Atheist & Agnostic Family

[Profesco]

Kids Without God (the teen version)

A new internet resource the American Humanist Association has put together to try offering support to child and teen skeptics.

Now, I've been looking over this site for the past hour, and my evaluation is mixed. There are some very nice things to see there, such as resources and suggestions useful for defending one's arguments or critically thinking about claims, and also a page or two dedicated to recommending respect, kindness, and tolerance for all views including those of the devoutly religious (as characterized by the theme of "don't call religious people idiots"). There are also a handful of resources for kids suffering all kinds of experiences, from bullying for their gender/sexuality to dealing with depression, eating disorders, or other psychological problems to "coming out" as secular to a religious community. All positives.

But I also notice that a few of their resources just reek of, for lack of better words, pandering or propaganda. Which, mind you, is not to imply untruth in their position, but to say that there is the occasional (maybe more than occasional) oversimplification of an issue or strawman characterization of the religious argument. There's a version of the site for young kids, for example, that uses a "Darwin the dog" construct that is just so cheesily patronizing and overtly one-sided... I'm a little embarassed by it - despite my sincere enthusiasm for evolutionary biology, even.

Any thoughts, you guys?

[Dilasc]

There have been many armageddon 'predictions' but I'll tell you one that's true, we're gonna be in a world of fudge if we don't stop those damn icecaps from melting!

[Kinoyo]

An Atheist group? I'm Christian myself, but I won't look down on anybody that isn't my religion. That makes me so upset, and sometimes embarrassed to be a Christian, especially when it even says directly from our Bible "Thou shall not force religion". I won't go off on everybody for having their own beliefs. I'm glad a group like this exists, an open group that usually would get so much hatred spewed at them. I would like people to convert, sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to hate people that don't/keep on pushing it. People believe in what they think is right, and that's how it should stay. So in regard to stereotypical Christians or other religious groups in general, keep on fighting the good fight!

[Pokemon Geek]

An Atheist group? I'm Christian myself, but I won't look down on anybody that isn't my religion. That makes me so upset, and sometimes embarrassed to be a Christian, especially when it even says directly from our Bible "Thou shall not force religion". I won't go off on everybody for having their own beliefs. I'm glad a group like this exists, an open group that usually would get so much hatred spewed at them. I would like people to convert, sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to hate people that don't/keep on pushing it. People believe in what they think is right, and that's how it should stay. So in regard to stereotypical Christians or other religious groups in general, keep on fighting the good fight!

That was a pretty tolerant statment, kudos to you!

[Kinoyo]

That was a pretty tolerant statment, kudos to you!

Thank you! => But the fact that the statement IS tolerant is disgusting to me. It should be the standard for how people think and interact with each other on a daily basis. It shouldn't have to be labelled as tolerant. The average person is just so horrid at heart and understanding that what should be a regular attitude towards all beliefs other than your own is now classified as a rare opinion.

[Pokemon Geek]

Thank you! => But the fact that the statement IS tolerant is disgusting to me. It should be the standard for how people think and interact with each other on a daily basis. It shouldn't have to be labelled as tolerant. The average person is just so horrid at heart and understanding that what should be a regular attitude towards all beliefs other than your own is now classified as a rare opinion.

I totally agree, unfortunatly the world is not as nice as we want it to be.

[Profesco]

Kinoyo, are you perhaps from this church:





Regardless, thank you for the respect. You can be certain it is mutual! ^_^


Anyway, folks, the following is a blog post with a video demonstrating one of the greatest qualities of science and reason, namely, that the logic and evidence of your argument is independent of any of your own personal qualities. It doesn't matter what your IQ is, how much schooling you've had, how old you are, where you're from, or what any of your other beliefs are: good arguments are good and bad ones bad.

A sixth grade boy points out a fatal flaw in the argument of prominent young earth creationist Eric Hovind.

And this is why we all ought to be thankful for (and do what we can to promote the spread of) education, open debate, and conversation between alternate ideas. Exposing our ideas to criticism, refining them when we can and discarding them when they fall flat, is our best hope of reaching truth.

[Kinoyo]

You're welcome! It makes me feel good to let others know that there are at least a FEW good Christians out there. I wish our town was like that, Profesco, the church that I go to had a sign like that, but the rest of the town is awful with the subject... I'm just glad that MY neighborhood knows how to treat such a now-a-days intolerable situation with consideration and thought, even if it is a small amount of people. A small amount of people means that we have the potential to grow and span out. As I like to say for most Christians, spread the love of the Word, not the hate of intolerance.

[spyro and sonic]

Whoa, I just now remembered that I posted here once a while back.o_O
(hopefully this is considered a justified topic bump)

Just so everyone knows I'm somewhere between atheist and antitheist.

[Pokemon Geek]

Hello there!

And yeah activity hasent been that great here at the moment. I guess its just busy times.

[Dilasc]

Just so everyone knows I'm somewhere between atheist and antitheist.

Aren't we ALL anti-theist when we're atheist? We're anti-religion because it's purposeless, hatemongering, war-starting and deceptive... amongst other reasons.

So what exactly is the difference?

[Profesco]

Aren't we ALL anti-theist when we're atheist? We're anti-religion because it's purposeless, hatemongering, war-starting and deceptive... amongst other reasons.

So what exactly is the difference?

Anti-theism is a much larger feature of the New Atheist movement than it is simple atheism. It's possible for someone to be a traditional atheist in that they simply don't happen to believe in any gods, but they very well could not care one bit if everyone else was theistic, and not have antipathy towards religion. For example, it's common (comparatively, anyway) for Jewish people to be atheistic while still having nothing but positive feelings towards and ties to the ritualistic/philosophical parts of their Judaism.

Anti-theism is also not necessarily the same as anti-religion. A person could be antagonistic towards organized religions and their industrialization of spirituality, but still find it possible to entertain general theistic beliefs.

[RainaXainne]

An Atheist group? I'm Christian myself, but I won't look down on anybody that isn't my religion. That makes me so upset, and sometimes embarrassed to be a Christian, especially when it even says directly from our Bible "Thou shall not force religion". I won't go off on everybody for having their own beliefs. I'm glad a group like this exists, an open group that usually would get so much hatred spewed at them. I would like people to convert, sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to hate people that don't/keep on pushing it. People believe in what they think is right, and that's how it should stay. So in regard to stereotypical Christians or other religious groups in general, keep on fighting the good fight!

If only more Christian's were like you I'd still be one. Don't get me wrong, I love the positive messages, I have my other reasons for not specifically being Christian.

[Darato]

Kinoyo, not even a lot of my family sees that.

Sorry, I've veen gone everyone, but work, has been busy, and has had a lot of Pokemon stuff going on (Game store that also sales cards and all kinds of stuff) and well being the only Pokemon player lot of the work falls on me, but on the plus side, over 100 grand worth of stuff and I get at least a 10% cut of that

L.F.D.

[RainaXainne]

Welcome back!! I think I gave all my cards to my little bro now that I think of it.

[Pokemon Geek]

Welcome back Darato! Glad you still got time to visit us from time to time.

Christmas is soon comming up though, anyone has thoughts about that?

Personally i cant wait to have some time off from studies, just enjoying some free time gaming as well as spending some time with my family.

[spyro and sonic]

Welcome back Darato! Glad you still got time to visit us from time to time.

Christmas is soon comming up though, anyone has thoughts about that?

Personally i cant wait to have some time off from studies, just enjoying some free time gaming as well as spending some time with my family.

My family has never celebrated/recognized the religious aspect of Christmas so this year will be the same.

Christmas does give me some much needed time off of school which will be much appreciated.

[Pokemon Geek]

My family is the same. We dont really care about any religious aspects it might have. We just want some time to relax and have a good time.

Besides, not like christmas had anything to do with christianity in the first place anyway.

[Kinoyo]

For Christmas, I'll take some time off to mess with my new things and spend time with my girlfriend. As always, getting off from school is the biggest stress reliever there is, I'll be much more relaxed instead of tense. This is hypocritical for a person like me, but I celebrate Christmas as a happy time, no matter what, of the year, not His birthday. It's the time where if someone close to you died, you lost/broke up with someone, etc, it's the time you can look at everything else and notice "Hey, it's not so bad."

On another subject, the reason why I posted here in the first place is my hope to FIX the problems I stated the world has, I believe a big patch to that hole is diversity and getting to communicate with someone that has other opinions. Me and my girlfriend are bronies after all, we can tolerate other views, so something like this comes as no new task to us. Now, of course, trying to communicate to an intolerant, close-minded person isn't going to get you anywhere. If you try to base everything off of what one source says, you're the most biased person there is. And usually you're hypocritical in all of the things you say, which I try to avoid. That's the main reason, the other reason is like I said before, to show the community that there still ARE good Christians, just to put some hope back into mentalities of this thread. After all, hope and joy IS the theme of the season. Happy Holidays, everyone!

[RainaXainne]

Thank you for those words. I respect my families views on Christianity. My dad gave up alcohol and started to become a minister. I'm proud he found something to better his life. However my choice to not follow any specific religion is much deeper than just being intolerant, or plain non believing. I'd had to shove my own opinion down anyone's throats so I won't list those specific reasons now. I do believe people need to just cool it a few degrees, suck up their pride, and talk. The world really would be better, and we don't all have to follow the same religion either. It's all about seeing the similarities between us rather than the differences. Once we see those similarities, then we can truly understand why another person thinks and feels the way they do, without losing sense of ourselves.

As of what I'm doing for Christmas! My mom asked my fiance and I to go to her and her boyfriends house.........not looking forward to it. Long story short, mom is impulsive, been married legally in the US 3 times, (once over seas...) She met the last husband when I met my fiance. Married him right away, and now she's divorcing him, and already moved on to a new guy. Because of things like this, my fiance seriously disrespects her (not to her face thankfully) and is really grumpy when we are around her. Personally, I'm just not looking forward to meet yet ANOTHER family.