Sunday Assembly’s franchise in New York broke off and created the Godless Revival. Moore alleges that Sanderson Jones, co-founder of The Sunday Assembly in London, wanted the New York group to “boycott the word atheism” and have no “speakers from the atheist community.” Jones also wanted members to meet in a church-like setting rather than a Manhattan dive bar. Jones called the schism “very sad,” but said he hoped “there will soon be communities for every different type of atheist, agnostic and humanist.” The breakup highlights just how diverse atheist churches are, from warm-and-fuzzy groups that experience wonderment at the universe to hardcore atheists who gather in a bar. The Assembly’s Los Angeles chapter has moved toward so-called “big tent” atheism, to include various humanists and freethinkers—and why not? A Pew poll says 20% of Americans have no religious affiliation but don’t consider themselves atheists. So does this divisiveness mean it’s better to keep atheist churches local and unorganized? “Actually,” says Moore, “we do have expansion aims.”

Now you read it and you saw what I saw…an Atheist Church….go back….an atheist church? Screw the argument they are having within it….it is an ATHEIST CHURCH!

Did I miss something in my religious indoctrination?

Atheist? Atheism is not a belief system nor is it a religion. While there are some religions that are atheistic (certain sects of Buddhism, for example), that does not mean that atheism is a religion. Two commonly used retorts to the nonsense that atheism is a religion are: 1) If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair color, and 2) If atheism is a religion then health is a disease. A new one introduced in 2012 by Bill Maher is, “If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position.”

I’m still working on the church part………I am by NO means an expert on the subject of atheism…..but it does not seem to fit in the same sentence…..Atheist Church…..I am open to an explanation if someone has a good one……let it fly!

It still fits in there with ‘military intelligence’, ‘jumbo shrimp’ and ‘the immortal dead’……stil,l sounds like an oxymoron.

Is There A Religious Test For Office?

I remember in my state of Mississippi when blacks were all but eliminated from voting….the feds stepped in and stopped those practices…..but there are other ways of stopping qualified people from running for office……

You have been told since your early Civics classes that anyone could run and become leader of your state or a representative of your area……ANYONE could be the next governor or state senator. No matter race, gender or social status…….am I right?

Before you answer that plain and simple question you might to check out the below graph…..

atheists

Personal opinion….I do not care what someone’s religion is or the lack of it…….if the person will truly work for the best interests of the people of this country….then they should be allowed to run for office…..the same goes for voting…..

At what point do people stopping judging others by some test or prejudice?

You God-Less Bastard!

Since the days of the cultural revolution, that would be the 60’s not Mao’s, I have not heard the use of God-less anything and in those days I was a “God-less Commie” and then as the years wore on….I was many things…..a pinko fag…..a peacenik……a socialist…..and now I am just a liberal….in all that time my ideals have not changed that much….I have modified some to be more realistic but the basics are still the same….so I thought I had heard the last of the lame argument of being somehow “God-less”.

Well, I was mistaken…..as written in his blog, Jonathan Turley said…….

Pastor Mike Stahl is the head of an “internet church” called the Church of the Living Water and has drawn national attention due to a proposal he made a year ago: a national registry for atheists. We have seen religious and political leaders in the last year attacking atheists and even comparing them to terrorists. Stahl’s proposed national registry is the natural outgrowth of such demagoguery.
Here is Stahl’s proposal:

Brothers and Sisters , I have been seriously considering forming a ( Christian ) grassroots type of organization to be named “The Christian National Registry of Atheists” or something similar . I mean, think about it. There are already National Registrys for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc..

So, if I am an atheist I am in the same category as a sex offender? And how does this moron decide who goes on the list? Will there be a time limit…like if you have not been to church in 10 years….then you must be an atheist.

This from a pastor of a religious movement that prides itself on tolerance…..Christianity.

This type of crap, and yes I said CRAP, is why I am a deist……God exist but does not interfere nor care what one does with one’s life…..I shall always rail against those like this screaming a/hole. When will we as a society have enough of people interfering in others lives?

Americans Loss Of Religion

I know we hear everyday from this religious zealot or that…that we are all gonna die because of our support of abortion or gay rights or not having “In God We Trust” tattooed on our butts….if these types it is always something that we are doing that we must repent for and ask for guidance….

For me, I am Deist, I believe in God but that he does not interfere or really care what is happening on this tiny little planet….he/she gave us a brain and by doing that he/she gave us the capacity to solve our own problems and leave him/her out of the loop altogether……

For years now I have felt that religion was playing a smaller roll in people’s lives than it has in the past…and there may be a reason of that…….as reported in the People’s World…..

the report‘s authors say that more than just decline is in store for religion in some countries. It may be on the verge of extinction in nine nations: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.It should be noted that this means the decline in the number of people who claim to adhere to any organized religious group. In surveys, fewer people than previously said that they were Catholics, Protestants, Islamic or any other religion. These numbers do not portray what these people, who no longer consider themselves followers of any particular faith, actually believe. Some are atheists, some are agnostics and some may have other ideas entirely.

Researchers studied the ongoing decline of religion around the world and nationally – the unaffiliated are the fastest growing religious minority in all 50 states of the U.S. – and tried to understand the dynamics responsible for the decline’s speed. Instead of trying to find an ideological reason, they looked at religious affiliations as social groupings in society, and tried to set a statistical framework that would allow predictions.

The results are unlikely to bring joy to the pope or any other spiritual leader: “The model indicates that in these societies the perceived utility of religious non-affiliation is greater than that of adhering to a religion, and therefore predicts continued growth of non-affiliation, tending toward the disappearance of religion.”

Well now…maybe people are starting to learn to take responsibility for their “sins”, if you will……and stop trying to find someone/anyone to take their burdens on as their own……maybe humans are growing up…..becoming an adult could only help the planet and its people…..

A Religious Outreach To Atheists

Before I go any further…..your beliefs are just that..yours and I in NO way want to infringe on what you care to believe. I found this article intersting and wanted to post it and maybe some small comment to go with it.

Reuters is reporting that:

What happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with 10 atheists?Turkish television station Kanal T hopes the answer is a ratings success as it prepares to launch a gameshow where spiritual guides from the four faiths will seek to convert a group of non-believers.

The prize for converts will be a pilgrimage to a holy site of their chosen religion — Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists.

But religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey are not amused by the twist on the popular reality game show format and the Religious Affairs Directorate is refusing to provide an imam for the show.

The project focuses attention on the issue of religious identity in European Union-candidate Turkey, where rights groups have raised concerns over freedom of religion for non-Muslim minorities.

Some 200 people have so far applied to take part in the show and the 10 contestants will be chosen next month.

A team of theologians will ensure that the atheists are truly non-believers and are not just seeking fame or a free holiday.

Okay, I should have something clever to say at this point….but I cannot stop laughing long enough to do it…sorry.

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Atheists