Atheism is abnormal human behavior

[Givemeareason]

Okay, I'll bite.  What is a true liberal as opposed to the 'other' kind?

Simply broad and open minded.  Willing to consider just about anything as long as it is not boring or ridiculous.

[Mike Cl]

  Simply broad and open minded.  Willing to consider just about anything as long as it is not boring or ridiculous.

Once again you fail to define a term you use.  You suggest that there are at least 2 kinds of liberals, true and other.  What would make one a true liberal as opposed to the other kind???

Here is a brief history of the term:
The Liberales first exist as a political party in Spain in 1810, when the French occupation prompts the gathering of an independent Cortes in Cadiz. The delegates split into two groups which become known as the Liberales (in favour of reform) and the Serviles (who wish to continue the Spanish tradition of absolute monarchy).

The Liberales win the day and write the constitution of 1812, providing for a monarch responsible to an elected parliament, together with freedom of the press and other such radical measures. These delegates include members from Latin America, where the independence movements are already under way. So there enters also an implied link with 'liberation'.

The word 'conservative' soon follows, being used after the restoration of the monarchy in France for those in favour of the reactionary backlash which now aims to mend all the damage perceived to have been done by French revolutionary principles.

Both sides are within traditions much older than the immediate circumstances which bring the words into being. The liberal emphasis on reason, education, secular values and personal liberty is in the 18th-century spirit of the Enlightenment. The conservative love of tradition, established order and ritual has its roots far further back in the Christian culture of the Middle Ages.

Underlying the intellectual differences of opinion, there is also a more immediate and divisive political agenda. The liberals, wanting change, are on the side of those who will benefit from a redistribution of wealth. The conservatives, however high their ancient ideals, frequently have something of their own to conserve.

Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=250#ixzz3Y8etNyyL

I see the current set of Rep. conservatives as going back to the concept of The Divine Right of Kings, which says that the kings/queens of the world are such because it is the will of god and they don't have to answer to any earthly laws.  The republicans want to establish a christian nation using ideas related to that concept--that god's laws are the real laws and that a theocracy is the best way to conserve what is good in this world.  Liberals are opposed to that idea.   

[Fidel_Castronaut]

  Simply broad and open minded.  Willing to consider just about anything as long as it is not boring or ridiculous.

That don't make no sense. that's not any definition of 'liberal' I've ever heard.

[Givemeareason]

How the fuck is making a rational choice based on evidence abnormal behavior? You are presupposing that believing in a god is therefore natural, which it isn't. You are confusing spirituality with religion, two different things. It is no more abnormal than choosing between reruns of I Love Lucy and Game of Thrones. This whole thread is idiotic.

Let me clarify my original post and hopefully that will help.

I am atheist.
Atheism is good.
Religion is normal human behavior.
Atheism denies normal human behavior.
Atheism is abnormal.

[Givemeareason]

That don't make no sense. that's not any definition of 'liberal' I've ever heard.

I bet there are many things you have not heard.

[aitm]

Religion is normal human behavior.

if by being brain-washed as a child into believing incredible fanciful absolute bullshit as truth is normal,, if by threatening to kill a person if they do not convert to ones particular superstitious drivel is normal,, then by all means…carry on.

[Givemeareason]

if by being brain-washed as a child into believing incredible fanciful absolute bullshit as truth is normal,, if by threatening to kill a person if they do not convert to ones particular superstitious drivel is normal,, then by all means…carry on.

You are absolutely right!  Aren't you glad you are not normal?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I bet there are many things you have not heard.

Oh fo'sure.

However, as a PhD student in political science and previous lecturer in national and international political systems including, naturally, neo-liberal and realist discourse in international relations and socio-economic political development, I can safely say that your description is self-serving codswallop.

Consider by your definition one would not be a liberal if they found a given subject 'boring'. I mean come along. Surely you see this as nonsensical?

[Feral Atheist]

The greatest waste of time is arguing with people that believe in fairy tales.  There is no rational base there.

[1liesalot]

Abnormal?  So is this

http://www.fadmag.com/nufad/brainright/wot/wotipka2.html

THE APOCALYPSE

Apocalyptic expectations

In 1260, during the Black Death, ordinary people left their homes and everyday lives to become Flagellants. These masochistic folk took to the roads of Europe, whipping and lashing themselves in the militant and bloodthirsty pursuit of the millennium.

Protestants went a little nutty in search of the Millennia during a time of persecution under the hands of the French Catholic King Louis XIV when he revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Little children were trained to become seers, going from town to town announcing the reign of the Antichrist and the imminent Second Coming of the Lord.
triumph of art - The Renaissance was a new millennia in its own right, when human self-perception went from groveling sinner to near Angelic free-thinking individuals who could determine and change their world through the arts and sciences. Paganism wed Christianity.

MILLENNIALISM IN AMERICA


THE MILLERITES

insanity clause - In 1843 at the opening of the Utica State Lunatic Asylum for the Insane, "religious anxiety" was listed as the number one cause of insanity. In the book The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteeth Century, Jonathan B. Butler and Ronald Numbers describe two types of insane Millerites: Those believers "so full of ecstasy" that some refused even to eat or drink, and the unconverted who feared that Miller's prophecy might be correct, "who have distracted their minds by puzzling over it, thinking about it, and dreading its approach, who have sunk into deep and hapless melancholy" Graphic sermons by Millerite evangelists caused intense anxiety in their adherents regarding their chances for survival. "They listened to the description of the orthodox hell until it seemed to curdle the very blood in their veins, and burned an impression upon the tablets of their memory. They became lost in imagination, and they saw only the wreathing flames of the fabulous hell, and heard only the shrieking of the doomed."

MILLENNIALISM IN AMERICA TODAY

serpentine twist - There are snake handling cults in the rural south who base their version of Christianity on the Bible passage about the End that states, "And these signs that follow them that believe: In my name they shall... take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them... (Mark 16:17-18). When the typical Kentucky snake handler cult member holds a poisonous rattlesnake in his hands, he is not only defying death and playing God, he is hastening in the millennium.

RUSSIAN APOCALYPTIC THINKING
bourgeois bashing - The Russian Revolution of 1917 is a classic example of apocalyptic ideas expressing themselves in anti-religious ways. Instead of hating the devil, one hates the bourgeois, instead of adoring the savior, one adored the leader in the form of Lenin. This worshipping of a secular leader as the savior is most evident in Lenin's waxed face and embalmed corpse on display in Moscow, that has become a pilgrimage cite.

the offensive organ - The Skoptsy are a self-mutilating sect of believers in the Russian Orthodox church who best illustrate Russian apocalyptic extremism. The Skoptsy, meaning "Eunuches" took a passage of the Bible very seriously that said "And there are eunuches, who have made themselves eunuches for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 19:12)." The Skoptsy castrated themselves because they believed that sex was the cause of human bondage, and the key to hastening the coming of the Kingdom of God was to remove the offending organ.

[Givemeareason]

Oh fo'sure.

However, as a PhD student in political science and previous lecturer in national and international political systems including, naturally, neo-liberal and realist discourse in international relations and socio-economic political development, I can safely say that your description is self-serving codswallop.

Consider by your definition one would not be a liberal if they found a given subject 'boring'. I mean come along. Surely you see this as nonsensical?

That's a pretty impressive resume you have there.  It appears your political background has made you very skillful at twisting meanings around as well.

[Givemeareason]

The greatest waste of time is arguing with people that believe in fairy tales.  There is no rational base there.

Hmmm...
Believing in fairy tales is normal.
Atheism is clearly not normal.
I am Atheist.
I am not normal.
Who are you not arguing with?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

That's a pretty impressive resume you have there.  It appears your political background has made you very skillful at twisting meanings around as well.

It's not impressive, it's just what it is.

What word or meaning have I twisted? Cite it, using the post and comtext. The only bullshit on this thread appears to be what you're deficating out, love. Tell me, do you agree that defining a 'true' liberal is nonsensical when you use the arbitrary test of '"not finding things boring" as a qualifier?

This sounds like lunacy, most likely because it is.

[Odoital778412]

I think Atheism was less common in the past simply because there weren't as many contrivances and rationalizations developed and adopted by mankind to make a more comfortable atheism possible.  Most human beings recognize their environment and life itself as an effect of a much greater cause intuitively.  Unless you're enabled to reject your built-in intuitions, things like atheism are very hard to affirm.

[Hydra009]

I think Atheism was less common in the past simply because there weren't as many contrivances and rationalizations developed and adopted by mankind to make a more comfortable atheism possible.

I dunno about contrivances and rationalizations.  In the ancient past, very few people in one's community knew much of anything about the natural world, and most of what was known was shrouded in myth.  You didn't come into much contact with other cultures, so you're unlikely to know much of other religions.  And openly rejecting the tribe's myths was pretty much a death sentence.  So yeah, not a favorable environment for religious skepticism.

Most human beings recognize their environment and life itself as an effect of a much greater cause intuitively.

Well, yeah.  Obviously, our world is part of a larger cosmological picture.  But the $64,000 question is whether or not that root cause is some sort of divine entity.  I'm decidedly skeptical on that.