"Growing up godless"--America's secular families raising kids are doing "quite well"

As long as we live in a world full of sterotypes about atheists, we will have tons of people who are closet atheists. Now if I want to get along with other inmates, and still impress folks sitting on a parole board, am I more likely to claim to be Christian, Muslim, 'non-religious'/ I don't give a (*)(*)(*)(*), or label myself an atheist? I might do anyone of the first three, but there is no advantage to self- identifying as an atheist.

 

Just depends on where you want to place your blind faith.

 

You weren't asked about your answer, you were asked about inner city youths as was the poster I was conversing with till you butt in. Your answer is irrelevant to the conversation I was having with the other poster.

 

WTF else could a LA Times article about a leftist survey conclude?

It's well proven that a fully secular America will be a worse America. It will have less community involvement, less charity and a clouded moral compass.

Enjoy doom.

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...that are prescribing behavior mod drugs at previously unheard of rates.

 

Even satanists can raise kids quite well. As long as they have a coesive family. Keywords here would be functional/coesive families.

 

It is when they go to jail. If you want to get out early you have to convince the system you are not a threat, and rehabilitated. Since most of the people you are attempting to impress are for the most part religious, what better way to get on their good side than to act accordingly. Doesn't mean you have to believe anything other than the fact if you act a certain way it will open doors for you. IOW the statistic cpicturetaker is referring too is highly distorted.

 

And most self-proclaimed Christians are only in it for the acceptance of their peers. Sunday is for Church, and the rest of the week is spent deciding which commandment will or will not be adhered too.

 

Quote Originally Posted by Bluesguy View Post
Well compared to how many times religion has proven itself right.........................

You do realize I was being sarcastic?

 

Yes religious affiliation is high among blacks.

If you think there is some qualification to that then present the evidence.

Are you asserting that high rates of black crime are just limited big city urban areas? That there is a difference in church attendance or religious affiliations? What is that assertion based upon then?

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And what is that based upon. The atheist I know, including myself are involved in the community, in charities and share the same moral beliefs as you, I just don't have to have a supernatural being threaten me if I don't adhere to them.

 

Believe in something or you'll fall for anything.

 

If there's one thing I've learned in life it's that you can't trust an atheist when they think no one is looking. They will be fine for one or two generations, maybe, but staying out of prison and having personal success does not mean that someone is a good person.

 

Einstein. What a dumbass. Believed in God.

 

If we are to use reason and the laws of logic to dismiss the existence of God, what is it then that makes such laws possible.

What is the origin of reason?

How is it that a collection of randomly thrown together chemicals, can reason?

The building blocks for reason were pre-assembled, all the necessary elements for reason to emerge from chaos and random events were in the box already once the Universe exploded out of a singularity of nothingness.

We still do not have a definitive answer for that.

 

2 things. Where's any proof secular kids are anymore prone to need and use psychologists than religious kids?? 2ND--If a psychologist on speed-dial helps to raise happy caring accomplished kids, let's be sure to make that covered by Obamacare!!

 

I keep hearing how educated liberals are (from liberals) but they're always trying to increase taxes on business owners (mostly conservative) to confiscate more money.
Well, how did business owners (mostly conservative) acquire all this wealth and why has it, generally speaking, eluded liberals?
In other words, if liberals are so smart, why do they have to take money from conservatives, why not just make it themselves?

One would have to ask a core question, does being more educated, mean being more intelligent?

 

You don't get out much.

 

Einstein was a pantheist. He did not believe in a personal god that at all involved itself in the universe or human lives.

 

Problem #1 with your argument: chemistry is not random.

You are forgetting that evolution includes both random mutation AND natural selection (which is not random but instead yields predictable results).

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Not believing in god =/= believing in nothing.

Seriously, the arrogance of theists is astounding.

 

Einstein believed in a higher power, he did not believe bible myths

.

 

Isaac Newton was Christian. He is arguably the most intelligent human to ever exist.

Newtonian physics remains the foundation for engineering and most technologies. The principles and laws of our physical world, which led to the creation of hardware, an internet, electrical grids that power it all; allowing us to communicate via text on this very website...is brought to you by Newtonian physics.

 

What's your point? When Newton was alive, we did not have enough physical knowledge of the Earth and universe for people to believe otherwise. Atheism is a direct result of advances in scientific knowledge, which is why you see more today than you did 100, 200, 300 years ago.

 

What is the point of using Einstein as a source of theological truth?
Because he was a really smart guy, relativity and all that jazz?

He didn't believe in a Biblical God...Ok

Newton did.

Newton was Einstein's intellectual equal.

There is no human, or collective group of humans that can definitively state any theological truth.

God's existence or non-existence is unknowable.

The Theist relies upon faith, what does the atheist rely upon?

Logic and reason, the scientific method perhaps (invented by Newton by the way)

and what is the source of logic and reason...our minds of course...and where did these come from?

Well we theorize it emerged out of a singularity, perhaps a 5 dimensional black hole. What occurred before this singularity existed; what created this 5 dimensional black hole? We don't know, and we will never know. Whatever evidence of the early Universe remains is currently getting further away from us as our Universe expands.

We can theorize of course, but we will never know, because there is no evidence remaining to know.

A God, a creator, is as good an explanation as anything else in the final analysis because whatever explanation is used it will remain unprovable as a theory.

 

fact is, Christians only disbelieve in one less God then Atheists do, Christians disbelieve in all the others exactly like Atheists do

Christians are almost there, only one to go

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Actually yes. Round up a bunch of crips and bloods types and nearly all will claim belief in a god and their most common way out of life on the street is life in a church.

 

I have a brother who every few years he gets into some kind of legal trouble, usually related to drinking. Every time, without fail, he makes the claim that he has found (re-found) god in an effort to reduce his punishment. He is a regular church goer so his claims of finding god are mostly BS.