Musings of a morbid mind

The general ravings of Scott Baldwin

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Main Reason For Rise of Atheism

I found this little gem as I was going through my Google+ feed today. The Christians For a Moral America (CFAMA) website has a really “quaint” little pole on their website asking what their loyal readers think is the main reason for the rise of Atheism in America. and the options are as follows.

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* Propaganda by Hollywood.

* Flaws in the education system.

* Broken families, divorce.

* Rise in homosexuality

Wow…  where do I begin… OK well lets tackle them in order.

1. Propaganda by Hollywood. Hrmmm… that is curious. I personally have not seen any significant shift in the amount of Atheist oriented films recently. Having said that, it’s not surprising that a Christian organisation picks on another for using propaganda. After all, the Christian faith is one of the biggest propaganda machines we have ever seen. Repeating the same messed up dogma until people are so saturated with it, they can’t think for themselves is exactly how fundamentalist faiths pass on their viral memes.

2. Flaws in the education system. Well, I really probably shouldn’t say too much about the American education system as I am an Australian. I’m guessing that the CFAMA’s chief criticism would probably be based around most schools refusing to teach non-science such as “intelligent design theory” along side of science like Evolution. At the end of the day, the true marker of a good education system is that the students learn to think critically, and more importantly think for themselves. Christians like to say that you should always be searching for the “truth”, but it is curious how they react when their children actually seriously seek out truth and start asking first order questions like “What are the true origins of the scriptures”, “How exactly did we arrive at the dogmas we now hold as undeniable truth” and “why do all other fundamentalist religions/ideologies look and smell so similar to ours, just with different names and places”, or God forbid “Does God really exist", or “did we merely create God in our image”? It seems to me that the Christian search for “truth” has to be conducted within the narrow bandwidth of what the church hierarchy deem “safe”. I remember back at high school (when I was a fundamentalist Christian), friends of mine who were also fundamentalists were pulled out of science class when the teacher was scheduled to teach evolution. They obviously did not trust their child (16 years old) would be able to develop the cognitive skills to appropriately discern “truth”, and that the only way to ensure they found truth was to cripple their education. Fortunately my parents were not so blind as to do this, and I spent the year giving my poor science teacher hell and challenging everything about the theory of evolution. It wasn’t ‘til much later that I was able to unravel all of the pre-conditioning that my fundamentalist upbringing gifted me with, and be able to look at the facts with a critical mind. This I feel shows that the Australian education system worked.

3. Broken families and divorce. Ok this is a curious one. Not only because of the fact that the divorce statistics within the Christian church are pretty much the same as outside it, but also because there is NO logical correlation between “Broken families and divorce” and Atheism. Incidentally, it is also a known fact that arranged marriages in cultures like India are far more likely statistically to succeed than marriages in the US. Maybe the Hindus have the “truth”.

and finally saving the best for last.

4. Rise in Homosexuality. This again simply shows a distinct lack of correlation. Homosexuality is simply about being attracted to the same sex. It has no logical connection to choosing to believe in a god or not, and there are plenty of homosexuals who do. Perhaps the rampant victimisation and outright hatred shown towards homosexuals from within the church has given many little choice but to seek other avenues to find a spiritual path, but really the two are mutually exclusive. The CFAMA’s suggestion that this could be linked to the dreaded and feared “rise of Atheism” is just mindless fear mongering designed to keep their adherents from potentially having an open mind.

Of course the CFAMA forgot probably the most important reason that there may be a rise in Atheism, so I’m going to put it here, and hopefully it will get more votes than any of the others (btw vote by leaving a comment or by +1 on Google+), and that is…

* With unprecedented access to information and the free exchange of ideas that the internet provides us with, coupled with many countries focus on providing better education systems, more and more people are being able to employ critical thinking to challenge ancient dogmas that fundamentalist faith based organisations have for centuries dictated to their adherents, and are seeing how flawed some of the thinking really is.

11 Comments:

  • At 3:23 PM, Blogger Richard said…

    Is "pole" where "poll" should be because you were lacking God's help? Or was it due to one of those four reasons listed?

     
  • At 4:04 AM, Blogger Nate777 said…

    OK I agree that there not the 4 options I would give as answers to this question, but I would put the flawed education system in. But lets address some of your comments here. No rise in Atheist movies? Contact, planet of the Apes, Chocolat, the devils advocate, 2 banished angels, I could keep typing & typing, of course there's more atheist orientated movies out there these days, I'm not saying this has contributed to the rise in atheism, just that there is a lot of this rubbish out there.
    You say "Christian Faith is one of the biggest propoganda machines", Christian faith is simply accepting that Jesus died for your sins & accepting the free gift of salvation (spending eternity with God) I'm not sure how that is a "propoganda machine", I agree lots of religions of all kinds (including Atheism) have sadly (very sadly) abused there power or position, just like a few bad police & politicians etc... But Christian Faith does not = propoganda machine.
    "Repeating the same messed up dogma over until people are so saturated with it they can't think for themselves", how do you think the 2 religions of atheism & evolution got off the ground??????? Even though science (actual science not forensic science, results made to fit an outcome science, used in evolution), has shown millions of years to be a imaginary e.g. documentary says Mars turns red from the wind blowing over it taking 300 million years, this was then upgraded to 1 billion years (to fit the ever changing evolution timeline), sparking some Australian scientist to question this, so they set up the actual soil brought back from Mars, set up the conditions & in 7 months the soil turned red, evolution “science” missed by 9999999years & 3months, yet this brain washing is in the text books (over & over), when NASA landed on the moon the legs on the spaceship were designed to handle meters of dust built up over millions of years, instead we seen inches, NASA worked it out to take 6000 years, gee the same as our historical record says.
    You want "fundamentalist faith", just say something against the evolution or atheist religions in front of 1 of it's followers & see the response you get, it isn't open minded or logically thinking (by the way logical thinking is impossible if evolution were true, chemicals telling your brain what to think can't come up with logic), I used to question Atheists on a few sites but got sick of the vulgar abuse & death threats when you showed them Atheism didn’t make sense. Although it is a buzz when you realize from the reaction, if you can’t fault the message then fault the messenger or simply eliminate it, (I guess that’s what atheist do best).

     
  • At 4:04 AM, Blogger Nate777 said…

    Flaws in the education system, if schools "refused to teach non science" then evolution wouldn't get a start, it is forensic assumption science in other words we don’t know what happened so we’ll make something up (to fit our agenda), pretend there's some science in it & put that in a text book, while real science very clearly shows not only that there's design but most plants & animals could not live without the interaction of other plants or animals, the whole system is designed & couldn't work without that design. Why is evolution not just highly unlikely but impossible, well Charles Darwin gave us some good clues "the simple fact a bee has instinct could bring my whole theory apart", if only he knew how science has shown how clear design is. Well 1 little plant we all enjoy the flavour of does more than that, it buries evolution 6 foot under well & truly, vanilla plants have a flower that only 1 little native bee can get into to pollinate, if this plant evolved it would last 1 generation & be extinct, if the little bee evolved same story as it can’t live on anything else, the bee was specially created to be able to get into the vanilla flowers stigma, they were created by a designor @ the same time, it's the only way the 2 can exist. Not to mention the fact they've found Noah's Ark, we have all the great fossils from a global flood & so on & so on & so on. "the true marker of a good education system is that the students learn to critically & more importantly think for them selves" so what are you worried about if a school teaches creation, we all know exactly what your worried about, that kids can think for themselves, if creation was taught along side evolution, evolution would be dead & buried in a generation, of course evolutionists know this & it scares the pants off them (thankfully not literally), although while we are on that point why don't we run around naked in summer, because Adam & Eve after the fall realised they were naked & covered up, anyone feel like that? If we evolved then surely all summer it's much more practical to do away with clothes as how could we possible feel embarrassed about something we evolved? You know which 1 makes sense. For the record since evolution has been taught in Australian schools the suicide rate has gone up & up, it's no coincidence, the war, the great depression, hard financial times never had any impact on suicide rates until we started telling our children, you're nothing more than a glorified ape with no purpose, no reason to live, suicide is now the biggest killer of our 18 to 25 y/o males, this sounds like a flawed education system to me. At school I went into studying the theory of evolution, excited, I was looking for the answers & I was about to get them. Funny how I also ended up giving my science teacher hell (the whole class did) as I soon realized this theory has more holes than a spagetti strainer, the class went away thinking so this is why they teach it to show it’s an impossible theory, it wasn’t till years later I realized, man there’s actual adults that still believe this, wow! This was what led me to creation, I went in more than open minded looking for the answers from evolution but soon worked out how much was assumption & I’m still waiting to here 1 fact. Creation fits with history it fits with science, Some of the planets moons have been burning for millions of years according to evolution “science” yet there mass & the rate they’re burning @ could @ best give them 100000 years, the first thing they tell you in biology is genes can’t create themselves, it’s the number 1 bugbear of uni students, why do they tell us 1 thing then tshow us that it’s impossible, there are just too many facts to ignore in evolution, it has no place in education other than to show how you should research things with some common sense & think about the claims of text books with no evidence.

     
  • At 4:06 AM, Blogger Nate777 said…

    My kids have asked if God’s real, I didn’t have a melt down, I in fact assured them that it’s quiet OK to ask these questions, my young son blows me away with what he know’s about God because he tells me stuff that God has told him when there is no way anyone else could, so I throw the question back to them & they explain why God has to be real, I say there you go, there’s you’re answer. I’m sorry if you’re in a situation where you’re parents hit the roof or treated you like an outcast because you questioned this, I actually haven’t heard of any parent having a “God forbid” reaction, but obviously you or someone you know has, that is sad.
    I’m surprised they haven’t mentioned also the rise in creationism, what I find funny is that Dawkins is surprised so many are questioning evolution with the facts of creation, it has been his actions of putting evolution in the spot light that make people check it out, like I said scientists from Australia weren’t going to wear millions/billions of years for Mars turning red when they could do an actual scientific experiment & get a real result of 7 months. But why wouldn’t people question Dawkins? Quotes “Science can explain everything” “Science can’t explain ethics”. Then he spends a fortune on an add campaign about God probably isn’t real, the main comment from that was, see even Dawkins isn’t game to say he doesn’t exist (probably not real) does he even know what he believes, it appears not. The other great thing about this campaign was how it worked as a catalyst for people to talk about God, people came to Christ thru this confusing campaign. God definitely uses Dawkins. There’s an old saying, better to have people think you’re stupid than to open you’re mouth & confirm it, I’ve never seen anyone fit this old saying better than Dawkins. He takes all that shows atheism to be untrue & tries to put it back on Christians, saying the rediculous like Christians ignore history, is it history like the 500 written accounts & 1500 verbal witnesses that Jesus rose back to life after being crucified? You know atheist are the ones ignoring history, why anyone would part with there money to read such foolishness is beyond me, but I’ll give him 1 thing, he does know how to get people to part with there money. He choses great friend like Peter Singer who not only thinks abortion is fine but what difference does being out the womb make, he wants to see it legal to decide if a child should live or die months after it’s born, how sick are these people, doesn’t he realize it’s just as well his parents had more sense than him when it comes to this subject.
    If you had truly looked @ evolution critically you would see it’s impossible, if you’ve looked @ it critically to make it fit with you’re lifestyle, oh sure it’s real, just keep telling yourself that.
    Lets get to the real reason for the rise in atheism, so people can do what they want guilt free, we feel guilt for our sins, we need a saviour, if we accept that Jesus died for our sins this takes away the guilt of our sins, Jesus didn’t come to condemn but as a doctor to the sick. So if you don’t accept this there’s the problem of guilt, so best way to get rid of the guilt, get rid of any higher being, canceling any accountability for our actions, we all do things we know are wrong, either Christ takes the wrap or we live in denial & tell ourselves whatever will make it go away.

     
  • At 1:34 PM, Blogger Scott said…

    Richard... well perhaps my education system has failed me a little with my spelling... or perhaps I care more about communicating an idea than being perfectly correct. Having said that I still sucked at spelling when I was a Christian, so God (or the lack thereof) has nothing to do with it.

    Nate777... you know what... you're so right... That's it, I have seen the error of my ways... I repent...

    hehehe... only kidding. You pretty much recycled all the rubish I used to hear (and occasionally sprout myself) as a teenager... although I'll give you the Mars one, I hadn't heard that before. Of course whether it takes 1 billion years to turn red or 7 months doesn't actually bring into question the age of the universe.

    The thing is Nate777 I was a Christian, and I was a young earth creationist. The key thing is that I actually had an open mind and was willing to have my entire world view (not just "my faith") challenged. I evaluated many arguments (not just about evolution, but also about philosophy/theology/psychology), and came to the conclusions I have over a significant period of time. These conclusions are still (dare I say it...) evolving, and I am always open to new evidence, which is the key difference between an Atheist and someone who thinks that a 2000 year old book written by a semi-literate desert tribe should be able to speak accurately about science.

    Regarding Christianity being a propoganda machine, well, it is highly evangelical which implies propoganda, and most of the Christian institutions do it very well.

    Regarding your kids being proof that God exists. I could probably do a similar experiment with kids and Santa Clause, and I dare say kids from India give similar explanations to their parents as to why the Hindu Gods must be real.

    My parents would certainly not shun me for my beleifs, but there have been many cases of fundamentalist parent abusing or rejecting their children when they have come out as being an Atheist, or even just started seriously questioning their faith. Especially in the US. My parents are however, very sad for me as they firmly believe that if I don't repent, that I am going to a hellish eternity. This I think is a very sad point of fundamentalist belief.

    Reading your arguments reminded me of what I once was like, and makes me glad that I am not trapped in that cyclic logic anymore. Thanks for that.

     
  • At 2:29 PM, Blogger Nate777 said…

    Trapped?????? Ha Ha, you wish that were true but the reality is Christ came to set us free & I am free indeed.

     
  • At 2:32 PM, Blogger Nate777 said…

    Nice bike by the way, photos a bit small, headlight looks like an R1 or 6 but leaning towards CBR something?

     
  • At 2:58 PM, Blogger Scott said…

    Nate777, that's exactly what I used to recite to myself... day in day out.

    It's a CBR 600 F4i

     
  • At 5:08 AM, Blogger Nate777 said…

    If you recite it that might be the problem?
    Now I am curious you said before "You pretty much recycled all the rubbish", Rubbish so science is rubbish now, is that all science or just the science that doesn't fit with your religious beliefs?
    I stumbled on the results of how long humans should live scientifically the results if we ate the fruit etc... did the right exercises was 120 years, I didn't click until a friend said, that's not surprising considering what was written 4000 years ago about that? Um 120 years. Not bad for a semi-literate desert tribe. Good point though, to live in the desert you had to be mentally & physically strong & if you weren't smart you died, it's easy to sit in an air conditioned room & tap on a pc with little effort, I do admire them & Eskimos for being able to survive in such harsh conditions.
    You said "Regarding Christianity being a propoganda machine, well, it is highly evangelical which implies propoganda, and most of the Christian institutions do it very well". As a Christian I have to dissagree with this 1, evangelism is probably the churches weakest point, Oh how I wish what your saying here was true.

    CBR 600 F4i, sweet.

     
  • At 5:16 PM, Blogger Scott said…

    Nate777 sorry to say, but the only people who think Intelligent Design is a "real science" are creationists who practice science in a way that says "What does this 2000 year old book say"... OK now let's try and find things that prove it's right. That is NOT science.

    The key difference Nate777, is that science will NEVER take 1 theory and treat it as irrefutable doctrine that just needs "better" science to prove it. This is why the field of quantum mechanics exists. If there genuinely is a better explanation for the observed data, then eventually it will win out over even the most popular.

    Intelligent Design is no more of a science than "Flat Earth Science" (http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page) which is yet another thing that the dogmatically religous of the time attempted to refute.

     
  • At 4:01 AM, Blogger Nate777 said…

    Scott sorry to say, but the only people who think evolution is a "real science" are evolutionists who practice science in a way that says "What does this theory say"... OK now let's try and find things that prove it's right. That is NOT science.

    "The key difference Nate777, is that science will NEVER take 1 theory and treat it as irrefutable doctrine that just needs "better" science to prove it". This is why the field of quantum mechanics exists. If there genuinely is a better explanation for the observed data, then eventually it will win out over even the most popular." This is so true, maybe you need to tell Richard Dawkins this & maybe it's why creation is on the increase. I'm hearing more & more from non Christians these days that they're not buying the imaginary millions of years anymore. Even a guy @ work said just the other day & Oh yeah the dinosaurs supposedly went extinct 65 million years ago, yeah right! Believe me he isn't a creationist. For the record the head of the present flat Earth society is an evolutionist. It was actual Christian scientist who led the way in discovering the Earth wasn't flat. Anyway I'd love to give you a public debate but I do run the risk that your a professional debator, so we'll leave it there (I'll even let you have the last say).
    Cheers Nate

     

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