Atheism

I was told the original video was set private. Fixed.

My daughter came to us on the first day of school telling us that one of her teachers had a cross and a Bible quote on the wall. I didn't want to get my daughter into trouble by letting the principal know about it myself since they would attach my name to it and she might face retaliation. So I wrote to the FFRF, sent them a picture my daughter drew of the cross and the Bible quote (no phones in class, so she couldn't get a photo).

Not only were they responsive quickly when I contacted them, within a few weeks, they sent an email to the school superintendent with all the relevant legal information as to why this teacher needs to take the cross and Bible quote down and without identifying who reported her.

I'm not a member due to some financial issues right now, but as soon as those clear up, I am going to join. They do good work.

Consider joining yourself: https://ffrf.org/

"We are such an incredible stupid species. Our hardware has such unbelievable processing power and yet our software is so full of bugs."

INVIDIOUS link of the video. (No Ads)

At some point, I ran across an argument along the lines of: "We hunger, and food exists. We thirst, and water exists. We feel horny, and sex is real. We yearn for God, and so I conclude that God exists."

Now, I can easily pick this apart a bunch of different ways, the easiest one being that just because you want some to exist doesn't mean that it really exists. But what I'm really hoping for is a couple of counterexamples: something like "Yes, well, we all want a unicorn, too, but unicorns don't exist."

This particular one doesn't work because wanting a unicorn isn't a universal desire the way food or sex are (even counting asexual people, we can still say that the vast majority of people want sex). But maybe some of you can think of something.

How do you deal with someone who has had something happen and they keep talking about "God's plan"? I have a friend who is going through some tough times and it looks like they won't be able to achieve what they wanted but keep placing it on God. I think it's a coping mechanism for them but it still is rubbing me wrong. I am trying to stay supportive which basically just entails me keeping my mouth shut.

I read an essay by a christian a while ago that pointed out that the separation of church and state wasn’t about protecting the state from religion - it was about protecting religion from the state.

The gist of the argument was that religion should be concentrating on the eternal, and politics, by necessity, concentrates on the immediate. The author was concerned that welding religion and politics together would make religion itself political, meaning it would have to conform to the secular moment rather than looking to saving souls or whatever.

The mind meld of evangelical christianity and right wing politics happened in the mid to late 70s when the US was trying to racially integrate christian universities, which had been severely limiting or excluding black students. Since then, republicans and christians have been in bed together. The southern baptist convention, in fact, originally endorsed the Roe decision because it helped the cause of women. It was only after they decided to go all in on social conservatism that it became a sin.

Christians today are growing concerned about a falloff in attendance and membership. This article concentrates on how conservatism has become a call for people to publicly identify as evangelical while not actually being religious, because it’s an our team thing.

Evangelicals made an ironically Faustian bargain and are starting to realize it.

Crossposted from [email protected], a larger but less active community than this one.