Atheist will attempt to boot "God" from inauguration

Where did You come from? That was a very sensible reasonable remark. I agree, thank you...gd

I'm not gonna give it to ya, but you are gonna get so much shit for saying that god exists on Current.

Please do.

Two words, chow:

Prove. it.

Chow, which god are you talking about?

isn't the definition of faith the lack of proof. oh wait that means... oh now i get it... thats a good idea because if you prove god exists then he isn't god anymore... but if you don't believe in god then you're denying him by inaction or lack of faith.... okay i think im putting this together now, you sneaky Christians... you must of hired some smart lawyers to draft that little piece a circular logic.

Hows about we all practice our faiths, beliefs, hunches in groups that agree with us and then..... oh wait just realized thats what we do.

so why don't we all live in harmony and have useful debates with new ideas that lead somewhere rather then everyone cutting and pasting there arguments from other threads, which I've noticed is what all the "Christians" are doing, lets get the next point going at some point okay.

by the way still a Christian, just not an idiot.
or do i disqualify myself by saying im a christian?

Sorry man, the burden of proof falls on the believer. But nice attempt at a cop out.

no, i think in this case it's pretty much seen as a requirement.

and atheists are obviously a small and marginalized minority. you can't get elected to high political office in america if you're an atheist, and part of the reason for that is because religion is so ingrained in our political discourse. so fuck yes we'd like to get over that hurdle.

"they should get Atheists and Humanists elected" I agree with you. Unfortunately in our political system right now there are not many open Atheists. This may be because Atheism is a minority or because it is practically political suicide to say you are one.

Regardless of that however, if America is truly striving to be a secular government we should keep god out of it.

It's kind of like the idea of legislating morality by outlawing abortion. It won't work. If you want to change the culture, you don't do that with litigation or legislation. You change the conversation with intelligent conversation. You go around with a lawyer in your pocket and trying to force issues like this, you end up throwing fuel on the fire - the zealots become more extreme. Please, ask the Pakistanis citizens how well backing religious extremists into a corner worked for them.

Good one Wab, I am speechless.

No one is trying to back "religious extremists" through lawyers. If you think the legislative system is not an effective way to change things, I'm confused. Many ground breaking cases go through the supreme court! Bringing up situations like this one IS a way to promote meaningful conversation for the public, but from a legal standpoint, there is nothing wrong with trying to change something that you think goes against the constitution.

Every day at current.com is atheist day. Haven't you noticed this?

Can we please have an actual "atheist day"? I would take the day off to celebrate...

They once tried to have a Thomas Paine Day but it was rejected because he was a deist.

atheism is an absense of belief not a belief itself. i know that may not make any sense to the religious people out there, but it is what it is.

why is it that religious people seem to forget that freedom of religion is the same as freedom FROM religion.

That's clearly semantics.

To say that you have an absence of belief in a deity is to say that you have a belief in the absence of deity. And when it's a belief that cannot be proven or disproven, well that, my friend, is what we call faith.

I recognize why you think it's different, but it's not. That's just what I believe.

Seriously, that argument gets so very stale after the thousandth time refuted.

in another thread someone described agnostics as people who 'want to believe' which is why a lot of people, including myself, prefer the term atheist. in reality though, there's a lot of overlap and only the most ardent atheists believe that there is no god. but to be an atheist, you simply lack any belief in a god. it doesn't mean you're absolutely convinced that there's nothing else out there. we just leave the burden of proof to the zealots. understand? most of us aren't taking anything on faith. you're conflating your own worldview of absolutes with ours, and it's inaccurate.

i knew you would say that, and its okay, you're allowed to disagree with me. but for the record, your rebuttal is just as stale.

has it ever occured to you that atheists just never think about it? my fellow atheists and I aren't trying to prove anything about the existence or non-existence of god, we just want to be left alone to live our lives and be the best homo sapiens that we can be. that is why i say atheism is not a belief. because, to me, religion literally plays no role in my life.

does that make sense?

and as long as we live in a country that protects freedom of religion, all references to God should be scrubed from publicly-funded events and government in general. atheists are american's too.

"that is why i say atheism is not a belief. because, to me, religion literally plays no role in my life."

Exactly. And in that state, you deny God. You deny him any part of your life. In doing so, you're telling Him that He is irrelevant to you. You may not be saying it, or even thinking it, but it's true.

I understand that there's a difference between actively stating, "there is no God," and just not giving Him any thought or consideration at all.

Only thing is, He sees the two as effectively the same.

Does that make sense my friend?

how can i deny something that i don't believe in?

i can't even begin to go into how flawed your logic is... but that's your belief, so i don't expect you to understand

I’m agnostic and certainly think it’s funny that someone would choose to, in part, call themselves an atheist because they don’t want to be part of the group that wants to believe. Personally I wouldn’t characterize my mindset as wanting to believe, I just don’t end of story.

If religious affiliation was based on want then I’d say there are a lot of agnostics and atheists that are actually theists. Faith is the foundation Christianity is built upon and faith is quite simply the desire to believe in the questionable. Therefore Christianity is not so much about going to church or getting baptized as much as it is about upholding a desire to believe in god.

Contrary to popular (and sometimes prejudice) belief, true Christians as supposed to be humble in their beliefs. So as I said before an atheist or agnostic that wants to believe is just a theist who does not pay his church dues.

"You deny him any part of your life. In doing so, you're telling Him that He is irrelevant to you. You may not be saying it, or even thinking it, but it's true" Yes, in the same way that Odin and Zeus are irrelevant to you. You lack the belief in them, you don't worship them (do you? I guess I shouldn't assume which god you are talking about.)

I want one single piece of evidence Jesus ever existed, seriously, then I'll give credence to God, Zeus, Ra, or whatever your sect of people believe in when it comes to a deity.

Johnny_Danger... the reason is that we live in an extreme Christian society/country, and the only way to fight an extreme is with an extreme. And if you do not agree with that, we can at least agree that extremism begets extremism.

There really isn't so much a need for Atheists in the overwhelming majority of the rest of the West, why is that? For instance I'm in Australia atm, Christians or religious people in general are the minority, tell someone you are Christian or Atheist here and the likely reaction will either be "so?", "and?", "ok..." or "good for you". Otherwise you'll just get a blank stare.

It looks like Atheists don't believe in religious tolerance going two ways. Only towards them. And that is selfish. And getting really old really fast.

Belief is unconscious admittance of ignorance. One either knows through incontrovertible empirical evidence, or one doesn't know. The easy way out is belief. The honest way is to admit consciously that one doesn't know.

Jesus V how the hell do you justify the things you say? If incontrovertible empirical evidence is such a prerequisite to honesty then how can you make a blanket generalization about anyone that is religious or spiritual? Unless you happen to be a supreme being I doubt you can fit every religious or spiritual person under your narrow definition of belief.

Ricky, it appears you didn't understand anything I wrote.

Or the more likely explanation is that you have a dogmatic holier than thou opinion of yourself. Your interpretation of belief as an unconscious admittance of ignorance is retarded. Plus uncertainty is by no means the sole affliction of the theist.

Faith is cultivated in spite of ignorance, or to be fair uncertainty since only a god could possess “incontrovertible empirical evidence” to such a profound question. Furthermore if a person did know beyond a shadow of a doubt that god was real faith would have no meaning whatsoever. Faith is utterly dependant on the conscious admittance of uncertainty and everyone is uncertain to some degree, unless of course they’re insane. Even Richard Dawkins is smart enough to admit that.

I seriously doubt you know what you’re talking about because you just failed to describe arguably the most important lesson of faith/belief. If you don’t understand the lessons of Abraham then you really have no business categorizing belief as the subconscious denial of ignorance (at least when it comes to the big three that is).

Quod erat demonstrandum. You don't have the first scintilla of understanding so you project onto me. Rather sad.

Belief is not only ignorance, it is willful ignorance. Belief is like a sort of daydream. Wishful or magical thinking is mistakenly seen as some sort of higher perception or intelligence. Belief is basically a denial of reality.

You should either do your homework or drop this argument. To understand Christianity you first need to understand Latin. The Latin translation for the term “I believe” in the time of mediaeval Christendom was credo. Credo itself is made up from do “I give” and cor “heart“. Therefore credo originally meant, “I give my heart to.” Nowadays the Latin word for believe is opinor, which gives us the word opinion.

So as the Oxford English Dictionary explains, "belief was the earlier word for what is now commonly called faith". "Belief in God used to mean "putting one's trust in God" but now it refers to an opinion. For someone who likes to post Latin quotes I would expect you to know this. Then again you also gave an erroneous description of what faith constitutes even though the bible is old as hell.

Anyways moving on. If you’re going to talk about belief in the proper Christian sense you need to stress the actual translation of the word. For example in mediaeval times no one would dare say “I believe in the devil.“ Of course everyone did back then but the proper thing to say was “I renounce the devil.” Again to believe is to “entrust thy heart” it is not a statement of opinion as to the reality of something.

I would like to go over the whole doubt being instrumental to faith thing again but I think you’ve embarrassed yourself enough Ms. Latin. Please for the love of whatever you consider holy stop arguing from the side of ignorance, its rather sad ;p

Concur.

Agreed as well. The taker of that oath should have the choice. Me, I would prefer taking it on the constitution or perhaps even a Jefferson Bible, but I'm not about to shove my belief on others who would want to take an oath on a Bible or the Koran. And isn't taking all reference to God out of everything without anyone having a choice just as intolerant as those who claim using God in everything is? Aren't there also more important things to be concerned with regarding the taker of that oath? You know, that they actually fulfill it? Does Mr. Newdow care about that?

YES!!! DEAR GOD YES!!!

absolutely not, he is our elected representative. it doesn't matter their personal ideology or preference, they were elected and are being paid to represent us, We the People, ALL OF US, not themselves.

Thing is, they're taking an oath. For the oath to be considered effective, it should be said with serious intent. Not much more serious intent than saying an oath before God.

I guess when you consider the war, famine, climate change, disease, poverty, and social upheaval that is wracking this world, whehter or not Obama puts his hand on a Bible or a phone book seems to pale in comparison. And gee, it's too bad these people doing this now didn't hold their "elected representatives" to such high standards for the last eight years when they were trashing the constitution. All of a sudden what they take the oath on is more important, but then after it is taken no one wants to get off their ass and hold them accountable for not abiding by it? Sounds a bit hypocritical to me. And actually, he isn't my elected representative per se as I didn't vote for him, but I still respect his constitutional right to take the oath on the Bible Lincoln did, or not to if he so chooses. I believe that's called freedom of religion.

Actually, I've been quite sickened by the last eight years, and voicing it vociferously.

Unfortunately, I don't have a mass media podium to shout it from.

netstorm: "Not much more serious intent than saying an oath before God."

unless I don't believe in god. to me its the same thing as saying the oath before Harry Potter or the Flying Spaghetti Monster...

netstorm: I was referring to the people bringing the suit. They should be suing Bush for breaking the oath.

Not if it's taxpayer money footing the bill. Last I checked it is.

chowmein2012:

please don't confuse your opinion with objective reality. maybe to you, not beleving in God is putting a limit on yourself. But to me, believing in god is the easy way out. it robs you of your intellectual curiosity.

And i DO believe that i have control of my life. In my opinion, it's the only thing in the whole universe that i do have any power over. how is that a bad thing? If you think you are powerless, you will be.

i'm sorry that having a separate opinion than you makes me lame, but if that's your criteria, then lame I am.

"Not believing in God is putting a limit on yourself and proves that you are close-minded and a control freak." I think this is untrue. Do you believe in mermaids or unicorns? Perhaps Apollo or the sun god Ra? If not, do you consider yourself closed minded or a control freak?

People can not believe in something and still be open minded enough to wait for proof to prove them wrong. There is nothing wrong with wanted evidence for a claim.

Tbowman:
Very nice answer, and polite. Thanks for making all us pagans and heathens look good.

good point

i agree, but at the same time i still feel like religion should not be mixed within this oath since it goes out to the public. the person who is making the oath should leave religion for when he says his personal prayers.

Pagans Rule!!

I absolutely agree with the religious exclusion. but i believe the oath should me made to us, the American people. if he wants to hold his hand on a bible as a sign of his greater faith and commitment to the oath he is making then so be it, for his commitment but above all it should be us he swears to and technically does.
oh yea, and i think it should be considered some sort of law to break that oath, bush should have to go door to door and apologize to each and every American for his behavior. or at least give us a dollar. or you know be brought up on treason charges whatever,

p.s. Christian talking here.

yes