Atheism

Debating Atheism

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I used to occasionally receive challenges to debate belieers, Christians to be exact, although there wwere a couple of times I was invited to debate a Muslim, and, believe it or not, a Hindu. I sometimes accepted the challenges from Chriostians because, of course, I am more intimately familiar with that belief than I am with any other. But even within the Christian belief universe, there are many different interpretations of that belief. We normally call that dogma because it is the interpretation/practice of one group that another group many not agree with of follow.

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The Death of Atheism is Premature

/ Jim / 1 Comment

I haven’t written about atheism in a while. A long while. I don’t know why. Maybe because I have nothing more to say about being an atheist. A decade (or so) ago, it seemed (to me, at least) that atheism was all the rage, notably among young people (high school, believe it or not) and it was looking, to me, that the next generation of non-believers was on the cusp. Then, like all fads, it was something that passed like a bowel movement. Honestly, the way things were going, I’m actually happy the trend died out. And not slowly and painfully, but quickly and extremely traumatically for some. But I do miss some of the real activism that occurred during those days.

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The Atheist Identity

/ Jim / 3 Comments

It may(or may not) surprise you to discover that most atheists are men. According to Pew, about two-thirds of people that identify as atheist (I think that includes agnostic as well) are men and the other one-third consists of the other 71 genders. Okay, a poor joke. Of course, it’s women. Why is that? It’s a question that has been asked by a lot of different people over time and no actual consensus has ever been made. There are some ideas as to why this is true, but none that seems to satisfy those that believe in the strict equality of the sexes (or genders).

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Resisting Religious Labels

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Does it really matter how we refer to one another concerning belief or non-belief? I was ticking about this recent post of mine and the more I consider, I really wonder if any of this makes any difference/ Why? The world as we know it is changing faster than most of us are able to keep up with today. Anyone aware there’s still a major European war raging in Eastern Europe? Not by any news feed. In fact it’s been fairly well covered up for several months now. What about the U.S. conflict in Iran? If it doesn’t bleed, there’s no lede. In other words, the world has become used to such tragedy to the extent that no one really cares anymore what’s going on outside of their neighborhood, much less their city, state, or country.

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Are Atheists Really Agnostics?

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I don’t think too much about being an atheist. For me, it is what it is. When someone asks me what I believe, I tell them, matter-of-factly, that I am an atheist and do not believe in any gods. Note the key word there is believe. It is a verb, which describes an action, in this case, accepting something being true. What does this really say? It says that I don’t know for sure there are no gods, I just don’t believe there are. I don’t think anyone knows for certain whether there is a god or gods and that would make us all…agnostic, wouldn’t it?

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