The Atheism Club

[7 tyranitars]

Welcome =)

Anyway, I just noticed the comments about BYU. I know somebody who is going there next year. She is extremely smart, gets straight A's in both AP Calculus and AP Chemistry. But of course she is a Mormon, and her goal in life is to marry a rich Mormon, have tons of kids, and be a housewife... it makes me so angry! Such a waste of talent.

This makes me angry too. This is what some religions do for people.

Reminds me of a small political party here that doesn't allow women in their party.

 

[Neferka]

Hi everybody, hello to you all....

I.... "Matthew Hopkins" am an atheist.... but for a while, I couldn't even spell the word.... oh well.

Anyway, I'm young enough to be an atheist, methinks, 14, and I have a lot of trouble getting that out. My sister is in a "glee club" ... a.k.a: a Gospel choir, and I honestly did not want to go, as I didn't agree with what was being said at the service (to keep in line with the rules, I guess I just won't say what religion the rest of my family are), but I didn't want to tell anyone I don't believe in any Gods... etc etc, so I went along. It was a little preturbing, to be honest.

I just don't have the fight in me to tell anyone (especially my wholly religious grandmother) that I don't believe in any Gods. My friends know, though. It's my friends who made me an atheist. One friend in particular just said "it's for people who're scared of dying". I kinda think that, but the other half of me thinks that it's just not possible for there to be any sort of ruling body up in the air. Where's the proof? Get the MythBusters in!

Soooooo.... due to this, I want to be a part of your club, and want to get my beliefs out there, but that's not entirely new to you.... because everyone here (almost) thinks the same.

Oh well, bye!

-MH

I don't think there's any shame in keeping your atheism under your hat for the time being... Especially since you're still a minor and have to abide by your parents rules. I like your friends thinking by the way. It reminds me of this quote from Karl Marx:

"Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Anyway, welcome to the club ^_^




To all of you, I come bearing a gift. I thought I'd class this joint up a bit with some poetry I found on the YouTube XD

God's Tainted Love (It has swears... You have been warned )

<3

 

[AzukanAsimbu]

I don't think there's any shame in keeping your atheism under your hat for the time being... Especially since you're still a minor and have to abide by your parents rules. I like your friends thinking by the way. It reminds me of this quote from Karl Marx:

"Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Anyway, welcome to the club ^_^




To all of you, I come bearing a gift. I thought I'd class this joint up a bit with some poetry I found on the YouTube XD

God's Tainted Love (It has swears... You have been warned )

<3

Karl Marx <3

So, anything new that partains to our club worth sharing?

 

[BadWolf Churchill]

If you had the power to make Christianity dissapear off the face of the Earth, would you?

I wouldn't. Although Christianity has caused a lot of wars and stunted scientific progress quite a bit, it has caused a lot of good in the world also. Christians aren't as likely to commit crimes and have better morals. They do also help keep humans from going too far in some respects, such as diving into genetic modification or cloning before sufficient research is done. It would also be unfair to get rid of one religion without getting rid of the rest.

And lets face it, the day religion (more or less) dies, is the day we come into contact with an alien race.

 

[7 tyranitars]

If you had the power to make Christianity dissapear off the face of the Earth, would you?

I wouldn't. Although Christianity has caused a lot of wars and stunted scientific progress quite a bit, it has caused a lot of good in the world also. Christians aren't as likely to commit crimes and have better morals. They do also help keep humans from going too far in some respects, such as diving into genetic modification or cloning before sufficient research is done. It would also be unfair to get rid of one religion without getting rid of the rest.

And lets face it, the day religion (more or less) dies, is the day we come into contact with an alien race.

Actualy crime rates are higher in the more christian regions, then in the more secular regions.

 

[BadWolf Churchill]

Actualy crime rates are higher in the more christian regions, then in the more secular regions.

That may be so, but is it actually the Christians causing that crime rate, or rather the fact that Western/Christian nations have much more relaxed justice systems.

When you look at nations like China or Japan, its not the absence of Christianity causing the low crime rate but the harsher punshments laid out.

 

[Neferka]

If you had the power to make Christianity dissapear off the face of the Earth, would you?

Christians aren't as likely to commit crimes and have better morals.

Wow... Do you have statistics to back that up?

As for having better morals, could you elaborate?


I think the bad things that Christianity has done and is doing far outweighs the good.

Here's a few current examples:

- Catholic Church actively protecting paedophile priests
- Catholic Church prohibiting the use of contraception which is facilitating the spread of AIDs in Africa.
- Fraudsters like Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker, Kent Hovind and Benny Hinn dupe needy people out of their money by appealing the the part of the bible that encourages tithing.

 

[Pokemon Geek]

That may be so, but is it actually the Christians causing that crime rate, or rather the fact that Western/Christian nations have much more relaxed justice systems.

When you look at nations like China or Japan, its not the absence of Christianity causing the low crime rate but the harsher punshments laid out.

Norway disagrees. The most non religius country on this planet with an extreme slack justice system as well. Still if i remember correctly we have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Your point?

 

[BadWolf Churchill]

@ Neferka: Those are some good points, I was just pointing ou what I've observed. I suppose, apart from the corrupt ones (and there are a lot), the average Christian is suppose to have good morals so the can get into Heaven and all that.

@ Pokemon Geek: I don't know too much about Norway, but I would say that you guys would have a very good education system which generally leads to the questioning of religion and low crime rates (Japan is like this too). Two birds with one stone I suppose.

Sorry, I don't know how to quote more than once.

 

[7 tyranitars]

That may be so, but is it actually the Christians causing that crime rate, or rather the fact that Western/Christian nations have much more relaxed justice systems.

When you look at nations like China or Japan, its not the absence of Christianity causing the low crime rate but the harsher punshments laid out.

I was talking about the comparison between the USA and Norway or Sweden, the usa have far higher crime rates, while it is more christian, then secular countries like Norway or Sweden who have far lower crimerates.

 

[AzukanAsimbu]

Well, well funded educational systems usually have a lower crime rate

 

[Darato]

So, anything new that partains to our club worth sharing?

Should close on my Condo this week

Sorry, I don't know how to quote more than once.

You could quote one, then copy it, click back and go to the next one.

Copy the text itself and then place it in the reply box highlight in and click o the quote button. If you want to add their name to it place a = then their name in between the first [QUOTE ]

Two topic ideas

If you grew up with religious how do, you feel now, about what you once believed in, and what things do, you do that you didn’t do while part of it?

I grew up LDS so looking back at it now I feel like what was wrong with me for thinking that was true.

As for things I do that I said I’d never do. I drink, smoke, use a few drugs, have premarital sex with guys and girls, support gay rights, drink coffee, and don’t judge others for not being LDS.

Btw, the South Park episode "All about Mormons" Has what they believe in right down to the T.

Do you think it’s important to talk about what people running for government office’s religions, or only base what party you vote for on what your religions views tend to lean towards.

I think it’s stupid that they focus on it the way they do. I’m not saying don’t say what they believe in or don’t believe in, but the way they do it just gets out of hand.

Take what there doing with Mitt Romney. He did a lot of great work as a Governor, even more so when it came to budgeting. Yet because he is LDS people tended to focus on that more instead of what his plans were to help out the US.

As for letting what your religions views say when it comes to voting, I think it can hurt a lot at times. My dad was running for senator last year, and he had a lot of people tell him he is the better choice, and they wanted him to win, but because he was democrat they couldn’t vote for him themselves.

There was also tow more people running for office here, The Democrat was a nice guy with a lot of great things backing him up. The Republican was pulled over with an open beer can in the car and had a few other things like that, but he won in the end because he was Republican.

Spoiler: Text wall, but worth the read

In the winter of 1998, two separate teams of astronomers in Berkeley, California, made a similar, startling discovery. They were both observing supernovae – exploding stars visible over great distances – to see how fast the universe is expanding. In accordance with prevailing scientific wisdom, the astronomers expected to find the rate of expansion to be decreasing, Instead they found it to be increasing – a discovery which has since "shaken astronomy to its core" (Astronomy, October 1999).
This discovery would have come as no surprise to Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966), a Belgian mathematician and Catholic priest who developed the theory of the Big Bang. Lemaitre described the beginning of the universe as a burst of fireworks, comparing galaxies to the burning embers spreading out in a growing sphere from the center of the burst. He believed this burst of fireworks was the beginning of time, taking place on "a day without yesterday."

After decades of struggle, other scientists came to accept the Big Bang as fact. But while most scientists – including the mathematician Stephen Hawking predicted that gravity would eventually slow down the expansion of the universe and make the universe fall back toward its center, Lemaitre believed that the universe would keep expanding. He argued that the Big Bang was a unique event, while other scientists believed that the universe would shrink to the point of another Big Bang, and so on. The observations made in Berkeley supported Lemaitre's contention that the Big Bang was in fact "a day without yesterday."

When Georges Lemaitre was born in Charleroi, Belgium, most scientists thought that the universe was infinite in age and constant in its general appearance. The work of Isaac Newton and James C. Maxwell suggested an eternal universe. When Albert Einstein first published his theory of relativity in 1916, it seemed to confirm that the universe had gone on forever, stable and unchanging.

Lemaitre began his own scientific career at the College of Engineering in Louvain in 1913. He was forced to leave after a year, however, to serve in the Belgian artillery during World War I. When the war was over, he entered Maison Saint Rombaut, a seminary of the Archdiocese of Malines, where, in his leisure time, he read mathematics and science. After his ordination in 1923, Lemaitre studied math and science at Cambridge University, where one of his professors, Arthur Eddington, was the director of the observatory,

For his research at Cambridge, Lemaitre reviewed the general theory of relativity. As with Einstein's calculations ten years earlier, Lemaitre's calculations showed that the universe had to be either shrinking or expanding. But while Einstein imagined an unknown force – a cosmological constant – which kept the world stable, Lemaitre decided that the universe was expanding. He came to this conclusion after observing the reddish glow, known as a red shift, surrounding objects outside of our galaxy. If interpreted as a Doppler effect, this shift in color meant that the galaxies were moving away from us. Lemaitre published his calculations and his reasoning in Annales de la Societe scientifique de Bruxelles in 1927. Few people took notice. That same year he talked with Einstein in Brussels, but the latter, unimpressed, said, "Your calculations are correct, but your grasp of physics is abominable."

It was Einstein's own grasp of physics, however, that soon came under fire. In 1929 Edwin Hubble's systematic observations of other galaxies confirmed the red shift. In England the Royal Astronomical Society gathered to consider this seeming contradiction between visual observation and the theory of relativity. Sir Arthur Eddington volunteered to work out a solution. When Lemaitre read of these proceedings, he sent Eddington a copy of his 1927 paper. The British astronomer realized that Lemaitre had bridged the gap between observation and theory. At Eddington's suggestion, the Royal Astronomical Society published an English translation of Lemaitre's paper in its Monthly Notices of March 1931.

In January 1933, both Lemaitre and Einstein traveled to California for a series of seminars. After the Belgian detailed his theory, Einstein stood up, applauded, and said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."

Most scientists who read Lemaitre's paper accepted that the universe was expanding, at least in the present era, but they resisted the implication that the universe had a beginning. They were used to the idea that time had gone on forever. It seemed illogical that infinite millions of years had passed before the universe came into existence. Eddington himself wrote in the English journal Nature that the notion of a beginning of the world was "repugnant."

The Belgian priest responded to Eddington with a letter published in Nature on May 9, 1931. Lemaitre suggested that the world had a definite beginning in which all its matter and energy were concentrated at one point:

If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time.
In January 1933, both Lemaitre and Einstein traveled to California for a series of seminars. After the Belgian detailed his theory, Einstein stood up, applauded, and said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened." Duncan Aikman covered these seminars for the New York Times Magazine. An article about Lemaitre appeared on February 19, 1933, and featured a large photo of Einstein and Lemaitre standing side by side. The caption read, "They have a profound respect and admiration for each other."

For his work, Lemaitre was inducted as a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. An international commission awarded him the Francqui Prize. The archbishop of Malines, Cardinal Josef Van Roey, made Lemaitre a canon of the cathedral in 1935. The next year Pope Pius XI inducted Lemaitre into the Pontifical Academy of Science.

Despite this high praise, there were some problems with Lemaitre's theory. For one, Lemaitre's calculated rate of expansion did not work out. If the universe was expanding at a steady rate, the time it had taken to cover its radius was too short to allow for the formation of the stars and planets. Lemaitre solved this problem by expropriating Einstein's cosmological constant. Where Einstein had used it in an attempt to keep the universe at a steady size, Lemaitre used it to speed up the expansion of the universe over time.

Einstein did not take kindly to Lemaitre's use of the cosmological constant. He regarded the constant as the worst mistake of his career, and he was upset by Lemaitre's use of his super-galactic fudge factor.

After Arthur Eddington died in 1944, Cambridge University became a center of opposition to Lemaitre's theory of the Big Bang. In fact, it was Fred Hoyle, an astronomer at Cambridge, who sarcastically coined the term "Big Bang." Hoyle and others favored an approach to the history of the universe known as the "Steady State" in which hydrogen atoms were continuously created and gradually coalesced into gas clouds, which then formed stars.

But in 1964 there was a significant breakthrough that confirmed some of Lemaitre's theories. Workers at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey were tinkering with a radio telescope when they discovered a frustrating kind of microwave interference. It was equally strong whether they pointed their telescope at the center of the galaxy or in the opposite direction. What was more, it always had the same wavelength and it always conveyed the same source temperature. This accidental discovery required the passage of several months for its importance to sink in. Eventually, it won Arno Penzias the Nobel Prize in physics. This microwave interference came to be recognized as cosmic background radiation, a remnant of the Big Bang. Lemaitre received the good news while recovering from a heart attack in the Hospital Saint Pierre at the University of Louvain. He died in Louvain in 1966, at the age of seventy-one.

After his death, a consensus built in favor of Lemaitre's burst of fireworks. But doubts did persist: Did this event really happen on a day without yesterday? Perhaps gravity could provide an alternative explanation. Some theorized that gravity would slow down the expansion of the universe and make it fall back toward its center, where there would be a Big Crunch and another Big Bang. The Big Bang, therefore, was not a unique event which marked the beginning of time but only part of an infinite sequence of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

When word of the 1998 Berkeley discovery that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate first reached Stephen Hawking, he said it was too preliminary to be taken seriously. Later, he changed his mind. "I have now had more time to consider the observations, and they look quite good," he told Astronomy magazine (October 1999). "This led me to reconsider my theoretical prejudices."

Hawking was actually being modest. In the face of the scientific turmoil caused by the supernovae results, he has adapted very quickly. But the phrase "theoretical prejudices" makes one think of the attitudes that hampered scientists seventy years ago. It took a mathematician who also happened to be a Catholic priest to look at the evidence with an open mind and create a model that worked.

Is there a paradox in this situation? Lemaitre did not think so. Duncan Aikman of the New York Times spotlighted Lemaitre's view in 1933: "'There is no conflict between religion and science,' Lemaitre has been telling audiences over and over again in this country ....His view is interesting and important not because he is a Catholic priest, not because he is one of the leading mathematical physicists of our time, but because he is both."

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0022.html

Weekly Quote

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours

L.F.D.

 

[AzukanAsimbu]

love that weekly quote mm mm mm toasty

 

[Darato]

Fits in well with this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0A4_bwCaX0&feature=related

L.F.D.

 

[Pokemon Geek]

Have to agree with Azukan on this one, nice quote Darato!

 

[mika4556]

there is no god there is not even scientific proof there is a god only proof that jesus lived and jesus was a man i think god is a made up entity to control the masses

 

[Devastator2000]

I am an athiest simply because I don't believe in god. When you think about that, the word 'Atheist' is a christian form of 'Infidels'.

 

[AzukanAsimbu]

Fits in well with this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0A4_bwCaX0&feature=related

L.F.D.

that tells it like it is alright.

That made me laugh

 

[Darato]

http://www.pulltheplugonatheism.com/

L.F.D.

 

[Hamishmash]