Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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Alice, I agree and think your comment applies to many projects designed to help the poor. It appears that planners seldom feel the need to actually talk to the poor to find out what works for them in their existing neighborhoods and what they feel the problems are. Action without data is often useless and sometimes detrimental to the aim of the project.
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Ananda , Good to hear about living in the Ozarks. I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Rogers for a while and have cousins in Tulsa.
I haven't read the article yet, but the discussion is interesting and I'll have to go back and do that.
Our paper had the most wonderful obit this week. The man had grown up poor, was a crack shot because it meant meat for dinner and he only had enough money to buy one bullet. He served in WWII, returned and married. Was a wonderful father and grandfather and basically lived an ordinary life doing good things for his neighbors. I was sorry I had never known him. I think he could be described as a good man. What a relief from the ones listing the honors and how successful the person was in business.
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Wren44, Rogers is growing like a weed. It's in a lovely area and actually quite close to an airport.😉 It is in a pocket of blue in a rather red state. It has the virtues of the Ozarks with the conveniences of a city.
One of the things I like most about Arkansas is the culture of understatement of one's wealth. A native Arkansan said that it comes from the Depression when people who had money would purposely hide their relative wealth so as not to embarrass those with little. Expensive cars are seldom seen even today and there aren't McMansions like one sees on the coasts. There is a monied class here, they just aren't as easy to spot.
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It's the same attitude in Oklahoma. It's OK to have money, but not to flaunt it. It also stems from the Depression, I think.
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I am so fortunate to be an atheist and not have to do mental gymnastics when the world in which we live so clearly demonstrates that one must somehow fight to align one's basic principles of Christianity to economic expediency and the fear of 'the other'..
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The fear of the other is an artifact of a scary childhood. The original "other" is the mother. If your mother is not safe that stays with you as a right brain certainty about "people" and if your Mom has your back that inculcates trust in people.
I think a lot of the religious craziness comes from draconian child rearing. If you ever look at Gary Ezzos evangelical child rearing books the stuff he recommends is horrifying. Hitting babies with an implement, etc.
Basically you can either believe people are basically good, but can get polluted by bad experiences..... or you believe people are basically bad but can be reformed by punitive bad experiences.
I believe people are basically good..... and if they are acting horrid, something damaged them at an early time.
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santab...Oh my! Gary Ezzos was closely tied to Focus on the family, which is an ultra conservative Christian group. The Ezzos tried to "secularize" their approach by hiring a physician as co-author.
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Might be a signal that all the Ezzo's kids have repudiated them, and are estranged....
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Fresh rant: I'm in a couple of online groups for kidney cancer. The one I like best, because it's the most active, is, unfortunately, chock full of Jeebus. Some of the members seem quite aggressive about their fantasies, too. Ugh. It's on Facebook, so it can't be broken down into threads for like-minded people. It's only a matter of time before I (perhaps inadvertently) piss people off. I keep a watch out for like-minded people, who offer "positive thoughts" amid a sea of "the Lord will guide yew" yuckiness. I hate the idea of having to go it alone, though. I hate having to hide what I am. It seems like it's always open season on nontheists.
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Alice, Would you be as put off by the god talk if the people were from Animists or Shinto, or other less well know to you religion? God talk by Christians bugs me because I know a certain group of them are attempting to control me politically. Once I put god talk into a category of exotic utterances, the amount of irritation I felt was greatly reduced.
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Ananda8, that is SO apples and oranges. If someone says "I have surgery next week, keep me in your thoughts," these people go beyond the annoying, but harmless, "I'll pray for you." They say "Turn your life over to Gawd" or "You have to ask Jeeesus to protect you." I've never seen that level of intrusiveness from adherents of most other religions.
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How's this for in your face Christianity - South Dakota 'Public school students in South Dakota will notice something different on their first day back to school — the national motto, "In God We Trust," prominently inscribed on walls in stencil or paint.' US is founded on Christian principles - how has that played out in US history ? Oh yeah it began by decimating most Native populations?
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Right, some forms of Christianity practice a form of 'holy one upmanship. I knew a group who would confess to sins of their past to make their 'finding Jesus' more of dramatic. Truly bizarre.
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Me.
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SofieKatx, What do you mean, "Me"?
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I'm also an atheist - have been since around the age of 12. If someone needs the threat of going to hell in order to be a good person, they lack a moral compass (which I've noticed is quite prevalent in many theists I've known).
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Couldn’t agree more.
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I wish this site had "like" buttons.
I assume the ACLU will be on South Dakota's unconstitutional ass in record time, although that overworked organization is getting spread really thin these days.
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I wish that also, but will have to settle for a
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If you can afford it...Donate to the ACLU. https://action.aclu.org/give/now?ms=horiz_nav_hp&m...
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I donated earlier this year. If the medical co-pays ever settle down, I'll donate more often, perhaps on a monthly basis. I love being able to say "I'm a card-carrying supporter of the ACLU."
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I'm an atheist and so grateful now that this cancer shit has popped up. Nothing to confuse or muddle my thought process while making these important decisions.
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If someone says that the US was founded on Christian Principles ask which ones. I assure you they will be silent.
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okjoan...sorry you are having to deal with BC. There are many threads you might find informative and I know that many of us are involved in a number of them. I keep my comments about religion mostly to this thread and because I am not dealing with the complexities of diagnosis and treatment options I can avoid the 'blessings' and 'thoughts and prayers' . Welcome to this engaging discussion and I look forward to hearing your perspective as topics arise.
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Since it's Sunday …
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Two mass shooting in two days with 29 dead, dozens injured and thousands personally sharing in the pain of that tragedy. Obviously, as an atheist, prayers are not the answer.
Harvard's Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein offers this advise...
… at a moment of crisis, what people are really traumatized by is that we feel so helpless and, for humanists, the number one way to overcome feeling helpless is to reach out and help other people. It's part of what human beings need to do is we need to connect with one another and we need to work on behalf of something bigger than just ourselves or even our individual families.
We are all in this together and I do believe that acts of kindness and compassion are healing. It is apparent to me each time I read the kind and thoughtful words offered, accepted, and appreciated by the women and men active on the many threads on this site. At times when I'm searching for words of wisdom, I may review some of the one's written on various threads that I would find comforting and lift and mingle them with my own.
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ananda
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Screw thoughts and prayers. And the only people we need to reach out to are our elected officials, telling them firmly and, if necessary, not so politely, that they HAVE TO get the NRA out of their pocket. If they don't agree, support and vote for candidates to replace them. And donate to Amy McGrath to replace Mitch Rat Bastard McConnell.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/amy-mcgrath-2020-senate.html
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Thank you
I am ok with people and their 'thoughts and prayers' because that's about a me, that's for them and if they need it, then ok. 0
