Defacing a church or synagogue is considered a hate crime. Should this be?
A billboard near Sacramento promoting atheism was vandalized by someone depicting atheists as lost, one of the billboard’s sponsor said.
The billboard — one of several posted in the Sacramento area — originally read: “Are you good without God? Millions are.” Someone spray-painted the words “also lost?” beneath “millions are,” CBS13 reported Tuesday.
Rachael Harrington of the Sacramento Area Coalition of Reason — which paid to have the billboards put up — said the ads are intended to let atheists and agnostics know they are not alone, the TV station said.
“This shows loud and clear just how necessary our message is, because prejudice against people who don’t believe in a god remains very real in America,” Harrington said.
#78 bobbo, why can’t you simply choose to believe that I’m right, instead of harboring all those nagging doubts of yours?
Continuing to believe after such a thorough debunked is silly
#69 Must be genetic.
#72 So is also a genetic condition for you too. Interesting.
#81–gary==because my decision making takes place within an objective framework. In this case a study of developmental pschology and even more accessible to all: any standard dictionary.
All words have shades of meaning and different meanings in different contexts.
Their are choices that are inconsequential and there are choices that are judgments the consequence of interactive and supportive related choices that when being honest and consistent cannot be avoided==not without revisiting all the supporting previous and matrixed choices.
So what are we talkin bout again? Can I “choose” to believe in god or not? As you suggest, only in the most superficial way.
We aren’t being superficial are we?
#62
I see this a lot and I am always surprised to hear yet another person that thinks that God is mentioned in the Constitution. Do the world a favor and read it sometime; you’ll find no mention of God.
I am good without god so it looks fine to me! I am sick of seeing those ridiculous billboards about religion.
#85
I see this a lot and I am always surprised to hear yet another person that thinks that God is mentioned in the Constitution.
Technically, not correct. There is in fact one reference to a deity in the Constitution.
Wow a lot of ignorant thought here. Sure the normal perception of atheists/agnostics is they don’t go to church, or have a “church of the non-believers”, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t organized.
While I’ve not bothered to look, I’m sure that organized “non-religion” groups are just as fragmented, separated and radical as any other religious group.
The reason? It’s not religion that makes people radical, crazy, paranoid, ignorant, or our right stupid… Mankind has found ways to do this to our selves with out the guise of religion for millenia. Religion is just an easy (and very old) target for that ridicule, since they are SO stuck in the past.
#87–Thomas==”God” is not mentioned. Only “The Year of our Lord” which is not about God but rather the identification of the calendar system in use.
Surely you see the difference?
#84 bobbo, no, we aren’t being superficial. I’ve been told that superficial belief isn’t enough for admission through the pearly gates. If you can’t feel it, you’re out of luck. Sorry.
“No soup for you!!!” (the soup Nazi is filling in for Saint Peter today)
#88–Frag==what the frick are you trying to say?
“Non-religious organized group”==ok, like a bowling league for instance? I think they are pretty uniform about liking to bowl. And what has any bowling fraternity done to injure their fellow man or society or anything else?
Think that thru one more time and give the idiocy of religion its due.
Like many others, it’s simply Vandalism. Hate or not, the behavior is the problem. Find the idiot, ticket him for vandalism, and go on.
“Are you good without god?” “Millions are lost.” Well, what the hell are we waiting around for? We should find ‘em!
#85 — I was being sarcastic. If you would read the whole line it states that we should rewrite the documents. Just like the radical christians that are trying to rewrite history by stating those documents do contain the word god. May be that was too subtle.
Gary, I think you need to reconsider the word realize. Because that word means to make real. So I person has to decide to make something real. In your example, I would have to decide to make Santa real. Most people choose a religion because they are needing control in their life even if it is coming from an outside source. These people need hope, a purpose and/or need to have their life mean something so they make real an external source that guides them and gives them purpose. These people have already made a decision that their life needs control. All that is left is to make real an invisible beign or follow a cult leader.
#93 bac, I think you must have missed my earlier Santa Claus experiment, which had nothing to do with the word “realization.” In my #72 comment, I challenged bobbo to “make the choice to believe in Santa Claus,” the point of which is to show how silly the assertion is that an authentic heartfelt belief can be a choice, as so many Christians claim. And Christians are virtually forced to make that claim, because otherwise they would be worshiping a god who punishes people for conditions beyond their conscious control. Somehow, that just seems so inherently evil that they usually claim that belief in their god is a choice that can be freely made.
#94–Gary==Yea, but: the opposite is not so dogmatic.
Many people feel “the choice” when they are raised religious but over time they come to disbelieve for a variety and mix of reasons.
At some point, they do make a choice: going with the “easy,” expected, family friendly choice OR thinking for one’s self. Then one makes their choice and then tries to live it the consequences of the choice being easier to live with as time goes by until “faking it” is no longer in the matrix of previous choices made.
Words are tricky. How deep does a decision/choice “not to look at contrary facts” go before the argument is lost right up front?
I think god loses all the arguments to all those he has chosen to be denied his active presence. Shocking that he does this in the age of twitter.
Shocking indeed, bobbo. I see no reason that the gospel can’t be cut into Twitter-sized chunks of 140 characters. Where there’s an omnipotent deity’s will, there’s a way
I pray that my atheist brethren would just turn the other cheek and forgive those who know not what they do!
#73 bobbo
Life has a lot of things and themes, all of which seem to have one central meaning for all – learning. I’m not talking school, I’m talking life. We owe it to our ancestors, who suffered greatly their ignorance. We owe it to ourselves, there’s no improving ones lot without it. We owe it to our descendants for they will suffer the consequences of that which we do not learn. Now what people choose to learn, that’s a matter of conditioning and preference. My suggestion, learn to love, and learn to take personal responsibility for your feelings, sounds simple? Only if you haven’t tried.
Or screw all that and go see Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life.
But seriously, I never said I knew the meaning, just bothered by the absolute mediocrity in the search for meaning. I prefer an idiot zealot, than just a plain idiot, the zealot puts a lot more effort into being an idiot.
“Hate crimes” are simply a tool to control political thought and discourse at it’s simplest at it’s most evil it’s an attempt to control the human soul.
Even with that though, hate crimes are committed against races or faiths, if atheism is a faith, ie. a religion then fine. But assuming we treat atheism as a religion, because it has to be believed in through faith without any proof, then it needs to be subjected to that same restrictions we place on religion.
Then where does it leave those that believe in science as their creed and faith, it’s subjectively atheism without any belief in a God that orders all the universe. Science first came about due to people that believe that a purposeful and omnipotent God would have an ordered and directed universe.
Whatever………………………………
Traaxx
#99
There is so much FAIL in your logic/reasoning going on here, I haven’t got the time or inclination to attempt to take it apart. My time is way to valuable for that.