Richard Dawkins: Barack Obama 'Probably Is an Atheist'

Judged:

1

Pamela wrote:

Of course. His mother was an atheist. His father was Muslim but then he became an atheist too. Most people who have taken a lot of classes would figure out gods were made up my men. The more people study science and humanities, of course they know there are no gods. It's the people told by their churches that they don't need education who belive in gods, because that is all they know.
What is really a tragedy is how people lie that Obama is a Muslim yet same time they complain that he is in all of these wars against Muslim countries, which of course makes no sense at all. He is clearly not a Muslim. He would not war with Muslim countries, and if he were a Muslim he would follow the Muslim holidays. People are insane. They make it up he is Muslim, that he was born in Kenya, anything to try to cope with George Bush destroying the U.S. Fox tells them Obama somehow did what Bush did so that Fox can get Repubs elected again, and idiots buy that stuff so they make it up that Obama is a Muslim to make him look like he is an outsider, so that they don't have to face up to it that a white Christian man took the U.S. down over giving all of its wealth to the few rich people.
It's a sad state. For one thing, there are no gods, yet over 90 percent of Americans think it is evil to be an athesist. Unfortunately, this is a super dumbed down nation of people. That is the real problem this nation has.

Judged:

1

1

1

Designed- by god wrote:

<quoted text>
Don't think many want the truth. Tell them what they want to hear, what they already believed, and your affirmation make their confidence in you grown. And they will love you far more for your nod in agreement than they will for telling them how it really is. Did I mention votes too?
Poor naive girl. Money to be made off ignorance, let's keep them that way. Time and maturity will eventually turn you from your honest liberalism to a hard nose, money grubbing, lying conservative.

Amused wrote:

He says he's a christian, and ...
Of course, politicians routinely lie, deceive, favor the rich over the poor and do many other things that would seem not to line up well with their professed faith..... So, it would seem that being a politician, or being the president, and being a christian, requires a high degree of schizophrenia or a high degree of hypocrisy. Or both.

Judged:

1

1

1

PlacitasRoy wrote:

No atheist would waste their time listening to the nonsense pumped out from the pulpits. And atheists' moral values would prevent them from lying about religious beliefs.
And evangelical atheists like Dawkins have no more credibility than evangelical fundis.

Judged:

1

1

1

EdSed wrote:

<quoted text>Mr Dawkins isn't being evangelical. He is not spreading a message, he is opposing falsehoods and harm, such as creationism, ID and fundamentalist beliefs. He is the opposite to a fundi or evangelical. He simply makes important points, such as "young people were being taught that the world was only 6,000 years old." This actually is happening. One school produced at least one entire six form who believed in creationism and was dismissive of evolution. That cannot be right.
No atheist would want to listen to pulpit rubbish, but it is taken very seriously by religionists.
I grew up in a household with a parent who regarded dissent from religous belief a serious matter. It isn't that atheists want to lie. It is that even one's loved ones seem to prefer lies to the truth. If they are so superstitious they believe in an after-life and that religion saves one's soul from hell, it is understandable why the truth is so difficult.
What is immoral is someone in this day and age seeing atheists as somehow less moral or less sincere than religious people. That's immoral and ridiculous.

Judged:

1

1

1

EdSed wrote:

<quoted text>Mr Dawkins isn't being evangelical. He is not spreading a message, he is opposing falsehoods and harm, such as creationism, ID and fundamentalist beliefs. He is the opposite to a fundi or evangelical. He simply makes important points, such as "young people were being taught that the world was only 6,000 years old." This actually is happening. One school produced at least one entire six form who believed in creationism and was dismissive of evolution. That cannot be right.
No atheist would want to listen to pulpit rubbish, but it is taken very seriously by religionists.
I grew up in a household with a parent who regarded dissent from religous belief a serious matter. It isn't that atheists want to lie. It is that even one's loved ones seem to prefer lies to the truth. If they are so superstitious they believe in an after-life and that religion saves one's soul from hell, it is understandable why the truth is so difficult.
What is immoral is someone in this day and age seeing atheists as somehow less moral or less sincere than religious people. That's immoral and ridiculous.

Judged:

1

1

1

Pamela wrote:

<quoted text>that's a great post.

Pamela wrote:

<quoted text> Another problem with believing one's soul is saved from believing in gods is that gives people a license to be bad in the here and now.....

Pamela wrote:

<quoted text> What I see a lot in this country is a hatred of people who have clean souls. Americans overall are mean as hell and want to smash up and destroy anyone who does have a clean soul. They want everyone all destroyed and mean and doing bad things like they do. Didn't used to be this way, but for about the last ten years, this is how it is here.

Judged:

1

1

PlacitasRoy wrote:

No atheist would waste their time listening to the nonsense pumped out from the pulpits. And atheists' moral values would prevent them from lying about religious beliefs.
And evangelical atheists like Dawkins have no more credibility than evangelical fundis.

Judged:

1

1

1

EdSed wrote:

<quoted text>Thanks
<quoted text>I had a chuckle at this. Religionists always seem to argue that religion provides moral direction and is a defence against immorality.(Lol!)
Of course, people's behaviour is governed by nature and nurture - their DNA and environment. Religion is neither here nor there and shouldn't be confused with morality at all.
I enjoyed your posts and you would be very welcome in Europe, I'm sure :-)
<quoted text>This sounds kinda negative, for a USAmerican?:-)
From here, USAmericans seem to have come to see every issue as a fight (and vice versa :-)

Judged:

1

1

1

Pamela wrote:

<quoted text>that's a great post.
Another problem with believing one's soul is saved from believing in gods is that gives people a license to be bad in the here and now....

Judged:

1

1

1

Amused wrote:

<quoted text>
That's only true if religion is a source of morality, and it raises a number of questions.
First, if someone chooses to do good and refrain from doing bad things only because of the reward/punishment model that religion sets up, are they really 'good', or are they debased creatures who would do bad if they thought they could get away with it?
Second, if one subscribes to a religion that includes divine forgiveness, is that not even more of a license to do bad things, since divine forgiveness will wipe the slate clean upon asking for forgiveness? Wouldn't knowing that your sins are written in pencil, not in ink, and that by asking god for forgiveness you can avoid the consequences for those sins make it easier for someone to commit the sin? I work with Cambodian refugees in the US, and there are a number of former Khmer Rouge in that population. I have observed that a significant number of the former KR have converted to christianity, while the vast majority of the Cambodian population is buddhist. Christians, of course, believe in forgiveness of sins, while the buddhist belief in karma basically holds that you pay for your actions either in this life by doing good things to 'make merit' to atone for bad acts, or by suffering in future lives until the accumulated merit pays for the wrong. My guess is that the christian message of divine forgiveness and wiping the slate clean really appeals to people who have done some really appalling things in their lives.
Third, is religion really the source of morality? The bible, particularly the old testament, commands followers to do some fairly awful things. Killing disobedient children, brides who are not virgins, adulterers, people who work on the sabbath, etc., to name just a few. It holds up as virtuous people like Lot, who offered up his own daughters for gang rape as substitutes for his visitors whom he protected, then later, after fleeing Sodom for shelter in a cave, on two consecutive nights became so blind drunk that he supposedly was unaware that he was sleeping with his own daughters. Let's not even discuss Abraham and Isaac, except to note that a latter day Abraham would either be confined to an asylum or spend a large portion of the balance of his life learning the finer points of license plate manufacturing. The bible attributes to god a keen enthusiasm for slavery, since god set forth in great detail instructions on how the institution of slavery should be managed. We have laws of war which forbid the sort of killing all the civilian inhabitants of a city which the old testament describes god as commanding on any number of occasions. Obviously, contemporary believers do not kill disobedient children, sabbath breakers, et al, do not hold slaves, don't impregnate their own daughters, etc. This is because they are applying an extrinsic morality to the bible, and using that non-biblical morality as a guide to which biblically endorsed behaviors are moral and which are not. Once you say that something endorsed as moral behavior in the bible is, in fact, not acceptable, you are acknowledging that there is a morality distinct from the bible.

Judged:

1

1

1

Amused wrote:

<quoted text>
That's only true if religion is a source of morality, and it raises a number of questions.
First, if someone chooses to do good and refrain from doing bad things only because of the reward/punishment model that religion sets up, are they really 'good', or are they debased creatures who would do bad if they thought they could get away with it?
Second, if one subscribes to a religion that includes divine forgiveness, is that not even more of a license to do bad things, since divine forgiveness will wipe the slate clean upon asking for forgiveness? Wouldn't knowing that your sins are written in pencil, not in ink, and that by asking god for forgiveness you can avoid the consequences for those sins make it easier for someone to commit the sin? I work with Cambodian refugees in the US, and there are a number of former Khmer Rouge in that population. I have observed that a significant number of the former KR have converted to christianity, while the vast majority of the Cambodian population is buddhist. Christians, of course, believe in forgiveness of sins, while the buddhist belief in karma basically holds that you pay for your actions either in this life by doing good things to 'make merit' to atone for bad acts, or by suffering in future lives until the accumulated merit pays for the wrong. My guess is that the christian message of divine forgiveness and wiping the slate clean really appeals to people who have done some really appalling things in their lives.
Third, is religion really the source of morality? The bible, particularly the old testament, commands followers to do some fairly awful things. Killing disobedient children, brides who are not virgins, adulterers, people who work on the sabbath, etc., to name just a few. It holds up as virtuous people like Lot, who offered up his own daughters for gang rape as substitutes for his visitors whom he protected, then later, after fleeing Sodom for shelter in a cave, on two consecutive nights became so blind drunk that he supposedly was unaware that he was sleeping with his own daughters. Let's not even discuss Abraham and Isaac, except to note that a latter day Abraham would either be confined to an asylum or spend a large portion of the balance of his life learning the finer points of license plate manufacturing. The bible attributes to god a keen enthusiasm for slavery, since god set forth in great detail instructions on how the institution of slavery should be managed. We have laws of war which forbid the sort of killing all the civilian inhabitants of a city which the old testament describes god as commanding on any number of occasions. Obviously, contemporary believers do not kill disobedient children, sabbath breakers, et al, do not hold slaves, don't impregnate their own daughters, etc. This is because they are applying an extrinsic morality to the bible, and using that non-biblical morality as a guide to which biblically endorsed behaviors are moral and which are not. Once you say that something endorsed as moral behavior in the bible is, in fact, not acceptable, you are acknowledging that there is a morality distinct from the bible.