Atheists Raise $180,000 for Doctors Without Borders. - Polidicks

Does it matter who donated it? it's great that Doctors without borders has some more money now.

Atheists cannot be evil because if they don't beleive in God, they don't beleive in Satan either. Most athiests just go for karma because it helps them keep thier life balanced.

Satan doesn't exist and evil doesn't arise from believing in Satan

[QUOTE=Haloscott3;33809472]Atheists cannot be evil because if they don't beleive in God, they don't beleive in Satan either. Most athiests just go for karma because it helps them keep thier life balanced.[/QUOTE] Well that'd be equally nonsensical, karma doesn't exist either.

[QUOTE=Megafanx13;33809620]Well that'd be equally nonsensical, karma doesn't exist either.[/QUOTE] Karma is a state of mind that involves removing guilt.

[QUOTE=Haloscott3;33809679]Karma is a state of mind that involves removing guilt.[/QUOTE] What the hell are you rambling about

[QUOTE=Bean Shoot;33810043]What the hell are you rambling about[/QUOTE] lol fucking ignorant. your knowledge of buddhism and their philosophies baffles me

[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33803137]I was merely pointing out that saying that atheists are less likely to give to charity is a completely true and justifiable statement. Now, the validity and effect of the social work of atheists and theists is an entirely different topic. Perhaps atheists accomplish more social progress. However being relatively low on "tolerance" (a rather broad umbrella term) is not necessarily a negative thing. Against gays? Certainly. Against "unpopular ideas in general" isn't always bad. [editline]19th December 2011[/editline] Source? According to Gallup's World Giving Index, the top countries in terms of overall charity are actually some of the more religious first world nations.[/QUOTE] According to that study you linked, they also found that the majority of religious people were old, and the majority is found among pensioners, whereas the biggest segment of non-religious people are 18-34. This is obviously also something you have to take into consideration since young people, especially ones in America, have very little to money to work with.

[QUOTE=FlakAttack;33807427] I just wanted to let you know that this stuff is remarkably common. The religious are taught to fear us atheists, to think of us as morally lacking and untrustworthy. I should know, I grew up a Christian and I have been to many churches belonging to quite a few different denominations in the area. Granted my personal experience applies only to Christianity but I have no reason to think it's any different with Islam or Judaism.[/QUOTE] When I post in religious threads, this is the kind of thing I have a problem with. You use such broad terms, encompassing a vast number of highly varied people, while actually talking about specific groups. I understand that to word it in a non-generalising way would be awkward, but it gets my back up. To say: "The religious are taught to fear us atheists, to think of us as morally lacking and untrustworthy" is wrong. To say "Some religious people..." or even "Most religious people..." would probably be accurate. I know what you mean, but the literal meaning of what you said is untrue. Maybe everybody in your area acts like that, but as far as I know nobody in my area do. If Christians in my area were brainwashed into not trusting atheists we'd never be able to leave the house, as the majority of the population are somewhere between atheists and non-religious theists. My bank manager has one of those Darwinism fish/amphibian symbols on his car, but does that make me think I should withdraw everything before he steals it? Uh, no. I'm pretty sure that all my neighbours are atheist, apart from a Christian couple across the road. Personally, I trust some of them more than I trust a guy who's recently started coming to our church. I've known my next-door neighbours for about 5 years, but I've only met this guy about three times. I'm not going to think he's a better person because he's (probably) a Christian and they're atheists. I'm sure it comes down to the fact that when you get large groups of a particular kind of people, they become insular and untrusting of the world outside of their group. It doesn't matter what kind of group you look at. The larger the group, the less contact they have to have with people who will shatter their prejudices. Even if you didn't mean that "every single religious person on the planet distrusts atheists", technically it's what you said (and it's the kind of thing that a lot of people on here say all the time). I just have a problem with generalisation, especially when I personally know cases where it isn't true, or if it's says something untrue about me.

[QUOTE=truebluesniper;33810104]lol fucking ignorant. your knowledge of buddhism and their philosophies baffles me[/QUOTE] When did I ever make any statements about Buddhism?

Anybody can be charitable. They make this seems like the money was gotten from criminal activities

[QUOTE=Bird;33811009]It's sad really. I was raised in a semi-Christian family. My mom (who's christian) always told me that I could believe whatever I wanted, Islam, satanism, atheism, doesn't matter. My dad and oldest brother despise organized religion with a passion, because they have seen how it can affect us in a negative way. My oldest sister (christian) is married to an atheist. When I was much younger I went to sunday school. There we learned about Jesus, about Gods love and equality. We even made a play about how a immigrant helped a man how got robed and assaulted, when no one else, even a priest, didn't help him. I didn't know about satan and hell until long after, we never spoke about it. Also, my priest listens to rock, drives a sports car (old model, but still) and believes a lot of the things I do (ex. freedom of religion, the earth is NOT 6k - 10k years old, everyone is equal, supports both gay marriage and abortion). This is my PERSONAL experience with religion. This is the way I think religion should be. I'm also well aware that this is absolutely not the case with most people, and that christians (especially in america) can be total douchebags without any logical reason. We do have some of them in Sweden to, but they are a clear minority and not as outspoken just because of the way our society works. The biggest problem we have here is hate towards immigrants, which is sad, but at least they have more arguments than "you don't believe the same thing as me therefor you are satans minion"[/QUOTE] I think a large part of the difference we experience is based on where we live. Europeans have a long history of living under the tyranny of the Church, and after freeing themselves of that madhouse I don't imagine they'd be so quick to accept them again. Here in North America, the religious extremism kind of crept up on us. Not as bad in Canada as it is in the US, but it's still there. Not helping the problem is the war on values: things that were openly celebrated (like Christmas) are being attacked and shunned and many of the 12 million catholics and 9 million protestants here in Canada are being told they have a choice: return to their faith and fight off the outsiders assaulting our culture, or lose it all. After the Ontario (one of our 10 provinces) government almost allowed Sharia law to be practiced there, I can understand why the Christians here are afraid but nonetheless, this kind of shit shouldn't be happening. Next thing you know we're gonna have a damn holy war in Canada. [QUOTE=st0rmforce;33811592]Even if you didn't mean that "every single religious person on the planet distrusts atheists", technically it's what you said (and it's the kind of thing that a lot of people on here say all the time). I just have a problem with generalisation, especially when I personally know cases where it isn't true, or if it's says something untrue about me.[/QUOTE] The end result is that, as a religious person, you follow the holy word. These days many christians pick and choose out of the bible. It's been the cool new fad for some time now. This does nothing to soothe my fears; the book is still there and part of the process, and many religious people are still taught that if you don't believe, you don't get to be saved. But even all these wouldn't be so bad if the priest/pastor/whatever didn't arbitrarily hold a position of great trust and power. Otherwise reasonable young christians might go online and see the absolute insanity of dipshits like Jerry Falwell and think, because this guy is part of the church, it is ok to listen to him. What organized religion does is present a pathway to global dumbshittery that cuts right through all lines of defence: everything from the education system to politicians to slander and harrassment laws are often left limp and powerless. I make these generalizations because my fight is against all organized religion. Not those who practice, but those who enable it. Believe whatever you want, but do it on your terms, not someone else's version of the 1800 year old biblical edition of the game "telephone".

[QUOTE=Megafanx13;33801001] You've made the exact same post in 5 other threads now[/QUOTE] and yet people continue to take the bait

[QUOTE=Turnips5;33802915]I'll concede for now that nonreligious people are statistically less likely to give to charity.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't, since the methodology of that study [URL="http://www.bettertogethernh.org/survyfaq.pdf"]is openly broken.[/URL] It's picking-and-choosing geographically, it cannot be taken to represent anything at a national level.

[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;33813162]I wouldn't, since the methodology of that study [URL="http://www.bettertogethernh.org/survyfaq.pdf"]is openly broken.[/URL] It's picking-and-choosing geographically, it cannot be taken to represent anything at a national level.[/QUOTE] Ah. [quote]The national sample consisted of 3000 respondents, including a two-times oversample of Hispanics and African-Americans. In addition, community samples, with 26,200 collective respondents, were conducted in 40 communities; the local sponsor of the community samples determined the sampling geography.[/quote] Devious. I wasn't aware of that, though after I posted I did realise that a) majority non-religious nations gave more to charity per capita (at least, according to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governments_by_development_aid]this thing[/url]), and b) that Gallup World Giving Index says nothing about how much people give, only what percentage of them give in some way or another

[QUOTE=Turnips5;33813690]Devious. I wasn't aware of that, though after I posted I did realise that a) majority [B]non-religious nations gave more to charity per capita[/B][B] (at least, according to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governments_by_development_aid]this thing[/url]), [/B]and b) that Gallup World Giving Index says nothing about how much people give, only what percentage of them give in some way or another[/QUOTE] That is entirely irrelevant as that measures aid given by the governments themselves, and not individuals within the nation. The Gallup World Giving Index is more applicable. [editline]20th December 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Xenocidebot;33813162]I wouldn't, since the methodology of that study [URL="http://www.bettertogethernh.org/survyfaq.pdf"]is openly broken.[/URL] It's picking-and-choosing geographically, it cannot be taken to represent anything at a national level.[/QUOTE] Even on a community-level religious people were more charitable than nonreligious people.

[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33816081]Even on a community-level religious people were more charitable than nonreligious people.[/QUOTE] Which is meaningless because, as quoted, "the local sponsor of the community samples determined the sampling geography." When "the community" is defined as "whatever the man on the scene decided to call it", it's not really representative of anything except that asshole's obtuse definition of "community." But that shouldn't need to be said, because the entire "benchmark" is fluffy junk, which you'd know if you didn't randomly chase down a "WHO DONATES MOST/LEAST" link off google.

[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;33818644]Which is meaningless because, as quoted, "the local sponsor of the community samples determined the sampling geography." When "the community" is defined as "whatever the man on the scene decided to call it", it's not really representative of anything except that asshole's obtuse definition of "community." But that shouldn't need to be said, because the entire "benchmark" is fluffy junk, which you'd know if you didn't randomly chase down a "WHO DONATES MOST/LEAST" link off google.[/QUOTE] Yes, because Harvard just spews fluffy junk in its free time, thanks for the comment. You really are helping your case when you attempt to misconstrue the specifics of the survey to something such as "whatever the man on the scene decided to call it" or "that asshole's obtuse definition of community." Are you even reading the specifics of the survey, or just trying your best to deny it? These local sponsors come from all over the nation. If there is an instance of oversampling, that is noted in the survey, and it does not appear to be a common issue. The local sponsor determines the SAMPLING GEOGRAPHY. They then use a random number generator to contact the individuals within the specified region, usually a region as large and diverse as a [B]county[/B], which you'd know if you actually read it.

[QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33818896]Yes, because Harvard just spews fluffy junk in its free time, thanks for the comment.[/QUOTE] Yeah, actually, they do. Welcome to the world of reality, where we don't suck the cock of any random project attributed with a school name. Sometimes, MIT has tech projects that are bullshit. Fucking zounds, right? [QUOTE=HolyCrusade;33818896]You really are helping your case when you attempt to misconstrue the specifics of the survey to something such as "whatever the man on the scene decided to call it" or "that asshole's obtuse definition of community." Are you even reading the specifics of the survey, or just trying your best to deny it? These local sponsors come from all over the nation. If there is an instance of oversampling, that is noted in the survey, and it does not appear to be a common issue. The local sponsor determines the SAMPLING GEOGRAPHY. They then use a random number generator to contact the individuals within the specified region, usually a region as large and diverse as a [B]county[/B], which you'd know if you actually read it.[/QUOTE] You can't actually read, can you? You're not sampling I if you're sampling [I]pieces of it[/I]. What you do to make sure you're getting a fair sample of the folks inside the border doesn't invalidate bias that comes from CHERRY PICKING THE BORDER IN THE FIRST PLACE.

[QUOTE=Djessey;33796376]Why do the Christians ect. need to donate money? If people die it's obviously gods will right?[/QUOTE] God damnit will people not realise that not all christians believe in Pre-Destination and "god's plan". There's no black and white even though some like to think there is.

[QUOTE=MachiniOs;33819981]God damnit will people not realise that not all christians believe in Pre-Destination and "god's plan". There's no black and white even though some like to think there is.[/QUOTE] Because atheists is why.

"gods plan" is often the line many religious people give when they can't explain why evil exists. But of course that immediately throws the idea of a benevolent god out the window if god has planned out events such as the holocaust to happen.

Mark 7:18-19 NIV "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn't go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) Christians don't have to follow the old dietary restrictions fyi

[QUOTE=spacedooky;33821052]Mark 7:18-19 NIV "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn't go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) Christians don't have to follow the old dietary restrictions fyi[/QUOTE] Well [url="http://jesusisajew.org/Short/MK7V19.php"]this guy[/url] argues otherwise, by examining the context of that verse.

[QUOTE=Noble;33821191]Well [url="http://jesusisajew.org/Short/MK7V19.php"]this guy[/url] argues otherwise, by examining the context of that verse.[/QUOTE] That seems to be the exception rather than the rule. I think the general consensus is that, Jesus meant to explain to Jews at the time that eating ceremonially unclean foods was not sinful in and of itself; but rather the mentality that came with it was sinful. To the Gentiles, he was trying to explain that Christians wouldn't be required to follow some of the old law. Most Biblical scholars agree that the parenthetical remark was included in the original Greek text, but people are conflicted as to whether Jesus said it or whether Mark added it to clarify.

[QUOTE=MachiniOs;33819981]God damnit will people not realise that not all christians believe in Pre-Destination and "god's plan". There's no black and white even though some like to think there is.[/QUOTE] Well you've got to be fooling yourself if you believe in the Christian/Islamic/Jewish God. I wouldn't lend credence to any other religions, but obviously the Abrahamic religions are the biggest and most well known. If you don't believe in pre-destination, then what reasoning can you provide for why God does not wipe out evil or prevent natural disasters? If he doesn't have the power to stop it, then he's not omnipotent, and if he's not omnipotent then how is he God?

I'd rather be with FP's atheists then Reddit's atheists.

[QUOTE=hegrec;33796132]$15,000 / 20,000 Christians = $0.75 per christian $180,000 / 300,000 Atheists = $0.60 per atheist. Looks like the christians have it.[/QUOTE] Atheism is the default group on reddit, not all of the 300,000 people are even atheists but the 20,000 people are definitely christians since you have to sign up to the group

[QUOTE=spacedooky;33821656]That seems to be the exception rather than the rule. I think the general consensus is that, Jesus meant to explain to Jews at the time that eating ceremonially unclean foods was not sinful in and of itself; but rather the mentality that came with it was sinful. To the Gentiles, he was trying to explain that Christians wouldn't be required to follow some of the old law. Most Biblical scholars agree that the parenthetical remark was included in the original Greek text, but people are conflicted as to whether Jesus said it or whether Mark added it to clarify.[/QUOTE] The fact of the matter is that a lot of Christians claim that the bible is the ultimate authority, yet have no issue with interpreting the contents of it in a way that is advantageous to them. That's the main problem I have with debating Christians, you spend 80% of the time figuring out what their position actually is. If you say "I'm a Christian, and I believe the bible is the word of God", then you better fucking believe that. Don't start making excuses for yourself or your book with such retarded arguments as "Oh, that's just a story, it's a metaphor for God's love for his people" or some bullshit like that. Either you: [B] A)[/B] Believe the entire bible, and you're seriously disturbed. [B] B)[/B] Interpret it in a way that lets you use it to support your own views, like cherry-picking the bit about stoning homosexuals, but skipping right over the part where it says that you should sacrifice two doves whenever you menstruate or ejaculate, despite them being supposedly being written by the same fucking person. [B] C)[/B] Distance yourself from all of the old testament, and really only follow select parts of the new testament, because you live in a progressive country where the preacher knows that the old testament, or the stranger bits of the new testament simply wouldn't fly with his herd, so he just keeps telling you about the good times Jesus had with his disciples. If you're in the first category, you should report to the nearest mental institution ASAP before you hurt someone physically or mentally. If you're in the second category, you're a hypocrite, and you're effectively circle-jerking with a fictional figure, just because in some countries, religion has some kind of special status that elevates it above ridicule, and makes the one who highlights the hypocrisy stand out like a know-it-all douche bag. If you're in the third category, you're the most honest of them all, and all I can say is that I urge you to sit down and read the bible. Cover to cover. Don't let someone tell you how to think about a subject, educate yourself the same as you would had the subject been politics. You don't just accept your own party's claims of the opposite party's platform, do you?

Oh for fuck sakes you lot are a bunch of cunts. As soon as a news article mentions atheism or whatever, a fucking argument about religion has to occur. Always. I don't say debate because we always end up with even just plenty of moderates who ruin any attempt of a civil debate as fast as possible.