Atheism is an attitude - a self-centered, elitist conceit about one’s supposed intellectual superiority coupled with a desire to have this alleged superiority acknowledged by others.
And Mark knows this because he's spent time with hordes of non-believers....right....
Meanwhile, we’re just sorry for them; and we’ll keep praying for them. Its so hard to see some of our fellows so cut off from reason and love - so unwilling to first admit to the superior and then realize you can endlessly draw upon this superior for whatever it is you need.
One thing that really turns me off about religion: how people like Noonan act so condescending towards others who don't share their beliefs as lost souls that need to be continued to be prayed for and that one day, they'll see the light and beg for forgiveness. Mind you, i'm not an atheist (i'm agnostic), but reading condescending shit like this really pisses me off.
The sad part is that Mark could have addressed how both sides - the hard-liners of belief and non-belief - do each other no service by legitimizing the viewpoints that Christians are a bunch of brainwashed morons who look down on others or that atheists are arrogant pricks who enjoy boasting how intelligent they are from everyone else, but instead he just legitimizes the former.
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One thing that really turns me off about religion: how people like Noonan act so condescending towards others who don't share their beliefs as lost souls that need to be continued to be prayed for and that one day, they'll see the light and beg for forgiveness. Mind you, i'm not an atheist (i'm agnostic), but reading condescending shit like this really pisses me off.
I would suggest to you Jonathan that is not the fault of religion but the fault of idiots like Noonan who don't have a clue about religion but believe they wrote the bible.
I suppose there's a reason the phrase "holier than thou" entered the common vocabulary. It's too bad that this post of Noonan's, and so many similar ones throughout the Series Of Tubes, display it so amply.
In my thinking, I guess it all comes down to how comfortable you are or are not with trusting yourself and your own judgment/perception of how the world works.
Example, tangential. I have worked in marketing and advertising for many years, and in all that time I have yet to see any ad agency that has proven itself worth its retainer, fees or reputation. Their focus is all about earning design awards and kudos within their own milieu, and when it comes time to produce actual results for their clients, they usually have ready a half-dozen scapegoats to point to as to why such-and-such campaign didn't deliver.
Yet company after company relies on agencies, because "they're the experts" and they "know better." The clients don't trust their own knowledge of their product or company, so they outsource it to an "authority" in the advertising field.
What is organized religion but a spiritual "ad agency"?
They're someone you can lean on and commit to and sign up with, when you don't have a personal clue.
They can serve up to you what they think you, as the client, want to hear.
And when fate disappoints, you can rest back on them with assurance that a scapegoat will be produced that absolves you, and them, of all responsibility.
I don't mean this to be wholesale scorn toward all true believers...I'm sure there are some whose sincerity comes from the heart rather than the CYA end of the spectrum. But I do think that many of the most fervent apologists for religion in general and fundamentalism in particular are looking to lift the burden of personal responsibility off their own shoulders, and to rest it on some sort of pleasing dogma.
In my thinking, I guess it all comes down to how comfortable you are or are not with trusting yourself and your own judgment/perception of how the world works.For some of us ET a belief in God has helped to come to terms with our perception of how we work in the world.
There was a time, a long time in fact, when I questioned if I was long for this earth.
My Brother committed suicide when I was 14. I wish I could tell you my reaction to his death was sadness but honestly it was anger. I wanted to do what he did. I had threatened to do it, I had wanted to do it. And when he DID do it I was mad because A. He had the guts to do it (yes this is how I looked at it at the time) and B. This now meant it would be that much harder for me to do it. How could I could my parents through this again? His suicide made it that much harder for me.
I felt this way, off and on, mostly ON until I was 21. I am not a religious man at all. I am skeptical of religion and of what we do in the name of religion but a belief in their being something better than Earth for those of us who survive it was the only thing for years that kept me a live.
Faith has it's place. None of us know for sure if what we have faith in is real and yet we cling to it and that's why it's faith. I have said before that Noonan, Jeremiah and all the other knuckle draggers over at douchebags for victory have religion but they do not have faith.
There has to be something, somebody, somewhere who has had a hand in making me a reasonably healthy, happy productive man and husband entering his 35th year. Especially when you consider the multitude of stupid choices I have made to along the way.
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