Religion poll in GD

[RussBLib]

Currently atheists leading the pack at 41%
Christians at 21%
Agnostics at 17%

but I didn't see hardly any of you good folks here included.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5881467

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Happy to oblige.

[deucemagnet]

2. Thanks for posting this.

It's very heartening to know that so many DUers share our views.

[kdmorris]

3. Took it this morning n/t

[JDDavis]

4. I voted. Funny how that poll contains separate

categories for atheist and agnostic.

No mention of Muslim among the 10 (ten) religious choices, but something listed as a choice "Reconstructionist"? What the heck is that? Even my spell-checker doesn't recognize it as a word.

So far, 58% of those replying, (it's obviously NOT a scientific poll) identify either as atheist or agnostic.

Poor choice of options, but so many atheists and agnostics. So many that we might dominate in a healthy, open-minded discussion of "religion". Oh, but those who choose to post "over there" must remember that there now exists a growing number of words to which some religious people take deep offense: one beginning with the letter "d" recently added to that list. Then there's that word starting with an "f", not the sexually-vulgar one but the one that talks about fairies.

Discuss religious and theological issues. All relevant topics are permitted. Believers, non-believers, and everyone in-between are welcome.

Some of us are very happy nowadays, hardly ever venturing to read, let-alone post at that place.

[onager]

6. "Fairy tales can come true..."

Hey, lurking grammar-Nazis: can I use the f-word in this context? Thank you so much!

One of my favorite pieces of ironic film - Frank Sinatra juxtaposed against images of early-Fifties America (and Korea). For younger readers - that happy, smiling gent at the wedding is Sen. Joe McCarthy.

That unhappy couple at the end is the Rosenbergs, who were executed. Your teacher might not have mentioned that - there probably wasn't time after all the lessons on how America is really a Xian nation but the Founders just sort of forgot to mention it.

This is the opening of the movie "The Front," made almost entirely by people who were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and starring a young Woody Allen.

Best viewed at full screen:

[JDDavis]

7. Thanks for this clip and movie tip.

I'm so happy that there is no list of offensive words here, (other than what most reasonable DU members would never use without it being quotation from somewhere).

Objection to certain words because some believers might get their feelings or butts hurt, and defending the concept of censorship of those words, well, I wonder sometimes what authoritarianism is doing in a supposedly open-minded forum on "religion". At least we can visit and post in this wonderful forum, with thoughtful, hard-working, wise hosts.

Come to think of it, why were atheism and agnosticism listed ?

Neither of them are a "religion".

[Cartoonist]

8. I thought you were were talking about two movies

I couldn't remember Korea being in Young At Heart or the title song being in The Manchurian Candidate.
I like the first movie for its wonderful songs, and I love Doris Day. I like the second movie for its politics.

[onager]

18. Just this one movie:

"The Front" (1976)

Woody Allen plays a completely apolitical nebbish who acts as a "front" for blacklisted TV writers in the early 1950s. He puts his name on their work, to pay off his gambling debts. Gradually he learns why people are being blacklisted and has a change of heart. And mind.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074554/

The clip I posted is the beginning of the movie.

I guess I'm a Credits Nerd or something. Another really good opening clip is from the generally awful movie "The Jackal" (very bad remake of "Day of the Jackal.&quot In just a couple of minutes, it covers the whole modern history of Russia - from Czarism to the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin et. al. and finally the fall of Communism and rise of the new oligarchs. So lousy movie, but great credit sequence.

[LostOne4Ever]

10. If the op would have made the first option

[font size=3 color=teal face=papyrus]Non-theist it would have given him room for Islam and not forced us agnostic atheists to choose between agnostic and atheist.

Doing that makes it look like agnosticism is a different category when it's not.[/font]

[onager]

5. Heh! As the great Bette Davis said...

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

A couple of Other Groups should be exploding soon, now that they have PROOF!1! DU is a Militant Atheist conspiracy to persecute religious believers.

It's already started right in that thread, with many of the usual suspects invoking the awful, fire-and-brimstone presence of Dawkins et. al.

I'll never understand their obsession with the idea that we have Atheist Popes.

Or the equally bizarre tendency for some people to identify themselves as "good non-militant atheists." Newsflash - that doesn't matter one bit to the Pat Robertsons and Joel Osteens. You're still an atheist, and just as undeserving of citizenship as the rest of us. You know, the ones with the altar to Saint Christopher Hitchens in their living rooms.

[JDDavis]

9. I noticed one person posted that they put "other" because

they didn't want to be associated with "asshole" atheists, even though they don't believe in any god.

Funny how that works. Again, yet another artifact of religious privilege, to paraphrase:


"we don't want to be offensive to people with religious beliefs, but we don't have any religious belief in gods ourselves, so don't call us 'atheists' because that would mean that we are as offensive to the believers as other atheists (sometimes) can be."

[AtheistCrusader]

12. I note that poster is REPEATEDLY comfortable with referring to Atheists as assholes though.

Fun little recursion there.

[Rob H.]

14. At least he's coming out and saying the word, though

unlike the passive-aggressive bullshit weaseling other posters think they're getting away with. Progress! Okay, not really.

[Rob H.]

11. "I'll never understand their obsession with the idea that we have Atheist Popes."

I don't get it, either. I've read some of Harris', Hitchens' and Dawkins' work and enjoyed most of it, but that doesn't mean I hang on their every word or agree with everything they say. (That's especially true in Hitchens' case--his unyielding support of and cheerleading for the Iraq war is always going to be something beyond my understanding or sympathy.)

Maybe they're trying to use it to say, "See? See? You're irrational, to-o-o-o-o-oo!"

[AtheistCrusader]

15. Atheism doesn't have a large attack surface. It's a boolean yes/no position.

It's not a deep or difficult question. One can only say so much about it.

Their position has a bunch of bolt-on shit, like Catholics have all this fucking baggage around sex/contraception or homosexuality. HUGE attack surface. I'd hate to be in a position of defending it. Where do you even start?

Making Harris or Dawkins a pope like figurehead of atheism broadens the attack surface. Gives them something to work with. The best they have seemed to do this far with the core idea of atheism is to call atheists 'incurious'. They need more. Atheism offers them nothing to sink their claws into. And they are understandably tired of being on the defensive for their bronze-age bullshit. Both the believers and the 'atheists' that frantically apologize for them.

[Rob H.]

17. As far as 'incurious' goes...

It seems that some believers want to push the idea that if only atheists would really look at religion, a closer examination would somehow make it seem less preposterous. That's nonsense, imo.

At least one person on this board has admitted he believes because he can't imagine all of this not being created by some sort of supreme being (a logical fallacy, argument from personal incredulity) but to me, that seems like the real 'incurious' position. It answers one mystery with another and resolves nothing, yet people are not only satisfied with it, they'll aggressively defend it. I saw it a lot in the southern US: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." It's intellectual laziness in its purest form.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. I note some classic lies getting trotted out by familiar parties.

'Herp derp, there's no correlation between religiosity and intelligence'.

Fuckin' liar.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201311/religiosity-and-intelligence-century-research

[onager]

20. You're obviously a h8er. Just like this guy...

[Warren Stupidity]

22. The whole thread is a cluster fuck of dirty laundry airing.

Not of course that I don't enjoy these sorts of food fights.

[AtheistCrusader]

23. .

[LostOne4Ever]

26. Soooooo stealing that.... (nt)

[mr blur]

16. Been there all day. Waiting for the Faithiests.

[onager]

19. They're a little busy right now...

[Warren Stupidity]

21. I was surprised that a religion post, an obvious religion post, was allowed in gd.

I thought the current crop of hosts were doing the rulez is rulez thing. I wonder why there was an exception for this thread.

Oh never mind hundreds of posts and more than 12 hours later the hosts decided to lock it. See "how to make a bad situation worse".

[RussBLib]

24. Yep, they locked the thread

People just can't seem to take a poll without editorial comment.

Atheists finished firmly in the lead with 43%
Christians in second with 20%
Agnostics third with 16%
Other at 13%
more Buddhists (4%) than Jewish (2%), which is odd

I wonder what the results would have been on "Conservative Underground"?

[Lordquinton]

25. us arrogant, atheists

Who claim to be more intelligent and enlightened, unlike any religion ever, not even in history.

[AlbertCat]

27. us arrogant, atheists

That's "We, arrogant atheists...."


(See, we're grammar police too!)

[Lordquinton]

29. Grammar Nazis are atheist too. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

28. I tend to not discuss

religion, or lack thereof, in other areas of DU. It tends to end up worse than a shit flinging fight in the primate section.