Post by FredPost by Mitchell HolmanOn Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:03:25 -0700, Oliver North
Post by Angle of InsolationPost by Gunner AschSo how does it feel to be spewing such hyprocrisy when your
religion ...Atheism, has indeed been found to be a religion by
the Supreme Court of the United States?
LOL! Bet you this cult savage believes it, too. Got it straight
out of Rush Limbaugh's ass.
Someone hiding behind an anonymous handle
complaining about the lack of others gonads?
The disturbed Christian is trying to draw attention away from the
fact that he lied about the Supreme Court designating the lack of
belief in the gods "religion." When he got called on it, he started
doubling down on his Christian lunacy.
Lies? Which ones are lies?
The Supreme Court has said a religion need not be based on a belief in
the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v.
Watkins, the court described secular humanism as a religion.
And of course..the several Federal courts have also made that same
declaration.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/03/10/atheism-is-a-religion
Atheism Is a Religion
Or at least it requires a God for you not to believe in.
Kennedy | March 10, 2012
Oh don't grovel. One thing I can't stand is people groveling. I didn't
know what fire and brimstone was until I made a throwaway claim
recently during an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher. It seemed
pretty unaudacious at the time, but by dropping the simple sentence
"Atheism is a religion," I opened a biblical floodgate of ridicule,
name-calling, and abuse.
My Twitter feed and Facebook page became engorged with angry
responses. "Your adherence into adulthood to what is usually an
adolescent phase (Libertarianism), speaks volumes about your
confirmation bias levels, wrote Kernan. Touchstone Supertramp added;
"Damn girl you got a big forehead." A guy named Kevin and about 70
other people shared this bumper-sticker nugget: "?If atheism is a
religion, then off is a TV channel." Liz wrote, "Kennedy, is that if
atheism constitutes a religious belief than anorexia is whenever you
don't eat." Michael wrote: "re·li·gion /ri?lij?n/ Noun: 1. Whatever
Kennedy says it is." That was awesome. Beth called me a minor
celebrity and a major trolland it was also awesome to have somebody
think I'm a celebrity.
I was called names and insulted in ways I haven't heard since the
first Clinton administration, when leading scientists still believed
the Internet was created by Al Gore in only seven days. Although I've
missed the barbs, I was surprised at the bitterness that poured from
so many disbelievers. And I remain convinced that atheism is, in fact,
a religion.
This is an explicable scientific phenomenon. Like the Buddha seeking
truth, I decided to leave the hostile waters of social networking in
search of a scientist with a fresh perspective at the intersection of
biology and the divine. Andrew Newberg is a neuroscientist at Thomas
Jefferson University whose field of study is neurotheology, the study
of the relationship between the brain and religious and spiritual
beliefs and experiences.
Newberg and his late partner Eugene D'Aquili mapped various parts of
the brain showing activation in specific areas when people were
undergoing certain religious rituals or experiences, such as a shaman
being in a trance or a Buddhist entering a mystical state. Regardless
of the religion, the brain function was the same. Something was
happening when these people experienced their version of religious
phenomena, and the scans lit up like Robert Redford's suit in The
Electric Horseman.
This does not prove God exists, but it does show humans are wired or
biologically predisposed to believe in something. When I interviewed
him for this article, Newberg said his research demonstrates that "we
are wired to have these beliefs about the world, to get at the
fundamental stuff the universe is about. For many people, it includes
God and for some it doesn't. Your brain is doing its best to
understand the world and construct beliefs to understand it, and from
an epistemological perspective there is no fundamental difference."
So, whether you make sense of the world as an atheist and don't
require the God postulate to complete your understanding, or you are a
theist and your feelings and experiences tell you something greater is
there, biologically speaking, that big blob of gray Jell-O in our
skulls is like a giant arrow pointing us in the same direction. I
believe that is delicious. And religious.
Where Newberg and I differ is whether or not you call that universal
leaning a religion when it is expressed as atheism. Newberg holds that
if by religion you mean a system centered around a belief in a
supernatural God, then atheism does not qualify. I contend that if
your system is about Godor about the non-existence of GodGod is
still at the center of the argument's "aboutness." In the spirit of
that "off is a TV channel" comment above: God is the TV. Religions are
the channels. If it is off, maybe he's dead or disengaged, but at
least you admit there's a TV.
This also helps explain why the argument that libertarianism or the
devout love of hockey are also religions fails. Libertarianism is
about liberty and hockey is about mullets and pucks. Atheism, on the
other hand, is about God and proving such an overpostulated
supernatural being does not exist.
Maybe atheism is a religion, maybe not. But Madalyn Murray O'Hair
would have made an excellent pope. The problem doesn't seem to be so
much in pinning the term religion on atheism, but defining religion in
the first place. No one really wants to do this, and if they do, it's
always with heavy qualifications. If you call it this, you have to
mean that, blah blah blah. No one I spoke to, from atheist magicians
to rockstar wives to philosophy professors, really wanted to take this
cloud and pin it down in the examination tray. Even uber-atheist and
diehard libertarian Penn Jillette would not give me his own definition
of religion. Instead, he told me via email, "It's all in how you
define religionif it's faith, then atheism isn't. If it's theism,
then atheism isn't. If it's philosophy, then atheism isn't. If it's a
club, then atheism isn't."
This is a descriptive technique that has been used to get at what God
is by saying what He isn't; it was first made popular by Maimonedes,
who Im sure would be a fan of Penn's magic as well as his brilliant
and now defunct Showtime series, Bullshit!
You know why I love Penn? Because he added this for good measure: "The
enemy is not religion, the enemy is faith. Believing something without
proof is a fuck you to all the other people on earth." I don't agree
with it, but that last part makes me laugh. Good thing we're centering
on belief and not faith, or else I'd have to stop and go fuck myself!
When atheists rail against theists (as many did on my Facebook page),
they are using the same fervor the religious use when making their
claims against a secular society. By calling atheism a religion, I am
not trying to craft terms or apply them out of convenience. I just see
theists and atheists behaving in the same manner, approaching from
opposite ends of the runway. The entire discourse about religion stems
from those who think they know more than the other guy. But what we
really know is that we don't know much. And we seem to share the same
mechanisim in our brains that drives us to make claims of faith and
rationalism as a way of making sense of the great unknown.
You can call atheism a belief system, which Newberg guardedly does, or
you can make a stronger assertion and say that atheists and theists,
who have conveniently developed hate-tinged froth and vitriol for one
another, are quacking and waddling in the same way in different ponds.
Either way, they are ducks and atheism is a religion. At least it is
in the hands of those who are so religious about their disbelief that
they place the weight of the argument on the feathery shoulders of
their believing brothers and sisters.
Here you have the atheistic religion in a nutshell: superhuman agency,
devotion, self-selecting groups of people. Add to that the
intenseeven religiouszeal with which many atheists defend their
claims. Let me tell you: The angriest ones can be as malicious as a
coven of Westboro Baptists at a veterans funeral. Bill Maher himself
took five minutes at the end of the next week's show to rant against
anyone who would call atheism a religion. He added that you were a
moron if you believed this (given what hes called other ladies he
disagrees with, Im thinking I got off pretty easy).
For a group of ultra-rationalists, the atheists sound downright
emotional. I may sound that way too: When I called some of my
Twitter/Facebook pen pals "Palins," they became particularly rankled,
accused me of circular logic, and called me a Palin, to which I say,
"I know you are, but what am I?"
No matter what I said to counter their statements or clarify my
thoughts, by and large they refused to give me a fitting definition of
religion. Nobody on my Facebook thread could tell me why it was so
problematic and offensive to categorize a system of thought adhered to
by a group of people about the nonexistence of a supernatural entity
as a religion.
Frank Zappa: Atheist or secret Muslim? I have yet to hear a cogent
response to this question: Why is it a problem if someone considers
atheism a religion? How does that hurt the atheists claim? It's not
saying you can't believe God does not exist. Knock yourself out! Some
of my idols are atheistsfalse idols, mind you, but certainly shapers
of my outlook and worldview. I do thank God for the godless.
Maybe the best treatment on Earth of the question as to whether or not
atheism is a religion came from music god Frank Zappa, founder of the
Church of American Secular Humanism (CASH). Secular humanism is
defined as reason rejecting dogma and supernaturalism, which is a
fancy way of saying its atheists who believe in people and not God. I
am down with reason, and although I think I have psychic powers that
allow my friends' dead parents to take over my emotions, I respect
those who dont believe in the supernatural. It is a lot easier to
believe in fewer things than to accept a host of others on faith
alone, and humanists are intellectual minimalists. They are the Design
Within Reach to Christianity's Shabby Chic, and no one was more ready
to clean house than Frank Zappa.
CASH began with an Alabama school textbook court case, where a judge
ruled atheism was a religion that was overwhelming the school system
and that Christian families deserved equal time in the classroom.
Frank called their bluff. If secular humanism is a court-recognized
religion, he figured, then be prepared to dole out the tax-exempt
rewards along with the after-life punishments! The tenets of the faith
were laid out by the judge and Frank jumped on them with devotion. He
created CASH and incorporated it in the Yellowhammer State, ready to
convert the faithful out of their delusions and handing out T-shirts
instead of communion wafers.
Zappa's widow Gail, who has renewed vigor to restart CASH and make a
go of it in California, is simply giddy when she defines atheism as
"technically a system of disbelief. CASH is not only a corporation
but now, thanks to the Supreme Court, officially a person as well,
and, as she puts it, "free to marry other religions' non-taxable
businesses and enjoy another level of tax freedom." This seems like
the best-case scenario. If humanism is a religion, and secular
humanists are atheists, then why not create more formal instructional
dwellings, label them churches, and lap up the tax-free nectar your
peers in Scientology, Mormonism, and Catholicism have been enjoying
for years?
As Gail Zappa summed it up to me in a poignant, thoughtful email, "I
think it is central to true freedom of expression and true democracy
that there be absolute separation of Church and State. Especially in
politics, which [Frank] said is the Entertainment Branch of
government." My Orthodox priest would probably give me a stern penance
for saying this, but I do not have a problem with church-owned
businesses paying taxes. I don't know that you have to tax every dime
that hits the collection basket, but a blanket exemption seems a
little clumsy.
Atheists should embrace their religiosity, recognize the biological
component that drives them to make sense of the world like the rest of
us, and church it up. As the Man from Galilee once put it, render unto
Caesar what is Caesars, and to God what is Gods. If you dont
believe in God, then you dont owe him anything. And if my Facebook
friends are any indication, you lost your sense of humor ages ago.
Which means you atheists may have nothing left to lose but your
taxable status.
Atheism, just another faith based religious belief.
Gunner
Post by Fred---
"Fred" is my Christian name.
One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not
agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my
earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure
- and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his
fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.
- Jeff Cooper