Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?

Spookiesmom

👍👍

ananda8

Freya244117

"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces." – Carl Sagan

I love Carl Sagan.

ananda8

The average person might not understand physics, but Sagan and the Science Channel have helped the average person understand astrophysics.  NOVA helps the average person understand biology, ecology, and engineering.  The real problem is the average elementary school teacher doesn't have the time or support to teach experimental science in grade school.  They have enough trouble getting the time and support to teach reading and math.

Freya244117

runor

Well, as I was being wheeled into the surgical room for my surgery, looking at all the trays of steel instruments, the people who were going about their procedural prep as I was on that table like a fish on a cutting board, I did not hand myself over into the care of god. It was the eyes of my surgeon that I looked into. The woman who was about to put a knife to my body. I admit I did offer up some words to whatever entity might be out there in that void, but I prayed FOR MY SURGEON, not for myself. I prayed that the faith I was placing in her was well placed. I prayed the same thing as I looked up at the anesthetist who lowered a mask to my face and pushed drugs into my vein. My faith and survival had been given over to a roomful of people. It was for them that I prayed. And maybe even to them. I can't say for certain.

Do I believe in a God? If I do I don't believe it will heal me. I don't believe there is anything special about me that entitles me to healing and not every other one of you here. And if god was going to heal me, why not all of us? Cause its not part of its 'plan'? What kind of horse shit is that? God has a plan and some of us die and some of us live? That is not a plan. That is a mental illness. I don't think I can be party to a god who is clearly deranged.

I admit it would be easer to step into the darkness of death if I was convinced there were angels and rewards on the other side. I know why people choose to believe that. It is a whole lot easier to stomach than to think that one day, poof, gone, like a light turned out. Here one minute, forever snuffed out the next. That scares the SHIT out of me. Terrifying! So if I could change terror for a happy picture of heaven, wouldn't that be great. Only ... I can't. I can't say that it won't happen and no one can say that it will. I just don't know. I get tired of thinking about it.

cive

The poof that I'm not anymore doesn't really scare me, I've been around for awhile and I'd say probably that old Judy Collins song "Both Sides Now" would sum up my philosophy on life.  The only thing that I might miss is that I won't know the end of the story.

Freya244117

Traveltext

It's nice that this thread is coming up for it's 10th anniversary. I fessed up to my atheism years ago here, but on reading many later posts I'm impressed by the variety of rationales for being an atheist. I also like the many memes and often consider how lucky we are to have so many reasons for our belief or, should I say,lack there of.

Wren44

I'm sure the Jesus soap is available at Archie McPhee's in Seattle - along with the devil ducky to float in the bath tub.

We just spent a long weekend in Okla. for my 60th high school reunion. Very VERY Christian. Grace before all meals including restaurants and cook outs. I'm happy to be back in unchurched Seattle. If we want a religious experience, we go hiking.

Freya244117

I wonder if I would be strung up for not saying grace in a restaurant? I find that really obnoxious.

Traveltext

I have never, ever heard anybody say grace in a restaurant. Where on earth does this happen?

Freya244117

Somewhere in Oklahoma it seems.

lovepugs77

North Carolina, too.

illimae

The Bible Belt! I hear it in Texas too but not very often in a restaurant setting. In some people's home and holiday work gatherings for sure.

bareclaws

Traveltext, it certainly happens everywhere in Texas. And Kansas.

Spookiesmom

wherever 2or more of them are gathered.

MinusTwo

And Utah & Idaho & Arizona & Nevada and yes, Texas.

Traveltext

Whoa, perhaps we could say all 50 states to save posts. Freya, perhaps you could arrive after grace.

MinusTwo

No - I haven't encountered prayers in restaurants in California, Oregon, Washington or most of the East coast. Edited to say (tongue in cheek) - thank heavens.

Spookiesmom

Thank Dog.

magiclight

As a Buddhist and an atheist -

Wren44

True. Buddhism is not a theistic religion.

Fortunately, at meals you can stare at your plate while others pray.

ananda8

Evidently Christians don't take the bible seriously because they certainly ignore Matthew 6 --- “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. ⁶ But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

ananda8

magiclight, 

Here is a link you might find interesting.  

The non-doing of any evil,
the performance of what's skillful,
the cleansing of one's own mind:
  this is the teaching
  of the Awakened

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/

illimae

Funny, I stopped reciting the pledge in 5th grade for its reference to god. The hubs and I had god and obey removed from our vows as well.

In 6th grade, I got wind of a plan to pick me up from school and take me to be baptized (to satisfy the Hungarian Roman Catholic grandparents), I had ditched and was already gone by the time my mom showed up. I warned them that I was against it and would thwart every effort made. The topic never came up again, lol.

Freya244117

Our national anthem used to be God Save the Queen, that was changed about 40 or so years ago to Advance Australia Fair. Not one mention of god or religion in the new anthem.

ananda8

Just when one thinks that religion couldn't get any crazier, there's this. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/28/artificial-intelligence-god-anthony-levandowski?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=01a941faf6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-01a941faf6-399905297

Freya244117

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would walk to your brokenhearted spouse and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widower rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let him know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are his eyes, that those photons created within his constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind everyone of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.

lovepugs77

Freya, I absolutely love that.