Losing my Atheism?
I am a pretty committed Atheist. Not Dawkins level, I'm not going to harangue and hector believers, I'm not going to try to dissuade you from your views or enter an argument with you when we both know at the outset that the other isn't going to change their mind, so don't worry, no lecture coming if you believe. I will just silently judge you and find you intellectually lacking.

Anyway, I have a little secret. When I enter a church, I get this strange feeling come over me that I find hard to describe. I only have to step through the door and I can feel it deep inside of me. It gets worse if I speak to a vicar or priest, it's quite strong then. Gnawing at me, unsettling me, making me think that there is something going on that I need to address. And it's overpowering sometimes. Weddings, funerals, Rememberance Sunday when I used to be forced to go with the Scouts. I sense something so overpowering that I can barely control the urge to tell people about it, I get the overwhelming desire to share, to see if anyone else gets as moved by it in church as I do. It's a sense of something so great that sometimes I want to stand on my feet, raise my hands to the ceiling and yell at the top of my voice 'FUCK I AM BORED!'
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 14:27, 7 replies)

bored
I used to think it was just boredom. Years later I twigged to the whole shadowy mind control thing, and was glad I got out without any lasting mental or physical damage.
(Simian Typewriter Supplies Pty. Ltd. is house hunting in the neighborhood of infinity, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 15:08, closed)

Odin knows...
Went to a church school when I was a kid. Had to go once during the weekday and then once again on Sunday. Enough to turn any child into Atheist. Glad its only funerals now, though when I die i'm going to make sure its a Viking burial with beer and wenches.

Something like this
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAM85DFfR24
Damn it why does Christianity have to be the main religion of Europe. Norse gods are so much better.

Hail Odin.
(Gimp Wrangler, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 15:21, closed)

Dawkins
I am so confused about how people see Richard Dawkins.

Everyone thinks he's this rude, aggressive atheist who acts all condescending and haughty when he talks to believers. It's such a common stock opinion that, unthinkingly, I sometimes use his name as a shorthand for rude, aggressive hectoring of religion - even though I've never actually seen anything to back this up.

Could someone please give me a youtube link where Dawkins is actually acting like this? I think I've seen all the TV shows and I read a few of his books.

I just don't see it. Sure, he can barely conceal his contempt when people wilfully fail to understand basic scientific concepts, and I've seen him get really frustrated when he's debating someone who simply refuses to engage with a logical argument - but that's not really the same thing.

Maybe I'm wrong and I've just missed something, but he always seems pretty friendly to me, considering the point he's trying to argue.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 16:01, closed)

Well he's just a bit too fucking happy about it.
There are no Gods, heaven / hell, afterlife, soul, human spirit, Ghosts and or spirits of the forest.

We are just bits of sentient meat falling through space on a tiny spec of nothing. All of human everything no more than a particle in a cell of an amoeba in space. Nothing more nothing less. Trapped by distance from everything else.

Nothing to be so fucking smug about.
(waxdart hello., Thu 1 Sep 2011, 16:18, closed)

For me it comes more from the tone of The God Delusion
it seems to drip from every word he writes.


But yeah, I did fall into the trap of just using him as short hand for a certain type of atheist for the purposes of making my point, it may be slightly unfair.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 16:33, closed)

My problem is that he's trying to form a faction of athiests, which doesn't make any sense
Athiests aren't really a group of people...or at least not until someone decides that religious types are "the enemy" and need rallying against.

I'm happy to just let religion die out, and remove all diplomatic immunity associated with religious officials.
( Extinct Jesus Dossier "...I think it counteracts Hitler's magic...", Tue 6 Sep 2011, 14:29, closed)