If in the next hour, everybody alive became an atheist, what would happen?

[Keith&Co.]

Non-stamp collectors aren't motivated to stop others from collecting stamps are they?

My children are interracial.
One of my sons is gay.
All three sons and I are atheists.
My wife is Catholic.
My wife and I and one son are veterans.
My wife wears trousers and has a job working outside the home.
Two of my sons have partaken of illicit drugs.
All three have partaken of alcohol.

To the best of my knowledge, no one who collects stamps has learned from this hobby that any one of us deserves death. But there are theists who will insist that one or more of us must die for their skybeast's pleasure, for one or more reasons. So it's not really fucking comparable, is it?

 

[bilby]

If I was a 100% convicted atheist I wouldn't waste one second of my short life worrying about what someone else mistakenly thought about God.

I certainly would waste any time debating Lion IRC.

You would change your tune when you found out that you were not allowed to marry the man you love because they say their God forbids it. Or when they teach your kids nonsense in school as though it were fact. Or when they stop you from eating bacon or drinking beer because their imaginary God says 'no!'. Or when they want to use your tax money to fund their hobby.

God has no effect on my life. His moronic believers won't stop fucking with me though - so I feel perfectly justified is standing up to the self-righteous pricks and telling them that they can fuck off, unless and until they can prove that their God really will send a tornado if I eat a bacon sandwich.

I would love to ignore religion, but it refuses to do me the same courtesy, so I can't.

 

[bilby]

Non-stamp collectors aren't motivated to stop others from collecting stamps are they?

All the talk about secular humanism and 'atheism plus' and wanting to make the world a better place etc. etc. puts you in the same category as anyone else who really believes they are doing something worthwhile.

If people keep knocking on your door and asking why you don't collect stamps; If your taxes were paying for rare stamps for those who collect them; If every time a politician ran for office, he promised to make life better for stamp collectors; If collectors of English and European Stamps flew jet airliners into buildings to protest that other people collect African and American stamps - then yes, I would say that non-stamp collectors would be highly motivated to stop others from collecting stamps. Or at least, to stop others from being so fucking intrusive about it.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

If I was a 100% convicted atheist I wouldn't waste one second of my short life worrying about what someone else mistakenly thought about God.

I certainly would waste any time debating Lion IRC.

You would change your tune when you found out that you were not allowed to marry the man you love because they say their God forbids it. Or when they teach your kids nonsense in school as though it were fact. Or when they stop you from eating bacon or drinking beer because their imaginary God says 'no!'. Or when they want to use your tax money to fund their hobby.

God has no effect on my life. His moronic believers won't stop fucking with me though - so I feel perfectly justified is standing up to the self-righteous pricks and telling them that they can fuck off, unless and until they can prove that their God really will send a tornado if I eat a bacon sandwich.

I would love to ignore religion, but it refuses to do me the same courtesy, so I can't.

I Agree. God doesn't bother me, but OHHHHHHH his fab clubs ...

 

[bilby]

If I was a 100% convicted theist, I wouldn't waste one second of my short life worrying about what someone else mistakenly thought about God. I would just pray that they would find the truth about God, and if my belief was right, they would, and there would be no more atheists.

There are still atheists. Which suggests that God doesn't actually answer prayers.

In fact, people have been praying for thousands of years, and yet there are still wars, disasters, amputees, sickness, misery, poverty, and arbitrary misfortunes that strike both the devout and the non-believer with much the same frequency. A sane person would conclude that prayer is futile (which might not mean that Gods don't exist, but certainly rules out a wide swathe of the Gods that have been proposed).

I certainly wouldn't waste valuable praying and worshipping time posting on atheist discussion boards. Because if I was a theist, I would certainly imagine myself to be a shallow caricature of a theist, easily swayed by my simplistic 'arguments'. I would probably give up my religion almost immediately, because I am so obviously wrong. It's much easier to imagine an opponent and beat him in debate than it is to debate real live opponents who might actually have thought about their position more deeply than I imagine.

 

[funinspace]

Non-stamp collectors aren't motivated to stop others from collecting stamps are they?

My children are interracial.
One of my sons is gay.
All three sons and I are atheists.
My wife is Catholic.
My wife and I and one son are veterans.
My wife wears trousers and has a job working outside the home.
Two of my sons have partaken of illicit drugs.
All three have partaken of alcohol.

To the best of my knowledge, no one who collects stamps has learned from this hobby that any one of us deserves death. But there are theists who will insist that one or more of us must die for their skybeast's pleasure, for one or more reasons. So it's not really fucking comparable, is it?

DEATH to the heretical coin collectors

 

[Keith&Co.]

So it's not really fucking comparable, is it?

DEATH to the heretical coin collectors

Oh, yeah.
Forgot about them.
Never mind.

 

[ronburgundy]

Non-stamp collectors aren't motivated to stop others from collecting stamps are they?

All the talk about secular humanism and 'atheism plus' and wanting to make the world a better place etc. etc. puts you in the same category as anyone else who really believes they are doing something worthwhile.

Pretty much everyone that doesn't commit suicide, believes they are doing something worthwhile.
There is no problem with that belief. The problem is when what you believe is worthwhile is based upon absurdly false beliefs about reality.

 

[Angry Floof]

But atheism is what produces pedophile priests!

 

[Lion IRC]

But atheism is what produces pedophile priests!

Betcha pedophiles would rather there was no God/afterlife.
#team_atheism

 

[bilby]

But atheism is what produces pedophile priests!

Betcha pedophiles would rather there was no God/afterlife.

I am sure they would.

Are you really so dumb that you can't see the difference between something being desirable and that something being true?

It would be nice to win the lottery; that makes it no more likely that I will win the lottery.

It would be nice to think that people will be punished for every crime they commit. That makes it no more likely that there is an afterlife where this will occur.

Pretending that the world is a nicer place than it actually is is for children.

Adults deal with what is real; not what we hope might be real.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Betcha pedophiles would rather there was no God/afterlife.

OR, they are sure God made them the way they are for a reason. Or figure it's all within God's plan.
OR are convinced that they can do whatever they want as long as they feel really bad about it on their deathbed and repent.

That's probably a more popular view among religious-leaning pedophiles, the last-minute save. It's a nice story for all sinners, really, just mouth the right words, WITH FEELING, at the last second and it's all good! Pederasts, hit men, apologists...all in under the wire.

 

[skepticalbip]

But atheism is what produces pedophile priests!

Betcha pedophiles would rather there was no God/afterlife.

Betcha Christians would rather there was an afterlife with heaven and hell.

But if there were, imagine their disappointment if when they got there the gatekeeper was Mohammed.



ETA:
I don't think those responsible for this campaign meant the message on this bus to mean what it actually says.

View attachment 5655

Or did they really mean to give the message that if there is a god then we are not allowed to enjoy our lives? Do they really think that enjoying life is a sin?

The message "Join our church and stop enjoying life" doesn't seem to me be be a very smart recruiting campaign - unless they are looking for masochists.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Or did they really mean to give the message that if there is a god then we are not allowed to enjoy our lives?

I think they're aiming at the fence sitters, agnostics. Anyone agonizing over the question of which church to join, or are they IN the right church.

The message "Join our church and stop enjoying life" doesn't seem to me be be a very smart recruiting campaign.

Seems like Calvinism to me.

 

[bilby]

I think they're aiming at the fence sitters, agnostics. Anyone agonizing over the question of which church to join, or are they IN the right church.

The message "Join our church and stop enjoying life" doesn't seem to me be be a very smart recruiting campaign.

Seems like Calvinism to me.

It is a British campaign; They are aiming at a very different audience to what they would find in the USA.

Most (59% at last census) English people identify on the census as 'Christian'; But the VAST majority of those people were last in a church at a wedding, a funeral, or for the christening of a baby - in many cases, themselves. The CofE likes to think of them as 'Christmas and Easter Christians', which they would be, if they went to church at Christmas or Easter - but most don't.

A typical Church of England congregation, on a Sunday that is not a holiday, is a dozen or fewer people, all over the age of 60.

That message is aimed at those apathetic people who just don't let go of the religion that they have hardly considered for an instant since they were born - except on census day. This has the effect of distorting government priorities; Christians are overrepresented at Westminster, and their over-representation in the census allows the government to continue to support the established church.

The word 'Probably' was shoehorned in by the Advertising Standards Authority, who refused to allow the original message without the uncertainty.

 

[Lion IRC]

Betcha pedophiles would rather there was no God/afterlife.

OR, they are sure God made them the way they are for a reason. Or figure it's all within God's plan.
OR are convinced that they can do whatever they want as long as they feel really bad about it on their deathbed and repent.

That's probably a more popular view among religious-leaning pedophiles, the last-minute save. It's a nice story for all sinners, really, just mouth the right words, WITH FEELING, at the last second and it's all good! Pederasts, hit men, apologists...all in under the wire.

Touché
That's a fair point but don't you agree it would be really really really hard for a "True Christian^TM to rationalize child rape in a way that harmonized/reconciled with scripture? Whereas a pedophile person who was inclined to atheism on the other hand would have no such internal conflict to resolve. Atheism, in and of itself, offers no ideological resistance to the pedophile. Indeed, many prominent spokespeople for atheism embrace the naturalistic fallacy just as easily as anyone else when it comes to justifying sexual behaviours as 'normal' and dismissing religion as irrelevant.
#Discovery_Channel #SSM #bonobos_do_it

Yes, there might be a self-professing Christian who claims;
- that pedophilia is something you're naturally born with
- and that it's not a mental illness
- and that what they don't know won't hurt them
- and that the bible (Colossians 3:5) doesn't really condemn sexual promiscuity
- and that kids can decide their own sexuality (especially LGBTQ kids)
- and that we ought to take the log out of our own eye before judging someone else

...but I'm guessing it would be lot easier for them to just go with atheism.

 

[Keith&Co.]

OR, they are sure God made them the way they are for a reason. Or figure it's all within God's plan.
OR are convinced that they can do whatever they want as long as they feel really bad about it on their deathbed and repent.

That's probably a more popular view among religious-leaning pedophiles, the last-minute save. It's a nice story for all sinners, really, just mouth the right words, WITH FEELING, at the last second and it's all good! Pederasts, hit men, apologists...all in under the wire.

Touché
That's a fair point but don't you agree it would be really really really hard for a "True Christian^TM to rationalize child rape in a way that harmonized/reconciled with scripture?

No, I don't agree.
I found a forum once for enthusiasts of tattoos, body piercings and other body mods, and it had a Christain discussion sub-forum. I asked their opinion about the part of scripture that said 'don't paint your skin it's a pagan practice.'
Someone said 'That's Old Testament, doesn't count any more.'
Someone else said 'It's only bad if you don't get Christain-Themed tattoos.'
Someone else said 'It's only bad if you DO get PAGAN-themed tattoos.'
And others just said, in direct contradiction, 'God doesn't care what we do with our skin, it's what's in our hearts.'

I tend to find that Theists are quite adept at justifying what they want to do against anything scripture may or may not say.
That's how we get professional criminals who are convinced they're good little Christains.

Whereas a pedophile person who was inclined to atheism on the other hand would have no such internal conflict to resolve.

Well, if you ONLY count the atheism, sure. If you ignore the whole 'it's illegal' and 'society frowns upon' and unless they were raised by pederasts they're disappointing the family, and if they get caught they tend to get knifed in the show in prison. But if your only source of moral behavior is whether or not a skydaddy is going to squash you under his or her thumb, then, sure, we atheists got no reason to doubt our basic urges. That's why we kill everyone that annoys us, run red lights whenever we're in a hurry, park on top of prostitutes at the corner, don't pay taxes until they come and take them...

Yeesh.

 

[funinspace]

OR, they are sure God made them the way they are for a reason. Or figure it's all within God's plan.
OR are convinced that they can do whatever they want as long as they feel really bad about it on their deathbed and repent.

That's probably a more popular view among religious-leaning pedophiles, the last-minute save. It's a nice story for all sinners, really, just mouth the right words, WITH FEELING, at the last second and it's all good! Pederasts, hit men, apologists...all in under the wire.

Touché
That's a fair point but don't you agree it would be really really really hard for a "True Christian^TM to rationalize child rape in a way that harmonized/reconciled with scripture? Whereas a pedophile person who was inclined to atheism on the other hand would have no such internal conflict to resolve. Atheism, in and of itself, offers no ideological resistance to the pedophile. Indeed, many prominent spokespeople for atheism embrace the naturalistic fallacy just as easily as anyone else when it comes to justifying sexual behaviours as 'normal' and dismissing religion as irrelevant.
#Discovery_Channel #SSM #bonobos_do_it

Yes, there might be a self-professing Christian who claims;
- that pedophilia is something you're naturally born with
- and that it's not a mental illness
- and that what they don't know won't hurt them
- and that the bible (Colossians 3:5) doesn't really condemn sexual promiscuity
- and that kids can decide their own sexuality (especially LGBTQ kids)
- and that we ought to take the log out of our own eye before judging someone else

...but I'm guessing it would be lot easier for them to just go with atheism.

I have an interesting microcosm within one set of in-laws. They go regularly to this big independent evangelical Church; they are active in it; the husband often has led Bible studies, the wife has done lots of wifey things there; the now grown kids grew up in it; they all show their religion within FaceButt; the Bible is one of their favorite books within FaceButt; et.al. They are conservative, thru and thru. Gayism is just a horrible horrible sin and evidently tearing this country apart. In fact they seem to hate the sin so much that they really really appear to hate people who are gay. But, hey the eldest son can travel up the west coast of the US with his girlfriend for about a week with no apparent horrible sinning going on. Yeah, separate hotel rooms...sure. They think abortion is murder, but they seem to have a real hard on for the US to kill anything Muslim/Arab. And after that human baby is born...ah fuck who cares about it, who cares if it goes hungry, or deport the mother as she is foreign anyhow. And damn those foreigners and lazy welfare cheats for getting "free" health care and "mooching my tax money".

Many of them are obese, and after all they didn't choose to be seriously fat. They gossip, slander, and lie regularly on FaceButt. What's wrong with profanity? Oh, yeah tattoos are cool. They seem to have adopted the Chase meme of "I want it all; I want it now" mentality. Ideological resistance? Hum....

If these redneck clowns aren't True Christians, then the number of Christians in the world needs to be scaled down by roughly 70-80%, from the claimed 2 billion or so. That would mean about 500 million True Christians in the world. Of course that's assuming that the 144,000 isn't valid... That would leave about 6.5 billion people headed towards that sky beast's eternal Auschwitz. What a nice beast is he... What kind of rough estimate would you have for the number of True Christians?

 

[Keith&Co.]

What kind of rough estimate would you have for the number of True Christians?

By the time I left the church, i was thinking it was probably on the order of five.
Probably the most hated members of their congregations. Not for being judgmental, not for pointing out that the others were Christing incorrectly, but for just living their innocuous life by the actual scriptures and NOT bragging about it.
Despicable rat bastards that they are...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If everyone became an atheist... there'd be a run on the kitten market for sure. Kittens would actually have a value and finally be sold and traded for something instead of just being worthless num nums.