Oh this is too funny, I just had to post this. See the cute children in the ad? You may remember them from a post Zen did about an atheist bus billboard campaign. Well, (as pointed out on Atheism Is Dead) 'the actual children in the ads are the children of one of the UK’s “most devout Christian families” and their father, Brad Mason, “is something of a celebrity within evangelical circles.”'Their Christian father, states -
It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children…Their father is the photographer who takes stock photos and submits them for sale. The blog Atheism Is Dead makes several points about the campaign, some of them being -
Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians. That is quite a compliment. I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.
Richard Dawkins is a supporter of the atheist indoctrination summer camp for children “Camp Quest”. Dawkins’ purpose is not this sham of pure freedom but he envisages “society stepping in,”[2] and standing between you and your children. This is not about intellectual freedom but about indoctrinating children into atheism under the thinly veneered disguise of “science,” “evolution,” or education and freedom as Dawkins has expressed that his dictating to the parents of the world how to raise their children “might lead children to choose no religion at all.”[3] [Dawkins] told a group of children “We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA…It is every living object's sole reason for living.’”[4] And another group of children, “Put your trust in the scientific method, put your faith in scientific method.”[5]So, we're getting to the nub of what the campaign is really all about.
What is wrong with that? For one, to him “science” and “evolution” are synonymous with atheism.
The reason they look happy is because they are too young to have had their minds ripped apart by the loving threat of eternal damnation. Wait untill they grow up a little and have their happy minds poisoned by their God fearing parents.
ReplyDeleteEscapedTheTorment.
So the campaign organisers were unable to tell whether children's parents are Christians or not just by looking at the children? I'm not feeling a great sense of shock at this news...
ReplyDeleteSo, we're getting to the nub of what the campaign is really all about.
Which is, that Dawkins thinks there will be far less religious superstition in the world if people start raising children to respect the scientific method? Well, he's right of course. But that doesn't make his idea any less impractical.
The reason they were happy is they weren't in church that day.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that Richard Dawkins is trying to "respect the scientific method", it's that he sees science as a replacement for faith. They need not be mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed to me when reading 'The Blind Watchmaker' that Dawkins was working very hard to replace one kind of faith with another.
ReplyDeleteYou are really grasping at straws now I.M (or should that be straw-men?)
ReplyDeleteThere is no atheistic movement – it is a figment of your imagination. If you cared to look The Humanists & Rationalists want humans (the name is a bit of a give-away) to sort the worlds problems-out and not rely on Mohammed, Thor, Odin, Tane, Apollo or even your chosen god, Yahweh to magically intervene – so far the record of intervention from any of these thousands of gods has been ‘zip’.
Yet, strangely you only seem to get up-set & indignant when it’s Yahweh or his sons teachings that are under threat?
In your mind it’s only Yahweh that is ‘the good god’ and can ‘teach morals’ to heathens down here on earth and not Odin or Bacchus – right?
'The good church' happens to be yours!
All those thousands of other Gods are just figments of human mental doodlings – except Yahweh and his son.
To enlighten you (in the same way medieval Europe was enlightened) The Humanists & Rationalists actually include in their membership those who follow a faith.
Yes, by in large most Humanists & Rationalists embrace science and prefer fact from fiction – wop de f#@k!
It follows-on using your logic that we all follow ‘Dr Joseph Mengeles Book for Child Raising’ rather than The Old Testament.
I’m sorry if it upsets you that there are people living in your midst, rationalists, that believe in the ridiculous notion espoused by scientists that the world is older than 6,000 years and men/women didn’t come from dust or from ribs.
Have a great day and live it like your last.
Paul.
PS: Like Hitler, Josef Mengele was another product of a Catholic education (sorry, couldn't help myself bringing that one-up)
Paul, what I think you fail to understand is that religion is not the problem, people are. When some-one takes the thought "love one and other" and uses it to justify mass murder, it is they who are corrupt and not the idea.
ReplyDeleteWhat Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Admin, Saddam Hussein, and countless others have shown us in the 20th century is that people will find other reasons than just religion to justify the killing of millions. Removing religion will not be the cure atheists believe.
You also fail to acknowledge the actual point of these posts - humanists (an atheistic organisation) show signs of falling into the same totalitrian and fsacist traps that these contemporaries have fallen into.
And by the way, some humanists also went to Catholic Schools. What's your point? That Catholic values can be ignored by those going to through the schooling system? Well, it seems the humanists have the freedom they want then. Why the continued wingeing?
Do you also want to point out that some evil people were men, so let's breed out the Y chromosome?
Paul - aren't the most civilized countries in the world today the ones with a long Cultural Heritage of Christianity?
ReplyDeleteIn fact the horrors that have occurred over the past 100 years in Europe have occurred when Christianity has been denied by the rulers.
ReplyDeleteso far the record of intervention from any of these thousands of gods has been ‘zip’.
..except for God coming to Earth as Jesus, interacting with His creation and dying for it.
As I said on my last thread, Paul, Hitler was no Christian. Just because someone is brought up and educated in a Christian school doesn't mean they accept and adopt the faith. Hitlers rantings actually sound similar to what your lot might say :)
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death...When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity...Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity....Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity....And that's why someday its structure will collapse....the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little...Christianity the liar...We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State.
And...
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery....
When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease….
You can find many more on the SITE.
Do those sound like the words of a Christian to you? The above quotes, are from Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens, trans., Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941-1944 (Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc. 1953), published in Britain as Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-1944.
Richard Dawkins quotes from the same book in his The God Delusion -
“The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity…
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.
When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunised [sic] against the disease.”[12]
And what conclusion does Dawkins come to? The writer on Atheism Is Dead says Dawkins experiences a rare moment of clarity when he says -
“Or is the resolution of the contradictions simply that [Hitler] was an opportunistic liar whose words cannot be trusted, in either direction?”[14]
The reason they look happy is because they are too young to have had their minds ripped apart by the loving threat of eternal damnation.
ReplyDeleteRubbish. We Christians indoctrinate our children from birth. It comes with baptism and continues from there. Sure, we might tell them that walking out on the road can lead to instant death, and that might scare them slightly, but we advise that if they stay with us and learn how to cross safely, they need not fear being run over by a careless driver.
Now why don't you run along and tell your children to play on a busy road?
Funny, how those people I meet who are most trustworthy and principled seem to be those who have had their minds ripped apart by threats of eternal damnation.
ReplyDeleteJust a side-effect, I guess....
Andrei, to answer your question mate – currently the most atheistic/freedom loving countries in the world are the same-ones that threw-away the dogma, including royal powers, and created ‘new better’ societies built-on an inclusive society – not one which has a school for Catholics on one corner, another for Jews on the next and restrictions on what Muslims can do etc.
ReplyDeleteThat’s the society you and your fellow bloggers advocate – one which separates children based on their parents superstition.
Japan is a prime example – their societal transformation after WW2 can not be put down to a history of Christianity – now can it?
I’ve walked the streets of Tokyo (65% atheist) and Chicago (12% atheist) and guess-which I felt safer?
Sweden & Norway have never been exactly ecumenical hot-beds and with over 80 per cent of the population who now say “there is no god” they are hardly disintegrating into a scene from Sodom and Gomorrah – now are they?
To suggest the current Swedish populous go rushing to their grandparents Bible for moral reference points or pray to your god Yahweh (or one of a couple of other names he comes with) for guidance on morals, what to pick in race 3?, etc is laughable.
It’s time you guys got away from this belief there is some sort of invisible atheist illuminati that’s behind every evil regime in the history of mankind, Christians are some-how inherently better – looking around the world it’s not born out in fact.
It’s straight out of the pages of a Dan Brown paperback – frankly ludicrous.
If Christianity is the answer to the worlds & New Zealand’s woes – go live in a Christian utopia - The United States of America!
There you can be sure to meet a fellow 'trstworthy and principled' Christians 9 out of 10 people you encounter – including the one holding a gun to your head.
Vietnam (90% atheist) and dead-poor has a murder rate 7 times less than the worlds largest Christian nation & one of its richest. I suppose that’s because Vietnam has a history following the teachings of Yahweh’s son as well?
So why are theists wandering this planet (I’ve lumped the followers of Mohammed in that term) so much more violent, on average, than atheists?
Why are atheists, man for man, far more peaceful than theists?
Why aren’t atheists flying planes into buildings crying “Dawkins is Great!”?
The dignity of an explanation would be appreciated.
Peace to all men.
Paul.
Why are atheists, man for man, far more peaceful than theists?
ReplyDeletePaul, as I've posted on another thread, there have been many, many more killed by Atheists than in the name of religion.
Jeff Talon has another very good opinion piece in today's Herald about the bus campaigns. He says (as I have told people before in regard to the "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" sign) that Christians don't 'worry'. In fact, they are very happy people.
is this really the case? One has only to visit any thriving church on a Sunday morning to witness the obvious joy of worship. The bands, singing and hand clapping may not suit everyone's taste but they hardly bring to mind gloom and anxiety.
It is like suggesting that St Francis of Assisi, regarded as the most joyful of all the saints, would have been even happier if he had given up his faith. On the contrary, the happiness he vainly sought as a young man came only when he committed to living with God.
Sadly, some people may have had bad experiences in the church. But statistically believers are found to be healthier, happier and live longer. They also give much more to charity, both of time and money, than non-believers do. At a meeting of atheist scientists two years ago, one speaker conceded that belief in God seems to motivate people to help others.
He referred to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when churches all over the United States sent people, money and supplies to help meet the need. He reflected that as far as he knew no atheist group had responded at all.
But faith in God also has very real corporate and societal outcomes. Juergen Habermas, Professor of Philosophy at Frankfurt and self-described "methodological atheist", wrote in 2004: "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilisation.
"To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is post-modern chatter."
"I’ve walked the streets of Tokyo (65% atheist) and Chicago (12% atheist) and guess-which I felt safer?"
ReplyDeleteWhich has stuff-all to do with religion and everything to do with culture. You could make the same comparison between-say-a small New England town and a Kaitaia..and guess which would be the more violent?
Why, can’t you guys can’t answer a simple question?
ReplyDeleteWhy is your present-day atheists on average more peaceful than your present-day theist?
This isn’t an ascertain it is a fact!
http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings.php
The most peaceful countries on the globe are the most atheistic, ungodly.
This destroys your arguments that Christianity/Religion as a whole is some panacea for goodness as does that beacon of morality - The United States of America (where 9 out of 10 people say they are Christian, 5 in 10 take the Bible literally)
Atheists only share one thing in common – they don’t believe in your god Yahweh any more than you believe in Odin, Apollo, Zeus etc.
We are largely free thinkers, lovers of freedom and we let others make their own minds-up.
Yes, there are bad atheists, like there are bad Christians or bald people.
Atheists don’t publish dogma to say “condoms are bad” and “homosexuality is evil” we make our own minds-up as to their merits.
Atheists don’t say they have a superior moral code that must be adhered to in sufferance to eternal damnation, nor we should subjugate others based on their beliefs.
To suggest atheists got together and planned WW2 and communism is patently fantasy world – a bit like a book that talks about giants and unicorns as being real.
Some stop skirting around the question – why are atheists more peaceful that theists?
Why is the worlds most Christian country the most crime-ridden in the western world?
You guys need to answer the points.
Have a good-one.
Paul.
PS: And kidly stop calling your chosen god by his generic name ‘god’, he goes by about 2 dozen names so at least give him the courtesy of addressing him by one of them.
Oh yeah thanks for agreeing with me KG.
ReplyDeleteHaving a society which believes in manmade respect like in Japan provides the best platform for people to get along.
Not a bible in sight and an education system free of religious dogma.
Just a collective belief to help & respect one-another.
See ya.
Paul.
If you think I was agreeing with you, then you need to get a brain and think about what I wrote, you clown.
ReplyDeletePaul, I answered your question. You seem to ignore the answer.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Why is your present-day atheists on average more peaceful than your present-day theist? They are not. You cannot use broad demographics of a country to indicate this one way or other, there are too many other variables.
Take Tokyo and Chicago, for instance. Very different demographics. And the man on the street in Tokyo identifies commonly with Shinto or Buddhism, or a blend of both. They wouldn't necessarily say they have "no religion", just as many people self identify as Christians, when they are just as likely to never go to church or think much about God in any context.
You bang on about "Christians are not superior", but then try to suggest "atheists" are. You have to work harder to convince me than with sweeping statements, because lack of theism does not indicate lack of immorality or capacity for evil.
We are largely free thinkers, lovers of freedom and we let others make their own minds-up.
ReplyDeleteThat is laughable. The post started with the Dawkinists wanting to remove freedom of religion (something guaranteed in Japan).
Socialists (increasingly atheistic) and Communists are very much down on personal freedom.
The United States, as a leading Christian country is also one of the most generous in terms of charity. Crime can be explained by economic and racial factors more than any attribution of religion.
As far as atheism and being peaceful goes - if it was late at night and you were passing a group of youths on the street would you feel safer if you knew they had just come from Bible Study group?
ReplyDeleteI bet you would.
Why is the worlds most Christian country the most crime-ridden in the western world
ReplyDeleteI would say because they are drifting away from the Christian religion in which the country was founded - they aren't adhering to Christian principles any more. When you have un-Christian movements come in like abortion, legalized prostitution, homosexuality and gay marriage and promote a culture that glorifies violence in TV, movies, and video games - a culture where God is forbidden in schools, where teachers aren't allowed to discipline kids (and neither are parents) - where sex is free and promiscuity is encouraged - that is what happens.
The culture is the way it is because Christian morals and principles have been given the back seat and the atheist mantra of 'do whatever you like if it feels good' has taken it's place.
"Why is the worlds most Christian country the most crime-ridden in the western world"
ReplyDeleteFactor in certain demographic influences, remove those from the figures and in fact the U.S. is an astonishingly law-abiding country.
In other words, crime figures are driven much, much higher by black and Hispanic crimes, as the FBI's yearly crime statistics survey shows.
To reduce the whole question of crime to religion/no religion is idiotic.
(in fact, the U.S. is probably not "the most crime-ridden in the Western world" in any case)
I felt a damn sight safer in New York than in Auckland--because I was.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matthew 18:6-7)
ReplyDelete