You know those people who are so strong about their stances that they constantly express it? Of course this isn't a bad thing but at times it can be annoying. Take yesterday when I was walking across my school's student parking lot. I glanced and noticed a truck full of bumper stickers beside me. I went up to the truck to read the stickers. They stated such things as: "So I asked God why is there violence in schools? And he replys because I am not allowed in schools", "Coincidence only exists when one takes God out of the picture", "Slavery (crossed out), Holocaust (crossed out), Abortion. Two down one more to go". Now don't get me wrong I don't care if people are religious, while I don't have a faith I'm no atheist either and consider myself completely neutral on the stance of a God. But this just annoyed me and as for the abortion thing well I'm not a woman so I can't fully comprehend but I think comparing it to slavery and the holocaust is a little extreme.
Even if I agree with the views I find it annoying. Ever seen one of those cliche college films? You know the stereotypical "crazy" college kid political protester? I mean seriously its as if one came to life, crawled out of a TV, and goes to my school. Everyday I see him standing on table tops screaming out "Brothers and Sisters! We must unite to stop this corrupt political system!" and well all that shit. He always preaches and even at one time rapped (yeah rapped like in hip-hop) about his political views trying to persuade people. I mean it's cool and all trying to get people into politics but seriously?
So yeah what do you people think?
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3 comments:
Theism versus atheism is boolean (yes or no / true or false). If you believe there's a god, that's theism. Anything short of that atheism; "neutral" is atheist.
Sorry, the definition of atheism gets demonized enough that it's important to correct.
Back on topic, though, I enjoy the hypocriticism of that bumper sticker. The Bible was used to defend slavery leading up to and during the Civil War. And the promotion of slavery is quite clear in the Bible, so it's not a stretch to do.
In terms of expression, I think it actually important to be forthright with opinions. While there is a measure of tact to be had (not found in standing in the cafeteria rapping to fiscal conservatism), it's the matter of discussion as opposed to preaching or demanding of the opposition.
I think the term "atheism" has transformed much has terms such as "propaganda" and "ghetto" have. Basically they've once meant something but due to society they now mean something totally different.
But yeah how was the bible used to defend slavery? Just curious.
I think a better description for the framing of the word "atheism" in the US would be that of the word "liberal" or "progressive." These words entymologically don't have a positive or negative connotation. It still has the same meaning, only a negative connotation.
It's like saying the Theory of Evolution doesn't mean the change of the frequency of alleles in a population over time anymore, but that it means a monkey birthed a man just because a lot of people have that misconception.
To be fair, the Bible was used by both sides, as it always is. You know Southern Baptists? Yeah, that's the Southern from the Civil War because the Baptist church split over slavery.
Throughout the Bible (and yes, including the New Testament) there are detailed instructions on how to keep slaves as well as mandates for slaves. This includes how much they're worth, and how it's ok to beat them to death as long as you do it over a period of a few days. It's nice that modern translations of the Bible use the word "servant" for the Greek "doulos" which means slave.
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