Does intelligence lead to atheism?

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Intelligence is simply the ability to gather and apply appropriate knowledge in a critical and practical way. If you have no knowledge, or inaccurate knowledge or decide not to gain certain knowledge for the sake of an abnegation of responsibility and a peaceful life you can be very intelligent and still an utter fool. This is how you can have a brilliant author and physician who writes intelligent and wonderful detective stories, and yet in real life thinks fairies live at the bottom his garden and that his wife can talk to dead people. (Arthur Conan Doyle in case anyone did not get the reference)

How do you transition from being the center of the world, to not?

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

I find it is simply the innate ability to face reality. Pragmatism is a great help in dispelling delusions.

Paige Patterson fired by Southern Baptist seminary over handling of sex abuse allegation - The ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Link is dead try this one https://eu.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2018/05/30/southern-baptist-leader-paige-patterson-fired-texas-seminary/658449002/

Atheists Are Sometimes More Religious Than Christians - The Atlantic

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

# "cough, cough" Bullshit "cough, cough"

Here is a question I have wanted to ask african americans for years but have never been able to find...

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

As I understand it, in the USA Christianity was forced on the slaves with the promise that suffering in this life was a blessing, and would result in greater rewards in the next, that the chance to be slaves in a Christian country was a blessing since they could hear and accept the gospel and be saved, unlike those left behind in heathen savagery. In short the con of jam tomorrow is worth plain bread today, and plain bread today is better than starvation yesterday. Since those who accepted this shit "prospered", that is were allowed to have children, got feed and were not beaten to death and those who did not died in great pain, a few generations of this lead to a pliant, readily obedient populous accepting the "normality" they were born in to.

I never understood, even when I was an Evangelical, how christians loved warmongers and ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Is it no a great irony that the three most popular hymns (discounting xmas carols) ever written are Onward Christian soldier Battle hymn of the republic and All things bright and beautiful Sort of, become a Christian, admire the wonder, splendour and beauty of god's creation, and then blow the fucking shit out of it!

Would you rather live 100 years in the future or 100 years in the past? timetravel

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Well given that 100 year in the past would mean being in the run up to world war two and the rise of fascism, McCarthyism and the cold war, neither.

All powerful God!

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Perhaps, given it exists at all, the god thing finds it easier to see its own faults in others?

This is agnostic.

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Surely the whole point of this site is for us to BE ABLE to talk about it without busy body religionists butting to tell us we are all damned (literally) fools who should read a book of bronze age fairy stories in order to please sky daddy.

What do yall think about what happens after death?

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Natural recycling

No dino in bible land! Lol

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

Lol

I recently posted this to this site's Memes 'R' Us group and was disappointed with the response, but...

LenHazell53 comments on May 31, 2018:

1. Take no thought for the 'morrow' Matthew 6:25-34 2. He came to turn brother against brother Matthew 10 3. You should love him more than your family Matthew 10 4. He came to uphold every jot and tittle of the Old Testament Matthew 5:18 5. He would return within the lifetime us those who lived in his time Matthew 24:34 6. He came not to bring peace but a sword Matthew 10 7. If you don't follow him you'll burn in hell for eternity John 14:6 8. He promoted the idea that men should castrate themselves to go to heaven Matthew 19:12 9. If your eye offends you (lust), pluck it out Mark 9:47 Matthew 5:29 10. Whatever you pray to for will be granted if you truly believe Matthew 7:7 these and other disgusting quotes of jesus and his successors litter the new testament

Are you offended by the term "Ape"? Im not - im proud to be an Ape man.

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

In the 50's and 60's in the Uk it was common to hear parents call their child "a cheeky monkey" or a "daft apeth" it was actually quite endearing.

If the Christian god is just, then how can their god choose a group of people (Israel) and say that ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

The more you know

So.

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

Insert name of said dingus here

Can atheist and believers be best friends?

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

OF course they can, I am an anti-theist my wife is a druid, I think she is stupid in that respect she thinks I am ignorant, but other than that we have a 27 year marriage, two kids (one is an atheist one is a born again) four grandkids and a plethora of mutual interests. The problems only come when you make your religious/spiritual/ideological beliefs the centre and the whole of your life, which frankly is a waste of 99.9% of your life.

Hello , Tonight I am exploring that some of the great spiritual thinkers were not trying to make a ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

I feel some thinkers were seeking truth, some were seeking answers, some sought spiritual betterment, but the majority sought, power, prestige and lots of cash from the frightened gullible uneducated masses.

Is a believer welcomed?

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

The believer will probably be treated with more respect and tolerance than a non believer going on to a Christian site.

://amp.

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

Single colleagues dating no problem Married (to other people) colleagues dating not advisable One married, one not colleagues dating not going to end well.

Who is your favorite doctor? Original and new? For me it's Hartnell (1) and Tennant (10).

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

Pertwee was the greatest ever for me, he was the Doctor who really got me hooked on the show and had some of the best companions, Sarah Jane, Jo Grant. NU-Who has to be David Tennant, who I was saying should be Doctor Who if they ever brought it back after seeing him in the Reboot of Randall & Hopkirk in 2000.

When you're in a relationship what makes you feel loved?

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

Above all else genuine friendship

Is Dating someone who is in a different political party a deal-breaker for you?

LenHazell53 comments on May 30, 2018:

It did not used matter so much since there was always a certain amount of consensus between political parties on fundamental things like the public good, law and order, education, health care etc. However in my adult life time I have seen the polarisation of left and right, extremism rise on both sides, inflexibility, the collapse of tolerance ironically in the name of greater tolerance and loss of national identity. I think today politics has become a tribal idealisation, a divisive hurdle it would be almost impossible for a relationship to overcome. In short in an increasingly secular world, politics has become the new religion.

My wife has decided that we should live apart, and begin divorce proceedings. The problem?

LenHazell53 comments on May 29, 2018:

Yes it was a pain in the bum, but it is just a temp position and is better than one or the other of you throwing the other one out on the street.

Recently a friend told me a joke about a couple arriving in Heaven and receiving a tour.

LenHazell53 comments on May 28, 2018:

Surely you don't expect the religious to be logical do you?

As a 6 year old - I was sexually abused by a priest- it took me more than 40 years to say something ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 28, 2018:

Well done!

Yes indeed.

LenHazell53 comments on May 28, 2018:

Pointing it out is hate speech, doing it is is a protected freedom because it demonstrates the love of god. This is how fucked PC western society has managed to get itself.

Reincarnation

LenHazell53 comments on May 28, 2018:

I'm so unlucky that if it turns out there is such a thing as Reincarnation, I would probably come back as me.

Does anyone have an Idea when the Rapture is and what city an street so I can get a good seat !

LenHazell53 comments on May 28, 2018:

I once saw a documentary about rapture enthusiasts. The most disturbing part was a red neck Baptist loon who spends all day everyday driving about in high traffic areas hoping to be raptured from his SUV the back of which is loaded with gas cans, in the hope that after he has gone, his vehicle will do the maximum possible damage to those sinners left behind.

Think.......

LenHazell53 comments on May 28, 2018:

WT actual F?

Achoo! Achoo! Aaaaachhhoo!!!

LenHazell53 comments on May 28, 2018:

When it happens on here I wonder if it is a computer virus?

Yes or no

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

No, too damn old for the too damn cold

The DCEU really isn't all that bad.

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsIgy9yqNCA

It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

When you truly know no fear any more, only then are you completely free, and that is perhaps the most terrifying prospect of all.

I have noticed over the years that there is a major play at trying to redefine words in order to ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

He who controls the language controls the masses George Orwell

Calling atheism a religion is like calling baldness a hair color. - unknown

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

Or alternately Calling atheism a is like calling celibacy a sexual position

Just received from a friend who probably stole it off uglybook or google:

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

Wow, just wow!

All I need is this paddle-ball and this.....

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

Two subs accidently hooked up on tinder Boy were they humiliated so their evening wasn't a total loss

[theage.

LenHazell53 comments on May 27, 2018:

"how many religious organisations have been using the charities act to regroup organisations registered under other acts such as the Corporations Act to avoid investigation and then slip from charity scrutiny into something else to stay one step in front of the law". All of them

I've read some pretty harsh anti-Muslim posts here.

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Zionism is not a religion, it is a political ideology, an extremely nationalist ideology, that holds to a doctrine of a chosen people being superior in the eyes of god (sorry g-d) to all others. In this it is comperable to ......

The Ten Commandments

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

The Ten Commandments for arseholes 1. You shall have only one imaginary friend. 2. Statues suck. 3. Don't be a potty mouth arsehole. 4. Have a day off. 5. Try and be nice to your folks. 6. Don't be a murdering arsehole. 7. Don't be a cheating arsehole. 8. Don't be a thieving arsehole 9. Don't be a lying arsehole 10. Don't be a greedy arsehole.

Did people unfollow me, or they're all ignoring me now for some unknown reason?

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

No & no

Does anyone believe in aliens?

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

I believe in the statistical likelihood of extraterrestrial life having evolved elsewhere in the galaxy and universe, unless we are the first to do so. I believe in the possibility of extra dimensional beings given that quantum physics postulated the likelihood the many world theory being correct. However I have and have been presented with no evidence to support the idea any aliens of any form or origin have ever been in direct communication with human beings.

How do we end misogyny?

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Same way we end misandry and misanthropy. Education

when someone ask "what if i'm wrong about god ?

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

I always say, what if you are wrong about God and you die only to find Shiva wagging six swords at you and asking you forsook her when all the info was freely available?

Any ex-LDS women on here?

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

EX Mormon Atheists, agnostics and apostates https://agnostic.com/group/Exmosunite

Even this is child abuse. Makes me sick. [facebook.com]

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Well thank you your assholiness, you just alienated a whole cadre of hard line left footers, anything that reduces the numbers of you corrupt multinational is okay by me. "I'm god's representative on earth, so if I say Jesus was wrong, he was wrong, if I say the bible is a lie, it's a lie, you argue with me I'll excommunicate your ass, and then see who goes to Hell!"

Is it really possible to live your life and not have any regrets.

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

If you treat your past mistakes as life lesson they cease to be regrets

@DrSociety -- Hello, and welcome to the group.

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Hello and welcome

@Tubataxidriver -- Hello, and welcome to the group.

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Welcome

@Holycowballs18 -- Hello, and welcome to the group.

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Hello welcome

@Westy_lad -- Hello, and welcome to the group.

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Hi welcome

@Beverlybjones -- Hello, and welcome to the group.

LenHazell53 comments on May 26, 2018:

Hi

Extraterrestrialism. Is that a thing?

LenHazell53 comments on May 25, 2018:

Still slightly more believable than deities doing a seven day cosmic gardening binge.

Tony Perkins: Accepting Transgender People Like Allowing Man Who Thinks He’s A Bird To Jump Off A ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 25, 2018:

The day will come when "people" like this are filed away in that closet of shame where memories of people who equated black people with gorillas called gypsies sub humans reside alone and are referenced only as a warning from history.

Does anyone else have a hard time with fiction?

LenHazell53 comments on May 25, 2018:

When people will insist on a politically correct lie, because truth does not fit with their preferred ideology one can only conclude the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.

Are you a friendly or unfriendly, atheist or theist?

LenHazell53 comments on May 25, 2018:

"The believer may not be in possession of all of the relevant information. The believer may be basing her conclusion on a false premise or premises." In a free society with unrestricted access to accurate information no one has the right to blame their ignorance on anything but the desire to be ignorant.

So many great lines....

LenHazell53 comments on May 25, 2018:

....several large yellow somethings, that hung in the air in exactly the same way bricks don't.

Apologetics Students Call in for Extra Credit | Josh and Jax - Colorado | Atheist Experience 22.

LenHazell53 comments on May 25, 2018:

It is a shame Jeff Dee does not do this show anymore, he would have totally ripped these two a new one.

Big brother profiting from you?

LenHazell53 comments on May 25, 2018:

What has happened to the world when people are offered the chance to bug themselves for the sake of turning the lights on and off with their voice and they say, "Yes please." Orwell foresaw a world of mass surveillance being forced on the populous, even he did not see a would where the public demanded to be surveyed and spied upon in exchange for being able to tell a machine in the living room to flush the toilet for you upstairs ten minutes after using it.

A friend of mine, Hugh Gallagher, published a one-shot tribute to Mad magazine called Mean magazine.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

Ah well

There are two forces in the universe: 1.) Somewhat controlled chaos 2.) Complete and utter chaos!

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

There is my wife as well, the only thing in creation to be both an immovable object and an irresistible force.

Flat Earthers.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

Luv it

Weird traditions

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

Since the USA have 11/11 to honour war dead same as the rest of the world, isn't simply a bit of a weird tradition to have another one in May in itself?

So.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

I'm sorry but there is no phone here, so this reply is probably imaginary too

George Carlin was a great man!

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

True dat

Cannibalism ala Soylent Green.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

If you were to feed the prison population to itself, you would cut costs and penal overcrowding at a stroke. Effectively killing two jailbirds with one stove.

The Bible.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

# the bible ## A guide for the uneducated, in pursuit of the unattainable written by the untrustworthy

May be a repeat, but something I just found and a nice description of how Christianity borrowed a ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

That which is good in the Christian faith is not original to it, and that which is original to it is not good.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it is egotistical for people who believe in God(s) to think...

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

All hail cthulhu Yup spitting image of me

Regrets? I've had a few..too few to mention...

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

When asked, shortly before his death if had had any regrets in his life, the former Poet Laureate, knight of the realm and distinguished social commentator Sir John Betjeman replied Yes, I haven't had enough sex, but I being English and this being the BBC I suspect I'm not allowed to say that!

Question about death?

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

Seriously?

What's with the points?

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

The most vainglorious and self aggrandizing way of doing all.

Do you believe that all non-believers will go to hell?

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

I believe that a lot of Christians know this is doctrinal but try not to think about it. Christians know that saying they do think so, means they are the sort of bastard who thinks people deserve to be punished in agony for all eternity. Just for disrespecting their monstrous god. The two standard Christoholic arguments against this are:- God sends no one to Hell you send yourself and the equally It is not up to me to judge, it is god's will and judgement the fact that these two arguments contradict one another does not seem to bother them in the least

I had a NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE 33 years ago.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

It's odd isn't it how people who have NDE always are greeted by the deity or demiurge they are expecting to see. Christians get Jesus, Peter or Michael Buddhists get the Buddha Islamites get Mohammed I'm hoping my hallucination will be of a naked troop of 1970s gogo dancers with a fuckton of baileys flavour ice cream, for five minutes fun before I peg out.

I read God is not great by Christopher Hitchens.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

Richard Dawkins "The GOD Delusion" Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris

Prayer in US schools? It IS allowed, just not enforced.

LenHazell53 comments on May 24, 2018:

However let's be clear here, the fuss is about enforcing CHRISTIAN prayer in schools, and even then Protestant Christian prayer. Imagine the fuss that would be made if Buddhist mantras, Catholic Hail Mary's, Satanic hail Satan's, The Odinsong, Islamic Fajr, Hebrew Shacharit were instituted for ALL students in US State schools?

Best guitar solo ? [youtu.be]

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

One of my favourites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMAyGUYlX0E

I’m writing a guideline to “Whacked Out History Stories” And I was hoping that maybe one of ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Wasn't it Cock and Bull ?

You know what's odd to me is that none of the other gospels write about this.

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Look...look, look..... it is all quite simple, you just have to understand that you are an ignorant heathen piece of scum, who likes to go about damaging people's testimonies with your ill informed facts and inconvenient truths and you are going to burn in hell forever for it. Bless you my child and shut your gob while we tie you to this stake and burn you to death with God's holy, loving cleaning fire.

Why is there so much anger here?

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Hmmmm

Religion is the cause of all wars

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Not all, but it's a damn good excuse and a terrific motivator for those that are not.

I've obviously been living under a rock but I've only just discovered that Hugh Laurie who played ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Fry and Laurie are one of my favourite modern double acts.

Does anybody ever wish there was a god?

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Personally no, because by any traditional definition of a "God" would be a tyrannical monster, the whole concept is indecent.

Why it's important to be anti-theist and not passively agnostic or atheist.

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

His parents need to be prosecuted for child endangerment, exploitation and mental cruelty. I was shocked when I first saw this years ago and still am made nauseous by it today.

How's this for a paradox the moth that landed in your toilet and you didn't save but peed on and ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

A complex reworking of the grandfather paradox? How about this, the moth would have been the ancestor of the creature that one day would have become so powerful it would have gone back in time and destroyed the creature that created the universe, had you not pissed it to death, did you save the universe, where you Gods own saviour created for only that purpose or an agent of serendipity? Or were you in realty just some moth hater who got lucky.

I remember somebody once equating religious devotion to anyone devoted to an identity.

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Associating oneself with something to the point were one identifies oneself with loyalty and fidelity to it is the very definition of tribalism. Be it a religion, sports team, ideology, political movement, gender or leader.

Hi everyone! I dabble in nonfiction and fiction, I guess.

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Welcome

When is no evidence, evidence?

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

The burden of proof always rests on the person claiming the presence and existence of a person, thing, phenomena or concept. I don't need to prove phlogiston does not exist, since no evidence can be provided to indicate that it does, the insistence that its intangibility, invisibility, inaudibility, tastelessness and odourless ness are inherent properties of Phlogiston is no excuse for a lack of evidence and lead people eventually to look for another explanation for fire, which turned out to be easily evidential, which is why no one any longer accepts that fire is made of phlogiston. Oddly though when the same people apply the same logic to god(s) they instead decide he, she or it still exists anyway. Odd that.

Hello! I'm brand new here...?

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Punch them on the nose and then praise god, when they ask you why, Tell them it made you feel better and soooo good the inspiration to do it must have come from the Lord. Not your fault in the least, then watch them back peddle.

Expanding your mind begins with being open to things you don't understand.

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

I'm afraid I can't agree with that, expanding your mind begins with admitting there are things you don't know and wanting to know them. I will say I don't understand, how something happens or works, or why something happens or works but that is not the same as saying I don't understand something, because being aware is the beginning of understanding the how, what, when, where, why and sometimes who behind it.

Shower thought.

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

That is exactly what it is, and usually just as unexpected and unimpressive I would speculate

Demon possession? What’s your opinion on it?

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

A convenient excuse for churches and churchmen to silence the dissidents and the insane without blaming or drawing attention to the the failings of their false and foul religion

Time for something else?

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Much has fallen apart in modern society because 1. Most people are unable to differentiate between what they need and what they want. 2. Many cannot be satisfied with enough. 3. People no longer think for them selves but rely on their preferred media to decide for them 4. And no one is willing to be patient and wait for something or someone or their own turn. 5. Everything is now or never, me first and everything and everyone else is not my problem

General fretting and anxieties: I'm struggling to get to the end of my first crack at novel ...

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

This what first and second drafts are for, don't hold yourself back, let it all out and go where it will, you might find stuff you write now for this book that has to be edited out, will be perfect for a story ten years down the line.

Looking for some help on this one.

LenHazell53 comments on May 22, 2018:

Personally I believe the problem comes from generation after generation of people brought up to believe they are more and more "entitled" with each successive iteration. Entitled to have (and to be given) Entitled to wants (as opposed over needs) Entitled to greed (and not to be criticized for hoarding and obesity) Entitled to superiority (rather than equality) Entitled to respect (as opposed to earning it) Entitled to be listened to (even when they have only lies and complaints) Entitled to be rude (because manners are old fashioned) And entitled to disproportionate revenge when upset (You called me a nasty name so I'll shoot you, you insulted my religion so I will blow you up, you hurt my feelings so, I'll blow your fucking head off!) The UK and Europe are going the same way, and add to that the media generate fear of "The other" and easy access to powerful weapons and you have a recipe for a society that is purging itself in favour of the weak and pathetic.

Ohio man calls police on pig following him home

LenHazell53 comments on May 21, 2018:

In case anyone thinks this is a joke, this is she

Another reason religion is the biggest threat to peace.

LenHazell53 comments on May 21, 2018:

As a religious person you have the right to infer an insult where non was intended... # WHAT DO MEAN BY THAT?!!!!

Why are you still on Facebook?

LenHazell53 comments on May 21, 2018:

It has one of the few decent instant messengers left, that mainly why I use it.

Hello! Just joined Agnostic.

LenHazell53 comments on May 21, 2018:

Welcome, sure you'll enjoy it here

Hello. I wonder how many people here are musicians?

LenHazell53 comments on May 21, 2018:

I'm a complete hack, can't read music, have to transcribe it in to abc etc, but I love it, played guitar in several bands, sing and can make a noise with a few other instruments. I'm not dedicated, just enthusiastic.