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 Local column on faith, by a 'new born' atheist
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Randy
SFN Regular

USA
1990 Posts

Posted - 01/06/2007 :  10:34:04  Show Profile Send Randy a Private Message
http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/faith/01/06/6words.html
Some time ago, the local Austin American Statesman newspaper started a 'faith' column in their Saturday edition. Low and behold, today they ran a column written by an atheist. If only this could run in every paper.
Hopefully the link will open without signing up.

H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 01/06/2007 :  13:07:29   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message
And another one wakes up the from the Matrix...


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 01/06/2007 :  22:32:59   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message
Nicely written, well-reasoned, and non-confrontational. This well-educated fellow has come to his disbelief through good, old-fashioned thinking.


Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular

Canada
510 Posts

Posted - 01/06/2007 :  23:46:29   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Ghost_Skeptic a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner

Nicely written, well-reasoned, and non-confrontational. This well-educated fellow has come to his disbelief through good, old-fashioned thinking.


I wonder if GK Paul will ever follow than link??
I wonder if he will ever realize how many of the SFN regulars have come to their disbelief by the same route.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King

History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms

"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler

"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 01/07/2007 :  01:16:45   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
quote:
I wonder if he will ever realize how many of the SFN regulars have come to their disbelief by the same route.


I was born this way.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 01/07/2007 :  03:47:11   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
Psshhh, here in ol' Brazil we've had atheist columns in a newspaper for a long time. There was a time one popular newspaper from Rio de Janeiro had a column by an atheist sitting right next to one by a mystic. The atheist's was highly popular, if only to be attacked.

Now, one online magazine from Rio Grande do Sul runs a column by an atheist who is constantly attacked - he is far more aggressive than that guy, but he's also very learned in matters of the Church.

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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GeeMack
SFN Regular

USA
1093 Posts

Posted - 01/07/2007 :  06:27:46   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send GeeMack a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ghost_Skeptic...

I wonder if GK Paul will ever follow than link??
I wonder if he will ever realize how many of the SFN regulars have come to their disbelief by the same route.
Unlikely GK Paul would be fazed even if he did. Many of us realize that atheism, even though it is a sort of default condition into which we're born, is a move ahead, a transcendence, a graduation up and out of that religious mode many/most of us acquire through our cultural inheritance. GK Paul actively strives for a decrease in his awareness. He considers his lack of knowledge to be some sort of evidence to support his superstition, so he pursues his own ignorance with a vigor. Sadly, at least until (if ever) he grows up and gets the guts to face reality, he will likely continue to flounder in his ignorance, regardless of the examples of rational thinking that might be made available to him.
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moakley
SFN Regular

USA
1888 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  06:12:36   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send moakley a Private Message
quote:
When I realized that this life was all I had, I determined to make it worth living.

For me, this one sentence says it all. How simple, and at the same time profound, the meaning of life that it is not just a dress rehearsal for eternity.

Life is good

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard

USA
3739 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  10:03:52   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit marfknox's Homepage  Send marfknox an AOL message Send marfknox a Private Message
Great column. Thanks for posting.

Randy wrote:
quote:
Some time ago, the local Austin American Statesman newspaper started a 'faith' column in their Saturday edition. Low and behold, today they ran a column written by an atheist. If only this could run in every paper.
Camp Quest - a camp for atheist, agnostic, and Humanist kids - has been written about several times, stories picked up by the AP and re-printed in "Religion and Faith" sections of newspapers all over the USA. There are other stories about the secular perspective from time to time in major newspapers and on cable news networks. And the most popular episode of the NPR segment "This I Believe" was "There is No God" by Penn Jillette: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557

"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong

Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com

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Randy
SFN Regular

USA
1990 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  12:08:53   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Randy a Private Message
Yep, I remember hearing Jillette's on This I Believe. Think I posted the link here about it back then. To me, it's always good to hear a secular voice (how little it happens) come through the xtian drone from the media. Wish there was more of it.

"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."

"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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tomk80
SFN Regular

Netherlands
1278 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  13:52:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit tomk80's Homepage Send tomk80 a Private Message
I loved that essay by Penn. It made me look up essays written by Teller. Man, that guy also is a great writer.

Tom

`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll-
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Neurosis
SFN Regular

USA
675 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  15:25:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Neurosis an AOL message Send Neurosis a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by tomk80

I loved that essay by Penn. It made me look up essays written by Teller. Man, that guy also is a great writer.



Not as good as an orator though.

I agree with a statement Half made in another post. "We are entering a Golden Age of atheism." If we continue to follow suit and march unashamed ahead, perhaps atheism will finally loose its stigma and will at least be seen as an equally acceptable position unrelated to moral ambiguity or worse yet, absence of morals altogether. I would like to post a link here (file will download immediately) to a podcast, The Non-Prophets, supported by The Atheist Community of Austin. At the end at (minutes 83:23 till 88:00) there is a letter containing an essay (and the surrounding anecdote) that I think most atheist should hear and will enjoy.

Edited to add:

Certain computer settings will not allow the immediate download. In such a case, the show can be found here it is show number 6.1.

Facts! Pssh, you can prove anything even remotely true with facts.
- Homer Simpson

[God] is an infinite nothing from nowhere with less power over our universe than the secretary of agriculture.
- Prof. Frink

Lisa: Yes, but wouldn't you rather know the truth than to delude yourself for happiness?
Marge: Well... um.... [goes outside to jump on tampoline with Homer.]
Edited by - Neurosis on 01/16/2007 15:38:16
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Randy
SFN Regular

USA
1990 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  17:51:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Randy a Private Message
Interesting you bring up the Austin Atheist Community Neurosis (which I'm am a lapsed member of)....they've been running their own television program Sunday afternoons for years on a local access cable channel called "The Atheist Experience". I've watched it for years; nice way to cap-off the week/start the new week. Imagine that...a TV program by and for Atheists!, at least here in the Austin Texas area.
Why I'm bringing this up is ACA has begun again to video stream a few of the programs on the internet....
http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive/index.php?full=0
Most recent TV shows are on DVD to buy. Or, you can simply stream the audio portion...listen to it while you clean house, wash your cat, etc.

"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."

"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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