Atheist/Anti-theist/Agnostic Troper Group

I had not heard of anything like that. Also, statistical proof or it isn't real.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Correlation doesn't mean causation. Generally, the wealthier a country is, the more atheists there are (poorer people are more religious). And the wealthier a country is, the lower are the birth rates (availability of contraception and different priorities).

Are there any mostly atheist countries around?

The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground

Well, if you didn't already think their line on birth control and abortion was a ploy to try to out-breed everyone...

I think Germany has a lot of atheists

@desdendelle: Japan, China and the Scandinavian countries apparently, but it depends on how the question gets asked, since many people identify as "spiritual but not religious" or "cultural Christians" which can make it confusing. Also, religions like Buddhism are often atheist.

@Elfive: Some are pretty open on that score. Conservative Catholics especially, given their opposition to abortion and contraception.

edited 7th Jul '14 6:22:07 AM by Fireblood

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

Banning sex unless it's for reproduction, keeping women at home, encouraging having children, killing apostates and forced conversion. It's all about creating more followers and reaching total dominance. Really, the Abrahamic religions are not much different from Fascism in that regard.

Well of course, but my worry is we'll be outbred-it already seems to be happening.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

It sounds creepy as hell when you put things in terms like that

edited 7th Jul '14 6:50:55 PM by Xopher001

Keep in mind that as these poor countries gain wealth and power, more and more people will de-convert from their religions. Atheism and irreligion is on the rise in many "transitioning" countries - only 64% of South Africans consider themselves religious.

ok boomer

@Xopher 001: I know, but I'm not sure how else it can be put. I'm not referring to ethnicities here, but ideologies anyway.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

I'd say it's really the first three, the latter two are just icing on the cake. Much as I disagree with him on other matters, I think Christopher Hitchens was bang on the money when he said that the only known cure for poverty is the education and empowerment of women, which is why that idea has been so vociferously opposed by religious groups from the Roman Catholic Church all the way down to Boko Haram, as they know that it will ultimately doom them.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

Yeah, most people don't know it but one of the things Bin Ladin got upset over was women working outside their homes. In general, it seems that the most prosperous people are, the less religion they tend to be, further explaining the opposition of many religious groups to measure which reduce poverty.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

The last two seem more impotant to me. Since religions aren't allowed to punish heretics and make forced conversion anymore, they're in decline. Without forced conversion, neither Islam nor Christianity would have spread. They would be relatively small religions like Judaism. Judaism has the first three plus punishing heretics but it lacks the conversion stuff. As a result, they're not nearly as huge as Islam and Christianity.

If they cannot punish people who abandon religion, they will not become the rulers or the majority but simply the breeders of society.

I think you guys are making an unfair generalization of religious people as a whole. Unless your talking about trends in society - but I know lots of religious people who don't neccesarily agree with their church's stance on contraception and the like. I also don't like how you keep referring to them as 'breeders'. I mean seriously what the hell?

Nope. I don't believe the average Roman Catholic supports the oppression of women, but I do believe the Roman Catholic Church does. Big difference. It's religious institutions, organisations and power structures that attract my ire, not religious people.

edited 9th Jul '14 10:31:32 AM by pagad

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

I'm not talking about the religious people but the religous ideology. No Christian I know is actually against contraception. But the religion is.

The breeders comment was a joke. Hence the. It is a joke sometimes used by homosexuals to refer to heterosexuals. Just because homosexuals don't breed, doesn't mean they will stop existing however. The same with atheists.

edited 9th Jul '14 11:53:14 AM by Antiteilchen

@Xopher001: I didn't mean to include religious people as a whole in that, but more conservatives or fundamentalists (who seem to possess disproportionate influence sometimes). My comment should have been more specific though.

edited 14th Jul '14 5:01:09 PM by Fireblood

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

is not much about religions wating to keep things in control, is the idea that men and women need to do some things to kept every as it such be, the problem of the christian god is that it love so much authority that everything nned to be the same....

i told you, he is a mary sue

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

You're right-I've thought for a long time that many gods are people's self-projections.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

You can easily see what a person is like when they tell you how they think God is. Someone telling you God is a strict, punitive and jealous fellow, are often so themselves. Those insisting that God is an all-loving, forgiving and caring one, are like that themselves. [1]

Yep. There's a saying "Belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man" but in reality it seems like the opposite: cruel people believe in (and to our minds, invent) cruel gods.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

yeah but with christianity is the same thing, because god past to be a harsh god to an all loving one, he pretty much order the death of a person because he work in saturday, it make the whole "throw the first stone" a cruel call back

also a lot of people are proyecting the god the need or want, what aspect of god they workship can tell a lot of the person

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

I'd argue that the New Testament god is worse, actually. Sure, the Old Testament god kills a lot of people and orders the death sentence for numerous crimes. He does not, however, pursue them beyond death and inflict eternal torment for everything. In the Old Testament, for instance, adultery and murder are punishable by death. However, in the New Testament Jesus says that even lusting in your heart is adultery, or being angry with someone else is murder. Talk about your thought crime. While it's true in the story of the adulteress Jesus lets her go, I view that as saying "Since none of you is without sin, she cannot be judged." This is a lesson which most people do not think about too hard, it seems to me. If we switched the adulteress out with a murderer, would people still take the lesson seriously? This is one example only. In the New Testament the lesson is that being good is impossible-one verse explicitly states: "For there is no one good-no, not one." (Romans 3:10). Only belief in Jesus and asking forgiveness will save you. This is worse than Old Testament teaching, to my mind, where at last it was theoretically possible to follow the Law (and not to mention no afterlife punishment existed).

edited 19th Jul '14 12:34:10 PM by Fireblood

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick

This isn't exclusive to the New Testament. The 10th commandment says:

As you can see, thoughtcrime was already there in the Old Testament.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.