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Atheism
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 The
Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe.
Over a period of nearly two millennia, the
Christian Church has oppressed and brutalized millions of
individuals. Meticulously researched and courageously written,
"The Dark Side of Christian History" by Helen Ellerbe
examines the Church's devastating impact upon human freedom,
dignity and spirituality. Written for the lay reader, this
controversial book is especially relevant today as the religious
right is attempting to assert greater influence in American
politics and society. "The Dark Side of Christian History
presents a compelling argument that the Church's desire to
control and contain spiritually motivated its persecution of
heretics, its burning of libraries, the Crusades, the
Inquisition, and the witch-hunts. This dark Christianity ahs
left a legacy, a world view, which permeates every aspect of
Western society. It is a legacy which fosters sexism, racism,
the intolerance of difference and the desecration of the natural
environment. Helen Ellerbe is a researcher, writer, and public
speaker living in the San Francisco bay area...
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The Philosophy
Research Base won the Excellent Site Award from Oddities, Inc. in
August, 1999.
You just have to see this website to understand why anyone would win
an award...
Click here to visit this
infamous website "where the worthwhile worship"...
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Excerpt:
My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard
it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the
human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions
to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it
caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in
time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared
to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.
The word religion is used nowadays in a very loose
sense. Some people, under the influence of extreme Protestantism, employ
the word to denote any serious personal convictions as to morals or the
nature of the universe. This use of the word is quite unhistorical.
Religion is primarily a social phenomenon. Churches may owe their origin
to teachers with strong individual convictions, but these teachers have
seldom had much influence upon the churches that they have founded,
whereas churches have had enormous influence upon the communities in
which they flourished. To take the case that is of most interest to
members of Western civilization: the teaching of Christ, as it appears
in the Gospels, has had extraordinarily little to do with the ethics of
Christians. The most important thing about Christianity, from a social
and historical point of view, is not Christ but the church, and if we
are to judge of Christianity as a social force we must not go to the
Gospels for our material. Christ taught that you should give your goods
to the poor, that you should not fight, that you should not go to
church, and that you should not punish adultery. Neither Catholics nor
Protestants have shown any strong desire to follow His teaching in any
of these respects. Some of the Franciscans, it is true, attempted to
teach the doctrine of apostolic poverty, but the Pope condemned them,
and their doctrine was declared heretical. Or, again, consider such a
text as "Judge not, that ye be not judged," and ask yourself
what influence such a text has had upon the Inquisition and the Ku Klux
Klan...
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American Atheists has been the premier organization
laboring for the civil liberties of Atheists, and the total, absolute
separation of government and religion. It was born out of a court case
begun in 1959 by the Murray family which challenged prayer recitation in
the public schools. That case -- Murray v. Curlett -- was a landmark in
American jurisprudence on behalf of our First Amendment rights.
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Atheists United is a Los Angeles-based freethought
organization founded in 1982. Our main purposes are to promote
positive atheism through education, and to maintain the separation of
church and state.
Atheists United is a member of the Los Angeles
Alliance of Atheists, Humanists and Ethical Culturalist, and is a
founding member of the international Atheist
Alliance.
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Francois Tremblay
This site hosts discussions, lists monthly articles,
and has an extensive list of online sites (religious, anti-religious,
radical religious and everything in between), suited for intense debate.
Click here
to visit Tremblay's Objective Thought Website.
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Excerpt:
There Is No God
This negation must be understood solely to affect a
creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the
universe remains unshaken.
A close examination of the validity of the proofs
adduced to support any proposition is the only secure way of attaining
truth, on the advantages of which it is unnecessary to descant: our
knowledge of the existence, of a Deity is a subject of such importance
that it cannot be too minutely investigated; in consequence of this
conviction we proceed briefly and impartially to examine the proofs
which have been adduced. It is necessary first to consider the nature of
belief.
When a proposition is offered to the mind, It
perceives the agreement or disagreement of the ideas of which it is
composed. A perception of their agreement is termed belief. Many
obstacles frequently prevent this perception from being immediate; these
the mind attempts to remove in order that the perception may be
distinct. The mind is active in the investigation in order to perfect
the state of perception of the relation which the component ideas of the
proposition bear to each, which is passive; the investigation being
confused with the perception has induced many falsely to imagine that
the mind is active in belief. -- that belief is an act of volition, --
in consequence of which it may be regulated by the mind. Pursuing,
continuing this mistake, they have attached a degree of criminality to
disbelief; of which, in its nature, it is incapable: it is equally
incapable of merit...
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Josh and Andrew
Multi-Topic website exploring the relationship between
philosophy and atheism. Site includes Atheism Chat, Quotes,
sections on Bertrand Russell, News, Links, Poetry and Essays, Music,
Suggested Readings and more.
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by Emma Goldman
First published in February 1916 in the Mother Earth
journal.
Excerpt:
To give an adequate exposition of the Philosophy of
Atheism, it would be necessary to go into the historical changes of the
belief in a Deity, from its earliest beginning to the present day. But
that is not within the scope of the present paper. However, it is not
out of place to mention, in passing, that the concept God, Supernatural
Power, Spirit, Deity, or in whatever other term the essence of Theism
may have found expression, has become more indefinite and obscure in the
course of time and progress. In other words, the God idea is growing
more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is
learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science
progressively correlates human and social events...
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Excerpt:
The title of this paper, "The Psychology of
Atheism," may seem strange. Certainly, my psychological colleagues
have found it odd and even, I might add, a little disturbing. After all,
psychology, since its founding roughly a century ago, has often focused
on the opposite topic-namely the psychology of religious belief. Indeed,
in many respects the origins of modern psychology are intimately bound
up with the psychologists who explicitly proposed interpretations of
belief in God.
William James and Sigmund Freud, for example, were
both personally and professionally deeply involved in the topic. Recall The
Will to Believe by James, as well as his still famous Varieties
of Religious Experience. These two works are devoted to an attempt
at understanding belief as the result of psychological, that is natural,
causes. James might have been sympathetic to religion, but his own
position was one of doubt and skepticism and his writings were part of
psychology's general undermining of religious faith. As for Sigmund
Freud, his critiques of religion, in particular Christianity, are well
known and will be discussed in some detail later. For now, it is enough
to remember how deeply involved Freud and his thought have been with the
question of God and religion...
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Other Atheism Resources:
 | History
of Atheism -- Paper imparts a brief history in the non-belief of deities. Divided into historical time periods ranging from ancient times to the present. |
| Positive
Atheism -- Discussion forum about the philosophy and ethics of atheism includes an email list, a quote list and links to related publications. |
| Arguments
in Favor of Atheism -- Extensive presentation of articles, essays, and interviews that argue against the existence of God. Includes links to other atheist pages. |
| Atheism
Web -- Resources for atheists, including a general introduction to the topic and the construction of logical arguments. Includes newsgroups. |
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Atheism Newsgroups:
| alt.atheism -- The "alt.atheism" newsgroups include moderated and unmoderated discussions of atheism. |
| soc.atheism -- Atheism is the topic of discussion at this newsgroup. |
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By Jonathan Cook
Further Than Atheism attempts to explore the territory
that lies beyond mere denial of gods, taking such denial as a first
step, beyond which lies the opportunity for positive belief.
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