Just another Bible-Belt Atheist
Offline So, I actually signed up a few years ago, but I just never really had the time for forum posting. Now that I'm unemployed, well, you know...
Having been raised Jewish in the south, I learned quick that I better be able to throw scripture back at the fundies who thought that I was personally responsible for the death of their saviour. I found religion interesting and did a lot of reading on the subject when I was young. This led me to the obvious and rational conclusion.... it's all bullshit.
Not to say I am not spiritual on some levels. I do think that we can acheive some inner peace through self-examination. I just don't believe that there is any enlightenment that can be attained by blind faith to a mythical god.
About 12 years ago my husband and I moved to the country in NC. On many levels I love it. I can grow a garden, it's peaceful, and there is almost no crime. BUT, there are very few people of like-mind here.
I'm looking forward to spending more time here on the forums. Sometimes I think the whole world has lost it's collective mind. It makes me feel good to know that i am not the only one.
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Welcome aboard. You'll find that there are quite a few of us on here that are living in the Bible Belt south and surrounded by insane fundamentalists. It's great to have a place like this where you can find some highly intelligent discussions.
You'll never have to worry about arguing with those fundamentalists again. There are tons of arguments and counterpoints here guaranteed to stop any self-assured theist dead in their tracks.
I hope that you enjoy it here as much as I do. Have fun.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
I too, am unemployed. Not willingly. And Portland has its share of nutcases. I guess that is why a lot of people have "Keep Portland weird" bumper stickers.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Their is good evidence a large portion of the world has, always have, and probably always will.
Hola and welcome. I was raised in the deep south as a gun toting, bible thumping fundy. My s/o was raised Jewish in NY & Greenwich, so she had a lot less experience with fundies than did I. From what I can gather, she was asking uncomfortable questions in temple well before her teens. At any rate she made the conversion to atheism long before I did. Perhaps there is some conformist bias action at work in the fundamentalist/evangelical religions that make them more infectious than the less offensive religions.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
Perhaps it's because in Judaism there is no witnessing. We are not taught to convert people, which I think in the long run, allows a bit more critical thought. We grow up arguing the meaning of Bible passages and are told to try and find the meaning for ourselves.
I remember once in Hebrew school I asked my teacher how god could have made the world in 7 days, but we know about evolution. She looked at me like I was stupid and said,"Isn't it obvious? A day for god is not the same as a day for man". For the most part, Jews expect that the bible has many meanings and that things are not always to be taken literally.
But on the other hand..
I can only speak for myself, but, it seems that because we feel that Jews have been so persecuted, we are taught to always respect other religions and beliefs, and to never speak ill of someone elses religion. Which I think makes it hard to really come out and say the obvious.... that most belief systems are ridiculous.
But again, this is just my experience.
Makes me wonder if evangelizing is as much a form of self reinforcement as it is a conversion tactic.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
I never thought of that before, but yeah, I think you have a point....
Welcome to the forum.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Yeah - it's so likely the governer of a roman province allowed an allegedly screaming street mob browbeat him into judicial decisions.
I can't help suspecting the racial sentiments of the NT come courtesy of the Church of Rome, with a sprinkling of malice.
Of all my jewish friends only one is agnostic and all the rest are highly analytic atheists. They groan about the hasidim the way I do about the charasmatic movement currently sweeping Australia.
I'm sure you'll have fun here tangling with the fervent cheribum of the lord jesus christ.
My family all love jesus. Even my great nieces and nephews have toddler bibles. It does make for lonely moments when you're on the outside of that club.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
So many responses! Who knew atheists were so friendly
It does seem like most jews, at least in this country, are a little more blase about the whole thing. Makes you wonder how the religion stayed alive for so long., especially without active conversions.
My family was never really religious. They sent me to Hebrew school mostly so that I could learn about my heritage, not so much for the religion part. And yes, my mother always told me to stay away from those crazy Hasidim! She told me that they were stupid and superstitious. Funny now that I think about it....