Hi from South Africa!
Offline Hi, guys.
My name is Francois and I live in South Africa. I stumbled on this site after following a link from a site discussing the Nightline debate between WOTM and the Rational Response Squad.
I just had to sign up!
A little background about myself: I was a born-again christian who became an atheist. The process began when I moved away from a christian group and the church I attended. I couldn't understand why this church used money to build a new youth wing when there were people living on the streets! By the way, I visited the WOTM website. It seems that a person looking for answers there, must buy their DVD's or books first.
Furthermore, I realized that during the week it was difficult being a christian but on Sundays I got an injection of faith that lasted about two days.
From being angry at the church I realized that the strength of my believe was linked to being in a church environment although I knew that my "born-again" experience a few years previous was not faked.
I tried joining other churches but always found it a uncomfortable experience.
One day I came to the shocking realization that I may not believe in god anymore! That initial separation from the church began what I call a "cleansing" of my thought processes which was indoctrinated by christianity.
I browsed the internet and found a lot of info, especially from the Secular Web and talkorigins sites. I also looked at christian and creationism sites but found their science a bit flimsy, to say the least.
Anyway, this is my story and I'm looking forward in posting something every now and then. By the way, can any of you guys tell me how I can change my username?
Bye for now,
Francois
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Oh great, another thinker, just what the world needs.
Look, the entire point of the youth center is bring in club members. Who gives a fuck about starving people, that is just silly. As long as you kiss daddy's ass, that is what is really important.
Welcome. Nice to see skepticism spread worldwide.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
To change your user name you have to ask a mod, just tell a mod what you want as your new user name and they can get it done.
Welcome.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Welcome to the rational world. We have other South Africans here, so you should get along just fine. Canada myself.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Welcome to the forum.
I came from a heavily indoctrinated religious background and am now an Atheist.
I read that a large majority of the population of Africa were heavily religious. So it is nice to see that atheism is starting to take off there as well.
Evolving past religion, one country at a time. Sounds like a good thing.
Feel free to join in and post often.
“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
pleased to meet you.
Welcome. Glad you are here.
WOTM - The Way Of The Master is with His hand out asking for more Rand. It is called the prosperity gospel. Helping others was a late feature in Christianity. Before secular governments arose they had no problem taking your money and killing those other religions if they didn't convert. Might makes right just like the Bible says. They are only following the example of their sky Daddy.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Me too.
On our site, you get greeted by me. Welcome aboard!
Great sites that helped me as well.
Some of those sites write some hilarious stuff about me now. I used to get banned by most of the Christian message boards when I tried.
I could do it or a mod can do it. What do you want to change it to?
Vote for Democrats to save us all from the anti-American Republican party!
Please become a Patron of Brian Sapient
Thanks for the welcomes, guys!
Sapient, please change username to FMStereo. Thanks!
I'm interested in how and where religion originated and the similarities to be found in christianity and other religions. Any suggestions of websites I can visit regarding this?
What do you guys think of the claims made by Graham Hancock?
One of the reasons I became an atheist is the question of religions outside christianity. It doesn't make sense that a devoted muslim will go to hell when he/she does so much good!
Welcome!
Multiple theisms were one of a few "alarms" that kept me free of religious influence. Another being the "hell" factor as punishment for ignorance. All the millions of people who died before the religion formed or was spread to their area were sentenced to eternal torture simply because they weren't told about this supposed god.
There was more to it, but I've told my story a few times already so I'll leave it at that.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
It depends on what religion you are talking about as far as history.
BUT overall, religion was started long before the written tradition and the "gods" of that time were earthy, humans worshiped animals, volcanos, weather. The word for that is "anthropomorphism"(projecting human qualities on the world around you.
As humans evolved and the the written language came about god claims evolved to more human like polytheism. The oldest known attempts in history at monotheism was the brief attempt by the Egyptian King Akanaton(sp), where he tried to make Ra(the sun god, the only god) The population didn't like it and after he died they tried to erase his attempt from all recordings and monuments he built in his lifetime.
Now timeline wise even Zoroaster is another attempt at monotheism that did not take, but is much older than the monotheism of Abraham.
The current trend in humans who are now faced with science is to do one of two things. They try to retrofit science to match their myth. Others scrap the ancient myth but do the new age crap of pretending the universe itself is a cognitive entity.
The truth of it all is that there is no need for any kind of entity, be it the myths of the past or new age woo entity.
If one can accept that a hurricane is not caused by a "who" then why would the universe or life on this planet need to be caused by a who? A "what" is what is going on. A "process" , without cognition. Just like a hurricane happens because of conditions, not deliberate thought.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Thanks for the response, Brian.
What about similarities between christianity and other mythologies? I'm thinking about various messiah/son of god myths.
Are there really such similarities as discussed on the POTM website?
I like your "hurricane" example.
the similarities are endless. There are older gods who share almost all central elements with Jesus - Dionysus, Mithras, Budhha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Odysseus, Romulus, Heracles, Glycon, Attis, Horus. There are many, many more...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-christ-like-figures-who-pre-date-jesus/
Ed: Humorously, when the christian church fathers were accused of stealing the qualities of pagan (literally interprets as rustic, or rural) gods, in particular Dionysus and Horus, they replied satan had deliberately created the earlier parallels to deceive men and lure them into hell...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Yep, AE. I heard such things as well. The Christians have to say "Thank God For Satan" cuz if it makes god look bad for having done did something they swap blame on Lucifer, Beelzeub, the serpent, the tempter, anti-christ's daddy, Belial. He has as many names as god does.
That Satan was a clever dude. He knew ahead of time god's plan and laid the ground work for deception. But didn't god create satan? Why couldn't he keep his plan from him? Does that show god's intention was to deceive us? More questions than it answers! I hear Occam's razor swinging now.
However, this works well for binary
thinking
if it can be called that.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Great to have you hear, Francois!
A believer will look at the world through God-colored spectacles that only let him see those things that he can think of as 'good'. That proves, to him, that God is 'good'.
If he then looks at things without the spectacles, and you point to things that are nasty, he will then respond that they are obviously the work of Satan...
Anyone see a problem with the 'logic' here?
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Ah a fellow Sefrican. I'm a noob to this site but not atheism in general, good to know there are more of us out there in this country. Especially as I live in a bible belt... I get tired of conversations that always reference god for anything (I don't use a capital b or g for those words as it implies a respect for a concept that should have none.)
Anyhoo just wanted to extend a paw of hello
Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am the bi9ggest mother%$&@#%$ in the valley and I carry a big stick
- Me