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History of atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Atheism has existed for about as long as there have been ancient writings and yes, there are human societies that don't have religions, deities and the other trappings of worship. In Sweden today 80% of the population does not believe in God.
Demographics of Sweden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Once again, a definition is provided which is to be taken on faith. Dogma. When examined it is simply untrue. I have never met a single person who held no God beliefs. Only people who strongly believed they held no such beliefs. A belief is a belief, whether negative or positive.
You confuse religion with God. They are not the same thing. Religion is a human social construct and there have been no human societies, despite your claim, in which religion did not play a central role. Sweden is no exception. Which, btw, is not 80% Atheist. In 2013 it was 13% Atheist with 57% of the country identifying themselves with one religion or another.
Although only one fifth of Swedes in one investigation chose to describe themselves as believing in a god
Definition of ATHEISM
1
archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
80% of Swedes are either atheists or agnostics even though they may technically be counted as "belonging" to a religion simply because that was the religion their parents had when they were born.
Yes, religion is a social tool to control society. But to exercise that control there needs to be a risk/reward mechanism that will motivate desired behavior and punish undesirable behavior. The invention of a deity that can see everything and administer punishment and rewards is essential to the functioning of the religion itself. There are a couple of minor religions that don't use deities but all of the major religions have them and belief in them is part of the control mechanism.
You might as well ask the same questions about government. Religion is not some separate entity, it is us. We cause it, it does not cause us. Everything done in the name of religion is done by us, and we do exactly the same thing in the name of other stuff. We kill each other over who wins soccer games.
Killing is entertaining because we like to kill. It isn't religion, or atheism, or government, or sports, or any of the seemingly limitless reasons we use to justify it. It is simply that we like it.
No, religion is not an entity, it is the collective thoughts of people. I agree. The fact that most religions hold ancient writings as there basis for their teachings, is where I see the issue. Yes, this is all done by us. But we (people) are not going to move forward, towards more civilized ways of living by worshiping ancient writings.
I don't believe we will ever come to a period where there is no such thing as murder, assault, bigotry, etc.. Like you said, it is part of our nature. But we are, collectively, more likely to learn how to live and cooperate together with people that have different points of view, without the dogma of religion.
Since I doubt you can point to a single human society in which people are not or have not worshiped ancient writings, I consider your conclusion to be suspect at best. We have seen some fairly rapid moving forward of late and we still worship ancient writings for the most part. I think you are believing your own dogma.
Taking religion as a purely human activity, we must consider that it is universal in human society. All human societies have had it as far back as we have any way of investigating. There are no exceptions. To argue that a particular species would develop a behavior in such a universal manner and that behavior has no beneficial aspect to it is, to me, an absurd claim. It is an unsupported belief which flies in the face of objective evidence.
It is. There is not a single case in which someone has been executed and then committed another crime.
14,000 people were murdered in the US last year. The death penalty cannot be considered a deterrent.
Were any of them committed by someone who had been previously executed?
Once again, a definition is provided which is to be taken on faith. Dogma. When examined it is simply untrue. I have never met a single person who held no God beliefs. Only people who strongly believed they held no such beliefs. A belief is a belief, whether negative or positive.
You confuse religion with God. They are not the same thing. Religion is a human social construct and there have been no human societies, despite your claim, in which religion did not play a central role. Sweden is no exception. Which, btw, is not 80% Atheist. In 2013 it was 13% Atheist with 57% of the country identifying themselves with one religion or another.
Definition of ATHEISM
1
archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
80% of Swedes are either atheists or agnostics even though they may technically be counted as "belonging" to a religion simply because that was the religion their parents had when they were born.
Yes, religion is a social tool to control society. But to exercise that control there needs to be a risk/reward mechanism that will motivate desired behavior and punish undesirable behavior. The invention of a deity that can see everything and administer punishment and rewards is essential to the functioning of the religion itself. There are a couple of minor religions that don't use deities but all of the major religions have them and belief in them is part of the control mechanism.
You are wrong.
According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2012,[6] the religions in Sweden are the following
Protestants 41%
Orthodox 1%
Catholics 2%
Other Christian 9%
Buddhist 1%
Other 3%
Atheist 13%
Agnostics 30%
You again give me a definition and expect me to accept it on faith. That is dogma. You can define yourself as a leprechaun if you like, but that doesn't make you Irish or give you a pot of gold.
In a Eurobarometer Poll in 2010, just 18% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a god".[6] In a 2009 Gallup poll, 17% answered yes to the question "Is religion an important part of your daily life?".[7] Less than 4% of the Church of Sweden membership attends public worship during an average week; about 2% are regular attendees.[8] Some scholars consider the nation to be a place where religion is regarded with benign indifference.[9]
A recent survey by the Church of Sweden found that about two-thirds of the countrys 9.4 million people belong to the church. Yet only 15 percent of church members say they believe in Jesus Christ. An equal percentage of Swedes call themselves atheists. And only about 400,000 of the roughly 6.6 million members of the church say they attend services at least once a month.
The survey, conducted by Jonas Bromander, chief analyst of the Church of Sweden, also found that membership continues to decline (at an accelerating pace), from about 95 percent of the population 40 years ago to the historically low 68.8 percent today.
A December poll by the Swedish opinion research organization Sifo found that 83 percent of Swedes believe that Christmas should be about family, compared to a good meal (55%), attending church (12 percent) and celebrating the birth of Jesus (10 percent).
Others say that the decline in church membership in Sweden can also be attributed to the scrapping in 1996 of a law making children automatic members at birth, provided that one or more of their parents belonged. Today only children who are baptized into the church become members.
H.B. Hammar, former dean of Skara Cathedral, said that of the 3,384 churches in Sweden only 500 or so are used at most once a month.
Freedom of religion, meanwhile, remains a pillar of the Swedish constitution, and all public schools are required to teach students at least the basic tenets of the worlds major religions.
But every year, the government has felt the need to remind pastors and public school principals the law requires the separation of church and state.
The law stipulates that Swedish schools are non-confessional, the Swedish National Agency for Education, for example, said in an op-ed piece in the daily national newspaper Dagens Nyheter in November, [which means] that there cant be any religious elements such as prayer, blessings or declarations of faith in education. Students should not have to be subjected to religious influence in school.
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
England and Sweden are Theocracies?
Get educated.
Next you be claiming that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder!
It is. There is not a single case in which someone has been executed and then committed another crime.
14,000 people were murdered in the US last year. The death penalty cannot be considered a deterrent.
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
England and Sweden are Theocracies?
Get educated.
In a Theocracy, political power and law are all derived from religion. This is not the case in England, Sweden, or even Israel. The Vatican is a theocracy. Iran is a theocracy. Other Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen can also be considered theocracies.I want theists to not take atheists so seriously and speak out against them more often.
You didn't answer the question.
His 'question' was a rhetorical one, a tossed out guess for spin.
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
[
I disagree.....particularly in places like Nazi Germany and Communist Russia you will find people willing to follow orders simply because they don't want to be the next one martyred.....people always overplay the Inquisition....if I recall there were less than a thousand people who were put to death during the Inquisition, over a five hundred year period.....Hitler did worse than that in a day in Warsaw......
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
England and Sweden are Theocracies?
Get educated.
Thanks, I missed that idiocy from the OP!
In a Theocracy, political power and law are all derived from religion. This is not the case in England, Sweden, or even Israel. The Vatican is a theocracy. Iran is a theocracy. Other Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen can also be considered theocracies.You didn't answer the question.
His 'question' was a rhetorical one, a tossed out guess for spin.
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
[
I disagree.....particularly in places like Nazi Germany and Communist Russia you will find people willing to follow orders simply because they don't want to be the next one martyred.....people always overplay the Inquisition....if I recall there were less than a thousand people who were put to death during the Inquisition, over a five hundred year period.....Hitler did worse than that in a day in Warsaw......
Actually, the Inquisition of the Vatican, a still existing institution by the way, was really not the problem regarding the numbers of tortured and killed people.
It was installed by the church to prevent senseless massacres, or better said to keep the killiing under control of the cleric.
But with little effect. The number of innocent people killed in bonfires, drowned, tared and feathered or ripped into peaces by horses for religious reasons in the dark ages goes into the millions.
Trust me, I live here.
I may be a moron, but the facts speak for themselves, 14,000 murders last year, thus, the death penalty isn't a deterrent. Pretty simple concept really. And I'm not against the death penalty, just stating the facts.It is. There is not a single case in which someone has been executed and then committed another crime.
14,000 people were murdered in the US last year. The death penalty cannot be considered a deterrent.
This is another example of the blithering idiocy of our overly educated moron class that guides our country today.
How do you know that yet MORE people would not have been murdered without the Death penalty? You don't. It is just a leftwing talking point that you just swallow like cum out of a used condom into your cum basket mouth.
If the death penalty doesn't work, then why punish people at all if the most severe punishments are useless? Just to sponsor more government intrusion into our private lives?
Good God you are a fucking moron.
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
England and Sweden are Theocracies?
Get educated.
The head of the state of the UK is the monarch, and the head of the church of England is also that same monarch. The government of the UK pays the salaries of the clergy of the Anglican church. The government of the UK appoints the clergy and bishops of the Anglican church.
If that is NOT a theocracy, dumbass, then all the horrific bullshit coming from pants piddling atheists about how the Tea Party is trying to make the USA into a theocracy is just paint curdling horse shit.
the·oc·ra·cy noun \thē-ˈä-krə-sē\
: a form of government in which a country is ruled by religious leaders
: a country that is ruled by religious leaders
Full Definition of THEOCRACY
1
: government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided
2
: a state governed by a theocracy
the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. If you turn to the back of that book you will often find printed the 39 Articles of Religion. Article 37 states that the monarch is not a minister of Gods Word, or of the Sacraments, but only has the authority given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself.
In other words, the Queen is not a priest or bishop
a phenomena that did not originate with religions......moreso politics, if I'm not mistaken.....
Religion and politics are the same thing.
lol.....liberals tend to believe that crap.....until you accuse them of being religious....then its all denial.....
When meeting to nominate an archbishop, the commission is chaired by a fifteenth voting member, who must be an "actual communicant lay member of the Church of England". He or she is appointed by the prime minister (if an Archbishop of Canterbury is being appointed) or by the Church of England Appointments Committee (if an Archbishop of York).
The commission meets several times in secret. The commission then forwards two names to the prime minister, who chooses one of them, or (exceptionally) requests additional names from the commission. In recent memory, the only prime minister who has not accepted the commission's preferred candidate was Margaret Thatcher, who opposed James Lawton Thompson’s nomination as Bishop of Birmingham, due to his (perceived) liberal and left-leaning views. Since 2007 the convention has been that the prime minister will choose the first-named recommendation.[2] If the chosen individual accepts the office, the prime minister advises the Sovereign, who then formally nominates the prime minister's choice. Thereafter, the diocese's College of Canons meets to 'elect' the new bishop. (This stage of the process was mocked by Ralph Waldo Emerson thus: "The King sends the Dean and Canons a congé d'élire, or leave to elect, but also sends them the name of the person whom they are to elect. They go into the Cathedral, chant and pray; and after these invocations invariably find that the dictates of the Holy Ghost agree with the recommendation of the King" [Emerson, English Traits, XIII, 1856].)
House of Lords[edit]
Main article: Lords Spiritual
Of the 42 diocesan archbishops and bishops in the Church of England, 26 are permitted to sit in the House of Lords. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York automatically have seats, as do the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester. The remaining 21 seats are filled in order of seniority by consecration....
On 17 May 2012 The Church of England welcomed an agreement with the Government over the future funding of alterations and repairs to its 12,500 listed buildings, providing an extra £30 million a year on top of the £12 million already granted by the Government to The Church of England in the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (LPWGS)...
As current congregation numbers stand at relatively low levels and as maintenance bills increase as the buildings grow older, many of these churches cannot maintain economic self-sufficiency but their historical and architectural importance make it difficult to sell them. In recent years, cathedrals and other famous churches have met some of their maintenance costs with grants from organisations such as English Heritage;
You can't prevent a dead person from doing something, that makes no sense, they're dead. Prevent suggests to stop something from happening, dead people aren't happening.You should look up the word "deterrent". For real.
de·ter
verb \di-ˈtər, dē-\
: to cause (someone) to decide not to do something
: to prevent (something) from happening
Are you saying someone who has been executed has not been prevented from committing another crime?
England and Sweden are Theocracies?
Get educated.
The head of the state of the UK is the monarch, and the head of the church of England is also that same monarch. The government of the UK pays the salaries of the clergy of the Anglican church. The government of the UK appoints the clergy and bishops of the Anglican church.
If that is NOT a theocracy, dumbass, then all the horrific bullshit coming from pants piddling atheists about how the Tea Party is trying to make the USA into a theocracy is just paint curdling horse shit.
If ignorance is bliss the OP is a space cadet!
Obviously he doesn't even understand the terminology that he abuses!
the·oc·ra·cy noun \thē-ˈä-krə-sē\
: a form of government in which a country is ruled by religious leaders
: a country that is ruled by religious leaders
Full Definition of THEOCRACY
1
: government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided
2
: a state governed by a theocracy
The Queen of England is not an ordained minister in the CofE. Her Role is defined as such;
the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. If you turn to the back of that book you will often find printed the 39 Articles of Religion. Article 37 states that the monarch is not a minister of God’s Word, or of the Sacraments, but only has the authority “given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself”.
In other words, the Queen is not a priest or bishop
Our-Queen-Supreme-Governor-of-the-Church-of-England
England has a secular Parliament and is ruled by a Prime Minister selected from the democratically elected majority party.
That is NOT a theocracy!
In a Theocracy, political power and law are all derived from religion. This is not the case in England, Sweden, or even Israel. The Vatican is a theocracy. Iran is a theocracy. Other Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen can also be considered theocracies.His 'question' was a rhetorical one, a tossed out guess for spin.
But to answer the question seriously, no, I do not want a theocracy like they have in England, Israel or Sweden.
Lol, do you realize that the government of the church of England is based on theological claims? Did you know that the supreme cleric of the church of England is the monarch of England? Did you know that the government of the UK pays all the salaries and expenses of the church of England?
Did you know that you are an ignorant fool?
