[capitosinora]

Atheism, a religion that believes in God's non existence, opens new churches around the world.
Here is some of them:

[Potemkin]

Meh. Already been done.

Religion of Humanity

[Russkie]

The only reason they call themselves a church is to get a tax exemption.

Also, The Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with reason or rational thought.

[Heisenberg]

I can't begin to imagine how smug, pointless and generally awful an "atheist church" must be.

The ridiculous thing is their "teachings" are usually liberal Christianity minus God, making them little more than radical Protestants. Just as the Protestant reformation discarded prayer to the saints and advocated personal interpretation of scripture, these guys discard God and the bits of scripture they don't like (I expect most of them still follow the Golden Rule, for example). The saddest part is that they don't even know that this is what they're doing.

[ComradeTim]

Things that grind my gears: people using "atheism" to mean "materialist humanism".

[kobe]

What is the rational basis for their moralistic/sentimental beliefs?

[Dagoth Ur]

Idealism.

[kobe]

I feel like idealism has even less basis in reality than actual religion. At least the religious have a good explanation for why their beliefs are true (sky demon, deity, spirits, w/e); the idealists basically run on wishes and oughts without any justification.

[Dagoth Ur]

I don't really think they are very different. God is just another form of ideal with its own rules. Like modern atheist liberals have just replaced the old theistic justifications with liberal leaders becoming the new saints to the God of commerce.

[mikema63]

I mostly just go with my feelings on moral questions.

[Dagoth Ur]

Feelings are for chumps. Moralizing too. Capital rules everything around me, not feelings.

[Hong Wu]

I mostly just go with my feelings on moral questions.

Eventually an atheist has to admit to themselves that they are irrational and then the devil moves in

[kobe]

Who said the Devil is so bad? God? God created the Devil, so who's the real dick here?

[Dagoth Ur]

The Devil in Christianity is a parable about how Pride can turn even one of God's greatest creations into His most corrupt creation.

The Devil in Islam is also a parable about Pride, but more how the Love of God is unaccessable to those who close themselves off from His Truth.

Both are "so bad" because they are both fundamentally anti-human characters. Their whole existence revolves around making humans miserable in hell for eternity just to piss God off. Sounds like a rich-kid asshole with a Dad who has given up and who then takes his Daddy issues out on everyone around him.

[Heisenberg]

The devil/Satan/the serpent is the good guy in the Bible. I can't see how any other reading of Genesis 3 is possible, if you so much as pretend to value intellectual freedom.

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

God, as presented here, is a jealous liar. Satan, on the other hand, is a liberator. I can't help but feel that the Gnostics might have had a point.

[Hong Wu]

Who said the Devil is so bad? God? God created the Devil, so who's the real dick here?

You seem smart enough to understand that there are many answers to this question depending on what your religion is. Perhaps none of those answers satisfy you though? What is generally agreed upon is that the evil one / chaos wants to parody good / order. We can choose to believe that there is a reason for this and in believing that we can endure it, or we can live like cowards.

[Hong Wu]

The devil/Satan/the serpent is the good guy in the Bible. I can't see how any other reading of Genesis 3 is possible, if you so much as pretend to value intellectual freedom.

God, as presented here, is a jealous liar. Satan, on the other hand, is a liberator. I can't help but feel that the Gnostics might have had a point.

You missed the most obvious point of the parable, which is that without knowledge man could stay in the Garden of Eden, not realize he was naked, live forever without any pain, etc. The price of real knowledge was real pain.

[Dagoth Ur]

@heisenberg: That is because you are mistakenly assuming the Snake is Satan. Snakes represent knowledge itself, the fruit of the Tree was just an analogy for the aquisition of knowledge. The Bible never calls the Snake, Satan either.

This "jealous, liar" God simply said that you will die if you eat the fruit. This was absolutely true. You could even say that the fruit of knowledge opened their eyes to the inevitablity of their own demise. This along with the "loss of innocence" represents our ascent out of animal thinking and "paradise". To me all I see in Eden was the last test of man, to see whether we would choose to be animals or paradise or Men in a wasteland.

And even if you accept that the Snake is Satan then he is a real asshole for tricking people into getting cast out of paradise. He certainly did not tempt us to taste the fruit out of a love for Man.

Edit:
Nice Hong Wu gets it.

[ComradeTim]

Better to be a fool dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied-John Stuart Mill.

[Hong Wu]

Thanks Dagoth, I'm glad we agree

To spell it out further, the logical endpoint of the parable is that the "knowledge" (commonly symbolized as a serpent in many religions) from the "tree of life" is only necessary once you possess that knowledge in the first place. This is essentially the same idea as that found in many oriental religions which speak of the addictive nature of materialism.

As the Chinese poet Zhuangzhi said: “The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”