"Atheism is a religion" I see that is the new thing going around. This is simply NOT true!!
My response:
Using all caps does not increase the validity of an argument.
If political ideology & goals have been brought into one or more atheist groups you belong to, which I'm sure they HAVE, then yes you have a de facto religion.
Are the wages of sin, death (in other words, are there very good fully natural evolutionary reasons religions came up with prohibitions regarding destructive behaviors)? http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29442642
The more popular groups, such as CFI, American Atheists, and national humanist groups do very much have political goals & ideologies engrained in their core group "missions." And so, rather like the creationists do with Darwinian evolution & the god concept, they put the cart before the horse.
And, this uncle who grew up in ultra-conservative Manti, Utah - dying of AIDS leaving his straight family with no father. A victim BOTH of Mormonism, and of the opposite side he jumped to in response.
Examples of the dark side of "social justice" advocacy in the atheist (bowel) movement:
Atheism Plus Social Justice Update Pt. 1: The Lulz
Our neural networks are highly mailable. We can be swayed into various memetic-social camps due to various influences including: parental, social, educational, experiential, etc. When within one memetic camp we erect walls of defense to keep from being pulled into another camp. If pulled into another camp, we erect new memetic walls to keep us in the new camp.
I remember my time in Portland as being like an Alice in Wonderland. One of my experience paths involved going to weekly meetings for the new sadly defunct group United States Atheists. At those meetings a very nice man befriended me and we would often go to a nearby bar to talk, with a few of the others from the meetings. Also this man later headed up atheist group monthly visits to the OMSI Science Pub events, in connection with atheist related meetup.com groups & later with the Center For Inquiry, Portland.
Here's another video of my friend (who would go to the USA Atheists meetings & the bar afterward & to the OMSI Science Pub CFI events), from 2009. In that 2009 video he talks about going from being a Christian to an atheist.
Within the past few days from February 4, 2014 I found that my friend has converted back to evangelical Christianity. Here is a related video, and some additional debate notes I found about the issue.
The Mormon & Christian Memetic Whirlpool
Mormons wear nice clothes. That was the first comment from my wife as I drove her around downtown Salt Lake, especially during their General Conferences. But just wearing nice clothes doesn't mean you are happy.
As I have walked with my wife & son around Temple Square, I know she's felt the pull of the Mormon memetic whirlpool. I've felt it too, but I also get a huge icky poo feeling along with. A cult is a group which engages in a few key things:
1. Leader worship.
2. Excommunication of those who disagree - both from your own family if you disagree, and from the cult in general.
3. Active suppression of evidence that may discredit what the leaders are claiming.
4. Putting the cult first, above family & other human relationships.
A cult is an especially strong form of memetic group or camp with especially strong defenses, and strong belief maintenance to keep people in line.
Our path through the forest of competing ideas can result in our being sucked one way or another, based on how we are feeling & what's happening to us at any given time.
So, I won't be returning to Mormonism or Christianity any time soon. Why? Because I remember the deception, the lies, and the pain. I haven't forgotten the lies of the leaders or their hypocrisy.
My related video commentary on this whole situation:
While in Portland I was befriended by a man who went with me to weekly meetings for the now defunct group United States Atheists. After those meetings we often would go to a bar for a chat. Also the man became an organizer for Center for Inquiry, Portland and their past monthly OMSI Science Pub events. Also the man invited me to participate in a cable access TV show called Sciligion.
Here's one example where we're appearing together on the show:
In the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxjSAuLAG48 my friend talks about a differentiation between the the physical and the metaphysical, the normal and the paranormal. For me such differentiations are simply memetic camp defense mechanisms. If some god exists in another dimension as a "spiritual being," he or she or it would still be a physical entity. Does the so-called metaphysical item or entity exist? If the answer is yes then they are physical AKA a real thing with real physical properties.
It's sad that to belong to a human social group we have to a.) suck up to a leader, and b.) state that we believe in one or more joint-lies. Can we change this situation? Can we have human social groups where we don't all have to state that we believe in the joint lies?
When we leave conservative religion we may encounter what is essentially liberal-religion. Many atheist & "free thought" groups are essentially liberal religions. If you don't tow the party line in these liberal flavors of religion you will then undergo a heresy trial, one which almost exactly mirrors the heresy trials of conservative religions. In those trials you will be accused of having held onto tenets from your old religion, concepts which you should have just completely tossed according to them. But the key fallacies in their arguments can be revealed via the following activity: Going to China, where they know nothing about your religion, and see what they believe in & do. Do the same thing in other cultures. Religion is a NATURAL phenomenon, and so even tenets in conservative religion can still be fully natural.
Just because you like dicks doesn't mean you should cheat on your wife, get aids, die, and leave your family with no father. And just because you like vaginas as well as dicks that doesn't mean you should cheat on your husband, and then go off to live with your lesbo buddy.
I'm an atheist and I don't believe in cults of personality, nor in being
drawn into the assumption that atheism necessarily leads to being
socially ultra-left. Being an atheist for me means being willing to take
a step back from all dogmas, not only from the right but also from the
left.
Criticisms of flying the gay flag universally, as doing so
may transmit the assumption that people in the flag-flying group universally agree with all aspects
of the perceived "gay agenda."
On when bi or homosexual men cheat
on their wives, get aids, die, and leave their families with no father. I believe we should be open to debate whether "middle children"
should be encouraged to live a straight life - otherwise we are having
unquestionable dogma points just like in a religion.
Just because a person is an atheist, a secular advocate, or an advocate for science & naturalism doesn't mean they embrace 100% of the ultra-left agenda.
Wives who're members of conservative religions should meet their apparently bisexual husbands half-way, by leaving their abusive conservative religions, and by not being upset about porn. And then the husbands should not cheat & go elsewhere.
