John Lennon - The Beatles
Countless times I have been told by religious people (friends included) that I have no moral structure, don’t know love, don’t have a purpose, and more. The absolute worst is when a religious friend makes a remark that is condescending when they don’t even realize what just came out of their mouth. There have been times where a religious female friend of mine finds out I’m dating a new woman and I get an unintentional passive-aggressive grilling as to how I’m treating said woman I’m dating. It’s almost like my religious friends are assuming that because I don’t believe in their religion, I lack the care and integrity of others, including the people of whom I’m dating. This stuff comes out of the mouths of friends of 4+ years, and it still astonishes me. It makes me question why I’m friends with them (or why they’re friends with me)… but then I realize that without that delusion, they are great people and fun to be around.
“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as Patriots. This is one nation under God”.
- George Bush
Ricky Gervais on Atheism
I am an agnostic-atheist. Agnosticism, is often mistaken for a belief… but nobody can be only agnostic. You are either an agnostic-theist, agnostic-atheist, gnostic-theist, or gnostic-atheist. Realize that there are very few “true” atheists… someone who claims to know that a god does not exist. Most people who claim to be “atheist”, are of the form agnostic-atheist. I, therefore, believe we will never answer the question as to whether a higher power exists or not but that the answer is most probably that one does not exist. This is a form of “Freethought”, which is more fundamental to my beliefs:
Freethought holds that individuals should not accept ideas proposed as truth without recourse to knowledge and reason. Thus, freethinkers strive to build their opinions on the basis of facts, scientific inquiry, and logical principles, independent of any logical fallacies or the intellectually limiting effects of authority, confirmation bias, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, prejudice, sectarianism, tradition, urban legend, and all other dogmas. Regarding religion, freethinkers hold that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of supernatural phenomena. – Wikipedia
Here is a list of famous atheists:
Woody Allen, John Lennon, Robert Altman, Daniel Radcliffe, Abe Lincoln, Isaac Asimov, Bill Nye, Barry Manilow, Peter Atkins, Kevin Bacon, Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, Kari Byron, William Shatner, Penn & Teller, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Mark Twain, John Adams, Douglas Adams, Seth Green, Jodie Foster, Bruce Lee, Rafael Nadal, Bertrand Russel, Ivan Pavlov, Mark Zuckerberg, Olivia Wilde, Natalie Portman, Albert Einstein, Francis Crick, Marie Curie, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Thomas Edison, Stephen Gould, Steven Pinker, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Dave Mathews, Sir Ian McKellen, Julianne Moore, George Clooney, Jack Nicholson, Christopher Reeve, Gene Roddenberry, Susan B. Anthony, Lance Armstrong, Ricky Gervais, Warren Buffet & Bill Gates (have donated over $70 billion to charity), Ernest Hemingway, Charles Schulz, Richard Branson, Keanu Reeves, James Cameron, Arthur C. Clark, Stephen Hawking, Sigmund Freud, Kathy Griffin, Seth MacFarlane, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Orwell, Charles Darwin (later life), Brad Pitt, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ayn Rand, George Carlin, Matt Stone, Pat Tillman, Kurt Vonnegut, Roger Waters, Gene Wilder (yes, Charlie Chocolate), Steve Wozniak, Rodney Dangerfield, Marlon Brando, Hugh Hefner, Billy Joel, Sarah Silverman, Ted Turner, Ted Williams, Charlie Chaplin, Larry King, Helen Mirren, Katherine Hepburn, Ray Romano, Joe Rogan, Edgar Allan Poe, Hellen Keller, Ben Franklin, Frank Zappa, Robert Frost, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Pierre Laplace, Napoleon, Walt Whitman, Thomas Huxley, Andrew Carnegie, H G Wells, Frank Lloyd Wright, James Joyce, Howard Hughes, Confucius…
… and many many more. Feel Free to comment and/or share below.
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The tough part of friends is being able to tolerate the areas of your life in which you differ from them, especially in politics and religion. There are some people I simply have let drift out of my life because of their attempts to “convert me” to their way of thinking; some of my other friends and I simply don’t talk about certain subjects. My acerbic wit has served me well in life, but has also cost me some friendships. (In response to people telling me I’m going to Hell for , they tend to get quite offended when I reply, “I’ll save you a seat.”)
For me personally, it is more difficult to resolve differing points of views with people of similar background to me (you know, white, Midwestern, college, etc.). At times I can get into interesting conversations of “why do you believe what you believe” if I get a chance to explain why I think my thoughts without them trying to “convert me.” It has been my experience that younger people tend to be more open-minded. Unless they’re from Indiana (hahahahaha – just JOKING people:-)
I’m with you on just about all of that. The only difference is is that most atheists I know would never in their wildest dreams attempt to convert people, let alone their friends. While on many occasion my religious friends have tried almost feverishly. Even to the point of taking advantage of my post-seizure episode… thinking it would be a great opportunity for “revelation”. The only thing I would ever advocate for (and do advocate for) is a secular America and a secular world. A lot of people think that this is either atheist or communist… but it’s far from the both. It’s freedom in its purest form, and while America is “the land of the free”… we still have a long way to go before it is culturally.
The freedom to believe what one wants is a core belief of our culture. For example, your expression of atheistic views could be interpreted as attempt to show your intellectual superiority to people who profess a faith in God, or an attempt to persuade someone to doubt their faith. I enjoy our conversations, though they are not as enjoyable without seeing the non-verbals:-)
Do you think an atheist would limit his relationships to those who share the …. point of view…. or welcome divergent points of view. What I am startled by is the intensity of atheists surety. Reminds me of religious zealots, just whistling a different tune. Believe me I am not trying to be hurtful in any way. Just wonder if people can get past their need to be correct. Life is way too short. Rodney
Rodney, I hear what you say and I’m not disputing the fact that there are militant atheists out there that claim they are right… but the majority are of the form “agnostic-atheist”, where they believe we cannot and will not ever know the answer to “does a higher power exist”, but believes the likelihood is that one does not. Most of these atheists (which are the majority of all atheists) do not believe in teaching that religion is wrong, they believe in a secular society where not a single religion is pushed upon by a government and that everyone has equal opportunity in society regardless of belief. For example, there are current state laws that will not allow an atheist to hold a position of government, such as governor, senator, etc. There are also laws out there that give a felon the option to prison or mandatory church service. These are American laws that are upheld in state’s high courts and are in fact unconstitutional in the United States of America. Atheists are vocal in regards to removing religious tyranny from the government, not removing religion from the people themselves. You can pray in school, you can’t pray with the school.
I don’t believe atheists are superior to believers… unless the religious person can’t give a personal reason for their belief. If their reason is “because that’s how my parents raised me”, or “because the bible says so”, etc, then yes, I believe atheists are superior than believers. I know plenty of believers that are very intelligible people, one of them being my roommate. We talk about this stuff all the time. The people who consider friendly discourse as a “personal attack” on their belief are the people who are unintelligible.
Culturally we are not free from religious belief because there are laws that currently are ENACTED that prevent certain religions or atheists from taking part of. It’s a part of American society to assume that only good people are Christians, which is why there is no cultural freedom of religion. This needs to change. I don’t care to convert people, I just care that people recognize that their belief is just that, a belief.
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natalie portman is very famously jewish
Natalie Portman has been very vocal about her atheism pretty much since anybody knew about her. “I’m much more like the product of a doctor than I am a Jew”… “I don’t believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it’s the best way to live”. Not to mention she has never once thanked god during any form of award ceremony.
Penn Jillette is right, agnostic is a weasel word……..its dodging one question answering another……..the question ‘do you believe in god?’ is substituted with ‘is there a god?’. Belief is active…….I cannot tell you if there is a god, but I don’t believe there is, therefore I am an atheists. The passive ‘I don’t know’. Illustrates lack of belief.
I don’t believe Albert Einstein is a self-proclaimed Atheist. As quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica: “Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in ‘Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists.’ This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: ‘I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.’ Einstein’s famous epithet on the ‘uncertainty principle’ was ‘God does not play dice.’”
Here’s also a source to ponder on: http://www.adherents.com/people/pe/Albert_Einstein.html
Einstein strongly denies atheism.