First of all, I need to say that if you are going to reference a study, an article, etc. in a post, you need give a link. Stop making me do your research.
Secondly, can we please give the "atheists are immoral and dangerous" meme a rest? Please? Atheists act just like everyone else. To be fair, we're better at marriage (the more fundy you are, the more likely you are to get divorced), but there appears to be little real life relationship between believing a thing is wrong and actually not doing it. (See: The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion.)
Makarios pulls out and dusts off this meme, yet again, in his post Atheist Richard Dawkins. (I don't know why he feels a need to put the word "atheist" in front of "Richard Dawkins". It's sort of like saying "Catholic Pope".)
Preaches the atheistic anti-life dogma i can't decide if he means that atheists tend to be prochoice, or that we're just against life in general. either way, stoopid. that works AGAINST natural selection natural selection has nothing to do with birth control. i don't know much about the subject, but i would think that birth control and fertility medicine are skewing our results a bit. by causing in atheists an aversion to reproducing their genes atheists are in no way averse to reproducing. most atheists i know, like most people i know, have children. what a strange world Makarios lives in. (out of three marriages Dawkins could only stomach the creation of one child that's just rude. first of all, his wives would have had the final say in whether or not they got pregnant. secondly, we don't know if his wives were infertile, or if dawkins has fertility issues. makarios could well be mocking some poor woman who desperately wants to have children and can't. lastly, in the end, whether or not to have children is a personal choice. i choose no, you choose yes. good for both of us.), and/or killing their offspring by the millions every year. wft?! anyone seen those news reports? seriously, what. the. fuck.
The Barna Research Group found regarding atheism and the morality that those who hold to the world views of atheism or agnosticism in America were more likely, than theists in America, to look upon the following behaviours as morally acceptable: (as I said, there is a huge difference between finding something to be immoral and actually not doing it, but let's play along)
no, wait, let's not. I found the study Makarios helpfully didn't bother to provide a link to. It's from 2003 and it is not what Makarios represents it to be.
More than four out of five adults - 83% - contend that they are concerned about the moral condition of the nation. Given that 84% of all adults consider themselves to be Christian, they have good reason to worry about the moral state of the country: many of [Christians'] views conflict with the moral teachings of their professed faith.
wait, that's not atheists or agnostics. that's christians. i assume Makarios is engaging in a No True Scotsman here, but he's misrepresenting the study. the participants in the study were not atheists and agnostics- they were christians.
and this is how christians felt about a variety of issues in 2003:
illegal drug use; 17% of those interviewed felt that was acceptable. hardly a majority.
excessive drinking; holy ambiguous, batman. 35% were in favor of "drunkenness".
sexual relationships outside of marriage; 42% were okay with this, though with the caveat that the relationship is hetero.
abortion; 45% in favor of.
cohabiting with someone of opposite sex outside of marriage; 60% were fine with it
obscene language; 36%. more people were okay with abortion and adultery than with saying "fuck"? seriously?
gambling; 61% in favor of. I wonder if they reminded people that the lottery is a form of gambling. as is bingo.
pornography 38%. abortion and adultery yes, porn no? where did they find these people? and obscene sexual behaviour wtf is that?;
and engaging in homosexuality and bisexuality 30% weren't bothered by Teh Gai at all.
the rest of the post is some quotes from dead philosophers that I guarantee Makarios does not understand, but that was fun. It's nice to know what christians are really all about.
Regarding gambling, I'd also like to point out that these Christians opposed to gambling should read the bible and see Acts 123:26, where these choose Matthias to replace Judas. How do they choose him? By drawing lots.
ReplyDeleteAnd regarding obscenities, the Bible's just dripping with them.
Lying for teh Jebus, I hear it is all the rage these days.
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly certain god had something to say about lying. and why did they replace Judas? is 12 the magic number? doesn't the bible have something to say about numerology?
ReplyDeleteThere are some very important numbers to Judaism. 12 is one of them, it represents the 12 sons and tribes of Israel, it is also the number of fulfillment. 3 is the number of God and 7 the number of completion. That is why often you see God saying things 3 times, so as to prove it is him.
ReplyDeleteThose are the big 3 numbers, but there are others such as 40, thus rain for 40 days and nights, wandering the desert for 40 years, etc. Numerology is well entrenched in the old Jewish culture.
You need twelve apostles; one to represent each tribe os Israel.
ReplyDeleteSo, were the 12 apostles actual representatives of the 12 tribes (one from each), or is a symbolic thing?
ReplyDeleteIt was a symbolic thing. It was fulfillment, just like the number 144,000 in Revelations 7:1-8. 144,000 = 12 * 12000
ReplyDelete7 is also the number of perfection, because God made the world in 7 days and it was perfect. That is why you see people say that 777 is the number of the perfect God (3 and 7 together).
This is also how you get a number like 666 to be evil. First off there is a numerology thing that Israelites would do that would convert a name into numbers. The translation for the mark of the beast is not as straight forward as Christians would like you to think. The number could be 616 or 666. Either way Nero can be converted to either number, depending which name of his you use. 666 was settled on because it was 1 less than 7 and thus imperfect. So 666 represents an imperfect God or fallen God as the imperfection is repeated 3 times.
Jewish numerology is very interesting, but it also explains why certain numbers are repeated so often in the Bible.
To add this is why it is so important that Jesus rose on the third day. 3 again to show divinity.
ReplyDeleteoh, that's right, hebrew uses the same symbols for numbers and letters. tends to make for a deep interest numerology.
ReplyDeleteMy religion teaches that 69 is sacred.
ReplyDeleteI see you are familiar with Makarios. I wrote one blog post entirely about him a while ago. Interesting character.
ReplyDelete...
ReplyDeletewhat reall bugs me is that most pagans (at least, that i know) ALSO go for 3s. also, 4, 5, and 7s...
its a thing. and, except for 4s, they are primes...
and no, i don't fully understand either. being an HP just means i have to talk more. (and print. heh)
working on it :)
Interesting blog. I like to read honest assessments from honest people, though my viewpoint may not be the same as yours. God Bless!
ReplyDeletewhy thank you, pastor.
ReplyDeletemark: oddly, i have managed to get through 33 years without killing, stealing, raping or committing adultery. how could i ever have managed that?
To add this is why it is so important that Jesus rose on the third day.Even though he, y'know, didn't, what with that Friday PM - Sunday AM thing. Just about the only way that works out to "the third day," is if you assume he died before sunset on Friday, went through the whole Sabbath thing from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, then go with Sunday and count Friday as one of the days.
ReplyDeleteOf course that's two days by my count. Depending on when sunset was and when Jesus actually woke up it could be as little as 46 hours. But it had to be three days to match up with Jonah and, as you said, the all-important number three. Of course the matching things up with Jonah was one of those, "This thing the Bible says happened was actually a prophesy about this thing the writer of the book couldn't possibly have known," retcons...
That is why often you see God saying things 3 times, so as to prove it is him. Three is also a big thing in storytelling. The hero generally fails twice and succeeds on the third time or faces three trials or solves three puzzles or whatever. I think there's just a narrative harmony in the number three and we've tended to take that and add teleological explanations to it.