More than half would now vote for a nonbeliever.

Published on June 28, 2012 by David Niose in Our Humanity, Naturally

 

 

The good news for nonbelievers is that, for the first time ever, more than half the American population would vote for a qualified, open atheist for president.  A recentGallup poll shows that 54 percent of Americans would not consider a candidate’s atheism to be a disqualification for holding the nation's highest office.

This shows remarkable progress, a nine-point incr...

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I Don’t Believe in a God – What Should I Call Myself?

Posted on June 4, 2012 

Valerie Tarico

Catholic, Born-Again, Reformed, Jew, Muslim, Shiite, Sunni, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist . . . .  Religions give people labels. The downside can be tribalism, an assumption that insiders are better than outsiders, that they merit more compassion, integrity and generosity or even that violence toward “infidels” is acceptable. But the upside is that religious or spiritual labels offer a way of defining ...

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Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

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This is a great video about epistemology:

 
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This is an article from last year on the BBC which is really interesting. The Dutch certainly do things differently...

 

Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world

By Robert Pigott

Religious affairs correspondent, Amsterdam

 

The Rev Klaas Hendrikse can offer his congregation little hope of life after death, and he's not the sort of man to sugar the pill.

 

An imposing figure in black robes and white clerical collar, Mr Hendrikse presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church ...

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Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel

 

Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy

 

 

If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances.  -Theodore Dreiser, 1941.

 

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent God would have designedly cre...

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In the same discussion as the previous post was involved in, this comment by papalinton deserves a mention. It is a great summation of religion:

brdeadite99,
You say, "... Atheism is not a belief system."

It is just as you say; with atheism there is no doctrine, no 'good' book, no dogma, no catechism, no organised tradition, no institutional body or theological administrative organisation underpinning the ritual and  ceremony; there is no  procedural observance; no service, no sacrament, no litu...
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In response to a discussion on Debunking Christianity, I posted this response:

I would concur that atheism is not a belief system - I think we have fairly well evinced that notion. However, is atheism not a faith statement? It would seem to me that atheism is as much of a faith statement as theism.

This is why I, although I act and intuitively see myself as an atheist, am logically an agnostic. To move from agnosticism to atheist takes faith. Faith that there is no God. Personally, the belief t...

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