Why do people think atheism is destroying the country?

[Deidre32]

So you are not going to be a part of the War on Mardi Gras?

how about the war on war?

[CrucifyCindy]

how about the war on war?

Now where is the fun in that? You know one of the fundamental reasons we have wars is because we are bored and we are just looking for something to do. I have played Call of Duty!

[doorknob]

I don't think most people want to risk their lives just because they are bored. -_-


I play call of duty too even though I suck at it. If it were real life I'd be dead.

[Mike Cl]

how about the war on war?

Living in this country I don't think I would want to be involved in a 'war' on anything.  Why?  Look at the 'war' on poverty.  How is that going?  War on drugs?  War on terrorism?  When this country declares war on anything it means that that 'thing' will only become more extensive and have an elaborate bureaucracy that sustains itself, built to fight it.  The thing does not go away but becomes more entrenched.  There is money to be made in war.  Combat war for this country is a tool of the corporate people to make money and a tool for the politicos to gain power--and corporate money.  Why do you think the corporations love  the war on terror?  Money, never ending flow of it. 

So, if I had my druthers I'd declare war on ice cream, baseball and rpg games!

[SGOS]

I don't think most people want to risk their lives just because they are bored. -_-

Yeah, I doubt it's boredom.  It's complex set of causes, but in both Vietnam and Iraq, I would include hysteria as a major factor.  But also, there is a completely non-hysterical component that is cold and calculating.  Just follow the money.  Think about who were the big money makers from Iraq: Military Industrial, oil producers, Halliburton, and many other manufacturers of all sorts that benefit.  I lost track of the economic cost of Iraq somewhere in the billions, and we are still over there, and all of that money we spent, didn't just evaporate into the smoke and rubble.  It ends up in someone's pockets  It goes to profiteers, and those profiteers aren't just some lucky beneficiaries of a necessary evil.  It's their business, but the only way to get the voter's 67% support is to whip the population into hysteria so people stop thinking and start acting on emotion.

I remember being frightened after 9-11, but not by Arabs.  It was frightening watching the Bush Administration lead Americans around by the nose with lies and propaganda.  Moderately sane and intelligent people were throwing inquiry, past experience, and reason out the window, jumping on the war wagon, seeing this new war as absolutely necessary and somehow different, while forgetting they felt the same way at the start of the Vietnam farce.

[Mike Cl]

I remember being frightened after 9-11, but not by Arabs.  It was frightening watching the Bush Administration lead Americans around by the nose with lies and propaganda.  Moderately sane and intelligent people were throwing inquiry, past experience, and reason out the window, jumping on the war wagon, seeing this new war as absolutely necessary and somehow different, while forgetting they felt the same way at the start of the Vietnam farce.

That is and was my emotions after 9-11!  9-11 did not make me afraid--but my govt. reaction did.  9-11 pissed me off!  And the Bush administration intensified that anger.  They played the American public like a fiddle using fear.  I was asked time and again--'Aren't you afraid?'  No, I was never afraid--just pissed--and I have grown to be even more pissed by the average American's reaction.  And ashamed.  I don't think Bush crafted 9-11--but he sure used it to get done what he wanted to get done. 

[peacewithoutgod]

That is and was my emotions after 9-11!  9-11 did not make me afraid--but my govt. reaction did.  9-11 pissed me off!  And the Bush administration intensified that anger.  They played the American public like a fiddle using fear.  I was asked time and again--'Aren't you afraid?'  No, I was never afraid--just pissed--and I have grown to be even more pissed by the average American's reaction.  And ashamed.  I don't think Bush crafted 9-11--but he sure used it to get done what he wanted to get done.

Same here - terrorists didn't scare me on 9/11, but the government assholes were the real terror.

To live in America as a sane and thinking person is to be surrounded by idiots!

[widdershins]

It's not old people, it's ignorance. Old people who are ignorant now were ignorant when they were young, too, even if they weren't as passionate about their ignorance then. Ignorance is caused by religious doctrine, therefore doctrine is the source of all ignorance. It is therefore the doctrinary religions in this country which are guilty of destryoying our nation, and for this they deserve the death penalty.


CORRECTION: Religious doctrine is the food of all ignorance. Ignorance is caused by stupid and obnoxiously arrogant people.

That's not entirely true.  Old people, in general, have old ideas.  I had this customer who was a really great guy.  He was a fireman, a NY city police officer, a veteran...he served his country and his community for most of his life.  I really liked him.  But he was old.  I asked him what he thought about Obama.  The reply I got was, "He's just another fucking..." you figure out the last word.  Here's a hint, it doesn't apply to any previous president.

Needless to say, I was shocked to hear such language in the enlightened 21st century, and from a guy I respected and liked.  He wasn't religious, he was old.  I'm pretty sure he's dead now, but I never saw him again after that.  I assumed there was a look on my face that either angered him that I didn't agree or shamed him for what he'd said (I always hoped for the latter).  But, as I said, he was old.  And he wasn't in good health and it was a number of years ago.  Yes, Christianity spreads ignorance, but religion is hardly the only source of ignorance even just in the country, much less the world.

As we get older we get more set in our ways.  We stop recognizing our old prejudices for what they are, we stop identifying new flaws in our thinking.  There are certainly things that I believe which are ignorant.  It is almost a certainty that I will die with at least some ignorant, outdated beliefs which my children will just find stupid.  For instance, my mom doesn't believe she's racist, but doesn't think it's right for people to "marry outside their tribe".  Now that one, if you couldn't tell by the wording, is justified by a Bible passage, but the Bible isn't the source of the prejudice, it's just a justification for it.  She tries to be open minded and a lot of what's holding her back is, indeed, her staunch Pentecostal beliefs.  But that can hardly be blamed for her every outdated and unjustified belief.  She just turned 82.  It is harder for her to change her beliefs than it was even just 30 years ago, and it's especially hard for her to change her beliefs compared to how it was 70 years ago.  Old people have old ideas.  Not that they're stupid because they're old, just that they lived most of their lives in a different time and the longer you live a certain way the harder it is to change that way.  So yes, "old" is very much a source of ignorance.  That's not an insult to "old people", it's a simple artifact of time and mind.

[stromboli]

If I were wealthy, I would present a great religious front, invite all the top religious leaders and Televangelists on a Pacific cruise, and then directly above the Marianas Trench have a massive hull breach and then discover the life boats all have gaping holes and the life preservers are hugely defective. Oh, and the radio would suddenly stop  working.

[Youssuf Ramadan]

As we get older we get more set in our ways.  We stop recognizing our old prejudices for what they are, we stop identifying new flaws in our thinking.  There are certainly things that I believe which are ignorant.  It is almost a certainty that I will die with at least some ignorant, outdated beliefs which my children will just find stupid.  For instance, my mom doesn't believe she's racist, but doesn't think it's right for people to "marry outside their tribe".  Now that one, if you couldn't tell by the wording, is justified by a Bible passage, but the Bible isn't the source of the prejudice, it's just a justification for it.  She tries to be open minded and a lot of what's holding her back is, indeed, her staunch Pentecostal beliefs.  But that can hardly be blamed for her every outdated and unjustified belief.  She just turned 82.  It is harder for her to change her beliefs than it was even just 30 years ago, and it's especially hard for her to change her beliefs compared to how it was 70 years ago.  Old people have old ideas.  Not that they're stupid because they're old, just that they lived most of their lives in a different time and the longer you live a certain way the harder it is to change that way.  So yes, "old" is very much a source of ignorance.  That's not an insult to "old people", it's a simple artifact of time and mind.

There's a lot of truth in that. Plus as people get older many of them reach a point where they just no longer give a shit what they say or who cares about it.

[SGOS]

There's a lot of truth in that. Plus as people get older many of them reach a point where they just no longer give a shit what they say or who cares about it.

That's probably because after so many years, you begin to realize that so many others don't give a shit or care about what you think.  I still give a shit about some things, but not as much as I used to.  There's some areas of importance where I've come to realize that change is going to be futile, at least in my lifetime.  I have hopes for the younger generation, however.  The battles will be passed onto them, and every once in a while they may have successes where we have failed.

[peacewithoutgod]

That's not entirely true.  Old people, in general, have old ideas.  I had this customer who was a really great guy.  He was a fireman, a NY city police officer, a veteran...he served his country and his community for most of his life.  I really liked him.  But he was old.  I asked him what he thought about Obama.  The reply I got was, "He's just another fucking..." you figure out the last word.  Here's a hint, it doesn't apply to any previous president.

Needless to say, I was shocked to hear such language in the enlightened 21st century, and from a guy I respected and liked.  He wasn't religious, he was old.  I'm pretty sure he's dead now, but I never saw him again after that.  I assumed there was a look on my face that either angered him that I didn't agree or shamed him for what he'd said (I always hoped for the latter).  But, as I said, he was old.  And he wasn't in good health and it was a number of years ago.  Yes, Christianity spreads ignorance, but religion is hardly the only source of ignorance even just in the country, much less the world.

As we get older we get more set in our ways.  We stop recognizing our old prejudices for what they are, we stop identifying new flaws in our thinking.  There are certainly things that I believe which are ignorant.  It is almost a certainty that I will die with at least some ignorant, outdated beliefs which my children will just find stupid.  For instance, my mom doesn't believe she's racist, but doesn't think it's right for people to "marry outside their tribe".  Now that one, if you couldn't tell by the wording, is justified by a Bible passage, but the Bible isn't the source of the prejudice, it's just a justification for it.  She tries to be open minded and a lot of what's holding her back is, indeed, her staunch Pentecostal beliefs.  But that can hardly be blamed for her every outdated and unjustified belief.  She just turned 82.  It is harder for her to change her beliefs than it was even just 30 years ago, and it's especially hard for her to change her beliefs compared to how it was 70 years ago.  Old people have old ideas.  Not that they're stupid because they're old, just that they lived most of their lives in a different time and the longer you live a certain way the harder it is to change that way.  So yes, "old" is very much a source of ignorance.  That's not an insult to "old people", it's a simple artifact of time and mind.

That old people have old ideas is beside the point - which is that the old people who hang onto old ideas which have proven to be bad weren't deep thinkers from the start, when they were younger. If the percentage of Millennials today who assess other people not by their color, not by the gods they claim to believe in, not by their gender, and not by their sexual orientation, but by what they do and how they address those who aren't like themselves is 30% (which I hope is much higher, but I know even this is a ballsy guess), then do you really think that generation will become more bigoted when they are older? Having been exposed to bad ideas is nothing the Millennials are innocent of, in fact wiith their access to information they can hardly be expected to be innocent on anything. But believe it or not, even without the push of the Web, there were people who were not bigoted assholes, who led the world to social change throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries too. There just weren't as many of them in the world, and there aren't as many in the so-called Greatest Generation who see the world and the people in it the way we do, but I have news for you if you think we, being all together on this forum, and mostly in agreement on the social issues of today, are nearly of the same age.