Often times when I am talking about Christianity I try to speak generally. I focus on claims the Bible makes and some of the more popular beliefs that Christians hold. This gets me into trouble because obviously not all Christians are the same and there will always be a Christian who claims that the majority of Christians don’t believe in God literally or something.
Tag Christianity
There are a lot of great books written by atheist authors over the past few years. While I can’t say that reading any one particular book was the key to my own de-conversion from Judaism to atheism, I have heard from a lot of fellow atheists about how this book or that really got them thinking critically about religion and lead to their de-conversion. None of those books are going to be on my list.
The company that I was working for a number of years ago had a special workshop on inappropriate imagery in the workplace. The idea of the workshop is to make sure that all the employees treated each other respectfully and didn’t offend each other. One of the topics covered dealt with shirts and jewelry of an offensive nature. So I brought up the crucifix.
While fundamentalist religious believers certainly have a lot of ridiculous beliefs, I actually can understand their position much better than I can understand the position of the more nominal believers — as the old saying goes, in for a pinch; in for a pound.
I got a hilarious comment from a Christian recently. He claimed that atheism has been proven to be wrong. I didn’t know whether my gut was going to explode from laughter or my head was going to explode from his ignorance and stupidity.
Jamaica is a lot like the US as far as religious demographics are concerned… well sort of. About 65% of the country is Christian and about 20% have no religious affiliation. America has about 80% Christian and 20% with no religious affiliation. So who makes up the additional 15% in Jamaica? Jews, Muslim, Rastafarians, and closeted Obeahs. That last one is really pissing off the Christians.
Since at least 1998, I have been boycotting Chick-Fi-A. I know some people just found out recently that they hate gays and are massively fundamentalist Christian, but this has been kind of there thing for a long time.
Last week, Author Reza Aslan appeared on Fox News to promote his new book, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.” In the interview, Fox News embarrassed themselves by fixating on the fact that Aslan is a Muslim. Aslan capitalized on this by pretending to be an objective scholar. Yesterday, Aslan appeared on The Young Turks for an interview and it was he who should be embarrassed:
As an atheist, I think religion is all a bunch of bullshit and yet when religious believers claim that someone can’t get into their imaginary Disney World or will be tortured in their imaginary Guantanamo, it still bothers me. Yeah, I know it is all bullshit anyway, but like all things it is the thought that counts. So let’s have fun with that.
There is an article on CNN’s “Belief Blog” making the rounds that talks about “the six types” of atheists. This is hilariously funny… to me any way. Interestingly enough, a few years ago, I came up with a list of six reasons why people become born again. But that is a little different from saying six types of Christians.