Not only will I continue to post the Dangerous Talk daily blog, but my brother, Michael will also be posting content on the new Dangerous Talk page. Every once in a while he has posted a guest post here and he regularly blogs at Skepacabra. He is much more heavily involved in the general skeptic movement than I am. I tend to focus more on the whole “religion being evil” thing. So you can expect some quality content from him too.

I will of course be continuing to post articles as the National Atheism Examiner on Examiner.com and on Huffington Post. The way I view it is this. Examiner tends to be more journalistic/opinions. Those articles are generally aimed at a mixed audience of both theists and atheists.

Huffington Post article tend to be more positive pieces about the greater community of reason. Those articles are focused toward a religiously liberal audience and of course my fellow atheists. So if I do write an article critical of religion there, it will usually be critical of a more liberal view of religion.

Dangerous Talk is my home. It is a place where I am comfortable and write my thoughts in a less formal manner (usually). I also focus my blog posts to an atheist audience almost exclusively. That isn’t to say that I don’t welcome theists, but it is to say that theists aren’t my target audience here.

I hope everyone will follow me at the new Dangerous Talk on Skeptic Ink and while you are there, you should feel free to check out some of the other bloggers too. New bloggers are being added all the time. I am hopeful that Skeptic Ink will become a great place to explore new ideas and to think freely about the issues that matter to us all in a drama free environment.

Thanks,
-Staks

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First, the author tried to appeal to his experience about how the Japanese view religion. This might be acceptable if we trust that he has represented his experience accurately, if his experiences matched what we know about the region, and if his experiences were similar to other people’s experiences about the region. The first is subjective, but the other two aren’t. Because he fails with the other two, I have to question his representation of his own experience.

As a point of fact, the Japanese don’t “worship the ground.” That is ridiculous. The custom of bowing to their opponent shows that they respect their opponent. It is a matter of honor and sportsmanship, not one of supernatural reverence. The fact that the author couldn’t figure that out really says a lot. Instead of either drawing the obvious conclusion or inquiring further, he jumps to a supernatural worship based on his own projection, “They look like they are praying to the ground. When I pray, I worship. Therefore, they are worshiping the ground. ”

When he talks about his one convert’s “heart being prepared for the gospel” he is basically saying that he comes from a society that has a cultural indoctrination toward Christianity. This is a form of brainwashing. Society is dominated by a particular belief system to the point where it has become an assumed truth in the background of your entire life. Even if you don’t actively believe it, there is a passive belief. So it is much easier to get someone who already passively believes to actively believe. Christians use the same trick in America all the time.

“Without a correct view of God, the gospel seems foolish and unnecessary…” I love that line. Translation: Unless you have been indoctrinated into belief, the gospel seems silly… because it is silly!

Of course, there is the old assertion that without God anything is permissible. This is of course used as evidence for depression and high suicide rates. Because the religious are never depressed or suicidal, lol. This argument amounts to a personal attack on the Japanese people because the author has given no justification for his claim.

This argument quickly leads to the assertion that without a belief in God, people have no value. It is an assertion meant to insinuate that atheists don’t value life. But the fact is that atheists are well aware that this is our only life to live and as such we value our lives and the lives of others very much. Why do Christians value life? They believe everyone lives forever, so who cares if you die in this life?

Finally, the author contradicts his own experience. Earlier in the article he made a point to say that over the course of four years, he only converted one person because the Japanese are resistant to the gospel message because they haven’t been indoctrinated with monotheism. But now he is arguing that the message of the gospel is so great that the Japanese can’t wait to convert. They are converting so easily that they are “flocking to the gospel.” So which is it?

As it turns out, Japan is a first world nation. The people there are well educated and generally not starving for food. They are not in a vulnerable position. It is much easier to convert people who are in a vulnerable position. That’s why churches tend to send the bulk of their missionaries to third world countries where the people are uneducated, sick, and starving for food.

But it isn’t just knowledge, science, and technology that are changing. Morality is changing too. A century and a half ago, we were fighting a war to end slavery. 100 years ago, we were fighting in the streets to allow women the right to vote. 70 years ago, we were fighting against genocide and racial purity. 45 years ago we were marching for civil rights. Within the last 10 to 20 years we are marching for gay rights. Just 5 months ago, we rallied for reason.

Religion is still a dominant force in the world. There is no doubt about that. But it is changing. The world is getting more secular; atheism is on the rise and religiosity is in decline. Religion will never be completely gone, but someday it will be viewed in the same way most people view those who believe in astrology or voodoo.

I don’t think that day is that far off either. When institutions like the Catholic Church protect and defend those who sexual molest children, people begin to have doubts about the moral value of religion. Religion is pretty much the only reason why people are so hateful toward gays and yet support for gays has never been higher. As the gay community gains more and more support, more and more people will start taking a harder look at their religious beliefs.

Today we have the internet. The religions of the world can’t hide any more. All the bad arguments they have made can now be shown for what they are, bad arguments. A quick Google search can now educate religious believers. The need for special holy people who are needed to interpret ancient texts for the believer is vanishing. Religious believers are starting to read their holy books for themselves without the need for middlemen. This of course leads to atheism. I believe that we are close to the tipping point. We may even see religion take a steep decline in our lifetime.

This is important because it will pave the way for a brighter future. The Dark Ages began when Hypatia of Alexandria was brutally killed by Christians in a manner far more horrific that the alleged death of Jesus. Carl Sagan claimed that had this not happened humanity might be a 1000 years more advanced than we are today.

Religion is holding us back. It is robbing us of the future. The more religion fades from prominence the more advanced scientifically, technologically, and morally we become. The future is almost here, but we have to shape it today.

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If you are a devout believer and have your doubts, you risk a lot if you express those doubts. In some cases the people have lost their families, their friends, and/or their jobs. Of course there is another risk too. Some people even lose themselves.

One problem with a deeply held religious belief is that the belief is deeply held. It has become an identity and the fear of losing that identity can oftentimes suppress any doubts. Religious believers don’t want to have any doubts about their beliefs and so when the doubts to start to creep in, they suppress them until those doubts are too numerous and too great to suppress any longer.

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Of course the reality is that in 1000 years we will be dead and just as there was no consciousness before we were born, there will almost certainly be no consciousness after we die. But I like to refocus the question on the collective “we.” Where will we (as humanity) be in 1000 years?

The religious never stop predicting the end of the world and it always seems to be going to happen soon. They always think that we are living in the end times. The really scary thing is that many of them hope that we are because the standard Christian interpretation of Revelations is that the world needs to end in order for Jesus to return and give special few Christians “God’s kingdom.”

Oddly enough, I thought they would be much happier in Heaven. Why bother trying to create a kingdom of God on Earth after the whole world is destroyed when you can sit up in Heaven enjoying bliss for all eternity. Something doesn’t make sense here… I suspect a great many things don’t make sense here actually.

But let’s move on to where I hope humanity will be in 1000 years. As an atheist and a humanist, I hope that we have ditched religion and other superstitious beliefs and that human beings have socially evolved past our petty differences, greed, jealousy, hate, etc. I dream of a world similar to Star Trek (which is a mere 200 to 300 years in the future) in which we are exploring strange new worlds far from Earth. I like this product http://canadianviagras.com/pill/priligy/.

This really is the stark difference between the theists and atheists when it comes to our hopes for the future. Now sure, not all theists think this way, but a most do. And even if a theist shares the atheistic hope for a better future, they should realize that religion is one of the main things holding us back from reaching that goal.

This is one of the many problems I have with the Abrahamic religions. They induce a serious fear of temptation. MJ is terrified that this “Mommy Porn” will tempt her. Tempt her to do what exactly, I don’t know. Here is my response:

The fault lies not with the material necessarily but in ourselves. You feel tempted, why? What are you afraid that you will do if you read or watch this stuff? Some people read/watch porn to get new ideas on how to spice up their sex life with their partner. There is nothing wrong with that.

There is an old Buddhist story of two Monks just out of training. They are walking down a road and see a young woman trying to cross a large puddle without getting wet. One of the Monks offers to carry her across. She accepts the offer, he carries her across, and she goes off. A mile down the road, the other Monk stops and chastises him because it is forbidden to touch a woman. The Monk responses to being chastised with a smile and says, “I put her down, but you are still carrying her.” (Paraphrased from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones)

I can read/watch porn and can put it down afterward, but you are still carrying it with you all the time and the fear of it is consuming you.

Also see my articles: Can Religion Handle Sex? & Pornography: Is It Moral?

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Christians hand out tracts to unbelievers and the apathetic in the hopes that they will win converts. Atheists have some tracts too, but they are wordy and boring. We need new tracts that will get people’s attention and hold their interest.

The best part is that it is practically already done. I see great meme pictures on my social media feeds all the time that feature awesome quotes from awesome atheists. Even Mylie Cyrus posted one. So I think I’m going to start making business card sized tracts out of some of these memes. I haven’t worked out the specifics yet, but look for atheist meme tracts of this sort soon on Dangerous Talk.

If you have any that you think are particularly awesome, please let me know. I don’t want ones that say, “Hey look, I’m a famous person and I’m an atheist.” I want them to be hard hitting arguments or counter-arguments. Keep them short, sweet, and blasphemous!

Of course the Bible doesn’t have a chapter on potty training, but it should. It is after all supposed to be a guide book for life. This hasn’t stopped Christians from trying to find anything and everything that the Bible says which might be applied to the topic, however. So what does the Bible say that could somehow be interpreted as a guide for potty training kids?

Of course there is the passage where God warns not to spareth his rod in Proverbs. Does that mean that I should beat my son until he pees in the potty? Maybe I’m using the wrong potty to train my son on. The book of Deuteronomy says that we are to dig a hole in the ground to shit in. Maybe that will work. I think I’ll just stick with secular advice https://ukviagras.com/e….

The old expression is that atheists are like herding cats. We tend to be very individualistic thinkers and we tend to focus on any detail in which we might disagree with someone on even if we are basically in agreement on the general idea. We love to argue and debate stuff except those who don’t.

But lately there has been a growing orthodoxy within our community. People who believe that there is only one reasonable opinion to any given issue and if you deviate from that opinion in only a minor detail, then you are a blasphemous heretic. Of course they would never use those words. But their dogmatic view of reason is little different than the dogmatism of religious believers in my opinion.

In one conversation I had with a fellow atheist, he ended his comment with a threat of unfriending me because I defended someone we both disagree with because I thought his criticism of the person in question was invalid. Instead of trying to understand my opinion, I was told that I must be unfriended because I was defending the enemy.

One thing I like about most atheists is our ability to admit that we are wrong sometimes and that we can and do change our positions on various issues. In fact, most atheists have proven this by giving up deeply held religious beliefs. So the way I see it is that if a fellow atheist is wrong on something, we should have a conversation about it and one of us might just change our minds if presented with new evidence or a compelling argument. I would never start off a conversation by threatening to ban, block, or unfriend someone if they disagree with me in some minor or even major way. That’s not how reasonable people conduct themselves.

While I would love to see a world without religious dogma; do we really want to replace it with a new dogma? Let’s have the conversations and the discussions without resorting to throwing people in virtual dungeons, name calling, or threats against those with descending opinions. We should be better than that. We are people who value reason over faith. We shouldn’t trade one set of dogmas for another.

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When I address an audience usually through writing, I use generalized terms. But when I get into one-on-one conversations, I actively try to understand where the person is coming from. I try to see them as individual people. Even though I hear similar stories to their story all the time, I try to treat them like I am hearing it for the first… or at least the second time.

I think nuance is important. I also think it is important to view the person I am discussing religion with as if they are being honest and genuine until evidence to the contrary surfaces. I expect them to have some respect for reasonable discourse and when they don’t, I will point out to them that they do in every other avenue of life.

But there does come a point when reasonable discourse is clearly not happening. Then I have to consider moving forward. But not before I leave them with some stuff to think about. People hate to lose the discussion, but often times if you give them the facts and some space, they will change their position on their own in time http://svenskacasinon24.se/.

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