The Atheist Lounge

Is it even possible to have one of these without it turning into an endless argument? Let's find out.

I read a lot of atheist blogs and news, and there are things I'd like to share with like-minded people. This is where I'd like to do that, and I'd like other fellow atheists to do the same.

I hope this won't turn into a giant debate or a flame-war or anything. But if there were a Christian Lounge, I can't imagine it would go any better, so let's see what happens here...


Public Elementary School in North Carolina Offers Bibles to Kids | Friendly Atheist

This is hilariously ridiculous to me.

The school defends it by noting that the Bibles "were kept in the office where students could stop by for one if they wanted, and if any other religious group wanted to drop off their own texts, it would be handled in the same way".

And yet... "According to Strivelli, her son went to pick up the Bible because his teacher told the class they could all leave to get a copy and everyone else was going."

I'm in 5th grade, teacher says we can leave class because... wait, we can leave class?! You could be handing my 5th grade self a book full of blank pages and I'd leave class for that!



But what if this was a Quran?
"Students, you can leave class to go to the office and get a copy of the Quran if you would like"
*Everyone leaves*

"HOW DARE YOU GIVE MY CHILD A QURAN, WE ARE A CHRISTIAN FAMILY AND I DO NOT SUPPORT THIS! LAWSUIT! OUTRAGE! HOLY SHIT!"

But the Bible? Oh, that's okay. It's the Bible. It's about JESUS!


"Strivelli also remarked that she had been required to sign a permission slip to allow her son to watch a PG-rated movie in class, yet he came home with a Bible without any of the school administrators batting an eye."

Certainly the Bible doesn't have any PG+ material.


Beautiful, isn't it?

That's pretty tragic, sounds to me like the school just opened the door to a shitstorm. Pretty controversial if you ask me.

That's pretty tragic, sounds to me like the school just opened the door to a shitstorm. Pretty controversial if you ask me.

It's sad too because it wouldn't necessarily be controversial except for the fact that any religious book aside from the Bible would not fly with most of the US.

Can you imagine the rage if a 5th grade teacher was like "hey kids, there are some copies of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins available in the office, you're welcome to just leave class right now if you want one."
*Entire class leaves, because hey, leaving class!*

"HOW DARE YOU SEND MY CHILD HOME WITH A HEATHEN BOOK, I'M SUING!"

But I feel like that's a double-standard we encounter with Christians in this country quite often. Bible? Cool! Quran? Atheist book? Other religious text?
WHOA, NOT COOL, DUDE. THIS IS A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY.

What about the programmed outrage whenever atheists get uppity? OMG THEY HAVE A FUCKING BILLBOARD!

I'm just visiting Vegas atm, but I've seen the billboards around all over the fucking place... in Vegas. It's not enough to have churches all over the place with all their billboards, lets put up billboards and tell everyone they better stop having fun with their lives or they'll sit in a flaming corner for-fucking-ever. If I were to complain, it's a fucking crime to these people.

And then I turn on the tv, and the talking heads think I love Muslims. Why? Because I have the audacity to express resistance to the Christian message that is literally in my face every day BUTTT I never say anything about Muslims. Gee, I wonder why... I mean, all their billboards piss me off just as... oh, right. No billboards. But for Christ's sake stop shoving your nonbeliefs down our throats!

The believers don't seem to understand: shoving your shit in my face only increases the amplitude of my resistance to it. Do you want to hear me say to you: FUCK YOUR GOD? You're pushing me in that direction every day. No existing dogma is even close to morally adequate. You cannot convince me. I've already given you ten years. Let me have my own opinion, fuck.

Ffff. Sorry for the rant. I need a radio I can program to ignore country and god, and I think I can tolerate the billboards and most of the rest.

Fucking rant away, Postal Blowfish! This is our Atheist Lounge!

It pisses me the fuck off, too! It pisses me the fuck off that an atheist organization puts up a billboard saying something as simple as "Don't believe in God? You're not alone!"

And theists fucking picket that shit. They fucking gather under it and protest!

Why? WHY?! That billboard didn't say "BELIEVING IN GOD IS WRONG!"
It said "If you don't believe in a god, YOU'RE NOT ALONE!"

And they're going to picket that shit and hold Bible studies under it? Because it's wrong that someone would even reach out to other people who may not believe?

Yet an atheist group asks for equal representation in a town holiday display and they're trying to start a "war on Christianity".

You people have been having a fucking war on atheism for my entire fucking life. Fuck your shit. You want us to respect your beliefs, but you don't even begin to respect the beliefs of anyone else if it might remotely threaten your own. Fuckin' major dicks, some of them.



EDIT: I'll change "most of them" to "some of them" just to help avoid any theist backlash.

Edited by junkiedays, 25 December 2011 - 10:05 AM.

I smile and turn the other cheek. I do defend atheists in their expression against what looks to me like unfair criticism. I do occasionally rant on the internet. I do question it when people try and preach. It isn't fair to do that an expect no resistance, and people need to consider that the response is not warranted without the preaching in the first place.

But in every day practice, I let it go. I know a lot of religious people do, too, and I appreciate that.

fwiw, i could rant as easily against country - fucking just drop the twang and call it what it really is - POP. but i digress, im on a radio tear being so far from home...

Edited by Postal Blowfish, 25 December 2011 - 10:17 AM.

Yeah, I let it go in most of my "real life" situations, too...

I was actually at a Thanksgiving celebration with my husband's family last month and my brother-in-law started complaining about Christopher Hitchens and how "arrogant" he is for assuming he knows that god doesn't exist.

I bit my tongue so hard it probably almost bled, but I didn't say anything... if it were my own family, I probably would have. But this is my husband's family and I'm not going to get into some major debate with them about the subject.

But why does he not also complain about the theists who are so arrogant to assume they know that god does exist?


Atheist saying god doesn't exist = Arrogant.

Theist saying god does exist = Pillar of this Christian country, yay for him.

I'm having some JW Black Label right now, I bought earlier in the evening while I was chillin' with my brother. I reminded him about Hitch and we had a few drinks, but thankfully my brother and I see eye-to-eye on almost everything (which seems unthinkably to most brothers I've ever met).

I was paying attention to Mr. Hitchens - I mean, how could I not? - and although he was not shy in the least about expressing his opinion on the evil of religion I often heard him admit that he didn't (and couldn't!) know with certainty there is no god. The message from him was very much like my own opinion: it doesn't really matter if there is a god, there is no doubt that religious dogma has been and continues to be the single most divisive factor in human society.

I applaud his audacity, though I do not totally agree with his stated need to hate religion, and I am all too happy to have another scotch and mourn his passing another time or two. He was entertaining even when I could not agree, and I do and shall continue to miss him so.

For someone to have called him arrogant shows a little bit of animal bias against dissent. I'm sure he was plenty arrogant, but he could articulate his position and I doubt anyone who would call him arrogant could answer his criticisms nearly as well as he expressed them.

Edited by Postal Blowfish, 25 December 2011 - 10:36 AM.

I've heard even some of Hitchens greatest fans call him arrogant, but I don't think it was ever meant as an insult.

The man knew what he believed and believed what he knew, and he never faulted from that. To call it 'arrogant' is no different from calling a priest who knows god exists 'arrogant'.

Maybe different sentiments, but often times, the same state of mind. Not that I'm comparing Hitchens to theists, I'll raise a glass to the man right now. But I'm sure ya'll get what I'm saying, even if I can't state it as eloquently as Hitchens could.

I used the word myself, but in hindsight the better word is confident. And it's hard to be anything but confident when conversing with a person who is willfully ignorant.

Oh, and people who "know" god is real... that' certitude. Certitude in something that is unproven isn't sane. That's saying you just know your subjective feelings add up to God. The sane person should at least be able to admit that he can't be totally certain. That's where the faith comes in. If you know God is real, there isn't any faith implied in that notion.

Edited by Postal Blowfish, 25 December 2011 - 10:57 AM.

Truth, for sure, but I would not fault anyone for calling Hitchens arrogant. I feel like I'm arrogant sometimes myself... I try not to be, but truth be told, I totally am.

I try not to look down on people for believing in god (or more specifically, religion), but I can't help but think "Really? You believe that shit?"


And I mean, let me be clear here... If you have thought long and hard about the nature of the universe and have come to the conclusion that you think maybe there is a higher power, then fine, that is your belief.

But coming at me acting like the Bible is the fucking word of God and he created a son which he impregnated a woman with and he was here to save us all from our sins...

Really? Really now?

How many of those people have actually read the Bible? I'd wager it's less than 20%.

"I disagree with gay marriage because it totally says something about that in the Bible."

Yeah, it says something about that in your books that were admittedly, in the book itself, written by people who were NOT God or Jesus and had merely interacted with your holy damn savior at some point in time.

Some of these people act like Leviticus is the holy grail against gay people but take none of the rest of Leviticus into account.



AND ALSO

4 Things Both Atheists and Believers Need to Stop Saying | Cracked.com

This.

This bugs me.

It bugs me because the author is clearly bias towards agnosticism and acts like atheism is nothing more than believing that "nothing can be greater than you".

It's a ridiculous concept and I don't feel like the author understands atheism at all.

Damn you, Gladstone.

I consider myself agnostic. It looks to me like all the things said there that atheists should stop saying are responses to theist proclamations.

Maybe no one should say "god is not great." Certainly, no one should say without a goo reason that god is great. Lets face it: if there is a god, no one knows for sure whether it is "great" and the adjective surely has different meaning to different people.

My opinion is that this alleged god is not important. If there was a creator, I doubt anyone speaking about it knows the first thing about what they're talking about. That doubt is only amplified by the feeble attempts of mortals to explain it and its intentions. Maybe there was a creator. But to assign it omniscience and universal love all at once is a proposition that makes no fucking sense when coupled with the notions of the afterlife.

And this is why people might say it's a "fairy tale for morons." My reasons for considering the attributes of god nonsensical next to the attributes of the afterlife make that statement seem true. What loving god with pre-awareness of the destiny of men would create sinners who it knew would end up tortured forever? We have to admit here, this might not all be wrong but some of it has to be: either god is not univerally aware, or not universally loving, or the extortion/bribery-based afterlife is a fantasy.

Edited by Postal Blowfish, 25 December 2011 - 11:24 AM.

Religion has no place in anything ran or overseen by the government, like our public school system. If you want your kid to thump the bible while he's in school, send him to an academy, imo.

im sick of these stupid discussions. get over it. do the christians not realize they go all around the world and preach their book to other people called "missionary " trips or something

everybody in here should watch this when theyve got the time. Sam makes a lot of good points, and made me think about some stuff too. for those who haven't heard of Sam Harris- don't worry.. he's one of us.. so don't be mislead by the video title. lol
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODz7kRS2XPs]Sam Harris - AAI 2007 - The Problem with Atheism - YouTube[/ame]

Id like to believe there is a God, but there are too many inconsistencies and unprovable facts.It isn't in my wiing to believe something without evidence. I mean Mark and Luke never met Jesus, how can they write concrete life guidelines without the 'Hi I'm Jesus and I approve this message'.The gospel according to mark ( oldest of gospels) doesn't say anything about a virgin birth or the sermon on the mount. These details were added around 70Ad, a good forty years after Jesus died.In the gospel according to mark, Christ was a man. Matthew and Luke? He was a demigod. John? He was God.There is not the smallest amount of trustworthy informations that suggests the gospels were in existence in present form before 100Ad. Christian scholars having no reliable means to pinpoint when the gospels were written, dated them as far back as their guesses would allow. The earliest accounts of the gospels being mentioned was 180ad where the gospel of John was brought up by theapholis of antioch. And the other three were mentioned in 180Ad by Christian father st irenaeus. There is nothing to show that these gospels were written until hundred and fifty years after the man they pretend to describe. The language in Palestine at that time was Aramaic, the gospels were all written in Greek. So let me get this strait. Four foreigners wrote about a dead man who some of them didn't even meet- and THIS is proof?

Edited by Getboged, 25 December 2011 - 10:51 PM.

Just gonna have a seat right over here if you dont mind

Cigar anyone?

Just gonna have a seat right over here if you dont mind

Cigar anyone?

A joint perhaps?

Fuck let's pass both

stumbles in....
falls on face....

will try to be coherent eventually....