All, there have been reports of new efforts within states and cities to post 10C displays outside the guidelines of the Supreme Court’s recent rulings. The line has been shifted, and we can be sure will be shifted again, so please check out your local government website and let us know of any new suspicious activity. YOU ARE AN ACTIVIST.
Watching all theist activity in Georgia! Sure is alot of it here. First meeting of the Georgia American Atheists is this weekend. I would like to let this blog know how it went.
James.
GAtheist
I’m pleased to see that I am not the only atheist living in GA, it certainly feels like it at times.
Have you noticed a reduction in the number of jesus fish on the back of cars recently? I seem to see very few since I put the ‘T-Rex eating a fish’ on the back of my car ….. spooky.
Can you share details on the first meeting of the Georgia American Atheists is this weekend? I’d be interested in attending.
I am just becoming active in our local area Sac./San. Fran. Calif. I realized that with the recent court decisions regarding property rights and 10 c’s that the road was being paved. For what I don’t know but if the Indian Nations treatment is any indication then we all need to get active. In most states it’s only necessary for about 5 people to write an amendment, sign it up with the state voters commision (each state is different) and collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot in November. Let’s repeal the laws on eminent domain permanently. The gov’t needs to be prohibited from seizing any property for any reason.
The fear of losing your house can make people do just about anything. Including saying “yes of course I believe” I find it interesting that while science has made such enormous leaps in defining our world Religions have not. For 2,000 years not one new thing has been discovered or written or??? All of those unseen forces are either gone or have been identified as naturally occuring events. There are no ghosts there are no such thing as Psychics and we have been able to do away with Angels and demons also. What we really see is a world in change and the last dying gasp of the predators trying their hardest to drag us all into their competition. I know that sometimes it’s particularly hard to resist but we must, we must begin difining the fights we take on. The more united we become the better we will do. I think that by doing just one thing and doing it well we can make significant changes. In our country and in our lives as well. We need to find ways that restrain a gov’t that is out of control. Repealing the laws of eminent domain would be a big help. One step at a time. Remember Armageddon has been canceled. Jim
I’d like to know more about the Georgia Atheists meeting, too, as I live in Southeast GA. I’m glad that Georgia finally has an Atheist group like this. We need it. In my home county (I don’t live there anymore, thank goodness) one can drive down the main road, most of the way through the county, start counting the churches, and literally lose count. Last time I tried this, I stopped counting at 16, and those are just the visible ones, right beside the road. There were others I knew of but did not count. This is just sad.
Jimmerone, you said something that is very telling, “the fear of losing your home will cause people to believe in anything.”
Fear is an extremely dangerous tool and when weilded adeptly can be used to manipulate great numbers of people in society.
Taking what you are saying a step further, I became an Atheist when it hit me one day that all of the Religions I have encountered seemed to be in response to the human mind’s fear of death. It is the ultimate manifistation of the Survival Instinct, how humans, throughout history, have come to grips with mortality, by granting themselves a sort of immortality (Heaven, Vallhalla, Happy Hunting Ground, etc).
Fear is so powerful…it has caused human beings to believe in an idea that requires the mind to reject rational thought – refusing to believe what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, in order to give themselves life everlasting.
In my opinion, it is that simple.
DannyP123: “Fear is so powerful…it has caused human beings to believe in an idea that requires the mind to reject rational thought – refusing to believe what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, in order to give themselves life everlasting.
In my opinion, it is that simple. “
I agree 100% but no theist will admit that this is true no matter how logical it is. So good luck trying to explain it to them, I’ve given up.
Dannyp123 and RedRob,
For a theist to admit what you are saying would be to give up everything they are clinging to in making their life meaningful. For this reason I don’t hold much high hope in the Q&A thread debate with the 2 or so Christians there. Similarly, I don’t suppose they would move one of us.
I guess the real purpose of a debate is to move the uncommitted person who isn’t either a theist or atheist.
“I guess the real purpose of a debate is to move the uncommitted person who isn’t either a theist or atheist.”
That sounds about right, joelwe, though I’d add a distinction between “hard” and “soft” adherence to a viewpoint. I’d bet that most atheists are hard-core, while most self-professed theists are soft-core — don’t attend religious services, don’t read religious materials, believe in a god because the peer group does. A soft commitment.
I just finished “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” in which Thomas Frank examines why working-class Republicans vote against their economic self-interest, supporting conservative candidates who are ineffective in stopping abortion, homosexuality, atheism and all of that liberal evil. Getting back to the 10 commandments thread, fundamentalist Christian Republicans will support job outsourcing, free trade, right-to-work (anti-union) laws, increased privatization of government services and a host of big business perks, all in the name of voting for the conservative Republican who will harp now and then on “social issues.”
Meanwhile, with just one courthouse and 100 churches in a county, will you ever see a commandment on a church marquee? No — you’ll see “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.”
Hmmm… I seem to be ranting. Sorry!
Are any of the Georgia atheists David Cross fans? He’s got some funny material about growing up in Georgia as an atheist from a Jewish family. “Do y’alls peoples eat pancakes?”
Do any of you have any funny stories about being a southern atheist? I have no concept of what it’s like down there because I’ve lived my whole life in a bubble called Massachusetts. For example, I work at a company where no one in the main office believes in god. It’s pretty comical how long it took us to realize this, because we were all afraid of offending each other by “coming out.” How sad is it that even in a godless hellhole that legalized gay marriage (but ironically has the lowest divorce rate) we’re still paranoid about insulting people by admitting we think their faith is just superstition?
JustinW,
I’m an atheist transplanted into GA about 18 mounths ago from New Zealand by way of San Francisco and Chicago. So I’m not yet in the mode of “y’alls people eating pancakes and boiled peanuts”
The only funny story that comes to mind is how nice it is to drive on deserted streets and shop in deserted stores on Sunday mornings. But be sure to be home by noon or you WILL get stuck in church traffic jams!!
I’d still like any details on the first meeting of the Georgia American Atheists is this weekend if anyone has any sources.
Sunday mornings in the South are great. Most of the stores are closed, but for the few that do stay open, it’s the best time to go. Almost no traffic anywhere, and very few people out. I work at a Wendy’s (for now), and I love Sunday mornings because although we open at 10:00, we often don’t get our first customer until 11:00 or later, and we don’t get busy at all until around 12:00, when the after-church rush starts and all the well-dressed people (who think I’m sinning because I work on Sunday) come in for lunch.
In high school I took a creative writing class. One of my classmates was an Atheist too, but the school year was almost over before we found that out. Southeast GA is not the place to admit one’s Atheism publicly. We stayed in the same class all year, only 3 seats apart, and it wasn’t until he finally got brave enough to read his poem, “Forced Religion” to the class that we found out we had something important in common. Some parts of the South can be very intellectually stifling.
Dagny, I would love to know what the class reaction to that poem was, and do you have a copy of it?
Does anyone know of any Atheists’ groups in Northern Virginia? Especially Bealeton, Virginia?
billh,
Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed that poem, I don’t have a copy of it. It was about the guy’s parents making him go to church. The class reaction was actually mild. Our teacher had trained us to focus not so much on the subject the person chose, but on how well it was presented. We wrote our critiques on paper, avoiding any verbal abuse. I do recall that the next person to volunteer to read was a Christian. She read a poem called _Heaven_, describing what a beautiful place it’s supposed to be. A few of us made note of the contrast, but we were all fellow writers who had signed up for that class voluntarily. We were actually able to respect each other’s views and focus on the writing.
I think i have found my home on this site…Atheists who quote Thomas Frank and David Cross…sign me up!
Mr Show with Bob & Dave is one the most underrated sketch comedy shows of all time. anyone rememner the East Coast vs West Coast Ventriloquist’s Feud? comic genius.
billh – i live in NOVA but i have not heard of a chapter. however, I am a new member of American Atheists, so i havent been looking long. hopefully someone will let us know how to make contact
KS has a school board intent upon eliminating all of cosmology, chemistry and natural selection from the state curriculum. I?d be up in arms (again) but for the fact that our schools are about to remain closed this fall due to an illegal tax funding plan.
The KS Supreme Court mandated that the legislature adopt a Constitutional financing plan. The Religious-wrong in the legislature passed a bill in the extra session that doesn?t fund more than 2/3 of the state school budget and it included a second bill removing court jurisdiction over school funding. Of course that second bill requires a state constitutional amendment, but thems just details?. Ya know?
Rep. Kay O?Connor (R-Olathe) is on record as in favor of the state schools closing ? with vouchers to go to all families with school-age children. The upshot is that O?Connor wants to see ?faith-based? community schools across the state. This is the same lunatic who said that women?s suffrage was an indicator of moral decline in the United States.
Does that count?
a jew judge in penasylvania recently desided there was no religious purpose when a jew organization put the jew 10 commandments in a courtroom – yet the recently christened jew american atheists (i guess to quash us gentiles) and has not said one word about the government promotion of judaism in pensylvania
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