Exactly! Just read the Babble, it is Exactly like bad porn & a slasher move, with a totally psychotic & incompetent Steven Segall in the lead.....
I believe I've been an atheist since I was a child.
My family tried indoctrination, but it didn't take.
There was always something that rang false to me.
The older I got, and the more I read, the more convinced I became that all religion was and is utter horseshit.
Now, at 60, not only am I an atheist, I'm also an anti-theist.
Religious influences cannot be permitted to influence public policy.
If people could keep their delusions to themselves, I don't think I'd have as strong a response to it.
Unfortunately, they seem completely unwilling and incapable of doing that.
So, they get to know just how strongly I object to their beliefs.
And the best wat to counter religion is to know more about it than the practitioners.
And then there are those who were fortunate enough to be raised in an environment where religion wasn't continually pressed into their minds
True, but unless you examine your Atheism, can you be sure you are not simply following Atheist dogma?
@August1 I am aware that Atheism is at that point where it has gained enough social acceptance that we are not stoned in public, but still considered "edgy" enough to attract certain types of followers. These "fashion" Atheists know little if anything about the "path of enlightenment" and philosophy (humanism) that should be a part of their beliefs, and are likely to switch back to a religion when the next bright & shiny one comes along. Which is their right.
Agreed. Comparative religion is a fast track to atheism.
The only way I can agree with you here is in the fact that I was studying to be a minister and that study did have me looking at other religions. I studied too much. My kid's mother said once that she knew I would end up a non-believer when I studied the Dead Sea scrolls. Apparently there are only certain religious writings that the faithful believe you should study. Today both my daughters and their mother sort of "believe in their own way." I ended up atheist and they took the route of most of the religious claiming people in our world today. This type of reasoning is exactly why we have so many religions.
During my time as an Agnostic, I looked at other Abrahamic and non-abrahamic religions. I did findit interesting but still mostly BS. I did have some attraction to original Confucian teachings and Charvaka, and as a result pick out some useful philosophy.