One of the positive outcomes of the internet age is how it has allowed people all across the free-thought spectrum to realize they are not nearly as alone as they once thought. People have begun to network as never before and the movement is growing. Organized religion loses ground every day they will never recover.
On the other hand, the misguided tech of social media has enabled mass misinformation, herding people to further divide and selectively exist inside their own belief bubbles. This site has endless material largely because of this weaponized phenomenon. The second law of thermodynamics is doing its job.
Like all tools the Internet has had good effects and bad effects. It's allowed like-minded people to find each other and the courage to be open. That includes the good-willed and those consumed by fear and hatred of that which is different.
Indeed! A tool has no idea what it's being used for. That applies to everything from fire and the wheel thru firearms, automobiles and telephones, up to nuclear fission and the internet, and eventually to artificial intelligence and robots. Only a fool would blame a tool. What we need to work on, now as always, is the attitudes and assumptions of the tool USERS.
Some tools need to be restricted as to who can use them, but that doesn't mean it is the tool's fault for the use it's put to.
Guns are a tool that can provide food or kill innocent people.
I contend that if it takes you more than 6 shots to hit an intruder or a deer, you're not qualified to own a firearm. I think firearms should be licensed and to get one you need to demonstrate emotional stability and proficiency.
Will that stop all shootings? No. But not even a blanket ban on all private gun ownership will do that. It will significantly reduce the casualties.
I don't believe we will end gun violence in this country just by banning them. Along with restricting access, we need to change people's attitude toward guns. They are not toys. They are not games. They do not make you more of a man.
I find it ironic that the Jewish people are the most liked across the board, considering how much anti-Semitism pervades our culture. I’m not saying the data is wrong, but it may be their history of victimization that has created a feeling of sympathy for them. Hopefully this will result in a reduction in anti-Semitism overall. I mean, with MTG shouting about Jewish Space Lasers, it’s difficult to take the “Jews rule the world” seriously.
The tragedy is also in not accepting their kids' identities. My daughter's former partner committed suicide after a lifetime of her evangelical parents refusal to accept her for herself.
Sure. They're also very common. This is why LGBTQ people need support, especially from their loved ones but also from everybody. The damage being done to them is horrible.
I find it fascinating that on the right, anti-Semitism is pretty much the only racism you're not allowed – until you pass some sort of invisible barrier after which it becomes mandatory. 🙂
Why aren't Scientologists listed? I think we would do better than them, too. Then our bumper sticker could be "Scientologists, Mormons and Muslims. Oh my!".
As the evangelicals continue their slash and burn policies toward other groups, they will lose ground on the likability front. While atheists are a victim of negative propaganda from pretty much all other groups, their stock is rising because they aren’t the villains they’ve been made out to be and folks are realizing this. There have been certain vocal individuals that have cast a shadow on atheists, but in general the atheists folks come across are kind and tolerant. It’s harder to believe the stories when your neighbor is just not like that. I think the movement toward acceptance of diversity, not only race, but also gender, LGBT status, and religious identity, has helped us move toward being liked. And those who fight diversity are looked at as cruel and harmful.
It does seem like progress is being made despite the loud and violent nature of those in charge.
Anyone who uses 'woke' as a pejorative is lacking compassion and empathy, a failure of their parents to raise a decent human being and like this halfwit, unlikely to be able to tell you what 'wokeness' means.
Racists took a word/concept conceived of by black people and turned it into a snarl term, just like the braindead reichwingers did to SJW. It's a pattern.
Saw that – didn't realise she'd written a book on it though. That's the one where she said 'Oh shit this is going to go viral' right? She was correct about that at least.
OT ... JK Rowling says she knew her views on transgender issues would make ‘many folks deeply unhappy’.
Then why express them? You're allowed to have them, but you're a famous person and you know that it's going to have a deleterious effect on them. So why not just keep them to yourself? The world would be a much better place if we all learned to mind their own damn business about what consenting adults do.
Sounds like a classic notpology to me. Wouldn't matter at this point even if it were sincere- she's spent all her chances. The only thing she could do that would be acceptable at this point would be to donate her ridiculous wealth to charities serving people she's harmed, and then quietly retire.
She makes money off the book burnings. Either they themselves for the books they burn. Or they stole the copies from someone (like a library) who had paid for them, either way she got paid for those copies and in the latter case has a good chance to get paid for their replacement.
I see a Trump super PAC has hit Ron DeathSentence with an ethics complaint. Not that Ron the Con has any ethics to begin with, but Trumpees complaining about somebody else's ethics? Srysly?
Whole lotta evil in that one, but she's rather impure...a mixture of garbage and shite that we dealt with in burn pits in the Gulf. (I can still remember the smell.....😜)
Personally, I think atheism as a sociopolitical element of American society is still low on the growth curve. We're hardly 16 years out from the explosion that was g̲o̲d̲ ̲I̲s̲ ̲N̲o̲t̲ ̲G̲r̲e̲a̲t̲, T̲h̲e̲ ̲G̲o̲d̲ ̲D̲e̲l̲u̲s̲i̲o̲n̲, L̲e̲t̲t̲e̲r̲ ̲t̲o̲ ̲a̲ ̲C̲h̲r̲i̲s̲t̲i̲a̲n̲ ̲N̲a̲t̲i̲o̲n̲, and other books and talks which came out of 2006 – 2007. Granted that the internet has given atheism a considerable springboard to build upon, but I think the numbers reported here still reflect a degree of ignorance of just who atheists are and what we're about.
The good news is that, as we know, religion in the US is in decline and the rise of the nones continues apace. I hope Pew continues to follow this topic, and I suspect they will. I also suspect that the trends we're seeing in both religion and the dismissal or rejection of religion are likely to persist.
I don’t have any data to back this up, but I expect the tolerance from Mormons comes partly from Mormons likely knowing atheists. Given the large average family size and the likelihood of someone leaving the church it just wouldn’t surprise me. I have a large Mormon family myself and several of my over a dozen nieces and nephews have already left but still have friends from church.
I'd have a hard time answering the question about whether I hold a favorable or unfavorable view of Catholics. In general, altho I abominate the Catholic Church as an institution, I feel sorry for its chief victims, namely the brainwashed individual Catholics themselves. I guess "pity" isn't quite the same as "like", but it doesn't lead to "dislike", either.
Wait a second. Muslims want to eradicate the Jews, and Evangelicals only tolerate the Jews so they can keep their Second Coming fantasy alive. Let's face it: Jesus, Allah and Yahweh are never going to like each other. Each omnipotent,omniscient, merciful god wants to see his enemies smitten. That's why we need continuous war and endless poverty to perpetuate the need for religion in the name of peace and security.
Bullshit. Muslims do not want to eradicate the Jews. Sorry, but I used to be a Muslim, and that's just plain wrong. Political extremism, mixed into the religion, creates violence. Most Muslims don't want to kill Jews.
The problem is obvious - get rid of religion, and there will be one less justification for genocide. Greed and hunger for power are enough already.
News flash--this just in: God doesn't exist. No evidence. Nothing but a flimsy fairytale. Trillions of dollars wasted, billions of lives lost, millions of unwanted lives created, millions of children molested and inculcated. Film at 11.
One of the positive outcomes of the internet age is how it has allowed people all across the free-thought spectrum to realize they are not nearly as alone as they once thought. People have begun to network as never before and the movement is growing. Organized religion loses ground every day they will never recover.
On the other hand, the misguided tech of social media has enabled mass misinformation, herding people to further divide and selectively exist inside their own belief bubbles. This site has endless material largely because of this weaponized phenomenon. The second law of thermodynamics is doing its job.
Like all tools the Internet has had good effects and bad effects. It's allowed like-minded people to find each other and the courage to be open. That includes the good-willed and those consumed by fear and hatred of that which is different.
Indeed! A tool has no idea what it's being used for. That applies to everything from fire and the wheel thru firearms, automobiles and telephones, up to nuclear fission and the internet, and eventually to artificial intelligence and robots. Only a fool would blame a tool. What we need to work on, now as always, is the attitudes and assumptions of the tool USERS.
PS: This applies especially to the greatest human invention of all time: language!
OK--let's not blame guns, let's work on the attitudes and assumptions of the gun users! Sounds like a great platform for Trump 2024!
Some tools need to be restricted as to who can use them, but that doesn't mean it is the tool's fault for the use it's put to.
Guns are a tool that can provide food or kill innocent people.
I contend that if it takes you more than 6 shots to hit an intruder or a deer, you're not qualified to own a firearm. I think firearms should be licensed and to get one you need to demonstrate emotional stability and proficiency.
Will that stop all shootings? No. But not even a blanket ban on all private gun ownership will do that. It will significantly reduce the casualties.
I don't believe we will end gun violence in this country just by banning them. Along with restricting access, we need to change people's attitude toward guns. They are not toys. They are not games. They do not make you more of a man.
So, you support well regulating our militias, just as our Founders intended and Scalia affirmed in Heller. 👍
I find it ironic that the Jewish people are the most liked across the board, considering how much anti-Semitism pervades our culture. I’m not saying the data is wrong, but it may be their history of victimization that has created a feeling of sympathy for them. Hopefully this will result in a reduction in anti-Semitism overall. I mean, with MTG shouting about Jewish Space Lasers, it’s difficult to take the “Jews rule the world” seriously.
It's what people think they should say on a survey.
Like all those people who say they support LGBT rights, but don't show up to vote when laws are made that try to deny our very existence.
People are happy to virtue signal, less happy to actually lift a finger to help our fellow humans.
The tragedy is also in not accepting their kids' identities. My daughter's former partner committed suicide after a lifetime of her evangelical parents refusal to accept her for herself.
I may not know them and will likely never meet them but may I say that your daughter's former partner's parents really suck?
Sure. They're also very common. This is why LGBTQ people need support, especially from their loved ones but also from everybody. The damage being done to them is horrible.
For those that don't know:
The Trevor Project - https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ - 1-866-488-7386
LGBT youth-focused suicide prevention hotline.
I find it fascinating that on the right, anti-Semitism is pretty much the only racism you're not allowed – until you pass some sort of invisible barrier after which it becomes mandatory. 🙂
I ordered my bumpersticker: "Atheists: still more popular than Mormons and Muslims."
Why aren't Scientologists listed? I think we would do better than them, too. Then our bumper sticker could be "Scientologists, Mormons and Muslims. Oh my!".
Don't forgot Pagans 😏
S, M and M are Pagans. ; )
Smarties and M&M's are Pagans ? 🤔
Especially the green ones.
I thought they were Martians.
I thought he was making an S&M joke for a moment.
Damn, I should have read a little further for Triple Z's joke.
Pagan S&M?
Be sure to check for the car bomb underneath your passenger side rear bumper. Aloo Akbar!
Then you'll miss the one on the underside of your alternator.
More than once people have been surprised I'm an atheist because "I'm so nice!"
You really should fix that. : )
Christians claim that atheists are angry, yet time and again they show they are the angry ones.
Me too when I was younger. Now there are so many openly atheists in Norway, that nobody care anymore.
Not from Boston, ah ya? 😏
As I said, from Norway. Not planning to apply for US citizenship.
Sorry, meant to reply to nmgirl 🙂
As the evangelicals continue their slash and burn policies toward other groups, they will lose ground on the likability front. While atheists are a victim of negative propaganda from pretty much all other groups, their stock is rising because they aren’t the villains they’ve been made out to be and folks are realizing this. There have been certain vocal individuals that have cast a shadow on atheists, but in general the atheists folks come across are kind and tolerant. It’s harder to believe the stories when your neighbor is just not like that. I think the movement toward acceptance of diversity, not only race, but also gender, LGBT status, and religious identity, has helped us move toward being liked. And those who fight diversity are looked at as cruel and harmful.
It does seem like progress is being made despite the loud and violent nature of those in charge.
OT: Delicious moment. Author of a book criticizing "wokeness" can't explain what it means.
https://twitter.com/vanguard_pod/status/1635749284355211264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1635977724593422337%7Ctwgr%5E850b694d5cc06d17cf5021c393db1faa0cea0c48%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wonkette.com%2Fanti-woke-book-author-bethany-mandel-blindsided-by-liberal-trick-question-what-is-woke
Awk-waaaaard! XD
This wasn't just egg on her face, this was a 3-cheese omelet.
Anyone who uses 'woke' as a pejorative is lacking compassion and empathy, a failure of their parents to raise a decent human being and like this halfwit, unlikely to be able to tell you what 'wokeness' means.
Racists took a word/concept conceived of by black people and turned it into a snarl term, just like the braindead reichwingers did to SJW. It's a pattern.
Saw that – didn't realise she'd written a book on it though. That's the one where she said 'Oh shit this is going to go viral' right? She was correct about that at least.
Define woke. Depends who's using it.
a) Culturally aware.
b) Insufficiently bigoted.
It's not that hard.
Stealing that! 😇
The "insufficiently bigoted" is already hot.
🤣🤣🤣
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3af77e8e127d7932a32dc2360d03898c30870cd05eb4b6c8fbc4c7dbd4b040d0.jpg
I always make it a point to dismiss with prejudice anyone who uses "woke" in a derogatory manner.
Mandel isn't doing anything to change my mind.
OT ... JK Rowling says she knew her views on transgender issues would make ‘many folks deeply unhappy’.
Then why express them? You're allowed to have them, but you're a famous person and you know that it's going to have a deleterious effect on them. So why not just keep them to yourself? The world would be a much better place if we all learned to mind their own damn business about what consenting adults do.
Sounds like a classic notpology to me. Wouldn't matter at this point even if it were sincere- she's spent all her chances. The only thing she could do that would be acceptable at this point would be to donate her ridiculous wealth to charities serving people she's harmed, and then quietly retire.
If she would just STFU for the rest of her life, that would be a good start.
Especially with all Harry Potter books burned because "witchcraft". She should know what transgender people feel every time she talk about them.
Not until they try to burn *her* for witchcraft. Then she might get it.
She makes money off the book burnings. Either they themselves for the books they burn. Or they stole the copies from someone (like a library) who had paid for them, either way she got paid for those copies and in the latter case has a good chance to get paid for their replacement.
OT
I see a Trump super PAC has hit Ron DeathSentence with an ethics complaint. Not that Ron the Con has any ethics to begin with, but Trumpees complaining about somebody else's ethics? Srysly?
Takes one to know one, I guess?
Or more accurately, it takes a know-nothing to know a know-nothing. (A paradox! A paradox! A most ingenious paradox!)
Weren't Jake and Deety Burroughs a pair o' docs?
🤬
Just like Casey and Kildare!
An ETHICS complaint?!? Sounds like a BAD case of the pot calling the kettle black!
Jealousy.
Given the abominable track record of the world's religions, it's not the atheists people have to worry about.
marjorie taylor green is pure stupid, and evil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axqLxy67cXo
Say hello to Donald's 2024 running mate. (Sure she's a 3, and kinda looks like a man, but compared to Mike Pence it's an upgrade.)
She may be a 3 in the appearance department, but in the brain-box, she's a –10!
She's too stupid to follow the law like Pence?
trump winning in 2024 is already like a horror movie, with her as vp is beyond frightening.
https://www.alternet.org/marjorie-taylor-green-arguing-sand/
The woman is a liability to the Republicans I would have thought? If so, let's hope she continues.
Revoke whatever security clearance she has, then lock her up.
lock her up with the January 6 protesters
Nothing "pure" about that one. 😉
I think you could argue that Marjorie trailer green is pure evil.
Whole lotta evil in that one, but she's rather impure...a mixture of garbage and shite that we dealt with in burn pits in the Gulf. (I can still remember the smell.....😜)
Pure stupidity.
Personally, I think atheism as a sociopolitical element of American society is still low on the growth curve. We're hardly 16 years out from the explosion that was g̲o̲d̲ ̲I̲s̲ ̲N̲o̲t̲ ̲G̲r̲e̲a̲t̲, T̲h̲e̲ ̲G̲o̲d̲ ̲D̲e̲l̲u̲s̲i̲o̲n̲, L̲e̲t̲t̲e̲r̲ ̲t̲o̲ ̲a̲ ̲C̲h̲r̲i̲s̲t̲i̲a̲n̲ ̲N̲a̲t̲i̲o̲n̲, and other books and talks which came out of 2006 – 2007. Granted that the internet has given atheism a considerable springboard to build upon, but I think the numbers reported here still reflect a degree of ignorance of just who atheists are and what we're about.
The good news is that, as we know, religion in the US is in decline and the rise of the nones continues apace. I hope Pew continues to follow this topic, and I suspect they will. I also suspect that the trends we're seeing in both religion and the dismissal or rejection of religion are likely to persist.
I don’t have any data to back this up, but I expect the tolerance from Mormons comes partly from Mormons likely knowing atheists. Given the large average family size and the likelihood of someone leaving the church it just wouldn’t surprise me. I have a large Mormon family myself and several of my over a dozen nieces and nephews have already left but still have friends from church.
And I imagine Mormon "missionaries" going door to door must meet a lot of us.
I'd have a hard time answering the question about whether I hold a favorable or unfavorable view of Catholics. In general, altho I abominate the Catholic Church as an institution, I feel sorry for its chief victims, namely the brainwashed individual Catholics themselves. I guess "pity" isn't quite the same as "like", but it doesn't lead to "dislike", either.
Wait a second. Muslims want to eradicate the Jews, and Evangelicals only tolerate the Jews so they can keep their Second Coming fantasy alive. Let's face it: Jesus, Allah and Yahweh are never going to like each other. Each omnipotent,omniscient, merciful god wants to see his enemies smitten. That's why we need continuous war and endless poverty to perpetuate the need for religion in the name of peace and security.
Bullshit. Muslims do not want to eradicate the Jews. Sorry, but I used to be a Muslim, and that's just plain wrong. Political extremism, mixed into the religion, creates violence. Most Muslims don't want to kill Jews.
The problem is obvious - get rid of religion, and there will be one less justification for genocide. Greed and hunger for power are enough already.
Whew. I'm glad, because now I know this isn't true: Top Iran General Says Destroying Israel 'Achievable Goal'. https://www.voanews.com/a/middle-east_top-iran-general-says-destroying-israel-achievable-goal/6176740.html
Jacksonville FL. Another florida man story https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/335372241_1188854868496553_6751816094599267343_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=EfLsBSc0HkcAX-w60kT&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&oh=00_AfCBF3Zqz8kzHMSBKvKc9M6Lown26HdAia9ep1Jx8syqzA&oe=6417DC90
Good grief, Agnes!
They go together like peanut butter and jelly.
More like flies and shit.
Yours is better.
What a waste of jelly 🤮
No likee? Good. More PB pour moi. :9----
I tried some peanut butter Oreo a couple of months ago. It's as nasty as I remembered 🤮
What about peanut butter and banana? My father used to make PB&J&B sandwiches.
Banana + melted chocolate 🤤
Banana with maple syrup 🤤
Banana with lavender cream 🤤
Anything with peanut butter 🤮
Skibana sammiches. Love 'em.
Peanut Butter and chocolate? Another natural combo (Reese's, anyone?)
I've never seen PB Oreo. Gonna have to give it a whirl if I ever see it.
Maybe it was a French thing to have us to eat this 🤮
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCQ6oYYVlo
News flash--this just in: God doesn't exist. No evidence. Nothing but a flimsy fairytale. Trillions of dollars wasted, billions of lives lost, millions of unwanted lives created, millions of children molested and inculcated. Film at 11.