Brand new atheist here!

[minivan2]

After being so tiered of my very religious grandma begging me to go to church and get baptized I decided that enough is enough and believe that there is no god.

[cleanhippie]

1. Welcome! Most atheists identify as not having a belief in a god.

You say you believe there isn't a god.


To me, there is a wide gap between these two positions.

FWIW, A-theist literally means "without belief".

Welcome to the group. You're in good company.

[A HERETIC I AM]

30. Beg to differ.

"Theist" is from the Greek "Theos" for god.

An A - Theist is one who simply has no gods, as opposed to, as you put it, one "without belief".


The vast majority of Buddhists are Atheist and I am sure you would agree they hold some beliefs.

[whatthehey]

31. I go with the first version absent clumsy translation.

Theos is the root word sure but theism is a belief, activity or cause just like any -ism.

It's the specific -ism about theoi/gods that we are a/without.

It's not that atheists lack any beliefs, just ones about gods.

The definitions for strong and weak atheism place both opinions under the same banner, but it is weak atheism that is the sine qua non.

[cleanhippie]

32. Well...

A-theist

1570s, from French athéiste (16c.), from Greek atheos "without god, denying the gods; abandoned of the gods; godless, ungodly," from a- "without" + theos "a god" (see theo-).

The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell. [Armand Salacrou, "Certitudes et incertitudes," 1943]

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=atheist

[LostOne4Ever]

33. If you are gonna break the word into parts shouldn't you seperate the ist as well

a-the-ist

a-without, not

the-theos, god(s)

ist-A person who follows a particular ideology, doctrine, belief system or theory

Therefore, theist means a person with a theory/ideology/doctrine/ or belief system concerning or involving gods. Or one who believes in gods.

a-theist therefor either means a person with a belief system not involving gods, or a belief system in which there are not any gods depending on how you break it up.

By this the person who believes there are no gods is an atheist. However, by this interpretation, the person who neither holds the "god" hypothesis nor the "no god" hypothesis as true is also an atheist.

[A HERETIC I AM]

34. Fair enough.

And fair enough to the answers above, as well.

[LostOne4Ever]

2. Welcome to the club

We have free drinks on fridays and baby eating breakfasts on Saturdays.




Oh, and please see Richard Dawkins about getting your decoder ring

Seriously though, I hope your grandmother (as well as the rest of your family and friends) will respect you and your belief*. It's not always an easy road getting to here, and it takes a brave person to say you find the all powerful sky fairy hypothesis wanting.

I wish you the best of luck!

Plus, not having to go to church rocks.




*for many of us, we simply disbelieve; but from your OP I am assuming you are an explicit atheist and thus why I am calling it a belief.

[minivan2]

7. Well my aunt is atheist as well

Some of my friends also. I bet they're proud of me for saying this.

[LiberalAndProud]

3. Hello! and welcome!

You have warmed our cold, hard hearts.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218151102

You are in a good place. I always miss the Saturday breakfasts. They aren't mandatory.

[JDDavis]

4. I did that for my grandma, until she died

Never been to church since then, except for other funerals and weddings.

I don't pray, I just sit there when they do it.

I last was a believer when I was 17, now 67.

Fifty years of not believing, do I get a medal for being an atheist so long?

Just kidding, but we new folks should welcome each other into the land of the heathens.

I really went to church once as a freshman in college, because they served a lunch after the service and I was a hungry 18 year old. My buddy from down the hall went with me, and we had a good lunch, he and I talked on the internet since then, I think that was the last time for both of us to go to church.

Oh, my grand mother died when I was 17, I guess I should have said that, she was only 59.

[LiberalAndProud]

5. Welcome to DU, JDDavis.

Hope you can stay a while. As for your 50 year pin ...

[JDDavis]

11. Thank you for such a warm welcome, with only my first post

I came here because another one of your atheists sent me here to find a good place on the internet to talk about atheism.

Are there other forums for us old guys who haven't believed in Jesus as our savior since we were 17?

I believe in free lunch, and think churches do wonderful things, but those are human beings doing wonderful things. I also know hundreds of religions all over the world hurt human beings with stupid ideas and no facts, no evidence, just "faith". Despicable.

I believe each and every human being on this planet deserves the best possible quality of life... unfortunately, for economic and religious reasons, only about 1 out of 200 gets that chance in life, and about 1 in 2000 gets a really good life, most of them Americans.

Religion, faith, and circumstances of birth have too much to do with those statistics. In a world of about 6-7 billion people, about a million die every day needlessly, some of them children.

[LiberalAndProud]

12. You're asking the wrong person about other forums.

I acknowledged my atheism sometime after coming to DU, so this is my home for disbelief.

You and I agree on a whole lot of stuff. I'm glad you're here.

[JDDavis]

14. Thank you very much, but I was just asking if there are atheist forums somewhere else

Not here on Democratic Underground, but somewhere else on the internet.

I lived a very prosperous life, and had 3 relatives die and leave me money, which they would have given to churches if I had not been born late in their lives.

I am glad to be here, an accident of biology, a simple sperm meeting egg. Nothing godly about that, happens about a quarter billion times a day. Some of them just die in 24 hours, some of them make it all the way to 9 months later as a human being. (You can see that I am into numbers here.)

Just asking: where are there forums anywhere on the internet to talk about stuff like atheism, agnosticism, whatever, NON-belief. I have not really looked very hard, but I will, if no one responds with some good links.

Personally, most of my Dem and liberal friends keep SAYING they believe in a god, and know I don't, and wonder about me, but I know that most of them have not really challenged their beliefs, and just go to church to have a good supper, or to feed and house and clothe some poor people, or to have a great time celebrating someone they thought died on a cross, or was born of a virgin, I don't understand any of that, and why celebrate someone dying, or being born in a barn/(manger)?

[LiberalAndProud]

23. I read/listen more than discuss.

I like http://freethoughtblogs.com/
http://www.randi.org/site/
Atheist Experience and AronRa clips on youtube.

Maybe other folks have ideas.

[JDDavis]

24. Thank you for this lead

I will look more

When i did a search on Google, I got to this place, and I do vote Democratic 99% of the time, but I'm not really a Democratic activist.

Hope that doesn't offend, of it does, tell me why it offends, I tend to think a few Republicans are independent and get elected for being Republicans, But most of them are not really religious Christians, they just do it to get elected.

Such a shame on 21st century, all this science and Creationists so successful gettin money from those dum folks. More money than ever. So much stupid in the USA.

[Delmette]

40. My first internet find was

The Atheist Experience on YouTube. I also like the Thinking Atheist. Listening to these will lead you to more web sites.

[Curmudgeoness]

26. Welcome, JDDavis.

Glad to have another old fart atheist join us. You will find a lot of very knowledgeable atheists here....I am often in awe of some of them for what they know and how well they debate. If you are ever ready for lively discussion between believers and non-believers, you can visit the Religion group here on DU. The A&A group is a safe haven, but Religion is open to anyone...go and read a little to get the idea of how that works there. I rarely go there myself but some enjoy it.

And about that 1% of the time you just might vote for someone other than a Democrat, we will fix that too.

[Arugula Latte]

6. Welcome to DU, JDDavis!

And here's to Fifty Years of Happy Heathening!

[minivan2]

9. I was seriously thinking of doing the same thing.

My grandma's 80 now and at the most I expect her to live for 7 years but she fell recently and I'm worried she might be bed ridden soon. Her biggest belief is that if you accept Jesus as your savior you go to heaven and she believes that I'm going to hell if I don't do that. I haven't been to church in years and she keeps pressuring me to do it. She lives 10 minutes away from me and this is what I have to deal with.

[JDDavis]

16. Go to her church, take pictures of you and the minister/priest

Give her a reason to feel good.

It means absolutely nothing, to you, but you make her happy for a few hours.

What could be wrong with that? All religions are fake, and all that stuff just makes some people happier than they are right now.

Go to church, I would do it for my grandma, if she were alive now, or for my parents, or anyone, if it makes them feel better.

All church and religion actually is: for the purpose of making people feel better, that's all.

[LostOne4Ever]

20. Welcome to DU and the A&A group!

[Arugula Latte]

8. Glad to have you, minivan2!

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Welcome.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Welcome! \o/

Sorry your GD thread was locked, but unfortunately, that's a blanket one-size-fits-all prohibition on such material in GD so we don't all kill each other or something.

[onager]

15. Welcome to both of you!

So I go to check DU this morning and find we scored a Twofer! A pair of new posters. Welcome!

Others have already told you about the secret decoder ring and baby breakfasts.

We also used to offer, for new atheists, a free rubber chicken and Anti-Rapture Helmet.* The rubber chicken just because. And the Helmet out of fear that, in case of Rapture, the notoriously incompetent Xian God might accidentally skyhook all the atheists up to Heaven.

Unfortunately Wal-Mart bought out the rubber chicken vendor and converted it to a sweatshop for the manufacture of plastic Jesuses and Duck Dynasty figurines. The functions of the Anti-Rapture Helmet are now obsolete, thanks to a subset of the GPS app on our smart devices.

*Some of you old-timers may remember this stuff from the alt.atheism newsgroup.

[JDDavis]

18. You are funny, and I eat babies for breakfast 2 times a week

Little baby chickens, I eat them cooked

Does that make me a good atheist? Cuz I love my eggs over easy, or poached, or scrambled. Little baby chickens, I eat them.

[deucemagnet]

17. Welcome!

[mr blur]

19. Welcome!

[Rainforestgoddess]

21. A bit late to the welcoming party

But hideyho good neighbour to both of you!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

22. I love the Ned Flanders reference!

One of the best characters from one of the best shows of all time (at least until episode 300 or so).

[Curmudgeoness]

25. Welcome. It is good to have another atheist

who finally realized it. We all have our different stories about realizing we are atheists, and some have always been there. You can learn a lot about religion and atheism here. How you stay a while.

[PDittie]

27. This helped me a lot

http://godisimaginary.com/index.htm

[theHandpuppet]

28. Howdy!

[edhopper]

29. Welcome to the rational world

I don't use the word believe at all. Not "I don't believe" or "I believe there is no".

I say "I don't accept that there is a God".

Belief to me is acceptance without proof. For me there is no proof, so I don't accept the concept.

[Delmette]

35. This wonderful DU corner linked me into

The Atheist Experience on YouTube several years ago. From there I found the Friendly Atheist and the Thinking Atheist.
I can't name the year that I became an atheist, but it's at least five years. That is after 30 years of disliking and ignoring organized religion and questioning the teachings of Lutherans and Catholics 15 years before that.
Needless to say I'm over 60 and this has been a long drawn out process. I have had siblings come out about their atheism and friends ignore me. It seems a bit strange that my long transition has been so noneventful.

[Heather MC]

36. i have a nagging mother, after researching her nutbag religion

I realized my supernatural belief no longer existed
Welcome sorry we have no kool-aid to offer you

[marym625]

37. Welcome!

Feel free to join the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

http://www.venganza.org/join/

[beam me up scottie]

38. Hello!

I'm always late to the party but wanted to pop in and let you know that this is a safe haven (I saw your op about a jury yesterday).

You can come in here and gripe about stuff in general without getting caught in the crossfire.

[Gelliebeans]

39. I too, am late

But I have been on a bit of a break myself.

A very big welcome to you 👍

[Manifestor_of_Light]

41. Hi there minivan!

When I lived in the city I went to the Unitarian-Universalist church. That is the only church I will set foot in and it is because it is explicitly non-Christian. They welcome the questioning, the atheist, the agnostic, the pagan. They have lots of discussion groups. I have been a UU since 1979. They are unique in having a non-creedal religion. You don't have to stand up and say you believe in anything, and thereby feel like a fool.


Later I went back to church and tried to be a Christian and decided it was a harmful, worthless scam.


Now that I have retired to the country I have no atheist friends except my husband which I met at a large urban UU church. Lots of nice atheist boys and girls. The only spirituality allowed around here is certain forms of Protestantism, Baptist, Methodist or fundy Ass of God or independent bible-thumping churches with ignorant preachers. Mormons and Catholics are quite suspect.

I've already been told once that I am going to hell. Conservative Christians are not nice people and they hate anyone who is different from them. They don't know us so they will make shit up.

I was raised Presbyterian and went to a Presbyterian college. I have a lot of respect for Presbys because I learned to think in college and they are well educated. And they don't go around trying to convert people or jabbering all the time about Gawd.


My grandmother who was a Methodist nagged my mother to get me baptised even after I was grown. As it turned out, my grandmother, my mom and dad were all atheists when they died. They believed there was nothing after death, and that was fine for them.


My daughter is an agnostic and her BF is an atheist Hindu and I'm down with that. I study Buddhism and Hinduism for some perspective and if I took the vows and became a Buddhist I would still be an atheist.



Glad to have you. There are certain theists here who are disingenuous and dodge questions about the irrationality of their beliefs. They can't give good explanations for their irrationality, so there is no point in arguing with them. They are quite sensitive and you are not supposed to ask them the difference between their belief in god and belief in the Tooth Fairy, Santa or the Easter Bunny. Declaring that they believe in irrational fairy tales is considered insulting, even though it's the truth.

Some of them try to be warm and fuzzy and welcoming to everyone but it is a smokescreen. I've been chased out of the Interfaith group and told to watch my language when I WAS watching my language. And I wouldn't go into Religion/Religion either.


"I don't want to believe. I want to KNOW." -- Carl Sagan

[minivan2]

42. Great story Manifestor!

I have friends who are UUs and are very liberal. I have no offense of people who are Christians, that's just their beliefs and they have a right to it. But I try to keep religion to a minimal with my grandma.