The A Word

Googled The A Word

I just wanted to see what would come up. The top choice was www.theword.org. A website about Arachnoiditis. According to the website, its a complicated medical condition, and not a fear of spiders.

I Found this article down the page a bit (its old) titled "Atheist Arise: Dawkins spreads The A-Word among America's unbelievers."

When asked, What did he hope an atheist bloc in the US might achieve? "

Dawkins Anwered "I would free children from being indoctrinated with the religion of their parents or their community. I would like to free everyone from the assumption you have to be religious in order to be a decent person or to be moral. Obviously stem cell research and all the interference with scientific research that goes on [should stop]. Obviously the whole creationist interference with education [should stop] but I think, more positively, I would like to see people encouraged to rejoice in the world in which they find themselves, the universe in which they have been born, to take full advantage of the tiny slice of eternity they have been granted."

 

Quote

Saw this today on Planet Atheism and checked out The Barefoot Bum's blog and wanted to share.

It is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because of a rival fundamentalism of my own. It is because the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong and I am passionately distressed that my opponent can't see it — or, more usually, refuses to look at it because it contradicts his holy book. My passion is increased when I think about how much the poor fundamentalists, and those whom they influence, are missing. The truths of evolution, along with many other scientific truths, are so engrossingly fascinating and beautiful; how truly tragic to die having missed out on all that! Of course that makes me passionate. How could it not? But my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Quotes

Found this and more good quotes at Way of the Mind Blog. More here too.

Here are my favorites:

Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. - Sam Harris

Faith means not wanting to know what is true. - Friedrich Nietzsche

The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. - Delos B. McKown

Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. - Anonymous

Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. - Richard Dawkins

Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg

A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it. - David Stevens

Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney

When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. - Sigmund Freud

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. - John Buchan

I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose - Clarence Darrow

Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. - Robert Pirsig

I have no need for religion, I have a conscience. - Anonymous

The finality of death is the coldest truth one must face. Religion makes the perfect distraction. - Anonymous

Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. - Ronnie Snow

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk. - Thomas Edison

Fundamentalism, of any type, due to its prerequisite lack of intelligent thought, could prove to be the worst weapon of mass destruction, of all. - David J. Constable

Today’s religion will be the future’s mythology. Both believed at one time by many; but proved wrong by the clever. - Steven Crocker