Google excludes churches from its non-for-profits discounts

Naffa · 16 Sep 2011 at 13:32

Vonhelmet said:
LET'S ARGUE ABOUT ATHEISM AND AGNOSTICISM SOME MORE!!!!

Calm down. I agree that it is frustrating when people can't seem to grasp something so painfully simple. But if talking about it upsets you that much, we don't have to.

spudbynight · 16 Sep 2011 at 13:33

Naffa said:
The difference is, atheism isn't a belief system, its the absence of one. So yes, it would be silly.

Well the whole point of the advertising campaign I was responding to was an absence of a belief in God.

Castiel · 16 Sep 2011 at 13:34

Naffa said:
The difference is, atheism isn't a belief system, its the absence of one. So yes, it would be silly.

However, like theism it can form the basis of a belief system, be it religious or political. As illustrated by Stalin et al......

Funny thing philosophical positions, in isolation they are pretty innocuous, however in practice as part of a larger ideology they can be anything but, and that includes Atheism.

Glaucus · 16 Sep 2011 at 13:36

Naffa said:
The difference is, atheism isn't a belief system, its the absence of one. So yes, it would be silly.

But you've already agreed there's different levels of atheism and some are very much based on belief.

Hatter The Mad · 16 Sep 2011 at 15:47

In your face, Castiel. Irrefutable proof:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/t...rmful+than+good+poll+finds/5410599/story.html

Castiel · 16 Sep 2011 at 15:54

Hatter The Mad said:
In your face, Castiel. Irrefutable proof:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/t...rmful+than+good+poll+finds/5410599/story.html

Irrefutable proof of what exactly is open for debate of course. That when you say the word "Religion" in today's political climate people automatically think of Islamist Terrorists maybe?. I wonder what the result would have been if they asked whether their local parishes did more harm than good.....

Castiel · 16 Sep 2011 at 16:06

spudbynight said:
Hmm.....these people believe in God and give money to charity. There are more of them than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet - do I win?

Oh, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Nicolae Ceausecsu and Slobodan Milosovic were all athiests and did bad things. Does that act as any sort of barometer on the worth of athiests in general? No, of course not, that would be silly.

It sort of ignores that the Bill and MELINDA Gates foundation has two patrons, one is a Catholic. In fact Bill Gates is pretty vague on his spirituality, he has never, to my recollection, said he was an atheist, theist, or anything in-between, only commenting that he takes a scientific approach to things in general and that he thinks and I quote:

Frost: Do you believe in the Sermon on the Mount?

Gates: I don't. I'm not somebody who goes to church on a regular basis. The specific elements of Christianity are not something I'm a huge believer in. There's a lot of merit in the moral aspects of religion. I think it can have a very very positive impact.

Frost: I sometimes say to people, do you believe there is a god, or do you know there is a god? And, you'd say you don't know?

Gates: In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.

If anything Bill Gates is an agnostic or simply just values his privacy over the need to validate his beliefs, if he indeed even has any.

He certainly has never professed to being an atheist.

Pate · 16 Sep 2011 at 16:26

The absolute blind anti religious fanatical behavior of some is rather worrying. Surely people must see that such attitudes on either side is what leads to all the nastiness that people in later years shake their heads to?

spudbynight · 16 Sep 2011 at 17:23

Keyser Soze · 16 Sep 2011 at 17:31

spudbynight said:
Hmm.....these people believe in God and give money to charity. There are more of them than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet - do I win?

The picture illustrates that people can be good without god, not that religious people are bad.

spudbynight said:
Oh, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Nicolae Ceausecsu and Slobodan Milosovic were all athiests and did bad things. Does that act as any sort of barometer on the worth of athiests in general? No, of course not, that would be silly.

You are right of course not, but were any of those bad things done in the name of Atheism?, just in the same way that a bad act done by a religious person doesn't "act as any sort of barometer" for religious people, unless those acts were done specifically in the name of/ for religion.

spudbynight · 16 Sep 2011 at 17:34

Keyser Soze said:
The picture illustrates that people can be good without god, not that religious people are bad.

It quite clearly implies that religious people are bad - why the need for the third panel?

Fenris · 16 Sep 2011 at 17:41

spudbynight said:
It quite clearly implies that religious people are bad - why the need for the third panel?

No, it implies religious people CAN be bad and that just because they ARE religious it doesn't mean they are good.

Vonhelmet · 16 Sep 2011 at 17:50

hurfdurf said:
I think its a brilliant step in the right direction and is the start of people noticing that churches do more harm than good, and are at heart, act purely in the name of self interest.

Anecdotal evidence to the max!

Castiel · 16 Sep 2011 at 18:18

Keyser Soze said:
The picture illustrates that people can be good without god, not that religious people are bad.

You are right of course not, but were any of those bad things done in the name of Atheism?, just in the same way that a bad act done by a religious person doesn't "act as any sort of barometer" for religious people, unless those acts were done specifically in the name of/ for religion.

Stalin particularly did some pretty heinous things in the pursuit of an atheist communist state. It was extremely dangerous to be associated with or a member of a religion in the USSR during the 1930's in particular.

Keyser Soze · 16 Sep 2011 at 18:27

Castiel said:
Stalin particularly did some pretty heinous things in the pursuit of an atheist communist state. It was extremely dangerous to be associated with or a member of a religion in the USSR during the 1930's in particular.

You may be right but it seems that was more due to anti-theistic/anti-religious views, rather than disbelief in god.

Castiel · 16 Sep 2011 at 18:44

Keyser Soze said:
You may be right but it seems that was more due to anti-theistic/anti-religious views, rather than disbelief in god.

It was due to the belief that religion was incompatible with communism, and that an atheist state was the only way.

He instituted atheist education programs, anti religion laws, state sponsored persecution of religious believers and so on. The Soviet Union (and not only under Stalin) has a stated aim to replace religion with State Atheism.

Atheism was the official stated doctrine of the Soviet Communist Party and as such the attempted eradication of religion from soviet society was done in the name of Atheism. In much the same way as other acts in history, such as the Spanish Inquisition have been done in the name of Religion.

Each were used as tools to further a particular agenda.