Has America Gone Atheist?

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Sam

*However, you do realize that loads of people who do believe in Hell keep right on sinning, yes? Not to belabor an obvious point, but those pedophile priests – and the members of the Church hierarchy who covered up their crimes – probably believe in Hell. It didn’t stop them. *

This is the most interesting question you ask, which I am happy to answer.

Yes, loads of people who believe in God keep right on sinning. But if they believe in God, there is a restraint upon their sinning. There is guilt and penance to do. Evil for them is not a matter of policy, as with Hitler and Stalin and Mao and de Sade and atheists of that ilk who firmly believe that they can get away with the ultimate consequences of evil, but rather of the failure to live up to the ideal they (religious people) believe in.

Moreover, I am willing to concede that pedophile priests really are criminals who entered the priesthood with the notion that it could be an elaborate cover for their criminality. They might well not be true believers at all, but merely people willing to pay a high price to get into a profession that they believe will protect them. I’ve heard of surgeons with a sadistic instinct, and I can’t understand how a physician can conduct abortions on a daily basis without a homicidal lust. I certainly can’t believe Catholics physicians could do this.

As to the bishops who covered up for the pedophile priests, who knows how far the web of criminal conspiracy might extend? That would only mean that there are criminal bishops who stoop to protect other criminals. But it would not mean that the Catholic Church endorses pedophilia as a natural consequence of Christ’s teachings.

Let me ask you a simple question:

NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) has called for legalization of sex between adults and male children under the age of 8.

Do you think the members of this group are more likely to be people with religion or people without religion?
 
Sam

My main point is, sometimes religious people do bad things too. Being an atheist isn’t a prerequisite.

I would be the last person to dispute this point.

But the religious person has to make it up somehow. What obligation has the atheist to make it up since there is no ultimate accounting?

I ask you to consider the recidivism rate of criminals who attend chapel while in prison versus the recidivism rate of those who do not.
 
Let me put it this way, I you had two people running for president, One being an atheist and the other being a member of the KKK and a Christian ( I am not equating Christianity with the KKK), Then the winner would be giving his innagural address wearing a sheet over his head.
 
Gilbert Keith:
But if any atheist is looking for an excuse to commit evil acts with impunity, what is to restrain him when he has thrown off God?
  1. His own conscience.
  2. Everyone else. We have a place for people who commit evil acts with impunity – jail.
Neither worked with Hitler, Mao and Stalin. And they ceretainly did not work with the ultimate atheist the Marquis de Sade who continued his career of sadism even within the prison walls of France.
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You know, MANY Christians commit crimes. They haven’t thrown off God and, in fact, often commit them in his name (i.e. Abortion doctor murders).
 
Monarchy

MANY Christians commit crimes. They haven’t thrown off God and, in fact, often commit them in his name (i.e. Abortion doctor murders).

How many abortion doctors murderers are there compared to the number of murdered unborn … 1,000,000 a year?

Does the Catholic Church advocate murdering abortion doctors?

I don’t think so.

And by the way, why would you call an abortion doctor a doctor?

I thought the role of a doctor was to heal … not kill!!!
 
Let me put it this way, I you had two people running for president, One being an atheist and the other being a member of the KKK and a Christian ( I am not equating Christianity with the KKK), Then the winner would be giving his innagural address wearing a sheet over his head.

You’re wrong. No self-professed KKK member in his right mind would run for president. Also, no self-professed atheist in his right mind would run for president.

You have constructed what in logic is called a false dilemma.
 
Gilbert Keith:
This is the most interesting question you ask, which I am happy to answer.

Yes, loads of people who believe in God keep right on sinning. But if they believe in God, there is a restraint upon their sinning. There is guilt and penance to do. Evil for them is not a matter of policy, as with Hitler and Stalin and Mao and de Sade and atheists of that ilk who firmly believe that they can get away with the ultimate consequences of evil, but rather of the failure to live up to the ideal they (religious people) believe in.
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Human beings are remarkably good at maintaining conflicting ideas without admitting the contradiction. It’s what makes hypocrisy so very common.

Although my family isn’t very religious, the area I grew up in is very much so. I knew many devout Christians who were the kindest, most benevolent people you’d ever care to meet. And I also knew many devout Christians who were racist, selfish, often criminal, basically loathsome individuals. The latter type didn’t seem to see any problem with this.
Moreover, I am willing to concede that pedophile priests really are criminals who entered the priesthood with the notion that it could be an elaborate cover for their criminality. They might well not be true believers at all, but merely people willing to pay a high price to get into a profession that they believe will protect them. I’ve heard of surgeons with a sadistic instinct, and I can’t understand how a physician can conduct abortions on a daily basis without a homicidal lust. I certainly can’t believe Catholics physicians could do this.
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This is tangential, but I can quite easily see how a physician could conduct abortions on a daily basis without homicidal lust: They don’t believe a fetus to be a human being. It is, therefore, not a question of homicidal lust, but a simple medical procedure. Of course, as many pro-life people point out – justifiably so, I think – the dehumanization of the victims is often the first step down the road to atrocity.

But for an individual abortion doctor, he’s able to do what he does because he genuinely believes he isn’t killing anybody.
As to the bishops who covered up for the pedophile priests, who knows how far the web of criminal conspiracy might extend? That would only mean that there are criminal bishops who stoop to protect other criminals. But it would not mean that the Catholic Church endorses pedophilia as a natural consequence of Christ’s teachings.
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I don’t think the Church endorses pedophilia as a natural consequence of Christ’s teachings. (I do think it’s possible that some within the Church may tacitly endorse pedophelia by covering the crime up when it’s committed, for the “greater good” of the Church, but that’s hardly the same thing.)

However, I also find the idea of an elaborate conspiracy of pedophiles perpetuating itself solely to use the Church as a mechanism to keep molesting kids to stretch credibility, too.

I find it much more likely that those who commit the crimes, or who cover them up, are weak and fallible people giving in to their destructive urges (in the case of the molestors) or attempting a bit too overzealously to protect an organization they believe in (those who cover it up). And I strongly suspect that a great many of them believe in God – many in the latter group may even believe they’re acting on His will.
Let me ask you a simple question:

NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) has called for legalization of sex between adults and male children under the age of 8.

Do you think the members of this group are more likely to be people with religion or people without religion?
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This is an interesting question.

Considering that NAMBLA is an American organization, and that atheists in America are an extreme minority – the highest estimates put the number around 10% of the population – I have to say that I think the majority of them are very likely religious.

Especially in this case. People in NAMBLA don’t think there’s anything wrong with their desires, so it’s probably quite easy for them to reconcile them with their religious beliefs. After all, if they don’t think they’re sinning…
 
Gilbert Keith:
You’re wrong. No self-professed KKK member in his right mind would run for president. Also, no self-professed atheist in his right mind would run for president.
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Note: Thomas Jefferson was, depending on who you ask, either a deist or an atheist. He considered the New Testament a great source of moral teachings marred by nonsense mysticism, and went so far as to publish the Jefferson Bible, a retelling of the New Testament with all the miracles removed.

He is, as far as I know, the only openly non-Christian President the USA has had, although private letters have indicated a few others (Abraham Lincoln, for instance) were closet atheists.

This goes a long way, I think, toward showing how the USA has become more Christian, not less. In today’s USA, Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance of becoming President.
 
Gilbert Keith:
As I said before, I’m not exchanging posts with you if you can’t write posts considerably longer than two lines. This hit-and-run tactic of yours has become very tedious indeed.
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I am perfectly capable of writing considerably longer posts and I’m willing to entertain the idea if you can show me a requirement to maintain a minimum average line count.

It’s a simple enough question, even if the answer may not be. Should I answer the question for you? Unless they were engaged in further deception, they must have believed in god when they committed their crimes.
 
Gilbert Keith:
Monarchy

MANY Christians commit crimes. They haven’t thrown off God and, in fact, often commit them in his name (i.e. Abortion doctor murders).

How many abortion doctors murderers are there compared to the number of murdered unborn … 1,000,000 a year?
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My point is that the belief in god does not automaticaly make you a moral person. That is up to you.
Does the Catholic Church advocate murdering abortion doctors?

I don’t think so.
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Did I claim that it does? If I did, please point to were I said it.
And by the way, why would you call an abortion doctor a doctor?

I thought the role of a doctor was to heal … not kill!!!
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He’s performing a medical procedure, thefrore he has to be a doctor to legaly do so.
 
Hmmm, I’ve never read anything of Jefferson’s that would indicate he was an atheist. We have to remember what a mess the various sects had made out of the colonies.

Getting the thirteen colonies to sit down together was noting short of divine providence.
 
Gilbert Keith:
You’re wrong. No self-professed KKK member in his right mind would run for president. Also, no self-professed atheist in his right mind would run for president.
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Really? Ever heard of David Duke?
You have constructed what in logic is called a false dilemma.
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My point is that in this country would vote in a racist christian before an atheist.
 
Sam

*But for an individual abortion doctor, he’s able to do what he does because he genuinely believes he isn’t killing anybody. *

Then I would say he is a genuine fool.
 
Gilbert Keith:
Has America gone atheist?

Sixty years ago most Americans would have regarded as moronic and obscene the idea that to kill the unborn should be an act protected by the Constitution, or that the marriage of members of the same sex should be an act protected by the Constitution, or that homosexual married partners have the right to adopt children, or that the execution by starvation of disabled people should be protected by the Constitution. Today these moronic and obscene notions are enjoying the protection or the serious consideration of many of our lawmakers. Are these lawmakers Christians or atheists?
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Nothing has changed except the identity of the obscenity. The last negro to be lynched was killed in the sixties, don’t forget - despite the legal safeguards put in place just after the American Civil War. Much good they did all the negroes who were murdered for the crime of not being Aryan whites.​

Humans are are a nasty bunch; lynching is one expression of this, and abortion is another. Human unpleasantness and destructiveness and homicidal violence will always get past any law.

And don’t forget the “Christian law-makers” who brought in laws which allowed for people to be lobotomised or (in effect) castrated if they were not as bright as some. The USA was up there in the forefront of the eugenics movement; it financed the Third Reich’s policies in this direction, certainly in the Thirties.
After all, we can’t have “retarded” people multiplying, can we ? If they do that, they might be an economic burden on a USA which has to accommodate all those immigrants.

The problem is, that people who harm others frequently hate those whom they have harmed because they have harmed them; an interesting quirk, that, and a sickening one.

Abortion is merely the latest USA method of getting rid of what is perceived by some as “human trash” - an oxymoron if ever there was one. And why should the USA care about the unborn, when it is fully prepared to carpet-bomb civilians, or to use napalm ? The USA has vast stockpiles of chemical weaponry, and has had them for about 90 years. All that’s happening is that the unborn or newborn are being killed and maimed in bigger and better ways - just like a lot of others before and since.

As for being a “Christian country”, it’s no such thing - what country is ? Britain was no better in her imperial hey-day - as certain atheists (such as Charles Bradlaugh, the first atheist to be allowed - in 1886 - to sit as an M.P. in Parliament) quite rightly pointed out. IMO, the USA is more of a terrorist state than some may like to admit. It’s only just got round to stopping treating Gerry Adams like an honoured guest. And it was friendly enough with Saddam
  • when it found him useful.
It’s only fair to point out that the USA is merely the most obvious offender in these respects - there are are plenty of European countries that are no better, that have blood on their hands or have shared in some at least of these noxious attitudes.

Chesterton was vigorously against eugenics - it’s very instructive, reading books and pamphlets which argue about the life-and-death issues of the past. I find that it puts our own worrying into perspective. ##
 
*My point is that in this country would vote in a racist christian before an atheist.*Then what does that tell you about the public’s fear of atheists?

Judging by the careers of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, all atheists, I’d say the public is onto something.
 
Monarchy

I said:

You’re wrong. No self-professed KKK member in his right mind would run for president. Also, no self-professed atheist in his right mind would run for president.

You said:

Really? Ever heard of David Duke?

But did either of us ever say David Duke is in his right mind?
 
Gilbert Keith said:
*My point is that in this country would vote in a racist christian before an atheist.*Then what does that tell you about the public’s fear of atheists?

Judging by the careers of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, all atheists, I’d say the public is onto something.
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FWIW, Mao was baptised in 1971 - five years before his death.​

 
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