Mm. I was thinking more crimes like, y'know...blowing oneself up in a street full of people, or shooting someone because they do something your belief system finds abhorrent (e.g., abortion doctors). But fair enough, just because I've never heard of any atheist doing things like that for that reason doesn't mean they haven't. I *will* say that it's not prevalent to the degree that religious extremism is.
But I'm not interested in arguing that religion is the cause of all ills or anything close to that. I just feel that it has a subtle, pernicious influence on one's cognition and world view that we would be better off without.
27
DevilsReject
Cleveland, OH
February 2007
APR 21, 2008 10:39 PM
malkav11 said:
Mm. I was thinking more crimes like, y'know...blowing oneself up in a street full of people, or shooting someone because they do something your belief system finds abhorrent (e.g., abortion doctors). But fair enough, just because I've never heard of any atheist doing things like that for that reason doesn't mean they haven't. I *will* say that it's not prevalent to the degree that religious extremism is.
You also have to look at the numbers. Just for the sake of conversation, say the world population is 1 million people. 840,000 of those people belong to a specific religion, 160,000 are Agnostic/Atheist.
You are bound to have more religious extremists in that 840,000 than you are extremists in the 160,000 Agnostic/Atheists.
with just a quick google search, Agnostics and Atheists make up less than 16% of the world population, while the other 84% is made up of one religion or another, so you're obviously going to hear more about the religious extremists over the non-religious extremists.
That and God and religious extremists makes good news for the media.
When watching the women on the compound give interviews to the media, look at their eyes. They are reading off of cue cards. It's pretty amusing once you notice it.
malkav11 said:
Mm. I was thinking more crimes like, y'know...blowing oneself up in a street full of people, or shooting someone because they do something your belief system finds abhorrent (e.g., abortion doctors). But fair enough, just because I've never heard of any atheist doing things like that for that reason doesn't mean they haven't. I *will* say that it's not prevalent to the degree that religious extremism is.
You also have to look at the numbers. Just for the sake of conversation, say the world population is 1 million people. 840,000 of those people belong to a specific religion, 160,000 are Agnostic/Atheist.
You are bound to have more religious extremists in that 840,000 than you are extremists in the 160,000 Agnostic/Atheists.
with just a quick google search, Agnostics and Atheists make up less than 16% of the world population, while the other 84% is made up of one religion or another, so you're obviously going to hear more about the religious extremists over the non-religious extremists.
That and God and religious extremists makes good news for the media.
And atheist extremists would make better news, because we're still considered rather freakish by a large percentage of the population. Freaks + drama = better news than just drama.
malkav11 said:
Mm. I was thinking more crimes like, y'know...blowing oneself up in a street full of people, or shooting someone because they do something your belief system finds abhorrent (e.g., abortion doctors). But fair enough, just because I've never heard of any atheist doing things like that for that reason doesn't mean they haven't. I *will* say that it's not prevalent to the degree that religious extremism is.
You also have to look at the numbers. Just for the sake of conversation, say the world population is 1 million people. 840,000 of those people belong to a specific religion, 160,000 are Agnostic/Atheist.
You are bound to have more religious extremists in that 840,000 than you are extremists in the 160,000 Agnostic/Atheists.
with just a quick google search, Agnostics and Atheists make up less than 16% of the world population, while the other 84% is made up of one religion or another, so you're obviously going to hear more about the religious extremists over the non-religious extremists.
That and God and religious extremists makes good news for the media.
And atheist extremists would make better news, because we're still considered rather freakish by a large percentage of the population. Freaks + drama = better news than just drama.
Actually, at least in my opinion, they probably wouldn't report it unless an Atheist did something directly against a religious "power".
Most of the media tends to have some sort of religious motivation. Reporting on an Atheist extremist would actually require that religiously motivated media source to confirm that Atheists/Agnostics actually do exist.
I think the last big thing that was reported was about removing "Under God" from the pledge. The media, at least what i saw of it, turned it to make it seem as though we were savages, busy sacrificing babies to Satan, only taking a little time to "destroy God and religion" by asking to have that removed from the pledge.
They did just as you said, turned us into the "freaks" creating "drama" by asking to have the head of their belief system removed from a National Pledge.
malkav11
Saint Paul, MN
July 2003
APR 21, 2008 10:21 PM