Wednesday, February 21, 2007

atheists and amsterdam



According to the general public (who I hate), atheists cannot be trusted in office. They're less popular than 72-year-old Mormon homosexuals who've been married more than 3 times, allegedly.

Atheists don't stand for or believe in anything. And if they don't believe in God then they don't have morals. What's to stop them raping, murdering and torturing? Godless scum.

Coming from the UK, which is more secular than the US, I was immediately struck by the increased relgiousness of the people here, and often surprised by the hard time atheists got. It's the other way around in the UK. Something else I noticed here was how much you guys dislike the Dutch and the French. I know you guys think the French are pussies but I never understood why you hate the Dutch so much.

Someone please enlighten me.

4 comments:

TaylorStreet said...

wait- we hate the Dutch? I was rather unaware. I think "we" tend to diss their social libertarianism, but overall the Dutch are nowhere near as disliked as the French.

Anonymous said...

Hey Oli, did I mention I just read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins? It is ace if you want ammo with which to pester god botherers but the downside is that Richard Dawkins is just as much of a dogmatic fundamentalist as his targets. I was interested / horrified to read about american attitudes towards atheists. Mr Dawkins says that by some sectors of US society, atheists are regarded as inhumane. He also discusses the fact that the founding fathers of the US constitution (jefferson, washington, adams) designed the constitution as secular not so much to uphold religious freedom but because they were esentially athiests. So it really irritates me when american presidents / presidential candidates harp on about the US being 'one nation under god' etc etc

Unknown said...

Offense taken. Not only am I a wooden shoe, I own some from 1988. Vintage wood, baby.

Oliver said...

Richard Dawkins sees religion as a disease, continually perpetuated onto the young without their permission. He sees religion as divisive and destructive.

He quotes someone:

"Without religion, bad people do bad things, but it takes religion for good people to bad things"

One point he does make, which I think is a good one, is why bother with the bible at all if you're gonna pick and choose the bits you like. Either accept it all as the word of God, or you ignore it completely. Why the in-between?