AtheistNexus.org article about CNN's program on atheists and my response

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We must provide more education re: religion, Islam, Christianity and challenge ancient myths, harmful ideas told as fact
Posted by Joan Denoo on February 22, 2015 at 10:03pm in Atheist Nexus Discussions, Ideas & Site Suggestions
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We must offend religion more: Islam, Christianity and our tolerance...
"we can’t begin self-censoring, or we end up with just the illusion of free speech."
~ Inna Shevchenko,

Blacks learned this lesson in the 1960s struggle for fundamental human rights. Women learned it during the several waves of Feminism. Native Americans learned it after the second battle of Wounded Knee. The people of Yemen learn it as they attempt to gain freedom from hegemony of leadership in their struggle for freedom.
Freedom never comes as a gift. Those in power don't want to give up their privileges. The church doesn't want to relinquish control of the religious. They have to have many people scraping up nickels and dimes to pay for the gold and silver on the altars.
Islam and Christianity have a long history of violence against people who disagree with them. The Burning Times for the Christians during the Middle Ages and conflict of Christians against Christians, the Muslims vs. Muslims. Their terrors reveal the corruption of the institutions of religion.
Religious violence in India involves Hindus vs. Muslims, Christians, vs. Jews, vs. Sikhs. Mumbai currently faces religious riots.
Wars, killings, destruction seem to be part of being religious. Just read a few of the accounts available and one begins to see the bankruptcy of religious traditions. The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, the Muslim conquest of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Christian Crusades in the 11th and 13 centuries.
Let's jump ahead to modern times and look at the disputes over religion, money, ethnic wars. In Yugoslavia, the civil war in Sudan, the Israeli-Palestinian wars, the Syrian civil war, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, all reveal religious disputes. My heart just breaks when readI read of the Orthodox Christian Serbs, the Catholic Croats, and the Muslim Bosnians. That was a slaughter inflicting profound suffering on people on all sides.

"Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant; Where they create a wasteland, they call it peace."
Religious violence



Tags: destruction, justice, peace, religion, self-sensoring, suffering, violence, wasteland



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 Permalink Reply by Loren Miller 9 hours ago

I just got done watching the CNN Piece - Atheists: Inside the world of Non-Believers and actually, it was pretty good.  I liked that they got both Jerry DeWitt and David Silverman in there and made mention of The Clergy Project as well.  TCP should make a LOT of believers think regarding their pastors and the possibility that there are at least a few out there who are faking it (and treading thin ice in doing so!).
The saddest part of the whole business were the Gormleys, who were so convinced that their son is doomed to damnation when I'd be willing to bet that they have next to no idea of how vulnerable their bible is to examination and analysis.  Of course, that's the problem.  People leap without looking and believe without thinking.
The saving grace is that fewer and fewer people are doing that now.
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 Permalink Reply by Idaho Spud 8 hours ago

Thanks for pointing to that CNN Piece Loren.  I also thought it was pretty good. 
I was saddened by the Gormleys, but mostly irritated.  The only religious people that I respond to with more sadness than irritation are my family.
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 Permalink Reply by Michael Penn 7 hours ago

It's a shame that the interviewer couldn't know enough to bring up the fact that other holy books and scriptures say the same thing about going to hell, and some of it looks like a different hell. Then she could have asked them which one is right.
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 Permalink Reply by Freethinker31 8 hours ago

I just watched the streaming  of CNN about atheists as well, and also liked it.....It just might allow  more people to question religion  and its  consequences......Going mainstream can only be helpful, and watching  their pastors/preachers having  second thoughts , will only encourage  more rational thinking .
▶ Reply

 Permalink Reply by Bertold Brautigan 17 minutes ago

I'm also glad you posted this, Loren. I think they did quite a fair (and balanced, not
á la Faux Noise) job with it. I loved it when the interviewer asked Dawkins "So many people will see this documentary and they'll be enraged. What do you say to them?" and he answered "Grow up."
It's hard to feel a shred of sympathy for the Gromley's living in misery over their son. I had the impression the interviewer had to restrain herself from choking Dad when he said "It's talking to a dead person." This is the power of religion at its most frightening.
I also really liked the woman at Harvard Divinity who said "All four of my grandparents were holocaust survivors. God did not survive Auschwits, so god did not come into our home."
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http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/we-must-offend-religion-more-islam-christianity-and-our-tolerance?commentId=2182797%3AComment%3A2585551&xg_source=activity

















 





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We must provide more education re: religion, Islam, Christianity and challenge ancient myths, harmful ideas told as fact
Posted by Joan Denoo on February 22, 2015 at 10:03pm in Atheist Nexus Discussions, Ideas & Site Suggestions
View Discussions
.



We must offend religion more: Islam, Christianity and our tolerance...
"we can’t begin self-censoring, or we end up with just the illusion of free speech."
~ Inna Shevchenko,

Blacks learned this lesson in the 1960s struggle for fundamental human rights. Women learned it during the several waves of Feminism. Native Americans learned it after the second battle of Wounded Knee. The people of Yemen learn it as they attempt to gain freedom from hegemony of leadership in their struggle for freedom.
Freedom never comes as a gift. Those in power don't want to give up their privileges. The church doesn't want to relinquish control of the religious. They have to have many people scraping up nickels and dimes to pay for the gold and silver on the altars.
Islam and Christianity have a long history of violence against people who disagree with them. The Burning Times for the Christians during the Middle Ages and conflict of Christians against Christians, the Muslims vs. Muslims. Their terrors reveal the corruption of the institutions of religion.
Religious violence in India involves Hindus vs. Muslims, Christians, vs. Jews, vs. Sikhs. Mumbai currently faces religious riots.
Wars, killings, destruction seem to be part of being religious. Just read a few of the accounts available and one begins to see the bankruptcy of religious traditions. The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, the Muslim conquest of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Christian Crusades in the 11th and 13 centuries.
Let's jump ahead to modern times and look at the disputes over religion, money, ethnic wars. In Yugoslavia, the civil war in Sudan, the Israeli-Palestinian wars, the Syrian civil war, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, all reveal religious disputes. My heart just breaks when readI read of the Orthodox Christian Serbs, the Catholic Croats, and the Muslim Bosnians. That was a slaughter inflicting profound suffering on people on all sides.

"Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant; Where they create a wasteland, they call it peace."
Religious violence



Tags: destruction, justice, peace, religion, self-sensoring, suffering, violence, wasteland



 Like 
1 member likes this
.
Share   
  

 

Views: 1504
▶ Reply to This
..


Replies to This Discussion
 Permalink Reply by Loren Miller 9 hours ago

I just got done watching the CNN Piece - Atheists: Inside the world of Non-Believers and actually, it was pretty good.  I liked that they got both Jerry DeWitt and David Silverman in there and made mention of The Clergy Project as well.  TCP should make a LOT of believers think regarding their pastors and the possibility that there are at least a few out there who are faking it (and treading thin ice in doing so!).
The saddest part of the whole business were the Gormleys, who were so convinced that their son is doomed to damnation when I'd be willing to bet that they have next to no idea of how vulnerable their bible is to examination and analysis.  Of course, that's the problem.  People leap without looking and believe without thinking.
The saving grace is that fewer and fewer people are doing that now.
▶ Reply

 Permalink Reply by Idaho Spud 8 hours ago

Thanks for pointing to that CNN Piece Loren.  I also thought it was pretty good. 
I was saddened by the Gormleys, but mostly irritated.  The only religious people that I respond to with more sadness than irritation are my family.
▶ Reply

 Permalink Reply by Michael Penn 7 hours ago

It's a shame that the interviewer couldn't know enough to bring up the fact that other holy books and scriptures say the same thing about going to hell, and some of it looks like a different hell. Then she could have asked them which one is right.
▶ Reply

 Permalink Reply by Freethinker31 8 hours ago

I just watched the streaming  of CNN about atheists as well, and also liked it.....It just might allow  more people to question religion  and its  consequences......Going mainstream can only be helpful, and watching  their pastors/preachers having  second thoughts , will only encourage  more rational thinking .
▶ Reply

 Permalink Reply by Bertold Brautigan 17 minutes ago

I'm also glad you posted this, Loren. I think they did quite a fair (and balanced, not
á la Faux Noise) job with it. I loved it when the interviewer asked Dawkins "So many people will see this documentary and they'll be enraged. What do you say to them?" and he answered "Grow up."
It's hard to feel a shred of sympathy for the Gromley's living in misery over their son. I had the impression the interviewer had to restrain herself from choking Dad when he said "It's talking to a dead person." This is the power of religion at its most frightening.
I also really liked the woman at Harvard Divinity who said "All four of my grandparents were holocaust survivors. God did not survive Auschwits, so god did not come into our home."
▶ Reply


‹ Previous





http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/we-must-offend-religion-more-islam-christianity-and-our-tolerance?commentId=2182797%3AComment%3A2585551&xg_source=activity












I heard of this documentary that was aired on CNN.  I find it said that that one man's parents said that talking to their son is like "talking to a dead person" and that they are certain in their belief that their son is doomed to be tormented for eternity in a lake of fire and brimstone.  Well, look at how Jehovah's Witness and Seventh-day Adventist parents react when their child rejects those denominations' beliefs and practices. They believe that their child is doomed to enteral death by divine annihilation at Armageddon.   In Mormonism, your child might become a "son of perdition" for rejecting the LDS Church or might be cast into a lower level of "heaven". Richard Dawkins response to the question of what would he say to people who act enraged about this documentary being shown on a mainstream television channel was interesting. Dawkins said that such enraged viewers need to "grow up".  I am not a fan of Dawkins, but I would have to agree his opinion.  You never really see people act enraged over television documentaries about the Jehovah's Witnesses, Orthodox Mormons, Roman Catholicism, or any other Christian denomination.








I think its interesting to see a documentary film like this on television.  People would get enraged no matter how polite or gentle the interviewees come across.  Some people are offended by the fact that atheists even exist.  It's sad, but true.  It doesn't surprise me personally because I'm aware of how humans behave when they see a point of view that makes them feel uncomfortable.  Maybe more closeted atheists and agnostics will have the courage to come out of the closet because of this program.






I'd love see more TV programs on ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, ex-Mormons, former Seventh-day Adventists, ex-Evangelicals, ex-Christian Scientists and ex-members of the Amish community as well. I'd like to see some on ex-Muslims, that would be interesting