Posted on 12/05/2012 10:45:29 PM PST by Cronos
A MOB attacked Alexander Aan even before an Indonesian court in June jailed him for two and a half years for “inciting religious hatred”. His crime was to write “God does not exist” on a Facebook group he had founded for atheists in Minang, a province of the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Like most non-believers in Islamic regions, he was brought up as a Muslim. And he has been punished.
.. Sharia law, which covers only Muslims unless incorporated into national law, assumes people are born into their parents’ religion. Thus ex-Muslim atheists are guilty of apostasy—a hudud crime against God, like adultery and drinking alcohol. Potential sanctions can be severe: eight states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan have the death penalty on their statute books for such offences.
..The Arab upheavals and the growing number of open non-believers have sparked some debate. In Egypt, Bassem Youssef, writes that Islam co-existed with pagans and atheists at the height of its power. Some of the finest medieval Arabic and Persian poets and grammarians were atheists (though several were also famously executed).
.. Arguments for the death penalty are usually based on a Hadith, one of the sayings which, along with the Koran, form the basis of Islamic law: “The Prophet said: whoever discards his religion, kill him.”
..Ibn Warraq says that the nub of the problem is that sharia makes atheism the number one sin, ahead of murder. .. A 2010 survey by the Pew Research Centre, an American think-tank, found that 84% of Muslims in Egypt and 86% in Jordan backed the death penalty for apostates, compared with 51% in Nigeria and 30% in Indonesia.
..she felt pushed away: “These incidents made me gradually refuse Islam until I completely renounced it and became an atheist.”
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
You would think that, logically, atheists would be thankful for Christians. If not for us, all the spoiled Western atheists would already be living in Muslim lands, and they wouldn’t have the luxury of being “freethinkers”. Instead, many of them seem to let their hatred of God overrule their logic.
Some do; the honest ones. But that thankfulness is of a specific kind, and no Christian ought to think that the historical truth that Christians have tolerated diversity, primarily among themselves, and fought to protect it, can excuse present day bad behavior.
Same on the other side; non-believes have long thought of themselves as innocuous homebodies with no axe to grind. But nowadays a new kind of in-your-face atheist has sprung up, ugly, abrasive and offensive. Atheists ought to police themselves better, or there will be consequences.
I missed this one first time through. This is utter nonsense. Atheists do not "hate God". They believe that there is no evidence to support the belief that God exists. It is an absurd contradiction to accuse someone of hating something that they don't think exists at all. Any atheist I know of would get a big laugh out of such a statement.
In fact it is believers that atheists think act outside logic. And I think that no serious Christian could deny that their religion is, at its core, faith based.
I agree. It’s either a liberal assumption or an abuse of the power of suggestion to think that atheists “hate God”.
It’s either a liberal assumption or an abuse of the power of suggestion to SAY that atheists “hate God”.
Lets help those atheists and those muzzies. Get them going after one another and the christians might be left alone for a while.
I don’t see how your reply to post #6 relates to what I said in post #6.
Ever notice how atheists can’t just shut up and leave believers alone? They share this busy-body, “look at me” behavior with homosexuals. In fact, many belong to both groups.
We don’t care what you believe...and atheism is a belief, recognized as a religion by the Supreme Court. We don’t care what your sexual aberrations are.
Just shut up and don’t tell us about them. You will never convince us that you are “normal.”
What's the big deal if you are an athiest? So there is a Cross there, to you it is nothing, so no big deal...
Many "Atheists" act that way -- I think they're not really atheists, just want to get a rile out of people
Real atheists won't really care what religious folks do.
Months before graduation, West Point cadet quits, citing culture of overt religion
Published December 06, 2012
| Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. – A cadet quitting West Point less than six months before graduation says he could no longer be part of a culture that promotes prayers and religious activities and disrespects nonreligious cadets.
Well, it seems absurd if you are atheist, I’ll grant you that. It would have seemed absurd to me when I was an atheist. However, I think most believers will understand exactly what I mean.
It’s related to the fact that we all have a subconscious, and many times conscious, longing to know God. It’s part of our human nature, and we can’t ever rid ourselves of it no matter what intellectual position we adopt on the existence of God. So, atheism exacerbates an unresolved psychological conflict, and like anything else that attempts to repress such a conflict instead of resolving it, it results in neuroses.
This is why believers may say a militant atheist is a “Christophobe” or “hates God”. Not that they consciously, intellectually choose to act out in these ways, but that their manifestations of their subconscious cause them to behave with fear, anger, and, yes, hatred, towards any reminder of the God they are trying to deny.
I don’t expect you to really accept that argument, but that’s what it is.
“Real atheists won’t really care what religious folks do.”
That’s not altogether true. I think atheists, agnostics and most believers all care what religious extremists do.
For example, there are the “folks” who go to extremes to disrupt military funerals (”GOD HATES YOU”, etc.) and you also have the Islamic extremists and jihadists who helped put that US soldier in his or her grave.
99% of atheists don't "act out" at all. Why engage in a matter that means literally nothing to you? Better stay home and read a book!
Those atheists who do "act out" in the manner you describe are struggling with some serious inner demons - perhaps much as you suggest.
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