Don't dictate beliefs

[The serpent was right]

derek4 wrote:

Just re-posting a favorite:
North Texas Church of Free Thought
“Whatever you don't believe, you're not alone”
“The North Texas Church of Freethought is a Fellowship of Unbelievers. We do what all the other churches do, but with one less god. Our aim is to offer atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and freethinkers all the educational, inspirational, and social and emotional benefits of traditional faith-based churches. We do this by preaching Freethought, a rational approach to religious questions of life, love, meaning, and happiness. Our growing community of freethinkers provides a positive, affirming environment for leading a good life, free of the illogic and intolerance of other religions based on holy books and supernaturalism.
Historian David Fitzgerald, author of Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All, will be visiting the DFW area later this week. He will speak at SMU this Wednesday night October 10 at the Umpherey Lee building room 241 at 7 pm ($5 donation suggested), Thursday night October 11 at UTA's Bluebonnet Ballroom at 6 pm ($10 for nonstudents), and on Friday October 12 at UTD's Clark Center at 6 pm.”
http://www.churchoffreethought.org/

Let me guess...
You aren't smart enough to figure that out are you?

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

You are a tribute to uneducated theists everywhere!!! LOL!!!

[The serpent was right]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Thank you for your help Hedonist. I realize how eager you always are to enlighten others.
Check the two "re-posts" that will appear after your post about some atheist churches, and see if they are "satire", lol.
Hint: I don't think so.
You might want to go back to your 40 year old theology courses and take it up again, comparing it to today's theology. Maybe you can evaluate the fine atheist churches springing up in today's world.

I almost thought you were coming to understand why everyone sees you as the clown act that you are when you posted... "I don't think" Too bad you put the word "so" after it. You almmost got one right.

[The serpent was right]

derek4 wrote:

Just a final thought to inspire you for the day:
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony
Ms Anthony's quote was posted on Atheist Empire, here:
http://atheistempire.com/greatminds/greatest....
To repeat Ms Anthony:“... always coincides with their own desires”?
Does she mean like Jonah, in the Bible, lol?
“Jonah was commissioned by God to go to Nineveh to preach and teach there, and to bring the people of that city to the Lord. We might tend to think Jonah should be able to go wherever he wanted to go, but that is not a principle taught in the Bible. Jonah decided to go in a direction completely opposite the direction the Lord wanted him to go. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he knew the people in that city were very cruel. Jonah feared that if they didn’t accept the message God had for them they might persecute or even kill him. We can understand why he wouldn’t want to go there!”
http://drewhaninger.com/jonah-in-the-bible/
[Well, bless her heart - Ms Anthony should have studied her Bible more. The Bible clearly tells in Jonah, chapters 1-3 how Jonah's desires were in direct conflict with what God wanted him to do, lol]

Jonah????
Really??? The guy who supposedly lived in the digestive tract of a fish for three days and survived????

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Big breath.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Did you know that Paul Bunyan made the grand canyon by dragging his ax behind him?? LOL!!!!!

See, I know some fairy tales/myths just like you do. Of course the main difference is that I am smart enough to know that they are just make-believe. ROTFLMAO!!!!!

Man, your stupidity cracks me up!!! When you grow up, you'll understand.

[The serpent was right]

KJV wrote:

<quoted text>
"Atheist means without theism."
Wrong!! Unreal that you don't know this.
Merriam-Webster
athe·ist\ˈ�-thē-ist\
noun
: one who believes that there is no deity

Wrong.
The breakdown of the word means without theism.

[The serpent was right]

KJV wrote:

<quoted text>
athe·ist\ˈ�-thē-ist\
noun
: one who believes that there is no deity
BELIEVES!
Oh and this is not my definition this is straight out of Merriam-Webster.
An English Dictionary.
So if you use the English word atheist this is what you're saying. Too bad if you don't like it but that's the meaning of the word.

From dictionary.com :

a·the·ist&#8194; &#8194;/&#712;e&#6 18;&#952;i&#618;st/ Show Spelled[ey-thee-ist] Show IPA
noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

They go farther in listing it's origins....
Origin:
1565–75; < Greek áthe ( os ) godless +-ist

An interesting note. Websters 1942 dictionary listed the definition of atheist as:

Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1942.

atheism [Gr. atheos, an atheist — a, priv. and theos, God] The disbelief of the existence of a God or Supreme intelligent Being.

Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1943.

atheism [Gr. atheos, a, priv. and theos, God] The disbelief of the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being.

Webster's Unabridged Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1957

atheism: Disbelief in the existence of God; the state of godlessness. Atheism: unbelief in or denial of God or any supernaturalism; to ancient Greek it meant denial and lack of recognition of state gods. In 18th cent. it was a protest against religious hypocrisy; in 19th cent. it was any system not recognizing the idea of a personal Creator or any one supreme being. It sees marter, not spirit, as sole universal principle; its history one of opposition. Term often loosely used in referring to agnostics who neither deny nor admit the existence of God, or in regard to others who disagree with current theological doctrine.

Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictgionary, 1980

atheist: one who denies or disbelieves in the existence of God.

Websters became a subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. in 1964.

[The serpent was right]

KJV wrote:

<quoted text>
So this is why you claim higher percentages of atheist then are really there. You just claim Theist are Atheist that'll bring up your numbers.
Atheist lying cheats.

Please list your source that contradicts his assertion.

[derek4]

Khatru wrote:

<quoted text>
What's your problem?
You do realise that you're an atheist, don't you?

Khatru, unfortunately, I don't have the faith it takes to be an atheist, and I don't want to spend eternity in hell with you and your atheist brothers and sisters who have devoted your lives to your atheistic religion, lol.

[derek4]

KJV wrote:

<quoted text>
"How's that list of atheist names coming?"
How's this?
KittenKoder
The serpent was right
Hedonist
Reason Personified
Kong
Just Think
Khatru
Givemeliberty
NightSerf
Aerobatty
The laughing atheist
Double Fine
The Dude
Skippy
MikeF
Madscot
MrDesoto1
scaritual
It aint necessarily so

LMAO!!!

You did a great job, it just took more time typing your list than I felt the little troll was worth.

[derek4]

The serpent was right wrote:

<quoted text>
You'll have to forgive me if I don't take the pathetic judgements of a troll seriously.

Thanks for admitting you're a troll and that you don't take yourself seriously. No one else does either, lol.

[derek4]

The serpent was right wrote:

<quoted text>
Of course I was refering to the name they gave themselves. And unfortunatly, I forgot that you have the mentality of a five year old, and have to have things like that explained to you. Looks like you failed again. Nothing new there. LOL!!
This is why I refer to you as Wimp-Lo.

Like I've told you before, you're ignorant and uninformed. You don't take the time to even know what your own brothers and sisters are doing, or anything about their religion. Here is some more information for you on The Calgary Secular church, which was founded by an atheist, for atheists:

The Calgary Secular Church

Editor's Note: Please welcome Korey Peters, who's written a guest post about an atheist organization he's founded that he's calling the Calgary Secular Church. In this post, he'll explain what motivated him to do it and what he's hoping to achieve.

My name is Korey Peters, and I'm one of the founding members of the Calgary Secular Church (CSC). In this article, I'd like to do three things: 1. Describe why I think a secular church is important. 2. Describe what the CSC is about. 3. Present my opening remarks from our inaugural meeting (which go in-depth into what we hope to accomplish). There will be some overlap, although I've tried to keep it to a minimum. I'll be happy to field questions in the comment section.

In the process of de-converting from fundamentalist Christianity, I stopped going to church. I had no intention of ever going back. However, I once rashly promised my wife that if we ever moved to the UK, I would sing in a choir with her. Well, much to my surprise, we did this in 2006. Within a week of landing my wife reminded me of my promise, so off we went to find an Anglican church with a good choir.

And find one we did. We were quickly integrated into the most lovely group of people you'd ever want to meet. The music was wonderful, the services light on insanity and heavy on social issues, the ale English (as it should be). That choir became our instant community for the 2 years we lived in England, and to this day I miss them all.

I'd never had such an enjoyable time at church! When we returned home, we began attending a local Anglican church and singing in the choir there. Here I was, a recent atheist now attending church more than I had when I was a Christian.

All of this got me thinking: Why couldn't atheists start a church, full of all the good things that church can bring, but absent the horror, ignorance, and superstition? I began to talk the idea over with some friends, but it remained an abstraction.

Several weeks ago I had a conversation with a co-worker that spurred me to finally take action. His wife was recently pregnant, and they discussed the many changes in their lives that a baby would bring. One change that was proposed was going back to church so that their child would learn right and wrong. I almost spit my coffee across the room. What a preposterous idea! Here were two college-educated, non-religious people who had just proposed taking their child into the church to learn the very thing Christian churches are least capable of teaching. The realization hit home that they have nowhere else to take their child. There were no viable alternative. No place that fostered community, that was safe to take children and young families to, that would help people live right and teach their children to live right.

They needed the atheist church I had been planning.

continued:
http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/the-calg...

“... an atheist organization he's founded that he's calling the Calgary Secular Church”

“They needed the atheist church I had been planning.”

[derek4]

The serpent was right wrote:

<quoted text>
Let me guess...
You aren't smart enough to figure that out are you?
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
You are a tribute to uneducated theists everywhere!!! LOL!!!

Serpy, if you don't like their atheist church and their atheist religion, you need to contact them and tell them to “go to hell”, lmao!!!

You take your own brother and sister atheists as “jokes”, huh? Let's post it again fer 'ya, since you seem to be missing something, as you always do.

Here we go:

North Texas Church of Free Thought

“Whatever you don't believe, you're not alone”

“The North Texas Church of Freethought is a Fellowship of Unbelievers. We do what all the other churches do, but with one less god. Our aim is to offer atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and freethinkers all the educational, inspirational, and social and emotional benefits of traditional faith-based churches. We do this by preaching Freethought, a rational approach to religious questions of life, love, meaning, and happiness. Our growing community of freethinkers provides a positive, affirming environment for leading a good life, free of the illogic and intolerance of other religions based on holy books and supernaturalism.

Historian David Fitzgerald, author of Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All, will be visiting the DFW area later this week. He will speak at SMU this Wednesday night October 10 at the Umpherey Lee building room 241 at 7 pm ($5 donation suggested), Thursday night October 11 at UTA's Bluebonnet Ballroom at 6 pm ($10 for nonstudents), and on Friday October 12 at UTD's Clark Center at 6 pm.”
http://www.churchoffreethought.org/

[The serpent was right]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Khatru, unfortunately, I don't have the faith it takes to be an atheist, and I don't want to spend eternity in hell with you and your atheist brothers and sisters who have devoted your lives to your atheistic religion, lol.

Wimp Lo, you don't have the brains to be an atheist, or the balls. You will spend eternity in the grave, just like everyone else. There is no reward waiting. that's just a silly story you were told so you don't wet yourset with fear. When it's over, it's over. You have zero proof that your silly god myth is real, and that obviously, really pisses you off. And that's so frickin' funny, I can't hardly stand it. When I read your pathetic posts, all I see is an underachiever, and a coward who isn't smart enough to figure out the truth, and isn't brave enough to question the stupidity of his/her goffy religion. Sucks to be you loser. LOL!!!! Keep praying to the myth!!! lmao!!!

[The serpent was right]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Thanks for admitting you're a troll and that you don't take yourself seriously. No one else does either, lol.

Oh look, the poor illiterate troll has no reading comprehension skills either!! What a surprise!!

[derek4]

The serpent was right wrote:

<quoted text>
Wimp Lo, you don't have the brains to be an atheist, or the balls. You will spend eternity in the grave, just like everyone else. There is no reward waiting. that's just a silly story you were told so you don't wet yourset with fear. When it's over, it's over. You have zero proof that your silly god myth is real, and that obviously, really pisses you off. And that's so frickin' funny, I can't hardly stand it. When I read your pathetic posts, all I see is an underachiever, and a coward who isn't smart enough to figure out the truth, and isn't brave enough to question the stupidity of his/her goffy religion. Sucks to be you loser. LOL!!!! Keep praying to the myth!!! lmao!!!

Love to see you rant.

Keep getting mad, lol - keep getting that blood pressure up....

You go, tiger! LMAO

Have I ever told you that you're my favorite moron?

Thanks for coming back to the forum, lol.

[The serpent was right]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Like I've told you before, you're ignorant and uninformed. You don't take the time to even know what your own brothers and sisters are doing, or anything about their religion. Here is some more information for you on The Calgary Secular church, which was founded by an atheist, for atheists:
The Calgary Secular Church
Editor's Note: Please welcome Korey Peters, who's written a guest post about an atheist organization he's founded that he's calling the Calgary Secular Church. In this post, he'll explain what motivated him to do it and what he's hoping to achieve.
My name is Korey Peters, and I'm one of the founding members of the Calgary Secular Church (CSC). In this article, I'd like to do three things: 1. Describe why I think a secular church is important. 2. Describe what the CSC is about. 3. Present my opening remarks from our inaugural meeting (which go in-depth into what we hope to accomplish). There will be some overlap, although I've tried to keep it to a minimum. I'll be happy to field questions in the comment section.
In the process of de-converting from fundamentalist Christianity, I stopped going to church. I had no intention of ever going back. However, I once rashly promised my wife that if we ever moved to the UK, I would sing in a choir with her. Well, much to my surprise, we did this in 2006. Within a week of landing my wife reminded me of my promise, so off we went to find an Anglican church with a good choir.
And find one we did. We were quickly integrated into the most lovely group of people you'd ever want to meet. The music was wonderful, the services light on insanity and heavy on social issues, the ale English (as it should be). That choir became our instant community for the 2 years we lived in England, and to this day I miss them all.
I'd never had such an enjoyable time at church! When we returned home, we began attending a local Anglican church and singing in the choir there. Here I was, a recent atheist now attending church more than I had when I was a Christian.
All of this got me thinking: Why couldn't atheists start a church, full of all the good things that church can bring, but absent the horror, ignorance, and superstition? I began to talk the idea over with some friends, but it remained an abstraction.
Several weeks ago I had a conversation with a co-worker that spurred me to finally take action. His wife was recently pregnant, and they discussed the many changes in their lives that a baby would bring. One change that was proposed was going back to church so that their child would learn right and wrong. I almost spit my coffee across the room. What a preposterous idea! Here were two college-educated, non-religious people who had just proposed taking their child into the church to learn the very thing Christian churches are least capable of teaching. The realization hit home that they have nowhere else to take their child. There were no viable alternative. No place that fostered community, that was safe to take children and young families to, that would help people live right and teach their children to live right.
They needed the atheist church I had been planning.
continued:
http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/the-calg...
“... an atheist organization he's founded that he's calling the Calgary Secular Church”
“They needed the atheist church I had been planning.”

And like I told you before, the ignorant judgements of a little troll like you (I had to add that "like you" because you haven't the reading skills to process what that means like an educated person), mean nothing to me.

As for the atheism church crap, that's been explained to you before. The fact that you can't understand is no surprise to anyone.

Poor Wimp-Lo, still doesn't get it.

[derek4]

The serpent was right wrote:

<quoted text>
Oh look, the poor illiterate troll has no reading comprehension skills either!! What a surprise!!

LOL - now you're admitting you have no reading skills!!!

You just are being too honest today, Serpy!

[The serpent was right]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Serpy, if you don't like their atheist church and their atheist religion, you need to contact them and tell them to “go to hell”, lmao!!!
You take your own brother and sister atheists as “jokes”, huh? Let's post it again fer 'ya, since you seem to be missing something, as you always do.
Here we go:
North Texas Church of Free Thought
“Whatever you don't believe, you're not alone”
“The North Texas Church of Freethought is a Fellowship of Unbelievers. We do what all the other churches do, but with one less god. Our aim is to offer atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and freethinkers all the educational, inspirational, and social and emotional benefits of traditional faith-based churches. We do this by preaching Freethought, a rational approach to religious questions of life, love, meaning, and happiness. Our growing community of freethinkers provides a positive, affirming environment for leading a good life, free of the illogic and intolerance of other religions based on holy books and supernaturalism.
Historian David Fitzgerald, author of Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All, will be visiting the DFW area later this week. He will speak at SMU this Wednesday night October 10 at the Umpherey Lee building room 241 at 7 pm ($5 donation suggested), Thursday night October 11 at UTA's Bluebonnet Ballroom at 6 pm ($10 for nonstudents), and on Friday October 12 at UTD's Clark Center at 6 pm.”
http://www.churchoffreethought.org/

Poor Wimp-Lo, he still can't get it.

[derek4]

The serpent was right wrote:

<quoted text>
Poor Wimp-Lo, he still can't get it.

Just keep talking to yourself, it becomes you so, Serpy. LMAO

[derek4]

The serpent was right wrote:

<quoted text>
As for the atheism church crap, that's been explained to you before.

Serpy, I know it was explained - and you tried to discredit your own atheist brothers and sisters with your bad information - that's why I corrected you, lol.

I will correct you every time you're wrong, until I decide to stop or disregard you becuase you're not worth my time, lol.

[derek4]

“Why I left atheism and people like you”

“Let me first start off by saying that I have no desire to be part of this group. I'm simply posting this to state something important.
Reading the posts that you people put here every day has reminded me of why I left atheism.
Let me put it to you simply: you're bullies. You people enjoy ridiculing, and accusing anyone of having faith or belief delusional. Let me give you ll a reality check. A true atheist does not bully, or call people who have beliefs names. A true atheist, which you people are not, shows respect to those who have faith or dogma. They can disagree, but to attack them just shows how vile you people are as human beings. As a psychology major, let me give you some words of advice: attacking believers the way you do just shows that you yourselves are uncomfortable of your beliefs. You attack people who believe because deep down, you have a little belief, but don't want to admit it. That's probably the same for the people the people that you look up to (i.e. Sam Harris).
Let me give you a few points:
-None of you have proven that God doesn't exist. You may have been successful in finding major flaws in the God of faith, but none of you, no matter how much you say it, has pr oven that God does not exist.

continued:

-The "Four Horsemen," or the four most notorious atheists in the world, have not proven that God does not exist. The only thing they have succeeded in doing is proving how corrupt religion. You can choir about them all you like, but they have no evidence that their is no God.

-Atheists need faith. You can deny that fact all you like (God, I sound like you people now), but it's true. You need faith that science will find all of the answers.

-Science does not have all of the answers, and has, believe it or not, not been able to prove a lot things. I have heard scientists ADMIT that they have seen things that they were never able to define.

continued:

-The bible, or the babble as you people like to put it, is not a bad book. I have see the bible give countless amounts of joy and comfort to people, especially in time of death.

-There is no evidence that the soul does not exist. Again, science has not yet found all of the answers. Science still has not yet figured out all of the mysteries regarding the human brain.

-Dawkins, who I greatly respect for his intelligence (I am planning on reading The Selfish Gene), has not proven that their no God. In fact, I have heard Dawkins many times say that the question of the EXISTENCE of a God is a scientific question (relating back to what I said before about there being no evidence of God having any connection to religion).Oh, I do believe in evolution by the way.

continued:

-Putting all of your hope in science is a very blind thing to do. Having spiritually in your life is a healthy and great thing to have. Believing in the unknown and the supernatural makes life more exciting and interesting.

I left atheism for the simple reason that I was tired of being around people who were so closed minded. You say that theists are closed minded, but when I really look at the big picture I feel that atheists, especially strong ones (which I imagine that most of you are) fall under the same category.

I'm happy I had the ability to do what Flew did, and do a 360 on my beliefs. Now that I left atheism, I finally realize just how miserable I was.
I don't care what you people think of me. You can call me a moron, delusional, or idiot all you want. Enjoy the rest of your lives. Hopefully, you take what I've said into consideration. P.S. Please delete my account. I have no desire knowing I'm connected to this site in anyway."
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/17644

[Be sure to check all the answers he got from the little boogers; they're a hoot, and their hostility proved all of his points, lol.]