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Author | Topic: Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority | |||||||||||||||||||||||
ramoss Member (Idle past 612 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
The key is 'if properly done'
I mean, if you pick 2000 people in bible belt, you will get a different profile than if it is totally random within the country, or if it was in a larger city.
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SuperNintendo Chalmers Member (Idle past 5834 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
I keep hearing from some around here that CHRISTIANS are an oppressed minority. I guess that isn't the case after all.
I see that atheists are ranked below muslims, gays and immigrants. But are we ranked below gay muslim immigrants? I any case as someone noted before this survey is stupid because they used the term "atheist", which most americans don't have a clue about. The average american is far too ignorant to have any idea what an atheist actually is. The term non-religious would have elicted a much different response.
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ReverendDG Member (Idle past 4110 days) Posts: 1119 From: Topeka,kansas Joined: |
I agree athiests are the most distrusted minority, the reasons i think are many but a few i think compact the issue the most is:
ignorence - mostly from people who can't picture someone believing in no higher power of some sort, not that people are stupid (some are though) but really people look at someone who doesn't believe in something higher as eather lying to themselves. Thus the possiblity of being a lier and or corrupt or without a basis for morality, so that would make anyone who doesn't understand athiesism distrustful another might be along the lines of limited pov, very much like the idea that a person without a religious compus is not really moral, people might do anything, immoral instead, it has a lot of emotion based things rather than rational based things as we have seen many times alone on the board people have show the belief that no god = no morals or ethics = distrust because of the first idea
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sidelined Member (Idle past 5908 days) Posts: 3435 From: Edmonton Alberta Canada Joined: |
ReverendDG
Thus the possiblity of being a lier and or corrupt or without a basis for morality, so that would make anyone who doesn't understand athiesism distrustful Funny how the Christian population is so distrustful of atheists for the potential of sinful practise they are supposedly capable of due to not having been saved.Yet by the same token I have yet to meet a "saved" Christian who also was incapable of commiting a sin of one sort or another.There seems to be a great tendency among us humans to observe the faults of others while remaining quite blind and ignorant of our own.It is easier to be someone else's mirror than to take take a good look at our own reflection eh? It is my personal observation that the faith {or lack thereof}a person claims to aspire to has little,if anything, to do with morality or even common decency. As an atheist it is not often that I have to deal with people giving me grief for my position.On those rare times when I do I usually am forceful enough in my discussion with these people to end the matter before they have the opportunity to get too worked up.
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ReverendDG Member (Idle past 4110 days) Posts: 1119 From: Topeka,kansas Joined: |
i think the idea that you don't need god to function as a person is inconcivible to a lot of americans, which is why it will be a long time before we can elect someone who is not religious or doesn't profess to a belief in god/s
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
Which means that any U.S. politician who wants to be elected MUST profess to be religious, whether they are or not.
Here's something I picked up somewhere:
President Bush told Texas evangelist James Robinson that "I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen . . . I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it." (source) It is possible that Bush really believes this. It is also possible that he was lying. I find both possibilities equally disturbing.
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iano Member (Idle past 1940 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
God wants me to do it That it is Gods will is also a possibility. One which is not reliant on Bushs belief. A possibility which you would no doubt find the most disturbing of all..
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
iano writes: That it is Gods will is also a possibility. Although I was mainly concerned with Bush's own motives, which warranted a strict dichotomy, yes, logically speaking, God's existence is also a possibility, albeit a remote one in my opinion. And I would not find that disturbing in the least, if God is the way he is always portrayed to be. After all, who would not want to have Santa in town permanently? But what I would find very, very disturbing - if not utterly incongruent - is that God would choose George W. Bush, of all people, to be his instrument. I mean, Bush is even purported to have said that "God speaks through him." Good grief! If that's true, then either the Almighty must have lost grip on his public relations department for good, or his sense of humour has taken a turn for the worse. I know, I know, "God works in mysterious ways." Well, in this life, I'm in no mood for his pranks, and unless he doesn't mind my disbelief in him, he'd better start clearing up his act. This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 05-May-2006 02:10 PM
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
As an afterthought:
"I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to ..." Guess who said that. No, not Bush. The sentence ends with "...wage this battle for Germany" and was spoken by Adolf Hitler before he launched his doctrine of preventive war against all of Europe. So if we have to go by George's own account, then we should also accept that God chose Hitler to be his instrument too. Somehow, that thought sits uncomfortably with me. If anyone should be distrusted, it's people who proclaim their own divine election. This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 05-May-2006 01:25 PM "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin. Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?
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ThingsChange Member (Idle past 5926 days) Posts: 315 From: Houston, Tejas (Mexican Colony) Joined: |
RevDG writes:
Yup. And there are more Catholics pouring across the border every day than atheists and agnostics graduating from high school.
i think the idea that you don't need god to function as a person is inconcivible to a lot of americans, which is why it will be a long time before we can elect someone who is not religious or doesn't profess to a belief in god/s
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iano Member (Idle past 1940 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Romans writes: For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. Pharoh was a git who did some not nice stuff. Judas was utilised for Gods plan too. Being used by God for Gods purpose doesn't necessarily mean the results will be to our liking. This is not to say of course that the persons actions aren't their own. God just uses the actions to weave his tapestry. From our perpsective underneath the tapestry may appear to have all kinds of loose strands and ugly patterns. But when you turn it over? An object of beauty Or so the story goes...
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
iano writes: Pharoh was a git who did some not nice stuff. I think you'll find that in those days almost anybody with power would fit that description.
Judas was utilised for Gods plan too. Maybe. But Judas didn't say: "Listen up people, next week I'm gonna betray Jesus. It's part of God's plan and that's the job He told me to do. (But I won't go sharing no thirty silver pieces with no God, He can make his own damn money.)" What I'm saying is that he didn't go around advertising the fact. Neither did the Pharaoh, for that matter. Would have been a bit silly, wouldn't it: the Pharaoh didn't even believe in God, being an Egyptian god himself.
God just uses the actions to weave his tapestry. Well, thanks for letting me know. Next time I need an interior decorator, I'll know where not to go. This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 05-May-2006 07:39 PM "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin. Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?
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ReverendDG Member (Idle past 4110 days) Posts: 1119 From: Topeka,kansas Joined: |
Yup. And there are more Catholics pouring across the border every day than atheists and agnostics graduating from high school.
and this has to do with the topic how?this isn't even relevent to what i said, even if there were more catholics than athiests and agnostics it still wouldn't matter, since they believe the same thing about non-thiests
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EZscience Member (Idle past 5154 days) Posts: 961 From: A wheatfield in Kansas Joined: |
TC, what makes you so sure they are all catholics?
I happen to have travelled widely in Latin America and I can tell you that atheism is as prevalent there as in the US, or more so. Fundie protestants scare me more than Catholics at this point, and it seems incongruous to me based on what I thought 10 yr ago. EZ
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 734 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
A big proportion of the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans that are religious out here in West Texas are various fundy denominations - Pentecostal, Baptist, Church of Christ. Catholics might have the plurality, but probably not the majority.
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