Defacing a church or synagogue is considered a hate crime. Should this be?
A billboard near Sacramento promoting atheism was vandalized by someone depicting atheists as lost, one of the billboard’s sponsor said.
The billboard — one of several posted in the Sacramento area — originally read: “Are you good without God? Millions are.” Someone spray-painted the words “also lost?” beneath “millions are,” CBS13 reported Tuesday.
Rachael Harrington of the Sacramento Area Coalition of Reason — which paid to have the billboards put up — said the ads are intended to let atheists and agnostics know they are not alone, the TV station said.
“This shows loud and clear just how necessary our message is, because prejudice against people who don’t believe in a god remains very real in America,” Harrington said.
#62–bac==well done. You do raise many interesting consequences of atheism being treated like a formal religion.
But my question goes to a different aspect of the issue: why do RELIGIOUS people want to equate the two?
If I were a DOG fancier, I wouldn’t want people thinking CATS were the same thing!! Whats wrong with those hairballs?
Dogs are not cats, the absence of something is not the same as the presence of something, and being religious thinking that x=y is not the same thing/and is not supported by thinking x may be y depending on how you define it.
Gabor Mate is on Book TV right now. Very smart/humanistic guy. Typical jewish doctor. Add his book to my growing list of things to read.
#39
(in this case, possibly hate, but come on, it’s a freaking billboard and what was tagged, isn’t even a threat!)
No one is proposing the death penalty for tagging. However, should the perpetrator get additional penalties because their sole motivation was intolerance? Sure.
#44
Completely agree with your reasoning, but it’s all dealt with already through the trial system, where all that you said comes into play. The point I was making was 1st degree murder, which by definition, is premeditation, regardless of the motive for the premeditation(money, sex, etc). Motive context gets dealt with in court/pleas. Same should happen with “hate” crimes; deal with them in the court/plea system, not with a special charge added to the main charge. To me I see it as just duplicating existing mechanisms for PC sake.
To the point about agnostic/atheist. Speaking for myself, in my day to day life, I don’t care about deities/religion so that would make agnostic about it in practice. But ask point blank do I believe there is some higher being(s) and I’ll answer flat out,”No”,not based on any empirical evidence I’ve ever come across, making me an atheist.
#63 — The answer is probably based on some irrational thought.
“If I were a DOG fancier, I wouldn’t want people thinking CATS were the same thing!!” You did pick an interesting example because it could be stretched to cover a rational reason why gob believers to want non-god believers to be in a religion. Dogs generally tend to run in packs, which the same could be said of most religious people. Cats on the other hand do not generally run in packs. Most atheist do not run in packs. This leads to the thinking that the dogs want the cats to run in packs too. Dogs just don’t understand how anyone would not want to be in a pack. Kind of like extroverts not understanding introverts.
This is highly generalized speculation.
#62 Gary
Hmmm. Sounds like an evening’s entertainment.
#65–Micky==agnostic: google shows various definitions none of which includes the variation of “caring.” You should be a little more disciplined in a discussion of what words mean?
#66-bac==another good extension. Was it Ghost Busters that Bill Murray warned of Armageddon: “Dogs and cats have sex?” Good Line. Just behind one of the greatest lines ever about having sex with a possessed Signorney Weaver: Not really a commandment, more a guideline. Cracks me up.
#67–qb==so bored you can barely post? Yes, this is all there is.
@#40:
No, I didn’t decide to become an atheist. I was born like this.
#69–Max==of course you have decided to become an atheist. Every morning when we wake up we decide to be who we are/what we believe. Maybe too lazy/zombified to recognize the choices made–an artifact of memory.
We are born human which is nothing but potential. Who we are/what we believe is the work that was done.
I don’t care what you believe as long as you really believe it. What really gets my goat is how few people have faith, or a clear understanding of the meaning of their own existence. Irking out their mediocre lives following dogmas fearful of the responsibility of their own decisions.
#70 bobbo, I disagree that religious belief is any sort of choice. Belief like that is impossible for me, barring a blow to the head or use of some psychedelic drug as in some religions.
If you really think it’s a choice, take five minutes out of your busy schedule and make the choice to believe in Santa Claus, or any other deity of that suits your fancy. Set an alarm so you know when to stop believing. When the time is up, come back here and reflect on how authentic your chosen belief felt to you. My guess is, not very…
Personally, I was born an atheist (as was Max) but successfully indoctrinated otherwise for a time, and then the effect eventually wore off. Now, it would be impossible for me to believe in a deity without convincing evidence. Some things simply cannot be chosen.
#71–amadangaringding: what is the meaning of anyone’s existence? Yours, mine, some third party? Use as many or as few words as you feel worthy to the task. I’ll check back later in case you make a real effort.
As a pramatic existentialist for most of my adult life, I can’t find any meaning. Touch me.
#72–Gary==gee==read any psychology/sociology books in your LIFE??????? We are blank slates on birth, ready to be bent in various directions within our potential. Once written, those twists become more difficult to erase. If it is not an issue of choice in the environment subjected to, then what makes us what we are? Divine intervention or the orientation of stars and planets leading your list? or random chance?????
Bobbo, the proof of whether belief is a true choice is the ability to make an alternate choice. Did you try the Santa Claus experiment?
I’m with Gary and Max. Born an atheist (as is every single person), was indoctrinated as a Catholic, then in my early twenties, started to realize that Catholicism and pretty much any concept of a deity, makes no logical sense, so back to being an atheist. You have to be taught to believe in a deity. Through that teaching you may become convinced and stay that way, or like me, it starts to fall away with logical thought.
Bingo, Mikey Twit! You get a gold medal for picking the right word, and one that makes for the correct contrast with the disputed “choice.”
Today’s secret word was realize. Loss of belief is not a choice, but a realization.
If defacing a church or synagogue is a hate crime, then defacing an atheist’s billboard because of its religious content should be a hate crime also. It is of course absurd to believe that good atheists exist.
While I agree with atheists’ claims that they lack faith, there is no question that atheists believe there is no God. Belief simply means “an opinion or conviction.”
# 74 Gary, the dangerous infidel said, on February 20th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Bobbo, the proof of whether belief is a true choice is the ability to make an alternate choice. Did you try the Santa Claus experiment? /// You mean like picking heads or tails on a coin flip? Is that “the same” choice that is being made in epistemology? I don’t think so.
More subtle is the secret word: realize. There I would opine that the “realizations” come earlier in the chain of resoning that leads to the choice of believing in god or “realizing” in that ambiguous sense that you do not.
Words are like that.
I have an alternate justification for “hate crimes” being judged more harshly. It should be a called a “constitutional crime” instead. Since the framers specifically mentioned freedom of religion attacking somebody because of their belief(this would include atheism) is a more serious offense.
Of course that could never work, because then we’d have to specially protect the other rights too. And some of them(like privacy) are so passe in a modern authoritarian society.
#77 Shubee wrote “It is of course absurd to believe that good atheists exist.”
That attitude is one reason why some religious people are completely unfit to govern. Also keep in mind, anyone who doesn’t worship YOUR god is actually worshiping a false god, so they too are devoid of the “goodness” that can only come from your god. Many of the foreign countries with whom a leader must negotiate are also completely devoid of the “goodness” that flows only from your god.
It’s not exactly a recipe for world peace, but when you’ve got God on your side, you can afford to be a little belligerent.
#78 bobbo, why can’t you simply choose to believe that I’m right, instead of harboring all those nagging doubts of yours?
Continuing to believe after such a thorough debunked is silly
#81–gary==because my decision making takes place within an objective framework. In this case a study of developmental pschology and even more accessible to all: any standard dictionary.
All words have shades of meaning and different meanings in different contexts.
Their are choices that are inconsequential and there are choices that are judgments the consequence of interactive and supportive related choices that when being honest and consistent cannot be avoided==not without revisiting all the supporting previous and matrixed choices.
So what are we talkin bout again? Can I “choose” to believe in god or not? As you suggest, only in the most superficial way.
We aren’t being superficial are we?
#62
I see this a lot and I am always surprised to hear yet another person that thinks that God is mentioned in the Constitution. Do the world a favor and read it sometime; you’ll find no mention of God.
I am good without god so it looks fine to me! I am sick of seeing those ridiculous billboards about religion.
#85
I see this a lot and I am always surprised to hear yet another person that thinks that God is mentioned in the Constitution.
Technically, not correct. There is in fact one reference to a deity in the Constitution.
Wow a lot of ignorant thought here. Sure the normal perception of atheists/agnostics is they don’t go to church, or have a “church of the non-believers”, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t organized.
While I’ve not bothered to look, I’m sure that organized “non-religion” groups are just as fragmented, separated and radical as any other religious group.
The reason? It’s not religion that makes people radical, crazy, paranoid, ignorant, or our right stupid… Mankind has found ways to do this to our selves with out the guise of religion for millenia. Religion is just an easy (and very old) target for that ridicule, since they are SO stuck in the past.
#87–Thomas==”God” is not mentioned. Only “The Year of our Lord” which is not about God but rather the identification of the calendar system in use.
Surely you see the difference?
#84 bobbo, no, we aren’t being superficial. I’ve been told that superficial belief isn’t enough for admission through the pearly gates. If you can’t feel it, you’re out of luck. Sorry.
“No soup for you!!!” (the soup Nazi is filling in for Saint Peter today)
#88–Frag==what the frick are you trying to say?
“Non-religious organized group”==ok, like a bowling league for instance? I think they are pretty uniform about liking to bowl. And what has any bowling fraternity done to injure their fellow man or society or anything else?
Think that thru one more time and give the idiocy of religion its due.
Like many others, it’s simply Vandalism. Hate or not, the behavior is the problem. Find the idiot, ticket him for vandalism, and go on.
“Are you good without god?” “Millions are lost.” Well, what the hell are we waiting around for? We should find ’em!
#85 — I was being sarcastic. If you would read the whole line it states that we should rewrite the documents. Just like the radical christians that are trying to rewrite history by stating those documents do contain the word god. May be that was too subtle.
Gary, I think you need to reconsider the word realize. Because that word means to make real. So I person has to decide to make something real. In your example, I would have to decide to make Santa real. Most people choose a religion because they are needing control in their life even if it is coming from an outside source. These people need hope, a purpose and/or need to have their life mean something so they make real an external source that guides them and gives them purpose. These people have already made a decision that their life needs control. All that is left is to make real an invisible beign or follow a cult leader.