Most importantly, people everywhere are closing their eyes to truth, and refusing to accept the actual answers to some pretty important questions. If you get rid of all the silly higher power nonsense, it's pretty hard to convince people that killing innocent civilians is OK. Indoctrinate them into a religion, and it's a piece of cake.
I see what you're saying here but I think it's kind of a nonsensical argument to use against religion in general. You're equating the sweet grandma who has faith in God and goes to church every Sunday with radical terrorists and that's not fair. Besides that, history has shown us that it simply isn't true. There have been plenty of wars where innocent people have died that religion didn't even play a part in. It can be a scapegoat, but sometimes that's all it is. The Holocaust, one of the greatest exterminations of innocent civilians in history, was about national pride, not religion. It doesn't take indoctrination into a religion to convince people to do crazy, twisted things, it simply takes a leader with an enormous amount of charisma. You could eradicate religion from the face of the Earth and these people would still be running the world, and convincing people to do insane things. They would find a way.
To say that religion is evil in and of itself because Islamic terrorists blow themselves up on a public bus is silly and absurd.
Actually, what I'm saying is beyond that. The sweet grandma, through her very sweetness and almost certain voting, gives both emotional and electoral legitimacy to the entire religious farce. She, and the 'mainstream' members of religion provide the front organization for the corrupt, evil nonsense perpetrated by the 'extremists'. The point is, without religion, there can be no religious extremists, and the choice is a no-brainer to me.
LOL at the argument that not ALL conflicts and atrocities have had religion at their root - even if it were true, which it isn't, who cares? Even if just one of the disgusting, horrific conflicts over whose imaginary friend is cooler could have been avoided, it would outweigh the sum of religion's positive contributions to society. And the unavoidable truth is that without christianity and islam, there are no Crusades (20 million people killed in the first one alone, all in the name of god, on both sides). Without christianity, there would have been no Inquisition (12 million plus killed, most for being intellectuals).
And if you think Holocaust wasn't religious, you don't know jack about WWII or Hitler. Despite what christians try to claim based on a couple of quotes, Hitler wasn't just religious, he was a religious nut obsessed with both judeo-christian and occult texts and relics. Let's not forget, he was eradicating catholics, too. Was that about race?
Religion is a cancer, and those who recognize it are trying to help free the world of its influence.
This is how modern atheism has become a belief system. Under its most radical (and I might add charismatic) proponents it's gone well past simple non-belief and into the strong and radical belief that religion itself is evil and must be stopped. Religion is attacked simply for existing. Not only is that disgustingly intolerant, it's also rather politically retarded, and socially short-sighted. In the end this brand of militant atheism is only creating a rift in society between believers and non-believers in which each side feels smugly superior to the other. It's not helping anything.
Religion is flawed. But so is capitalism. So is socialism. So is democracy. Any large social construct of this kind is going to have its benefits and its flaws. Religion is no different. So if you're going to argue that religion itself is inherently evil and completely worthless you're going to have to demonstrate that it doesn't benefit society in any way. I know a lot of sensible people who happen to be religious and aren't militant in any way who would disagree with that perspective.
As human beings we have the inherent right to believe what we want to believe, and relate to the world how we want to relate to it. The militant atheists would like nothing better than to take that away. Civilization in general has been moving to the point where different social groups who would have been at war with each other in the past are learning to live with each other, and it's almost like the militant atheists would like to destroy that progress, in the name of rationality. It doesn't seem very rational to me.
As for my opinion of the billboard itself, it was put there to stir waves and cause trouble. That much seems fairly obvious to me. As much as I think it's a positive message in and of itself it still represents everything I hate about modern atheism.
Again, if atheism is a belief system, clear is a color.
I don't believe religion has been and is a force of domination, prejudice, subjugation, and taxation for the past 5,000 years, I know this fact from studying history. This isn't some leap of atheistic 'faith', it's just the only conclusion that can be drawn from an examination of the histories of the world's major religions if one's judgment is not clouded by beliefs. I don't attack religion for existing, or even for what I think it might do; I attack it for what it has done, is doing, and proudly promises to keep doing until all of us heathens are saved. Evangelistic religions have declared war on rational thought and independent examination of one's spiritual options all over the world because by their very nature, they are discriminatory, divisive, and oppressive.
It's not a matter of whether religion benefits society in ANY way. Cancer kills child molesters, which clearly benefits society, are you going to advocate for the abolition of cancer research? Religion has poisoned the minds of billions of people for thousands of years - it has retarded progress both socially and technologically. It has divided families, destroyed nations, killed millions upon millions, and made a very few very rich and very powerful. If you ever are able to take the 'god is real' goggles off long enough to get true clarity on the subject, you will feel guilty for having even once spoken out in its defense.
I would have no problem letting religious morons have their silly rituals and pay their silly tithes, except they won't stop trying to take over the world and ruin it for people who actually think about the reality of our existence. Tell you what, as soon as there are no more islamic terrorists, fundamentalist presidents keeping us from moving forward on stem cell research, attempts to promote ID as some sort of scientific concept to children, and nuns telling AIDS patients they claim to want to help they shouldn't wear condoms - and all the other disgusting, revolting, horrific crap done in the name of god or gods on the planet... when all that has been completely eradicated, I'll stop advocating for the forced sterilization of the devout.
That pretty much proves my "atheism is a belief system statement"
As for your "religious people are destroying the planet." That is incorrect. Politicians have worked to manipulate religious groups into taking stupid positions, just like politicians have manipulated everyone else into taking positions. If you really want to start a group based on saving the world, base it on something other than lack of religion.
LOLWUT? Half of religious nutcases I'm afraid of ARE the politicians. Are you talking about the Pope? You don't really think he believes any of this bible bullshit, do you? He's a politician, even more so than Dubyah and Palin.
The second you base it off of atheism you lose every intelligent christian and every intelligent religious person on Earth. It was thinking like yours that drove Einstein out of nazi germany and into america. Any group whose mission is to save the world, should not base itself on a divisive issue. Especially one that has literally nothing to do with their objective.
OK, so a couple of dozen smart people get left behind. So what? That's like worrying about there being a good lawyer in heaven! I'll take 1 moderately intelligent atheist on my side fighting for reason and progress for 10 'intelligent christians' praying against me. Make it a thousand pray-ers. you have seen the statistics, right? There is an easily plotted, inversely proportional relationship between IQ and depth of religious belief. If we have 10% of the population, we've got at least 75% of the IQ points. Sorry if that seems arrogant or whatever, it's just statistical probability.
These groups will literally accomplish nothing because they can not unite people, they can only divide them, that is why I call them a retarded idea. You might as well start a global peace group around the KKK. Let us say you'll "offend a few potential members"
Hmmm. This makes no sense to me at all. The only people we're looking to unite are ourselves, and we're doing that at a pretty amazing rate. The money the 'Atheist Bus Campaign' hoped to raise in six months, it raised in 24 hours, and the largest of the atheist organizations I belong to has over 3 million members, and has sponsored summer camps for kids, marches on Washington, and my local affiliate is working to have the 'invocations' abolished at the council meetings of several cities near me. It is estimated that more atheists voted in the critical swing states than the margin between McCain and Obama in those states, and how many atheists do you really think voted for Palin to be one heart attack away from 'the button'?
It seems to me that we're starting to accomplish things all over, and with a new atheism-inspired book on the bestseller list every 8-10 months, more freethinkers keep finding something to get passionate about every day.
Our founders knew that religion was an antiquated concept when they wrote the Constitution, that's why there's no mention of god or gods anywhere in it, and why the first is the first and not the fourth or seventh - they knew how important that shit was. It's even more antiquated now, but we keep allowing children to be abused through indoctrination, doomed to a life full of lies, silly superstitious beliefs, and fear of a made-up hell. I'm over it, and trying to do what I can to get people to take the blinders off, for the good of us all, and before it's too late, and one of these pissing matches gets out of hand.