Is science atheism?

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And all four of those denominations use the 66 book Bible, creation references and all. Why would they oppose creationism "in this case"?

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I can think of a number of reasons. The (correct) belief that Creationism is bad theology is an obvious one. That it is also an embarrassment to Christianity is another. And why would a Christian Church want the sectarian dogma of another - that they disagreed with - to be taught as science?

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They know how much atheism is organized, they know how big the ACLU war chest is.

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Atheism is nowhere near as well organised as the major Christian denominations, and if the ACLU was so powerful, why not leave it to them?

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Or maybe they're afraid to

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Debates are pretty much just a show, as we’ve recently seen.

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I did name a few, in the last message. Charles Stanley, John McArthur, David Jerimiah - you might have recently heard of McArthur, he stood his ground against those who tried to use covid 19 to close down his church. He was ready to go to jail, but his opponents backed down, they probably realized it would help his publicity if he did.

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None of those names are familiar. And a disregard for health risks is not a sign of scholarship. What academic publications do they have?

(Rowan Williams by the way was Archbishop of Canterbury which makes him very high profile, but hardly syndicated).

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You'll be seeing it, before I'm done in this thread.

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I somehow think not.

Well that was 100% predictable. There's a club for trainspotters too. People have hobbies. Do you think that is in anyway comparable to any religious organisation - even the smallest, daftest Christian cult?

Why yes, I do.

Atheist Alliance International - a positive voice for atheism and secularism

The American Humanist Association

Home - Secular Student Alliance

Home - Secular Coalition for America

CFI: Center for Inquiry

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The Center for Inquiry strives to foster a secular society based on reason, science, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.

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You don't have to look hard to find the word "science" at any of these sites.

Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers

Rational Response Squad - Wikipedia

Brazilian Association of Atheists and Agnostics - Wikipedia.

Secular Web: Atheism, Agnosticism, Naturalism, Skepticism and Secularism

Recovering from Religion

The Atheist Agenda - Wikipedia

Join the Trend: Wear Odd Socks | Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Homepage - United CoR

About the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry | Skeptical Inquirer

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The mission of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry is to promote scientific inquiry,

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Camp Quest, Inc.

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Our Famous Freethinkers program raises awareness of positive contributions made by atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and other non-theistic people to our society.

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Gotta get the kiddies while they're young!

Americans United for Separation of Church and State | Americans United for Separation of Church and State

The Brights' Net - Who are The Brights?

Our Mission

The Humanist Institute: Higher Education for Humanism - TheHumanist.com

https://www.pantheism.net/

I'm an atheist. About 40% of UK people are non-religious. We have no meeting places, no spires, chants, statues, buildings, offerings, collections, smoke and bells, no policies or catechisms, no actual contact with any other atheists except randomly in the pub in a non-collective act of drinking beer.

But you have plenty of websites, plenty of solicitations for contributions, and plenty of co-ordination with the ACLU to sue religious organizations every chance they get.

Non-religion is NOT an organisation, it's just a non-belief. A very few of us are weird enough to populate boards like this to laugh at you crazies. We occasionally join a campaign to prevent a religiously motivated political intervention that affects us like gay marriage, contraception, abortions, euthanasia, genital mutilation, forced weddings and so on.

Occasionally yes, a lot more frequently since the establishment of the internet. Gay marriage, abortions, traditional morality, re-defining who cares about the earth and who doesn't, etc.

And all four of those denominations use the 66 book Bible, creation references and all. Why would they oppose creationism "in this case"?

As far as I know, they do not oppose creationism as broadly understood. What they oppose is creationism narrowly understood and taught in science classes in public schools contrary to the first amendment non-establishment clause.

... non-creation Christianity ...

Uh, what the hell are you talking about? There is virtually no such thing as "non-creation Christianity."

Most Christians believe in one of the many ideas about "God" that exist within Christianity -- strictly speaking, there exists as many "God ideas" as there are believers, one per each individual believer since everyone creates their own version of "God", but for purposes of discussion we can amalgamate them into a single "Christian God". Similarly, Christian doctrine, that which is taught in Christianity, differs from one denomination/sect/congregation to the next, but there are still some features with are common between all those different versions of Christian doctrine.

All forms of Christian doctrine that I am aware of teach that the "Christian God" is the Creator of the universe (or at the very least of the world). That would make "non-creation Christianity" an oxymoron like "vegetable athletics", "military intelligence", "creation science", or "Republican honesty".

So what the hell are you talking about? You are making absolutely no sense at all! Do you have any clue what you are babbling about?

Kenneth Miller is more of a science guy than a representative of non-creation Christianity.

Dr. Kenneth Miller, PhD Biology, has been a very effective opponent of creationism. In his essay, Scientific Creationism versus Evolution: The Mislabeled Debate (Science and Creationism, edited by Ashley Montegu, 1984 -- many of the essays cover the trial for the 1981 Arkansas law, McLean v. Arkansas), Dr Miller writes (my bold font added):

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The Scientific Creationists

We being with a dilemma. Who are the creationists? Simply stated, a creationist should be anyone who believes in creation, in a universe formed by a supreme being. In other words, a creationist is someone who believes in God. By that standard of ordinary usage, I am a creationist (I'm a Roman Catholic), and so is any other scientist who professes a religious belief. However, in the context in which I must write this article, ordinary usage will not do. We will be forced to use another definition for the word creationist, a definition which has been forced on us by the current of the political debate in the United States. In this sense, a creationist is someone who believes that each and every kind of living organism was directly created by a supreme being, and that no organisms have arisen by the process of descent with modification advanced by Charlies Darwin more than a century ago. In short, a creationist is an antievolutionist.

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Here's a fun fact: There is no inherent conflict between Divine Creation and Evolution. There is no inherent conflict between religion and science. The only conflict that can arise is solely because of individuals and groups who choose to advance false teachings.

Creationism is completely different from Creation (and belief therein).

Creationism is about lying about reality, about evolution, about science, and even about Christianity. Creationism is about false theology that effectively teaches that if the world is actually how we find it to be, then God does not exist. And creationism is about deliberate deception.

Yes, the majority of Christians, while believing in Creation and in a Creator, are not creationists!

Indeed, since there is no such thing as your "non-creation Christianity", you are clearly on the side of the lies and deception of creationism.

The main goal of all atheist organizations in the USA is two-fold:

1. To provide atheists contact with like-minded people. Before the Internet, that was a serious problem as those who left religion were isolated individuals having to go through deconversion all alone and not knowing of even the existence of anyone else.

   The experience of Dan Barker, former Fundamentalist preacher who had been raised in Fundamentalism, is emblematic. Going through his own deconversion (caused by his realization that he just could not believe in that nonsense any longer) in Southern California in the early 1980's, everybody he knew was through his church so he was entirely alone. The very first time he ever met a fellow atheist was in an interview he participated in on a TV show. She was from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) in Michigan, about 2000 miles away. He ended up moving there, marrying her, and working with the FFRF which has earned him the title of "America's Leading Atheist."

   Deconversion can be painful, especially if you are leaving the religion that was the only thing you knew your entire life. If you doubt that, then read through the testimonials on ex-christian.net -- though your own religion has obviously made you a cold heartless bigot who is incapable of any human emotion, let alone any shred of empathy. Having to go through that process (which cannot be stopped once you start to think no matter how hard you try) alone with absolutely no support can be very painful. Especially when your old community forces all your old friends and family to shun you, even your spouse (Dan Barker's church made his wife divorce him).

   It turns out that when Dan Barker was going through that painful process there was an atheist community practically next door to him that he knew nothing about: Atheists United in Los Angeles. I first heard about him on Atheists United's weekly 15-minute radio show which played the presentation he gave at a recent monthly meeting of theirs. In that presentation he cried out, "Where were you when I needed you?". Instead, since he had no knowledge of their existence, he had to travel more than half-way across the country to find other atheists.

   I would point out here that AU had only 15 minutes of radio air time per week which they no longer have. Compare that quarter hour of reason with the thousands of hours of radio time that televangelists have to spread their nonsense. And you would dare to complain about our 15 minutes? So much for your hypocritical crying about being denied free speech!

2. Opposing religion's attempts to use the government to promote their own religion. Such as in having government agencies (which public schools are) conduct Protestant indoctrination on children of all religious backgrounds including non-Protestant and non-Christian, including forcing children to use sectarian Protestant prayers.

   Review your history (a foreign concept for you, I understand). The reason why there is such a thing as the parochial school system is because the public schools of the time were under Protestant control, so the Catholic students were forced to say Protestant prayers, study from the Protestant bible, and be indoctrinated in Protestantism. Catholics complaining about this situation would either get nowhere or far worse -- when in the late 1800's the bishop or archbishop of Philadelphia asked that Catholic students be allowed to use the Catholic bible and say Catholic prayers that triggered days of violent anti-Catholic rioting that killed dozens of people.

   BTW, the first school prayer case was in 1940's New York and involved a Jewish family protesting their children being forced by the schools to say Christian prayers (as if Jews had never before suffered any other harm from Christians).

   So any political involvement of atheist organizations is to counter the religious tyranny promoted by the far larger and more powerful Christian organizations (most of them Protestant).
   

I would also refer you to common experience as innumerable Protestant groups engage in aggressive proselytizing. They all want to convert you, to get you to abandon your own beliefs and become clones of them.

What do atheist groups want? What are they striving for? Here it is in a nutshell: Please keep your religion to yourself and leave us the fuck alone.

Are those two positions in any way equivalent? If you are truly so deluded as to think that they are, then please tell us exactly and in detail why you would think such a thing.

For that matter, please explain to us exactly and in detail why you object so strongly to the mere existence of atheist groups.

All forms of Christian doctrine that I am aware of teach that the "Christian God" is the Creator of the universe (or at the very least of the world). That would make "non-creation Christianity" an oxymoron like "vegetable athletics", "military intelligence", "creation science", or "Republican honesty".

You're not acknowledging the existence of Jar and Phat.

So what the hell are you talking about? You are making absolutely no sense at all! Do you have any clue what you are babbling about?

There is virtually no such thing as "non-creation Christianity."

Neither are you. Because there really is non-creation Christianity.

Faith & Reason Ministries

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This ministry accepts modern science (including biological evolution and the Big Bang), a valuable, yet non-perfect Bible, and a Jesus of history, divine.

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The universe, though finite and created by God, is unimaginably complex and vast. It contains billions of galaxies typically composed of billions of stars...

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God "created" by causing an explosion? This site makes as much sense as yo do.

Creationism is completely different from Creation (and belief therein).

And it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is. It's easy to understand why atheists love theistic evolutionists so much.

Dr. Kenneth Miller, PhD Biology, has been a very effective opponent of creationism.

I know, I read his book (over 10 years ago) "Finding Darwin's God". He showed little knowledge of Christianity.

Here's a fun fact: There is no inherent conflict between Divine Creation and Evolution. There is no inherent conflict between religion and science. The only conflict that can arise is solely because of individuals and groups who choose to advance false teachings.

Like those groups I listed in Message 32? Let's see, creationists aren't crazy about the influence those groups have on politics and children's education, but the OTHER kind of creationists (can we call them "TYPE 2 creationists"? ) they love it, because they believe in big bangs and a false Bible and many other things that atheists also believe?

Creationism is completely different from Creation (and belief therein). Creationism is about lying about reality, about evolution, about science, and even about Christianity. Creationism is about false theology that effectively teaches that if the world is actually how we find it to be, then God does not exist. And creationism is about deliberate deception. Yes, the majority of Christians, while believing in Creation and in a Creator, are not creationists! Indeed, since there is no such thing as your "non-creation Christianity", you are clearly on the side of the lies and deception of creationism.

So creationists are not Christians? (the type A ones) The type 2 ones, ARE Christians, and.....just trying to get this all straight.

I'll have more questions about the "faith and reason" website that I linked above. (later this week)

After an extensive search of the USA you found six organisations interested in secularism. Well done.

In my very small, rural village in the UK there are three churches, a religious school and a nunnery. Within 20 miles there will be 100 or so similar. There are 43,000 churches in the UK. Plus mosques, religious schools and seminaries. Christianity is an institution imbedded in our Parliament and funded through tax concessions as charities.

There is nothing even resembling that for the non-religious, there's almost nothing at all except a couple of self-funding interest groups despite 43% of the population being non-religious.

There is no comparison at all.

And that 43% is the proportion of people on surveys/censuses who are prepared to put down "atheist" or "without faith". Approximately 10% or less of the population is actually church going, so there will be a decent proportion of people who do what I used to do when I was a kid and just ticked "Church of England" for ease (I'm more self-confident and principled now).

(This analysis doesn't take into account people of other faiths, so the figures won't be as stark as that, but according to Google, 5.2% of the UK population is Muslim, 1.5% Hindu, 0.7% Sikh and 0.43% Jewish - so I reckon that people who are genuinely without faith are likely to exceed the 50% mark in reality).

All that said, Country churches are usually quite pretty, and a church bell on a warm summer evening is a nice sound. Just so long as they leave me alone, and let me get on in peace with sampling a local ale in the pub garden.

I read somewhere that the large number of churches built over the centuries throughout the UK were often the result of a lord or lady with power and money desiring to set an example by building a big building. As to whether the community was big enough to require such capacity or, indeed whether the people did come to worship in great numbers anyway is another issue.

Still, building edifices is a more constructive use of money than going to war, so I'll give them that, at least.

“According to the National Congregational Study Survey, there are an estimated 380,000 churches in the U.S.”

UK population 68m, 43,000 churches = 1 church:1,581 people
USA population 323m, = 1 church: 850 people

Over building churches seems to be a pretty common trait.

I wonder where the nearest structure for the worship of atheism is?

Tangle writes: UK population 68m, 43,000 churches = 1 church:1,581 people USA population 323m, = 1 church: 850 people Over building churches seems to be a pretty common trait.

Well, the problem is many European and at least one Asian nation established a state religion, whereas the USA has this First Amendment thingy. Now when a nation establishes an official state religion, history has shown it is the greatest recruiting tool for Atheism ever invented. Ask Japan, ask Scandinavia, ask the UK.

I find this phenomena quite entertaining as I am in the USA because it shows that if the Evangelicals get their way and turn the nation into a Fundamentalist dictatorship, human beings will reject you to the point of Atheism, which I consider a vast improvement over Nazism. So, fundies, evangelicals, holy-rollers, 7ths, keep recruiting others to my cause, which means your nonexistence.

So, just want to let mom know that despite our earlier differences, well, mom is still mom, even if we are the rowdiest kids in the herd. Keep up the good work! Rather have more atheists who heal the sick, feed the poor, and comfort the afflicted, than any more "Christians" who reject the words of Christ (or the closest facsimile we have).

tangle writes: I wonder where the nearest structure for the worship of atheism is?

Though you will argue that atheism is not a religion nor an object of worship, humanists are in love with the idea that we determine our destiny and that the collective majority can and will rule. The facts are that we will continue handing out stimulus checks and we will likely end up attempting to inflate our way out of the national debt. Critics claim that the wealthy should and will be taxed for this bill but reality shows me that it is the working class who will feel the sting. A mandatory alms for the poor (who are the only ones with no bill) and as usual the wealthy will skip out of it somehow....or it will be a manageable tax for them.

Theism and Money are closely related. And ringo will use the words of Jesus as an excuse why we should all become poorer.

You liberals and your progressive Christianity are a scam. I'll never be too greedy to voluntarily donate but I'll be damned if I let government send me the tithing bill.

You and I dont see eye to eye.

I find this phenomena quite entertaining as I am in the USA because it shows that if the Evangelicals get their way and turn the nation into a Fundamentalist dictatorship, human beings will reject you to the point of Atheism, which I consider a vast improvement over Nazism. So, fundies, evangelicals, holy-rollers, 7ths, keep recruiting others to my cause, which means your nonexistence.

If the progressives(globalists) get their way, all money will be under the control of state eyes and there will be no way to freely and individually get ahead. Under the guise of progressive altruistic humanism, we will all get stuck with a mandatory bill. And yet they keep handing out stimulus checks. Dont they know whose money they are playing with?

marc9000 writes: You're not acknowledging the existence of Jar and Phat.

I dont know about jar but I consider myself a Cosmological Creationist. Lets just say I do not believe in Biblicl Creationism because they play with facts and believe unbelievable things simply because the Bible says so.

That being said, I do believe in the trinity, Jesus as Gods character to and for humanity, and a Creator of all seen and unseen who in fact does care about us more than Uranus or Pond Scum. God is not simply some Biodiversity superdude.

jar of course has his own universe of theories.

Because there really is non-creation Christianity.

To be more specific, there are many Christians who do not believe in the doctrines of creationsim. We do, however believe in a Creator Centric Christianity.
The *other* guys believe in a progressive, human-centric Christianity.

Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Phat, can you please save the silly scare-mongering for a more appropriate thread.