{"id":2160,"date":"2011-03-18T07:27:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T12:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2160"},"modified":"2011-03-18T07:27:25","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T12:27:25","slug":"an-atheist-in-a-theist-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2160","title":{"rendered":"An Atheist in a Theist World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I once heard it said that being an atheist in a theist world is like being the only sober person at a party. I think this is pretty accurate sometimes. I also think that it seems like I\u2019m one of the few sane people in a world gone mad.<\/p>\n<p>The way I see it, religion really does warp people\u2019s thinking. For example, if someone is starving would it me moral for an alcohol company to offer to give them some food and a bottle of scotch plus an hour long lecture on why drinking can help you forget about your problems? Of course not! No one would say, well at least the starving person is getting the food they need. In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/atheism-in-philadelphia\/support-bible-free-relief-for-japan\" target=\"_blank\">my recent article<\/a> about how religious groups often use tragedies like the earthquake in Japan to push their product, I have gotten tons of Christians and even a few atheists defending the absurdly immoral activities of Christian groups pushing Bibles and sermons with their \u201crelief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It seems strange to me that so many people go out of their way to defend insanely immoral activities done by religious people. Yesterday, I saw a clip from Chris Matthews\u2019s show Hardball in which he was talking to the Philadelphia district attorney about the massive pedophile priest scandal that took place here recently. Both Matthews and the DA are both Catholic. They talked about how wrong it was that these priests did what they did, but not once did they talk about the systematic way that the Church attempted to cover up these crimes. The obvious question is, why do these pedophile scandals always seem to involve Catholic priests and not Buddhist monks?<\/p>\n<p>The point here is that for some bizarre reason, religion gets a pass for their insane behavior because we live in a mostly theistic world. Even among many atheists, religion gets a pass for their insanity. When we talk about faith and science, it should be obvious which one is more accurate. Yet whenever they are in conflict (which is all the time) almost all theists and even some atheists will defend faith over reason.<\/p>\n<p>It is time to stop giving the religious a pass on their insanity. If we are ever going to live in a sane world, we need to call theists out on their bullshit. I will end with some words from my esteemed colleague from the Cult of Dusty, Dusty Smith:<br \/>\n<object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"430\" height=\"272\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/IlXkjrluq_4?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"430\" height=\"272\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/IlXkjrluq_4?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thehumanistchallenge.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/06\/%25e2%2580%259catheist-v-theist%25e2%2580%259d-%25e2%2580%2593-a-humanists-response\/\">&#8220;Atheist v. Theist&#8221; &#8211; A Humanist&#8217;s Response<\/a> (thehumanistchallenge.wordpress.com)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2147\">Religious Kid Gloves<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.teenageatheist.com\/2011\/01\/atheist-or-theist-poll.html\">Atheist or Theist? [Poll]<\/a> (teenageatheist.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=8a9c2ebd-2580-4f89-b201-da7e07f39426\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related pretty-attribution\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2160\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I once heard it said that being an atheist in a theist world is like being the only sober person at a party. I think this is pretty accurate sometimes. I also think that it seems like I\u2019m one of the few sane people in a world gone mad. The way I see it, religion [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1039,44,727,556,9],"tags":[2215,43,1626,37,1621,2214,1264,659],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2161,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160\/revisions\/2161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}