Amy sent me this the other day:
I want to suggest a topic for discussion: the way atheists are portrayed in the media. After seeing “The Bucket List” (which I really did like) I’m getting tired of movies portraying atheists as rude, callous people. The same thing happened in “This Christmas”. The only non-Christian in the family was the drug dealing, distant son. “Dogma” treats unbelievers like they’re stupid. Not all nonbelievers are like that.
I liked all three of these movies, but I would like to see a movie that includes a NICE atheist every now and then.
That’s my opinion. I’d love to hear what others think.
I’d love to also. As well as commenting on atheists in movies, feel free to comment on other types of movie stereotyping too.
I’m guessing it’s not just atheists who have opinions about how they’re portrayed in movies.
01-28-2008 |
17 Comments »Laura posted this in a comment on “Is the scientific method overrated?”
For me, faith is something you can explain logically, but not rationally, to those who don’t have it. And never did have it.
It’s a bit like trying to explain the colors of the rainbow to a person who’s been blind their entire life.
Sure, you can logically explain how light rays bounce of objects… yada, yada, yada. But how do you explain the beauty of light and colors and nature? You can describe it, but how much meaning will it have for a blind person?
When folks talk about their faith to me, I feel like I’ve been blind my entire life. I can logically understand and appreciate the effect on their lives, the peace and joy and love and the sense of awe and wonder and commitment they have. That’s because I have these feelings too.
But I still have no clue what faith looks like. I can’t see it at all. Not even a blurry outline.
I don’t think it would make sense for the blind person to think all the people who are not blind (so many, many of them) are not rational, just because they share an experience he doesn’t seem to be capable of sharing.
On the other hand, I don’t get why the sighted folks would get mad at the blind guy and tell him if he can’t see it, he must not be looking hard enough.
08-24-2007 |
52 Comments »In a comment on Free Jesus, Stephan wrote:
Doreen said “My pain is STILL gone.”
I am waiting for the atheists here to say something other than, “Nice story.” As atheists you must either think there is a natural explanation (which I honestly can’t wait to hear), or you must think she is a liar.
I realize most of you are loathe to be disrespectful, but you have allowed her to put forth some rather concrete testimony of the supernatural without challenging it at all. I have heard many times from atheists that there is no evidence of faith healing. Here you have a first-person account.
Maybe this needs to be a new thread. What do you do when someone presents testimony of the supernatural? Do you try to explain it? Do you call the person a liar? Or, as I suspect, do you simply disregard it as unexplained and ignore it? If so, you are living with the same cognitive dissonance that you decry in Christians.
07-24-2007 |
57 Comments »To me, humor about people falls into three categories:
I regard laughing at oneself and laughing with others as safe choices emotionally. Meaning, they aren’t likely to offend other people.
Laughing at others, on the other hand, is risky because they might be offended rather than joining in and laughing at themselves along with you.
I ran across the article Summer Camps for Atheists yesterday in which it seemed to me the author was laughing at others (atheists). I e-mailed him about it and he responded, which I appreciated.
We didn’t agree about whether his article insulted atheists (albeit using humor) and whether atheists were likely to laugh along with him.
07-03-2007 |
22 Comments »I’d love to hear about any routes people here might be taking, or considering, to hear about ideas & beliefs they might not normally run across, &/or interact with people who hold different beliefs. (Or, even, routes people tried or considered, that didn’t end up happening.) There have been several posts about experiences like this on ebay atheist and Conversation at the Edge over the past year or so; I’ve included a partial summary, with links, below in case anyone wants to look back at some of those. Those include: atheists going to church…Christians going to mosques…Christians inviting atheists to interfaith events…Abortion protestors and abortionists actually talking to each other. You know, not the kind of interaction you’d typically run across every day. ;-)
I’m also interested in hearing how people here might plan a session, or a series of several sessions, to explain their beliefs to others who don’t share those beliefs. Who might attend? How would you get the word to those people? What setting might work? What tone, and topics, might you aim for? How would you know if the effort was ‘worth it’?
Go ahead & describe either something you’re actually doing or planning…or something that seems pie-in-the-sky-but-neat-if-it-could-happen! Read the rest of this entry »
02-22-2007 |
4 Comments »The other day I discovered Richard Dawkins has written an article called Atheists for Jesus. Here are some excerpts from it:
Of course Jesus was a theist, but that is the least interesting thing about him. He was a theist because, in his time, everybody was. Atheism was not an option, even for so radical a thinker as Jesus. What was interesting and remarkable about Jesus was not the obvious fact that he believed in the God of his Jewish religion, but that he rebelled against many aspects of Yahweh’s vengeful nastiness. At least in the teachings that are attributed to him, he publicly advocated niceness and was one of the first to do so. To those steeped in the Sharia-like cruelties of Leviticus and Deuteronomy; to those brought up to fear the vindictive, Ayatollah-like God of Abraham and Isaac, a charismatic young preacher who advocated generous forgiveness must have seemed radical to the point of subversion. No wonder they nailed him.
12-12-2006 |
40 Comments »Last week, Benjamin posted this response to something I said about belief in the afterlife:
(quick update added by Helen: in comment #2 Benjamin mentions that it was actually his wife Meg who posted this question, not him)
it seems to me that, to believe or not believe anything takes similar risk, leap, assumption, faith!
Thanks for bringing this up, Benjamin, it’s a great topic. I wanted to offer the viewpoint of a skeptic (me) on it, but I didn’t have a chance last week. Thanks to Helen for allowing me to get back to it.
So, do belief and nonbelief in the afterlife require similar “leaps of faith”? Very simply: No.
Let me explain. I said I’m a skeptic. What’s a skeptic? Read the rest of this entry »
11-29-2006 |
53 Comments »The format of the Almost an Atheist workshop at the conference was:
11-07-2006 |
26 Comments »(Note: this is from our blogs, not the local newspaper; I’m categorizing it with the newspaper dialog since relates to not going to church anymore)
Karen is a regular commenter on here, the eBay atheist blog and the discussion board. Karen used to be an evangelical Christian; now she’s an atheist.
Karen recently wrote about her last day at church (which was a little over a year ago) in a comment on the eBay atheist blog:
11-01-2006 |
24 Comments »I was considering posting Stephen Colbert’s interview with Richard Dawkins, but Hemant beat me to it. (I know some of you read Hemant’s blog and I wanted to post something you hadn’t seen) So here’s a serious interview with Dawkins which I found very interesting.
Here’s another Dawkins interview in which I thought the interviewer asked excellent questions.
10-20-2006 |
42 Comments »