Category Archives: Atheism

Redated from March 2009.

I was a Christian recently enough to remember what it felt like to really believe the Creator of the universe talked to me, to really believe I would go to heaven and unbelievers would go to hell, to really believe that prayer made a difference.

It sure felt like I really believed that stuff. And other Christians tell me they really believe that stuff, too.

But somethings not quite right with that.

Supposedly, my parents really believe that I am going to hell now that Im an atheist. They believe their son, whom they love dearly, is going to be tortured forever. Literally.

And yet, they dont seem very upset by this. Sure, theyre upset that their son has rejected most of the values and truths they tried to instill in me. Theyre upset that I reject their way of life as both deluded and immoral. Thats a major blow for any caring parent to take.

But they dont seem upset that their beloved son will be tortured forever in hell. And that seems odd.

If they really believed that, wouldnt I see some serious mourning? Some pleading? Some great distress?

But its not just my parents. Its Christians in general. I had these questions even when I was a Christian.

This is not a post for attacking Christian beliefs or promoting atheistic views. This is a post about understanding. Id like to understand Christians better. So, Christians: I have a question for you.

If you really believed some of the people you love dearly were going to spend an eternity in hell, wouldnt that motivate you to try harder to save them?

Lets say we all lived in Poland at the start of World War II and you got word that soon, the Nazis were going to invade the town where several of your friends and family lived. The Nazis were going take everybody off to concentration camps in chains, and possibly kill them. And lets say this information came from a very reliable source, so that you really believed this was going to happen.

Would you just go on about your life? Would you just mention this to your friends and family in passing, and send them the occasional tract with information on the threat of the Nazis? Would you merely pray for them to see the threat and save themselves?

Or, would you do everything you could to save your friends and family? Maybe you would drive out there and try to convince them of the threat until you were blue in the face. Maybe you would refuse to leave until they came away with you. Maybe you would I dunno what, but it would be pretty drastic. I know if I were in that situation, then I would do some pretty drastic things to save my friends and family.

But this is not what Christians do for their friends and family who they really believe are on the verge of falling into eternal torture, even though they say they really believe this, and even though they feel they really believe this.

So something weird is going on. Millions of Christians really believe this stuff, but they dont act like it.

As best we can tell, humans always act so as to fulfill the strongest of their current desires, given their beliefs. But I very much doubt that Christians do not have a strong desire to save their spouses, their children, and their best friends from eternal agony. So there seems to be something weird about the belief end of the equation.

Do Christians really believe what they say and feel they believe? Whats going on here?

If you really believe this, you shouldnt have to tell yourself, Youre right, I really should try harder to evangelize. No, if you really believed, you would already have that motivation! You wouldnt need to try to manufacture it!

And if you really believed, you wouldnt need to constantly repeat the doctrines of Christianity to yourself, and do everything you can to build up your faith. I dont need to remind myself that the Holocaust happened or that gravity is real. I dont need to constantly build up my faith in the existence of magnetism.

Something is fishy here, and I dont get it. Any thoughts?

Previous post: Fake Trials

Next post: News Bits

See more here:
Do Christians REALLY Believe? - Common Sense Atheism

Featured In the land of Periyar, speaking out against religion and God led to the killing of 31-year-old Farook Hameed.

Farook Hameed. Courtesy: A. Joseph

Kolaivaalinai edadaaKodiyor seyal aravey Bharatidasan

Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu): Thus reads a black t-shirt withwhite print in Tamil, uploaded by Farook Hameed as his profile picture on Facebook on November 6, 2015. This quote from the famous Tamil poet Bharatidasan translates as Take the sword to put an end to acts of evil men.

Barely a year-and-a-half later, the sword sickles and knives, rather would be taken. Not by 31-year-old Farook, but by six childhood friends consumed by an evil the police are still trying to fathom. Hameed was stabbed 18 times on March 16 at Ukkadam, Coimbatore. His crime was that he was a rationalist and an atheist following in the Dravidian tradition established so famously in Tamil Naduby Periyar E.V. Ramasamy.

It would seem that it is worse to actively propagate atheism than being an atheist. What were initially arguments between friends about the existence of God, or the lack thereof, turned into a bloodbath, leaving behind two young children bereft of their father and a family distraught at the callousness of it all.

The Wire visited Farooksmodest home in Bilal Estate in Ukkadam. The green-coloured, small house wore a mournful look. Farookis survived by his parents Hameed and Nafisa,his wife Rasheeda, brother-in-law Shahjahan, 11-year-old son Afrid, and six-year-old daughter Anafa.

The family cried in silence, refusing to speak. They have yet to come to grips with their loss. Rasheeda finally agreed to narrate her version on onecondition that her face must not be shown and no photographs must be taken.

Jaffar, Anshanth, Munaf and my husband were very good friends and would all go together out of town quite often, she said, sobbing silently. Munaf was his thickest friend. They would keep arguing [about religion]. We used to tell Farooknot to speak openly but he never listened. Ten days before the murder, my husband was often deep in thought. When I asked him why, he said it was nothing. My younger brother told my husband frequently that Munafs behaviour was suspicious. But my husband brushed it aside.

Rasheedas eyes strayed to her young ones. Our son took to Islam, he believes in Allah. But our daughter is like my husband she does not believe in God, she cried.

Farook Hameed. Credit: Facebook

What happened on March 16

On the day of his murder, Farook wound up work at his scrap iron shop in Ukkadam and came home. As he was eating, he got a call, recollects Rasheeda. He said his friends were calling, he had to go because they wanted to discuss something related to business. We protested it was around 11:45 p.m. We said why do you want to go out so late at night, it can wait until the morning. My younger brother Shahjahan kept insisting that he not go. But he left anyway, she said.

Farook reached the meeting point the corporation sewage treatment facility in Ukkadam on his two-wheeler. A group of people lay waiting in the shadows, armed with knives and sickles. After the brutal attack, they fled on three motorbikes and one autorickshaw. Hearing Farooks plaintive cries, passersby rushed to help. But hesuccumbed to his grievous injuries.

March 16 was a Thursday. On Friday, after prayers, six people surrendered before a local court in connection with Farooks murder Anshanth, Saddam Hussein, Shamsudeen, Abdul Munaf, Akram Jinda and Jaffar. All of the accused were known to Farook for nearly 15 years friends and neighbours.

A sword against atheism

According to his family, Farook joined the Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam (DVK) five years ago. The DVK is an offshoot of the Dravidar Kazhagam founded by Periyar in the 1940s. The core values of the Dravidar Kazhagam atheism and rationalism were propagated by the DVK as well.

Farooks mother Nafisa claims that he was never religious, even at ayoung age. I never expected that those boys would do this. I have fed Saddam Hussein (one of the accused) with my own hands. They were all such good friends. I cant believe these six people would do this, she sobbed.

In September, Farook, as part of the DVK, was involved in protests and clashes that ensued near the Athupalam toll gate, following communal tensions over the hacking of Sasikumar, a local member of the Hindu Munnani, a fringe pro-Hindu outfit. Farook had been arrested and lodged in Salem jail and was only released recently.

Farook was vocal about his ideology. He had posted comments about atheism, criticising religion and caste on his Facebook page. All of his comments have now been wiped out whether by family or by the police remains unknown. A few days before he died, Farook had posted on his Facebook page that due to his ideology, his friends and co-workers had begun hating him.

Farook was also the administrator of a WhatsApp group called Allah Murdad, meaning There is no God. This group had a number of Muslim youth who had embraced atheism.

The Coimbatore police, who are investigating the case, saidFarook appeared to have received open and subtle threats to shut down his WhatsApp group and to stop spreading the message of atheism. This murder could be a warning to those who are against religion, said a senior official investigating the case on the condition of anonymity. Farook had refused to exit from this WhatsApp group. The murder could be a warning to other Muslims who are part of that group. In this group, Farook had even posted a picture of his daughter holding up a placard that reads There is no God, he said.

Members of DVK, of which Farook was a part, is angry. No one expected that Farook would be killed, said P. Selvam, Coimbatore district in-charge of the DVK. This shows how deeply religion has seeped into the minds of such fanatics and how an individual cannot express his own opinions. DVK and other like-minded organisations will fund the education of Farooks children. We are petitioning the state government to provide a government job to Farooks wife, he added.

A shocked local jamaat(assembly) has stated that no help will be given to the six accused in terms of fighting the case legally.

Following Farooks murder, vigilance has been stepped up in the Al Ameen Colony, a street adjacent to Bilal Estate where Farooks family lives, as all of the six accused murderers hail from that area. Al Ameen Colony is notorious in Coimbatore for being the residence of alleged extremists such as Kichan Buhari, arrested in connection with the Malleswaram blast of 2013 and said to be involved in the terror attacks of 1998 targeted at BJP leader L.K. Advani. Al Ameen Colony was also home to Mohammed Ansari, convicted in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blasts that took 58 lives.

Coimbatore is a sensitive area. But it is of deep concern that a person born into a particular faith embraced Periyarism and was killed for that. There are a large number of clashes continuing in the name of religion here. But Farooks murder is unprecedented, said social activist S. Panneerselvam, capturing the mood of shock and despair in the city nestled in the foothills of the Western Ghats.

A. Joseph is an independent journalist with The Lede and is based in Coimbatore.

Categories: Featured, Religion, Rights

Tagged as: A Joseph, atheism, Bilal Estate, BJP leader, Coimbatore, Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, DVK, Hindu Munnani, L.K. Advani, Mohammed Ansari, Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, Saddam Hussein

View original post here:
How an Atheist Was Silenced in Coimbatore - The Wire - The Wire

Christian atheism is a system of ethics which draws its beliefs and practices from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospels of the New Testament and other sources, while rejecting the supernatural claims of Christianity at large. Christian Atheism takes many forms - some Christian Atheists take a theological position, in which the belief in the transcendent or interventionist God is rejected or absent in favor of finding God totally in the world (Thomas J. J. Altizer), while others follow Jesus in a godless world (William Hamilton). Hamilton's Christian atheism is similar to Jesuism.

Thomas Ogletree, Frederick Marquand Professor of Ethics and Religious Studies at Yale Divinity School, lists these four common beliefs:[1][2]

According to Paul van Buren, a Death of God theologian, the word God itself is "either meaningless or misleading".[2] He contends that it is impossible to think about God. Van Buren says that

"We cannot identify anything which will count for or against the truth of our statements concerning 'God'".[2]

The inference from these claims to the "either meaningless or misleading" conclusion is implicitly premised on the verificationist theory of meaning. Most Christian atheists believe that God never existed, but there are a few who believe in the death of God literally.[3]Thomas J. J. Altizer is a well-known Christian atheist who is known for his literal approach to the death of God. He often speaks of God's death as a redemptive event. In his book The Gospel of Christian Atheism he speaks of how

"Every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent, but only the Christian knows that God is dead, that the death of God is a final and irrevocable event, and that God's death has actualized in our history a new and liberated humanity".[4]

Theologians including Altizer and Lyas looked at the scientific, empirical culture of today and tried to find religion's place in it. In Altizer's words,

"No longer can faith and the world exist in mutual isolationthe radical Christian condemns all forms of faith that are disengaged with the world."[4]

He goes on to say that our response to atheism should be one of "acceptance and affirmation".[4] Colin Lyas, a Philosophy lecturer at Lancaster University, stated that

"Christian atheists are united also in the belief that any satisfactory answer to these problems must be an answer that will make life tolerable in this world, here and now and which will direct attention to the social and other problems of this life."[3]

Altizer has said that

"the radical Christian... believes that the ecclesiastical tradition has ceased to be Christian".[4]

He believed that orthodox Christianity no longer had any meaning to people because it did not discuss Christianity within the context of contemporary theology. Christian atheists want to be completely separated from most orthodox Christian beliefs and biblical traditions.[5] Altizer states that a faith will not be completely pure if it is open to modern culture. This faith "can never identify itself with an ecclesiastical tradition or with a given doctrinal or ritual form." He goes on to say that faith cannot "have any final assurance as to what it means to be a Christian".[4] Altizer said, "We must not, he says, seek for the sacred by saying 'no' to the radical profanity of our age, but by saying 'yes' to it".[5] They see religions which withdraw from the world as moving away from truth. This is part of the reason why they see the existence of God as counter-progressive. Altizer wrote of God as the enemy to man because mankind could never reach its fullest potential while God existed.[4] He went on to state that "to cling to the Christian God in our time is to evade the human situation of our century and to renounce the inevitable suffering which is its lot".[4]

Although Jesus is still a central feature of Christian atheism, Hamilton said that to the Christian atheist, Jesus is not really the foundation of faith; instead, he is a "place to be, a standpoint".[5] Christian atheists look to Jesus as an example of what a Christian should be, but they do not see him as God.

Hamilton wrote that following Jesus means being "alongside the neighbor, being for him",[5] and that to follow Jesus means to be human, to help other humans, and to further humankind.

Other Christian atheists such as Thomas Altizer preserve the divinity of Jesus, arguing that through him God negates God's transcendence of being.

In the Netherlands, 42% of the members of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) are nontheists.[6] Non-belief among clergymen is not always perceived as a problem. Some follow the tradition of Christian non-realism, most famously expounded in the UK by Don Cupitt in the 1980s, which holds that God is a symbol or metaphor and that religious language is not matched by a transcendent reality. According to an investigation of 860 pastors in seven Dutch Protestant denominations, 1 in 6 clergy are either agnostic or atheist. In one of those denominations, the Remonstrant Brotherhood, the number of doubters was 42 percent.[7][8] A minister of the PKN, Klaas Hendrikse has described God as "a word for experience, or human experience" and said that Jesus may have never existed. Hendrikse gained attention with his book published in November 2007, in which he said that it was not necessary to believe in God's existence in order to believe in 'God'. The Dutch title of the book translates as, 'Believing in a God who does not exist: manifesto of an atheist pastor'. Hendrikse writes in the book. 'God is for me not a being but a word for what can happen between people. Someone says to you, for example, 'I will not abandon you', and then makes those words come true. It would be perfectly alright to call that [relationship] God.' A General Synod found Klaas Hendrikse's views were widely shared among both clergy and church members. The February 3, 2010 decision to allow Hendrikse to continue working as a pastor followed the advice of a regional supervisory panel that the statements by Hendrikse, are not of sufficient weight to damage the foundations of the Church. The ideas of Hendrikse are theologically not new, and are in keeping with the liberal tradition that is an integral part of our church, the special panel concluded.[7]

A Harris Interactive survey from 2003 found that 90% of self-identified Protestants in the United States believe in God, and about 4% of American Protestants believe there is no God.[9]

Catholic atheism is a belief in which the culture, traditions, rituals, and norms of Catholicism are accepted, but the existence of God is rejected. It is illustrated in Miguel de Unamuno's novel San Manuel Bueno, Mrtir (1930). According to research in 2007, only 27% of Catholics in the Netherlands considered themselves theist, while 55% were ietsist or agnostic deist, and 17% were agnostic or atheist. Many Dutch people still affiliate with the term "Catholic", and use it within certain traditions as a basis of their cultural identity, rather than as a religious identity. The vast majority of the Catholic population in the Netherlands is now largely irreligious in practice.[6]

In his book Mere Christianity, the apologist C. S. Lewis would object to Hamilton's version of Christian Atheism and the claim that Jesus was merely a moral guide:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunaticon the level with the man who says he is a poached eggor else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

Lewis's argument, now known as Lewis's Trilemma, has been criticized for, among other things, constituting a false trilemma. As philosopher John Beversluis argues, Lewis "deprives his readers of numerous alternate interpretations of Jesus that carry with them no such odious implications."[10]

Visit link:
Christian atheism - Wikipedia

A new study has found that religious individuals and atheists might actuallyshare a shocking similarity: both are among the least afraid of dying,according to at least some of the surveys and articles included in the meta-analysis.

Researchers at the University of Oxford, among other colleges, explored some of the most intriguing international studies that have explored the relationship between the levels of peoples faith and their fear or anxiety associated withdying.

While the assumption has long been that the more religious one is the less likely he or she is to fear death, researchers came to a complicated conclusion after analyzing 100 articles from between 1961-2014 thatrepresented a total of26,000 people.

READ: Princeton Rescinds Award From Tim Keller, Despite Having the SAME Views as the Awards Namesake

It shows that the very religious and atheists are the groups who do not fear death as much as much as those in-between, the University of Oxfordsaid in a press release, noting that the results were published in the journalReligion, Brain and Behavior.

While religious people were found to haveless anxiety about dying in some of the associated studies, atheists too at least in some investigations are apparently not too worried about what happens in the afterlife.The press releasehas more:

The meta-analysis showed that while people who were intrinsically religious enjoyed lower levels of death anxiety, those who were extrinsically religious revealed higher levels of death anxiety.

The findings were mixed across the studies, with only 30% of the effects showing this finding. Surprisingly, perhaps, 18% of the studies found that religious people were more afraid of death than non-religious people; and over half the research showed no link at all between the fear of death and religiosity. This mixed picture shows that the relationship between religiosity and death anxiety may not be fixed, but may differ from context to context. Most of the studies were conducted in the United States, with a small number carried out in the Middle East and East Asia. This makes it difficult to estimate how the pattern varies from culture to culture, or religion to religion, says the paper.

In the end, theres a complex paradigm at work, with researchers wondering whether theres an upside-down U dynamic in which religious people and nonbelievers have lower anxiety about death, with others in between having increased fears.

More research is needed to more firmly understand the issues at hand, expertssaid.

This definitely complicates the old view, that religious people are less afraid of death than nonreligious people, saidDr. Jonathan Jong,a research associateat Coventry UniversitysInstitute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology. It may well be that atheism also provides comfort from death, or that people who are just not afraid of death arent compelled to seek religion.

Read more about the meta-analysishere.

(H/T:Daily Mail)

Other Must-Read Stories:

Princeton Rescinds Award From Tim Keller, Despite Having the SAME Views as the Awards Namesake

Dont Be Afraid: Video Reportedly Shows Iraqi Forces Helping Terrified Little Boy Who ISIS Tried to Use as a Suicide Bomber

AMAZING: Miracle Baby Born 16 Weeks Early Is Defying the Odds and Thriving

Im No Longer Hiding My Awesomeness: NFL Star Reveals Plans to Donate Jersey Earnings to After School Programs

Most People AssumeTheyll Go to Heaven When They Die, But: Megachurch Pastors Pointed Message About Hell

Billy Hallowell

Billy Hallowell has been working in journalism and media for more than a decade. His writings have appeared in Deseret News, TheBlaze, Human Events, Mediaite and on FoxNews.com, among other outlets. Hallowell has a B.A. in journalism and broadcasting from the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York and an M.S. in social research from Hunter College in Manhattan, New York.

View post:
Are You Afraid to Die? Researchers Reveal Surprising Ties ... - CBN News

It's not surprising that, given the promise of an abundant and joyful afterlife, very religious people were among the groups found to be the least fearful of death in a series of studies led by researchers at Britains University of Oxford, published Friday. What was arguably far less anticipated, though, is that they were joined in that distinction by those who believe in no religion: atheists.

A team of researchers analyzed 100 relevant articles published between 1961 and 2014, containing information about 26,000 people worldwide and their feelings about death. They found that higher levels of religious belief were only weakly linked with lower death anxiety. The paper, which was published in the journal Religion, Brain and Behavior, also showed that strong religious believers and non-believers appeared to fear death less than those in between.

It may be that other researchers would have found this inverse-U pattern too if they had looked for it, said Dr. Jonathan Jong, a research associate at the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology and research fellow at Coventry University, who led the team of researchers. This definitely complicates the old view, that religious people are less afraid of death than nonreligious people. It may well be that atheism also provides comfort from death, or that people who are just not afraid of death arent compelled to seek religion.

More than half of the 100 studies showed no link at all between anxiety over death and religiosity, while 18 percent found that religious people were actually more afraid of death than the non-religious.

The number of people in the United States identifying as atheists roughly doubled from 2007 to 2014 according to the Pew Research Center. As of 2014, atheists made up 3.1 percent of the U.S. population. During the same period, the percentage of the population who described religion as important declined, from 36 percent to 30 percent.

Pews research found that atheists were more likely to be younger than the overall population, which could perhaps go some way to explaining their relatively low levels of anxiety aboutdeath.

Read this article:
Fear of Death Is Lowest Among Atheists as Well as the Very ... - Newsweek

Atheism Basics for Beginners:

There are a lot of resources here about atheism for beginners: what atheism is, what it isn't, and refutations of many popular myths about atheism. I've discovered, though, that it isn't always easy to direct people to all of the information they need - there are too many people who believe too many falsehoods about atheism and atheists. That's why I've collected some of the basics about atheism for beginners that I find myself linking to most often: Atheism Basics for Beginners

What is Atheism? How is Atheism Defined?

The more common understanding of atheism among atheists is "not believing in any gods." No claims or denials are made - an atheist is any person who is not a theist. Sometimes this broader understanding is called "weak" or "implicit" atheism. There is also a narrower sort of atheism, sometimes called "strong" or "explicit" atheism. Here, the atheist explicitly denies the existence of any gods - making a strong claim which will deserve support at some point. What is Atheism...

Who Are Atheists? What Do Atheists Believe?

There are a lot of misunderstandings about who atheists are, what they believe, and what they don't believe. People become atheists for many different reasons. Being an atheist isn't a choice or act of will - like theism, it's a consequence of what one knows and how one reasons. Atheists are not all angry, they aren't in denial about gods, and they aren't atheists to avoid taking responsibility for their acts.

Its not necessary to be afraid of hell and there are advantages to being an atheist. Who Are Atheists...

What's the Difference Between Atheism & Agnosticism?

Once it is understood that atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods, it becomes evident that agnosticism is not, as many assume, a "third way" between atheism and theism.

The presence of a belief in a god and the absence of a belief in a god exhaust all of the possibilities. Agnosticism is not about belief in god but about knowledge - it was coined originally to describe the position of a person who could not claim to know for sure if any gods exist or not. Atheism vs. Agnosticism...

Is Atheism a Religion, a Philosophy, an Ideology, or a Belief System?

Because of atheism's long-standing association with freethought, anti-clericalism, and dissent from religion, many people seem to assume that atheism is the same as anti-religion. This, in turn, seems to lead people to assume that atheism is itself a religion - or at least some sort of anti-religious ideology, philosophy, etc. This is incorrect. Atheism is the absence of theism; by itself, it isn't even a belief, much less a belief system, and as such cannot be any of those things. Atheism is Not a Religion, Philosophy, or Belief...

Why Do Atheists Debate Theists? Is Atheism Better than Theism?

If atheism is just disbelief in gods, then there is no reason for atheists to be critical of theism and religion. If atheists are critical, it means they are really anti-theists and anti-religious, right? It's understandable why some might come to this conclusion, but it represents a failure to appreciate the cultural trends in the West which have led to the high correlation between atheism and things like religious dissent, resistance to Christian hegemony, and freethought.

Atheism vs. Theism...

What if You Are Wrong? Aren't You Afraid of Hell? Can You Take the Chance?

The logical fallacy argumentum ad baculum, literally translated as "argument to the stick," is commonly translated to mean "appeal to force." In this fallacy an argument is accompanied by the threat of violence if the conclusions are not accepted. Many religions are based upon just such an tactic: if you don't accept this religion, you will be punished either by adherents now or in some afterlife. If this is how a religion treats its own adherents, it's not a surprise that arguments employing this tactic or fallacy are offered to nonbelievers as a reason to convert. Atheists Have No Reason to Fear Hell...

Godless Living, Political Activism, Fighting Bigotry: How Do Atheists Live?

Godless atheists are a part of America just like religious theists.

They have families, raise children, go to work, and do all the same things that others do, except for one difference: so many religious theists can't accept how atheists go about their lives without gods or religion. This is one reason why atheists, skeptics, and secularists can experience so much discrimination and bigotry that they have to hide what they really think from others around them. This injustice can be difficult to deal with, but godless atheists do have something to offer America. Godless Living, Political Activism, Fighting Bigotry...

Top Myths About Atheism & Atheists: Answers, Refutations, Responses:

There are many myths and misconceptions about what atheism entails and who atheists are - not surprising, since even the basic definition of atheism is so misunderstood. Many of the myths and misconceptions addressed here will follow a similar pattern, exposing fallacious reasoning, faulty premises, or both. These arguments need to be identified as the fallacies they really are because that is the only way genuine arguments and dialogues can be made possible. Answers, Refutations, Responses to Common & Popular Myths about Atheism, Atheists...

The rest is here:
Atheism 101: Introduction to Atheism and Atheists

The father of Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam (DVK) activist and atheist H Farook, who was hacked to death in Coimbatore, has said that if his son was killed for his views, he too would become an atheist, the Indian Express reported Monday.

If the police version is true, that he was murdered by a radical Muslim group, then they killed my son using wrong interpretations of the Quran. The Quran is one holy book that insists on and allows the right of dissent since the time of the Prophet. If they killed him for being an atheist, I have decided to join his organisation and do what he did, R Hameed told the Indian Express.

Farook was killed on March 16 allegedly because of a Facebook post in which one of his children held a placard saying: Kadavul illai, Kadavul illai, Kadavul illai (No God, No God, No God).

31-year-old Farook was hacked to death, allegedly by a gang of four men enraged by his atheism.

Hameed told the Indian Express that he had never insisted with Farook, refused to attend the wedding of a close relative to avoid taking part inreligious rituals, he never insisted.

The Hindustam Times reported police as saying Farook had received a phone call around 11 pm, following which he stepped out of his house. Soon afterwards, four unidentified men attacked him with sharp weapons.

Farook used to run a business in Ukkadam near Coimbatore.

(WION)

Read more:
Father of Tamil Nadu man killed for being atheist says he will ... - WION - WION

An Egyptian couple stands on a bridge overlooking the Nile River in Cairo, Dec. 25, 2011.(photo byFILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)

Author:N.A. Hussein Posted March 23, 2017

CAIRO Recently released statistics fromthe Family Court affiliated with the Supreme Judicial Council, with offices across all governorates in Egypt, revealed that 6,500 women had filed for divorce, or "khula" separation and returning the dowry to the husband in 2015over their husbands' "atheism or change of belief."

TranslatorSahar Ghoussoub

According to Article 3 of the Personal Status Law No. 1 of 2000, rulings with regard to divorce and separation cases are issued in accordance with either this lawor theIslamic jurisprudence of Imam Abu Hanifa al-Numan in cases wherethe text of the law is not clear. Under this school of jurisprudence, a married Muslim woman has the right to obtain a divorce in the event that her husband has renounced his faith.

According to the second paragraph of the same article, the personal status of Christians is regulated according to Christian teachings, should the spouses be of the same sect or confession. In case of different sects, should the husband want to relinquish his Christian faith, the woman follows the same rules applied on Muslim women, and therefore has the right for divorce.

The court has yet to issue any statistics for 2016. It is still not known why the court refrained from doing so. The court might not have the right amount of data necessary for the statistics, or it does not want to shock the Egyptian community with the alarming rate of divorce because of atheism and change of belief.

It is worth mentioning that the Egyptian daily al-Youm al-Sabea had previously revealed some of the details of the Family Court statistics back in December 2015, collecting statements from unnamed judicial sources since the paper did not have access to the Family Court statistics that were published late last month. It seems that the court had preferred at the time to keep silent on the huge number of 6,500 divorce cases, compared to the usualofficial figures published by Dar al-Ifta.

On Dec. 10, 2014, Dar al-Ifta's Fatwa Monitoring Observatory published a report to monitor the causes of the increasing phenomenon of atheism among young people in Muslim countries, especially those in the Arab region that are undergoing major political and social changes.

In a press statement March 10,Ibrahim Najm, an adviser to the Grand Mufti of the Republic, said that the distortion of the image of Islam by the Takfiri terrorist groups through the application of wrong concepts, violence, murder and violation of human rights as one of the teachings of Islamis one of the most important reasons for the spread of atheism in the countries of the region.

He added that Dar al-Ifta approved an index prepared by the Red Sea Research Center, affiliated with Secular Global Institute in all countries of the world, stating that Egypt has 866 atheists.

Noteworthy is that the figures announced by the Family Court are alarming and not commensurate with those of Dar al-Ifta, which seems to be providing inaccurate data about the real number of atheists in Egypt.

"Although the number is not large ...it is the highest in the Arab countries. Libya has only 34, Sudan 70, Yemen 32, Tunisia 329, Syria 56, Iraq 242, Saudi Arabia 178, Jordan 170, and Morocco 325,"Najm said.

Some, however, believe that womenwho had asked for divorcewere hyperbolic and hasty in making their decisions. Saif Ragab Kazamel, dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Law at Al-Azhar University'sTanta branch, told Al-Monitor, "When a wife starts having doubts about her husbands change of belief or inclination towardatheism, she does not have to rush and ask for divorce, as this would lead to the breakup of the family. Instead, she needs to try and preserve her family and marriage."

"In some cases, the husband is just going through difficult phases and a time of doubt in his own beliefs. This is when dialogue and communication are essential to redirect him on the right track, as opposed to rushing to ask for divorce. The wife could also call for her husbands family membersto help guide him, unless he confirmed that he wants to relinquish his faithdespite all her attempts to deter him. This is when she could file for divorce,"Kazamel said.

Kazamel further stressed the importance of discussion and communication before deciding to get a divorce, as this is part of the Sharia teachings for those who wish to no longer follow Islam. "According to Sharia, when a person decides to leave Islam, it is important to proselytize them and try to give them a chance to repent,"he said.

On the need to issue a fatwa for women to ask for divorce in case their husbands declare their atheism, Ahmed Karima, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, said in atelephone interview on a show March 17 on the Sada TV channelthat no Muslim woman should remain married to a man who converted from Islam to any other religion, be it monotheistic or not, or who became atheist. He noted that when a wife has evidence of her husband's atheism, she must resort to the court and ask for divorce.

For his part, Ahmed Ragab Abu al-Azm, assistant adviser to the Grand Mufti of the Republic, said it is the prerogative of a competent religious authority and not the wife to determine whether or not the husband has decided to relinquish his faith and declare atheism.

Azm told Al-Monitor, "In such cases, it is not possible to issue general fatwas on the issue, as each case has its own circumstances. It is the wife's duty to help her husband go to Dar al-Ifta and have a discussion with the sheikhs to make sure of his intention to leave Islam."

On the legal level, Mukhtar Thabet, a lawyer for personal affairs, told Al-Monitor, "The Egyptian Personal Status Law provides for the annulment of the marriage contractin case the husband declares himself an atheist and the court would rule in favor of separation. However, spouses face many hardships in the separation procedures, as divorce cases require legal evidence in order to have a rule in their favor, while getting to keep the prepaid and deferred dowry."

"In cases of atheismit is difficult to have conclusive legal evidence, as the wife would notice a change in his habits that suggest he had left his faith, which is difficult to prove before the court,"he added.

Thabet further said, "In case it was difficult to prove that her husband has become atheist, the wife has to file for separation, giving up the dowry and alimony."

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/03/egypt-women-divorce-atheism.html

More here:
How Egypt's religious institutions are trying to curb atheism - Al-Monitor

The only officially recognized group at ASU for students who are atheist attempts to combat the stigma around not being religious

Tann Cheevasittirungruang, left, and Angel Garcia, right, sit at their table at Secular Day at the Arizona State Capitol onMarch 21, 2017.

Although atheism is agrowing identity in America that is relativelypopular on college campuses, some feelASU lacks options when it comes to student-organized atheist groups.

In the ASUOrgSync,the search query "Christian" provided 52 results at the time of publishing. The "religious" category altogether listed 73 groups. "Atheist" turned up only two separate groups. One of those groupsis theSecular Student Alliance, a national secular student organization with chapters in most major universities.

Angel Garciais a junior double majoring in history and economics. He is the president of theSecular Student Alliance at ASU (SSA).

"Secular Student Alliance is a student organization where we seek to gather together students who are either secular or interested in secular issues," Garcia said."And with the club we'll either have meetings that revolve around different topics that are related to religion, secularism, government, society (and) culture. Sometimes we'll have social nights, and other nights we'll engage in activism."

Garcia said SSA is the only active, recognizedclubon campusthat serves as a meeting placefor atheists, even though the club's main mission is to promote secularism. He said that oneneed not be anatheist in order to be in favor of secularism.

"Secular Student Alliance is the only secular (or)atheist group on campus," he said."There was another one last year, but unfortunately what happened - and this can happen to clubs is that the members: a lot of them were graduating or already done with college and they weren't doing a good job with recruiting new members. And so their club ended up dying out."

There are other factors influencing how many students choose to be active about their atheism, Garcia said.

A stigma against atheism in American society is one such potential factor.

ThePew Research Center conducted a poll that determined Americans are generally unfavorable toward atheists. Using a "thermometer" scaleto measure general attitudes toward different religious identities from 0 to 100, Pew found that atheism was one ofthe coldest. On average, atheism was rated 41 on the scale second only to Islam, which was rated 40. By comparison, Catholics were rated 62, and Jews were rated 63 (the highest).

Read more:The atheist divide

Psychology seniorTann Cheevasittirungruangis the vice president of SSA. He thinks the novelty of the idea may have something to do with students hesitating to be active.

"I still feel like it's a new idea," he said."We pretty much just graduate from high school and come to college. We pretty much just hang onto that idea. I mean, we've been taught about that idea since we were children: about religion, about what's right and wrong, about what's promised to us when we die. The idea of atheism and secularism is still pretty new to us really."

With about70 percent of Americans identifying as Christians, manystudents come tocollege from Christian households. Cheevasittirungruangthinks this might contribute to hesitancy among students who are unsure of their beliefs or are newly atheisticto investigate secular ideas.

Curtis Peterson, a sophomore studying physics and mathematics, describes himself as an agnostic atheist. He said hethinks the stigma around not being religiouscould be somewhat relieved if atheists presented themselves differently.

"I think alot of atheists put out the attitude of being someone arrogant, or a lot of them put out the idea of being more enlightened," he said. "I think atheists need to put in the effort to try to wean out that sort of stigma. I don't even want to say stigma, but I think: yes, there needs to be more advocacy, but there also needs to be a definite attitude change on the part of atheists."

Peterson also said he wished there was more outreach and advocacy from atheists, but was unsure why so manyatheists shy away from activism.

"If we want atheist ideals to propagate through, I think we need to advocate through secularism," he said.

"The problem that we face, at least in the United States, is a degradation of a secular society. We have a lot of (states)that have attempted to teach Bible-ist truth. I'd much prefer to see advocacy against things like that versus ... (explaining)why we're atheists. I think people get the idea pretty well already. What I think a lot of people don't realize is how poisonous a non-secular society is."

Reach the reporter atparkermshea97@gmail.com or follow@laconicshamanic on Twitter.

LikeThe State Press on Facebook and follow@statepress on Twitter.

See the original post:
Standing alone: atheism club provides for students questioning their faith - The State Press

The Rev. Dr. Dwight Stevens is sharing his journey from science to spirituality.

The former dermatologist, the founder and pastor of The Paramount Church, talked about his story of conversion from atheism at a book signing last week at the Palm Beach Book Store. Curious people always ask him about it.

Ive lost count of the times, Stevens said. So, I wrote the story.

In his book, Atheist Doctor to Palm Beach Minister, he recalls the challenges faced when establishing the church, the experiences or nudges as he calls them that turned him away from atheism and the difficulties he faced connecting to colleagues in medicine after converting.

Only people who understand are the ones who experienced Gods healing power, he said. Otherwise people dismiss it.

Stevens said his first experience with Gods healing power was during a medical mission trip to Honduras. A woman with a tennis-ball-size mass in her abdomen, later thought to be cancer, couldnt be treated medically and resorted to prayer. Stevens, along with other members of the team, said they laid their hands on the woman while praying and were able to eliminate the mass.

As a scientist, you dismiss that, the minister said. But then when you begin to experience it personally, Gods healing power, I began to realize God still does miracles.

And Stevens said hes experienced that personally. More than 10 years ago, Stevens was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He claims Gods healing power keeps him well.

Ive never had a treatment, Stevens said. Never had a symptom.

Stevens practiced dermatology in Palm Beach for 15 years before opening the Paramount Church in 1994. His practice connected him to some of Palm Beachs most influential residents, many of whom became friends who played an important role in Stevens journey.

Of course, it was Gene Lawrence and Richard Moody who made it all happen, Stevens writes in his book. Lawrence, the late architect, helped design the church with the assistance of Moody, the general contractor. Both offered their services without charge.

Other friends helped Stevens with his two-year book project, which was new territory for him.

The challenges were never-ending, Stevens said.

Candice Cohen offered a hand. I read the manuscript, said Cohen, founder of the Palm Beach Book Store. I helped him pick the cover, too.

Among the crowd at last Tuesdays book signing were members of the Paramount Church. One of them was Kristi Witker-Coons.

Witker-Coons recalls when she first joined the church.

My husband died and I was just really lost, she said. After attending services at other churches, she felt Paramount was the right fit.

Although she had yet to read the book, Witker-Coons said she knows about Stevens personal life from attending his services. Its a fascinating story, she said.

The minister says hes happy to bring his message to Palm Beach a resort town for Americas wealthy, as he calls it.

He believes some residents have achieved great success and achievements but are left feeling unfulfilled, missing something, and that something is neither galas, private concerts, dinners nor cocktail parties.

Many people discovered that they have it all, Stevens said. But what they need also is a relationship with God.

Continued here:
Stevens speaks of his journey from atheism to founding church - Palm Beach Daily News