Clipmarks | Atheism Clips

atheism

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:58:25 GMT

clipped by: joturtle
clipper's remarks: of course

Clip Source: 66.gmodules.com

Is atheism is a non-prophet organization?

Religion

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:46:16 GMT

clipped by: champagnesheik

Clip Source: www.tonyadonis.com

Tags: religion, atheism

An Old Myth Investigated

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:49:51 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: This clip is from a short piece explaining very well why, as Cline points out, freedom of and freedom from are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. Interested people might benefit from linking to the original and reading it in its entirety.

Clip Source: atheism.about.com

What is Freedom From Religion?

Freedom of Religion Requires Freedom From Religion

Conservatives insist that the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, and argue against strict separation of church and state. Too often, though, conservatives seem to have a flawed understanding of what freedom from religion really entails and fail to realize that freedom from religion is crucial to religious liberty in general.

It is evident that a person misunderstands the concept of freedom from religion when they say that promotion of the idea is part of an effort to eliminate religion from the public square, to secularize America, or to deny religious believers a voice in politics. None of this follows from a belief that people have a right to be free from religion.

Tags: constitution, government, religion, atheism

A Bit of Rationalism

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:37:59 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: It's always positive to point out what is myth and what is reality. Often they are confused, especially by people who depend so much on myth. The attached clip offers a bit of sunshine to brighten up those dark corners of peoples brains.

Clip Source: atheism.about.com

Myth:

Atheists are angry at God because they think He should have done something for them in their pasts.

Response:
The idea that atheists are angry in general is itself already quite popular, but the myth that atheists are angry specifically at God for not having done what they want may be more popular. This combines the idea that atheists are angry, that they are prideful enough to think that they know better than God, and that they are rebelling against what God wants for the world. Atheists are thus attacked from a variety of convenient directions, except for the fact that the claim is all wrong.

The most obvious reason why everyone should recognize that this myth is false is the simple fact that you can't be angry at God unless you believe that God exists. This means that anyone who is angry at God must be a theist, not an atheist — an atheist is a person who doesn't believe in any gods at all. Atheists therefore cannot be angry at any gods.

Tags: atheism, religion, logic, rational

A question science can't answer?

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:49:55 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

"Can anybody think of a question science can't answer?"

"Is there a God?" shot back a boy near the window.

"Good," said Mr. Campbell, an Anglican who attends church most Sundays. "Can't test it. Can't prove it, can't disprove it. It's not a question for science."

I despise that chicken-hearted answer. There are two reasonable ways to address that. One is to accept the usual open-ended, undefined vagueness of the god entity and point out that the reason it can't be answered is that it is a bad question — it's not even wrong. Science doesn't answer it, but then no discipline can, because it's a garbage question like "what color are invisible elephants?" If that's what window-boy intends with his petty little gotcha, he deserves to have the inanity of his idea disparaged.

The other approach

pin the question down. What god? What actions has it taken in the natural world? How does it influence us specifically? Then you can tackle that god with science by testing the purported effects it has

Tags: religion, science, atheism, god

Bring on an atheist prime minister

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:21:46 GMT

clipped by: breweruk
clipper's remarks: Excellent comment piece in the Guardian today by AC Grayling.

Clipped a few sentences, but the article is a must read.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Atheist leaders are not going to think they are getting messages from Beyond telling them to go to war.

Atheist leaders will be sceptical about the claims of religious groups to be more important than other civil society organisations in doing good,

Atheist leaders are going to be more sceptical about inculcating sectarian beliefs into small children ghettoised into publicly funded faith-based schools

Atheist leaders will, by definition, be neutral between the different religious pressure groups in society,

Atheist leaders are more likely to take a literally down-to-earth view of the needs, interests and circumstances of people in the here and now,

Atheist leaders will not be tempted to think they are the messenger of any good news from above, or the agent of any higher purpose on earth.

Tags: atheism, politics, religion, church of england

What is Autocosmology

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:24:50 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: humanknowledge.net

Autocosmology is a synthesis of metaphysical naturalism, ontological materialism, epistemological empiricism and positivism, mental functionalism, theological atheism, axiological extropianism, political libertarianism, economic capitalism, constitutional federalism, biological evolutionism, evolutionary psychology, and technological optimism. Autocosmology is the worldview asserted by this text.

Tags: autocosmology, metaphysical, worldview, knowledge

Militant Atheist, a slanderus slur we shouldn't abide anylonger.

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:39:39 GMT

clipped by: Karzdan
clipper's remarks: A gross misuse of the word 'Militant'. Just because we think, and question your beliefs. Doesn't make us 'militant'. It takes acts of violence against you.

I think, therefor I am!
Join other rationalist at; www.atheistthinktank.net

Clip Source: www.atheistrev.com

You Might be a Militant Atheist if...

The slur du jour aimed at atheists appears to be that of "militant atheism." While we in the atheist community know full well that there is no such thing as a militant atheist, the Christians who use this phrase remain willfully ignorant or are simply so used to distorting reality that it no longer bothers them. Make no mistake - this is a form of anti-atheist bigotry and should be treated as such. Atheists need to have a plan for responding to the charge of militancy. To do so, we must understand the accusation, why we are seeing it, and what it reveals about those making it.

Applications of the "Militant" Label

Richard Dawkins was greeted with accusations of "militant atheism" when he published The God Delusion. Based on the book's title, even many Christians who never read the book could assume that it was an attack on their god-belief. That was all it took. Dawkins dared to criticize their religious beliefs; this made him "militant."

Tags: atheism, atheist, militant, extremism, religion, slander

Solzhenitzyn's Insights

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:15:57 GMT

clipped by: Efrain Alvarado

Clip Source: www.nobelpreis.org

Clip Source: www.freerepublic.com

half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened

I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.

And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God...

Tags: god, atheism, communism, solzhenitzyn, nobel, peace

Groups Wants Atheists Included In DNC Interfaith Service

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:11:47 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.gazette.com

Democratic National Convention's Aug. 24 interfaith service in Denver is supposed to be about unity.

But to a Washington, D.C., coalition that supports nontheistic views, it's about division.

The Secular Coalition Group, a lobbying organization for church-and-state separation, is pushing to get an atheist on the speaker list, and contends the service is divisive because it alienates nonreligious Democrats at a time when the party needs to unite to support the presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.

"We can all hold different beliefs," said the group's executive director, Lori Lipman Brown, "but we can still come together as patriotic Americans."

Natalie Wyeth, a convention spokesperson, said Wednesday that everyone, regardless of belief, is welcome at the public service, but would not address if an atheist would be added to the speaker list.

Tags: democrats, obama, atheism, interfaith

Dawkins on Agnosticism

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:19:53 GMT

clipped by: seaj11

Clip Source: dir.salon.com

It's said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can't disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There's an infinite number of things that you can't disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don't pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist.

Tags: dawkins, religion, evolution, agnosticism, atheism, logic, philosophy

Science, faith and everyday miracles

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:27:10 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "An Einstein letter that sold at an auction in May leaves little doubt of his atheism. "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish," he wrote in 1954, a year before his death."
"And yet Einstein is famous for a number of teasingly "spiritual" quotations - "I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos," for one - that suggest he is a theist. A growing body of Einsteinologists believes the physicist was using such God language metaphorically to express a human impulse for finding meaning and comfort in the clock-like workings of the universe. As he wrote in 1931:"

Clip Source: www.jpost.com

Science, faith and everyday miracles

Not a week goes by that I don't read something that increases my sense of wonder. Just this week I read that California scientists have developed a mini-microscope that eliminates the need for lenses - and space. It functions at the level of a micron, or one one-100th of the width of a human hair. I doubt I will ever "use" such information, but it is the kind of fact that puts me in mind of Einstein. "There are only two ways to live your life," he famously said. "One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." And by miracle, I don't mean something supernatural (and I don't think Einstein did, either). I mean a moment that puts you in awe of the universe and its workings.

EINSTEIN IS a good example of a scientist who probably rejected the notion of a supernatural God but nevertheless found the coldly materialistic language of science inadequate to describe his sense of wonder.

Irish bishop cries over loss of influence.

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:51:52 GMT

clipped by: Karzdan
clipper's remarks: Ireland is slowly removing the influence religion has over their school children. And here we have this bishop whining about it.

Clip Source: www.irishexaminer.com

Bishop accuses State of diluting role of Church in schools

Less than half of secondary school pupils are now educated in Church-run schools and a similar situation is developing in primary schools, according to the chair of the Bishops’ Commission on Education, Bishop Leo O’Reilly.

He criticised the treatment of the Church in the Government’s new codes of practice on planning for schools which he said “relegate them to the past” and “consign their role in school ownership to history”.

The Code of Practice on the Provision of Schools was published earlier this month and only has one mention of the role of religious patrons who run schools.

Tags: religion, catholic, atheism, atheist, ireland, bishop

A call to remain stalwart against Islam

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:43:03 GMT

clipped by: Karzdan
clipper's remarks: A great column article, calling for critics to remain steadfast in it's evaluation of Islam.

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

Johann Hari: We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

This is a column condemning cowardice – including my own. It begins with the story of a novel you cannot read. The Jewel of Medina was written by a journalist called Sherry Jones. It recounts the life of Aisha, a girl who was married off at the age of six to a 50-year-old man called Mohamed ibn Abdallah. On her wedding day, Aisha was playing on a see-saw outside her home. Inside, she was being betrothed. The first she knew of it was when she was banned from playing out in the street with the other children. When she was nine, she was taken to live with her husband, now 53. He had sex with her. When she was 14, she was accused of adultery with a man closer to her own age. Not long after, Mohamed decreed that his wives must cover their faces and bodies, even though no other women in Arabia did.

Tags: religion, islam, christianity, atheism, mohamed, aisha, blashpemy

If God Has A Plan, Free Will Is An Illusion

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:19:10 GMT

clipped by: jedipunk

Clip Source: debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com

If God Has A Plan, Free Will Is An Illusion

So when Christians say that God has a Plan, that means that things can only work out one way, and the variables only have the appearance of being unknown. As long as God has a plan, free will only has the appearance of being unknown to us. To an omniscient God, it must be obvious. This is why, free will is an illusion as long as God has a plan.

Tags: religion, atheism