Re: USA, Canada, and atheism
Originally Posted by
zuludog
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A reasonable selection of replies
Richard Dawkins says he gets a lot of mail, from all over the world trying to discuss academic points and theology, but the really vicious, intolerant, threatening hate mail invariably comes from American Christians
The richest countries clearly have the most money to control the media streams and thereby have the greater power to dupe, mislead and condition the masses. America is obviously at the top of that tree. Generations of Americans have been duped, controlled into submission and as a result the country across most of its states are fanatical Bible bashers.
The issue is not one of which religion (if any) to choose. The issue is establishing sufficient freedom in any given country to exercise rational thought, sensible reasoning and evidential enquiry. When you restrict those things, when you control one side over another then the freedom is lost.
Hence the syllabuses in schools are tightly controlled, TV and other media for young kids is tightly controlled and manipulated.
Every single person is responsible for their own thinking and reasoning. We HAVE to question everything, test everything, explore the evidence and facts of everything and work out for ourselves what the truth is.
The very moment that you lay aside that personal responsibility due to peer pressure or because you just can't be bothered, that is the moment that you adopt some kind of trust/faith/belief notion in place of fact and reasoning and the moment you do that, is the moment that you give power to someone or to some group of people.
That kind of power corrupts absolutely as we can see the world over.
Hence I don't call myself an athiest nor a follower of any given religion. I am simply a seeker, searching for truth, answers and facts, in a world that is tightly controlled by those we have stupidly given power to and who are doing their utmost to hide those truths in order to preserve that position of power.