Heaven trembles before their mighty wrath. Not.
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 11/21/2009 11:39:21 AM PST by Steelfish
Atheist Student Groups Flower on College Campuses
ASSOCIATED PRESS November 21, 2009
AMES, Iowa (AP) -- The sign sits propped on a wooden chair, inviting all comers: ''Ask an Atheist.''
Whenever a student gets within a few feet, Anastasia Bodnar waves and smiles, trying to make a good first impression before eyes drift down to a word many Americans rank down there with ''socialist.''
Bodnar is the happy face of atheism at Iowa State University. Once a week at this booth at a campus community center, the PhD student who spends most of her time researching the nutritional traits of corn takes questions and occasional abuse while trying to raise the profile of religious skepticism.
''A lot of people on campus either don't know we exist or are afraid of us or hate us,'' says Bodnar, president of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society. ''People assume we're rabble-rousing, when we're one of the gentlest groups on campus.''
As the stigma of atheism has diminished, campus atheists and agnostics are coming out of the closet, fueling a sharp rise in the number of clubs like the 10-year-old group at Iowa State.
Campus affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance, a sort of Godless Campus Crusade for Christ, have multiplied from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall, providing the atheist movement new training grounds for future leaders. In another sign of growing acceptance, at least three universities, including Harvard, now have humanist chaplains meeting the needs of the not-so-spiritual.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No use getting up in arms about this. 80% of those kids would relish a Christian backlash to feed their persecution complex.
Not believing in God is one thing. “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God”, but, whatever. “Work out your own salvation” — or not.
Feeling the need to EVANGELIZE atheism is an altogether different and very strange thing.
So, ISU has a ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society?
But do they also have an organizations for campus Christians, Catholics, Jews Buddhists and Muslims?
“Feeling the need to EVANGELIZE atheism is an altogether different and very strange thing.” - by Nervous Tick
Yeah, What’s up with that?
Atheists always used to complain about Christians prosthlytizing which is understandable since they think they are saving the atheist but why does an atheist care what I believe? I get the impression they are pressing me to convince them otherwise.
Just another stupid youthful fad.
Heaven trembles before their mighty wrath. Not.
It tells me these people have real self-esteem issues . . .ironically probably caused by a lack of religious values.
A goodly number of the atheists are such because they think themselves as having been abused by religious people, in the name of religion. And don’t be too quick to say that doesn’t happen, because it does, and not just by Muslims.
It goes to the argument of how a child adopts a religion. Properly done, it should be gentle, pleasant, and appeal to the child’s interests and hopes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of adults who aren’t willing for religion to be taught to children this way.
Whenever a child is forced, beaten, humiliated, scorned, lied to, or otherwise abused in the effort to “teach” them religion, it is not religion that is taught. It may be atheism, however.
And children thus mistreated can be terribly bitter about it. Typically, they may try to rationalize their atheism as having another cause or purpose. But it goes back to an event, or a series of events, that made religion repugnant to them.
While they may just turn their back on religion, all too often they want revenge against what they consider the reason for their abuse. They want others to see it in the same negative light, to also reject it. And it makes them even unhappier that others didn’t have their negative experience, and still embrace religion.
So, now that they admit they are a religion, complete with clergy, can we finally get them, and their promotions and proselytizing, out of the classroom?
Or, should we push for equal time and toleration?
'go christmas, go hannukah, go kwanzaa, go solstice!'
my jaw dropped. no shopping at GAP this year.
I noticed that ad, too.
Society of the Godless (The Union of Belligerent Atheists or The League of the Militant Godless
S.o.G. embraced workers, peasants, students, and intelligentsia. It had its first affiliates at factories, plants, collective farms (kolkhoz), and educational institutions. By the beginning of 1941, S.o.G. had about 3.5 million members of 100 nationalities. It had about 96,000 offices across the country.
Guided by Bolshevik principles of antireligious propaganda and party's orders with regards to religion, S.o.G. aimed at fighting religion in all its manifestations and forming scientific mindset among the workers. It popularized atheism and scientific achievements, conducted individual work with religious people, prepared propagandists and atheistic campaigners, published scientific literature and periodicals, organized museums and exhibitions, conducted scientific research in the field of atheism and critics of religion.
S.o.G.'s slogan was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism" which was meant to tie in their atheist views with economy, politics, and culture. S.o.G. had vast international connections; it was part of the International of Proletarian Freethinkers and later of the Worldwide Freethinkers Union.
It is important to remember that atheism predated socialism, and even proto-socialism. Atheism for all intents and purposes, can probably trace its roots to before the Protestant Reformation to the early days of the Catholic church.
Going back to the 3rd Century there were “antipopes”, heterodoxical and heretical sects and factions, and forcible conversions of pagans to Christianity that were de jure, but not de facto. Always with these events there were those who would give up entirely on religion, perhaps paying it lip service, but no longer believing in it or its mythology.
However, it was generally forbidden to be a non-believer, often with the penalty of death, so while one might be an atheist, they couldn’t say so.
Socialists are rather late to the game as these things go. Philosophically, it is ironic that their rejection of God is more an effort to set themselves in His place, as the arbiters of all things, in supreme arrogance. They have even created, in their own mythos, a parody of the Book of Genesis in some ways.
But it is problematic to be an atheist, if you are setting yourself up to be God.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.