Atheist
@pcunix (210)
Middleboro, Massachusetts
October 12, 2015 6:25am CST
That's not a popular position among my baby boomer peer group. In some parts of the United States, that isn't a respectable position in any peer group.
I'm not an enemy of religion. Actually, I think if you can believe in a god and it helps make you a better person, I'm all for it. But I can't believe in gods. It's just utter nonsense to me and always has been. Nobody taught me that: my parents took our family to church every week and I just didn't buy the premise. Initially I thought it was like the fairy tales they'd read to me at home, but around the age of seven I realized that the guy up front was serious. I never went to church again after that.
There are things that annoy me. I don't like that our Pledge of Allegiance had "Under God" added to it in 1954. I was in school then and we said the pledge every morning. I refused to say the new pledge, but no one noticed.
I don't like that "In God We Trust" was added to our money in 1864. The founding fathers put "Liberty" on our first coins - they didn't mention any religious sentiment. As somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of Americans do NOT trust in any gods, it seems to me that motto should not be there, but popular sentiment and religious leaning Supreme Court decisions say otherwise. Oh, well: maybe someday.
But I'm not really angry about any of that. As I said, it's annoying. It's something that shouldn't be, but there are far more important ills in our society today. I can live with it.
4 people like this
3 responses
@vandana7 (100257)
• India
12 Oct 15
I believe in god. Because I accept that matter cannot be created or destroyed. And there has to be somebody who created it, because "nothing comes from nothing" but I don't exactly understand him right now. Till he chooses to enlighten me I am going to try to be good, by good I mean I will not hurt others and I will not be hurt either.
2 people like this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
13 Oct 15
The thought that some intelligence must be behind creation is an anthropomorphic way of looking at things. Quantum theory offers plenty of solutions to the notion that "matter cannot be created or destroyed" as does, incidentally, relativity with its linking of matter and energy.
2 people like this
@vandana7 (100257)
• India
13 Oct 15
@indexer ..thank you for increasing my vocabulary. I learned "anthropomorphic" from you. :) Matter cannot be created or destroyed is what Einstein stated, and he was a human. I wouldn't be as fatalistic in approach and frankly, would like to create matter so that every time there is a meteor or debris from space falling in solar system, I would want to guide it elsewhere. Obviously, I need a matter that can withstand that much of speed. May be not in my lifetime, but in future, Einstein and his theories may have to take a backseat. They are true subject to certain conditions, but not 100 percent. As to god, yes, it is natural to wonder from where we came and well somebody should have created this supposedly indestructible matter, right? I call him god. I also believe we understand very little about the universe. For all that we know there are many universes like ours.
@pcunix (210)
• Middleboro, Massachusetts
14 Oct 15
@vandana7 Thinking that there must be a creator removes everything simply having existed forever, but even if our Universe was created, nothing in that implies any god. It could have been someone from another universe working on their graduate physics degree or it could have been an accident of warfare.. to assume a god is more than improbable.
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (67803)
• United States
12 Oct 15
A friend of mine had something shared on his Facebook wall yesterday: "A Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu, a Pagan, and an atheist walk into a coffee shop...and they talk, laugh, have a good time, and become friends. This is not a joke. This is what happens when you're not an a**hole."
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (160624)
• United States
12 Oct 15
Many places being religious is not well accepted. It takes all kinds. I can appreciate your disliking the pledge and coins, I am a Christian, but those things do not make me a Christian and do not say which God we are under or we trust in. As one of my friends said about "prayer in schools" since it is the US if we had prayer in school it could be a prayer to Allah, or Krishna, or Jesus. No one can stop me from praying privately even in school. I think faith should be personal. I think you would agree
1 person likes this
