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FROM AP: Giants 5, Padres 4
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
I know I am not going to convince everyone with this list because god-belief has been indoctrinated into our society for a long time, but here are five things that might cause you to rethink your deeply held faith-based convictions and become an atheist.
Atheism cannot simply be about setting individuals free. It needs to address the deep suffering of society and take aim at dismantling the socio-economic structures that privilege the few while oppressing the many.
Conventional wisdom suggests otherwise, saying that science is more likely to kill religion than rescue it, but I'm convinced that science is the last best hope for religion in the modern world.
What do we really mean by God, and what could count as proof? As many of these attempts at proof reveal, the line between God and no God has often been thinner than we're now led to believe.
We gather here today to mourn the passing of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Although weakened and battered in the past, it seems that it has finally succumbed and will be heard of no more.
Atheists are already in the minority in most parts of the country, constituting a small fraction of the religiously unaffiliated in the U.S., but it seemed I was to be an especially odd one out at this event. Or, as my mother once said: "It's kind of hip to be a gay atheist [in Cambridge]. Not so much most everywhere else."
On May 22 Pope Francis spoke about how the redemption brought about by Christ applied to the whole human race and that he would not be surprised to find himself sharing heaven even with atheists, at least with atheists who seek to do good. The very next day, the pope was corrected.
I charge anyone who is challenged by this to think a little deeper, to broaden their experience working with and knowing the non-religious, to try to understand that the religious and the non-religious have a lot to learn from each other.
The perceived importance of religion (or religiosity) declines predictably with development (however measured), allowing one to predict how long it will take for religion to become unimportant for the majority of the global population. It will take approximately a quarter-century.
Last week atheists were all over the news and social media. But in a world that frequently focuses on conflict, it seemed like we were hearing a different -- and to many, surprising -- story about atheists.
For those of us outside the institutional Church, who nevertheless hope for it to grow out of the era of scandal and focus on its great good works, Francis is fast becoming a beacon of hope.
Pope Francis reiterates ordinary Catholic thought in a way people can understand. This may be the new playbook on how Catholics can spread the Gospel in today's culture.
The pope made waves when he said in a sermon last week that Jesus Christ redeems all: those who are Roman Catholic and those who are not; those who believe, and those who don't.
Whatever possessed you to give nice atheists a one-way ticket to Heaven? According to Vatican Radio you said: "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics."
Pope Francis reassures me, an atheist, that the "good" that I do will lead me to meet someone along the way -- but what about the fact that I'm a lesbian? Is doing "good" enough for only one divergence from the faith?
If life couldn't have happened unless God had stepped in and intervened at crucial points, such a view makes an infinitely wise God look something like an incompetent inventor who has to keep correcting his mistakes or constantly fixing things that aren't working as he intended.
