Why Atheism Is A Religion

First off, there's nothing intellectually dishonest about allowing someone to pray for you, which is where the "fuck off" came from.

Secondly, having a supposed knee-jerk reaction doesn't automatically equal intellectual dishonesty, either.

Third, contemplating different viewpoints at your deathbed is more than just intellectually honest, it's wholeheartedly honest.

Fourth, the most honest thing anyone can ever do is admit that they don't actually know, which is the actual truth with EVERYONE regarding death. So allowing someone to pray for you, even "just in case" isn't dishonest in any way, even if your ego feels that it's silly. It's being open to all possibilities. You don't have to allow it "just in case" either, as that implies a certain fear, but that doesn't mean that it's dishonest just because there's insecurity.

 

So are you going to have the Muslim Cleric at your deathbed just to be open to the possibilities?

 

Why the fuck not??? I'm about to DIE. What the fuck do I care? Might as well soak in every possible angle and perspective.

 

What's more dishonest? Allowing someone to pray for you because you know that you don't know what the fuck happens next once you die, or being so intellectually smug in your conclusion about what happens that you arrogantly refuse someone to pray for you because you "know" that it's meaningless? Yeah, that's REALLY humble

 

Being pampered on your deathbed by people who presumably don't even know you seems far more smug

 

If you want to be by yourself or with loved ones, that is fine. But there's nothing dishonest about having people pray for you, if you're down and even if you don't follow the religion.

You are in your final moments ever in this incarnation. I really would hope that I wouldn't be some prideful crank in those moments. If someone walks in and wants to pray for me, have at it. If some Atheist walks in and tells me his/her theology, go the fuck ahead. The more I think about it, it really would be interesting to get every angle, and maybe be tripping too just to yank me out of my Ego.

 

Would you be offended if someone said they were going to curse you? Hope that you suffer horrific pain? Pray for you to go to hell? Or perhaps murder a family in your "honor"?

Did it ever cross your mind that an atheist might be 0.1% superstitious? Or that an atheist might think there is 0.001% chance that Yahweh is the DEVIL? There is no doubt in my mind that IF there was any possibility that the old testament God was real then he really was an absolutely EVIL DEVIL. Any RATIONAL person who is not blinded by religion can clearly see the correlation between praying and suffering. That statistically, the populations that pray the most have the worst quality of life. In my point of view there is no difference between cursing and praying, they are both a self inflicted scourge on humanity.

 

I wasn't aware Atheism was a religion. I thought is was the anti-theist who did not have any belief in a higher power.

Anyway, I see the thread has taken a turn towards death. I don't see my self as an atheist at all but my "higher power" isn't a person and so many religions base the core of their prayers and ritual at this human image. I guess they can more easily relate to it or think it better relates to them in a human form. Whatever.

As for dying, I would be incensed if I were to die and they put me in a coffin and sat in front of me in a funeral home while spouting a bunch of stuff I not only disagreed with but profoundly objected to with every fiber of my being. I have plans to be buried in a place away from the religious, without a box to confine and separate me from my return to the ground.

Anythings spoken to me while dying or after death better be the grumblings of unpaid debts, my favorite poems and some anecdotes of my character and adventures.

I'd prefer to die in the woods like a dog. I'll be damned if I'm going to be hooked to a machine or hovered over while people sob and suffer on my account. My death better not be wasted like that.

 

Hopefully you don't assume every christian death bed prayer fits this description! That would be quite disappointing. Why put it like this anyway? Do you regard this is what/how most christians are or feel at the end of their life? Or are you illustrating the beliefs of a particular kind of christian? I think most christians would not fully recognize themselves in it (not talking about the dishonest ones, intellectually or not )

 

Reality of the prayer sentiment:

"I see that you're suffering so I'll go and take some time for myself and stroke my ego and swig on some delusion. It won't do a fucking thing to help you but it will make me feel better".

The Yahweh minions, making the world just a little bit worse with every selfishly evil, delusionary, placebic prayer fix.

 

That's not THE reality of prayer sentiment but your stereotypical perception I think you know that too. You're just focussing on the kind of christian you so strongly dislike and in your urge to make the religion as a whole as ludicrious as those particular christians you start distorting reality. Not saying the prayer sentiment you talk about in above post doesn't exist, but to portray it is the most common is just sad and wrong.

 

A few years ago there was a controversy in the world's religious community as it was discovered that the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) was posthumously baptising people who were not part of the church in their lives . . . including Jewish victims of the Third Reich. Anne Frank alone had been baptised 9 times.

I guess when the relatives of those jews got upset, they weren't being open-minded enough. They should have embraced the possibility that the Mormon faith is real, that native americans are a lost tribe if israelites (despite all genetic and historic evidence to the contrary), and that wearing magical underwear is really swell according to the creator of the universe.

Gosh, if only those jews hadn't been so dogmatic, I could have respected them. Instead they chose to value dignity and personal freedom over the miscellaneous wishes of third party religious authorities interjecting themselves into lives in which they have no business being. How ARROGANT of them, am I right?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/us/jews-take-issue-with-posthumous-mormon-baptisms-beliefs.html?_r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_for_the_dead

 

Thanks for clarifying. I already assumed you didn't but you know, it could so easily be read into it. And it is often portrayed as such by other atheists so I just thought it is useful to get explained

No, you're being facetious (again).

Although I didn't know of this and it's really preposterous so glad to take notice of it (thanks for sharing)! But what are you saying exactly with this example? Why did you share it here? Is it ment as example for Chinacat that just because a christian minority (mormon in this case) does something extremely silly it still isn't useful to project it on every christian as whole (as China is essentially doing with atheism/atheists)? Just wondering.

 

lol so prayer is equated with murder??

 

But it's you who is lacking any humility and are grasping your ego as you near the grave.

 

So you're equating Jews with Atheists it sounds like to me.

Sounds like most people on here are uncomfortable with any belief system other than their own. Just another example that Atheism is a Religion.

So maybe you should also stop trying to "help" non-Atheists and try to convert them then? I've seen you do this multiple times, and also defend Atheists who want to eliminate Religion, even though they can't see that they are a Religion themselves, especially as they want to eliminate all others.

 

The infallible Art Intle shall have a notion of God . Respectul of that , it's programming would be
centrally referenced to randomness and not the rule of law .