This is false. Thankfully.
I know this isn’t a thread about religion (there’s a thread for that!), but since it’s being talked about, I just wonder, for you atheists out there, do you feel 100% confident in your beliefs, or do you have times when you question them?
I don’t care one way or the other. I’m not calling anyone out or attacking certain viewpoints. I just come from a place where’s there’s been no question of the existence of the Creator in my life (and I understand that some people find that foolish and irrational) so I’m genuinely curious: are you completely confident in your belief of no God/god(s)?
2 Likes
Greetings jshaving I hope your day is going well. That’s all I wanted to say.
I’m not an atheist.
I’m definitely agnostic or a deist though. I think with math, how perfect everything fits together etc is proof of a creator.
Beyond that I don’t know. All religions probably have some shred of truth to them, but they are all man made with zero ability to be proven factually.
That’s my rational take on it anyways.
1 Like
People are going to have sex. Don’t have sex before marriage was pushed for forever and guess what? People did it anyways. Don’t have sex before marriage or you will burn in hell. Even people who taught their children that guess what? Many of them did anyways.
Where have teen birth rates often been highest? States that teach abstinence only or have limited comprehensive sexual education. This has been known for a long while.
Educate people on how to have safe sex. Educate them relentlessly on the importance of contraceptive use. Make it very easy and cheap for them to access contraception. Don’t shame them for doing something that we are biologically wired to have a desire for. That’s been done for centuries and it has NEVER worked.
When I was a kid we had abstinence only education in our school. People still fucked. Just like they do everywhere else. It’s been considered a bit more taboo to “slut shame” which is fucking stupid anyways because I don’t ever once remember any kid saying anything about a guy having multiple sexual partners as shameful. Those guys got high fives and bragging rights.
As slut shaming has become more taboo to an extent what has happened? Teenage pregnancies have dropped. Even if they didn’t it’s a completely ineffective tool that has been failed throughout history.
Giving people the knowledge to know how to prevent unwanted pregnancies is the best tool. Making sure they have access to contraceptives is the best tool. Everything else is foolish wishing that we have done over and over and it has had zero effect on keeping horny 16 year old kids from doing something they are biologically driven to do.
1 Like
It is? Please continue.
(I used to live in a state where this was absolutely true btw)
1 Like
Thanks for the response.
To regulate a market, in this case the sexual market, regulation occurs on the supply side.
I don’t think womanizing is cool, although obviously many men do.
It’s also interesting to me that to adopt kids we want women to be 21, pass background checks, take classes, prove financial stability, and other steps. A woman who wants to be a mom but perhaps biologically can’t must be able to do that.
But some people are now saying a raped 13 year old should be able to do it.
I’d like to think we have support systems in place for such a 13-year old, in addition to her family.
Why would it have to? Women are forced to make sure they don’t have sex (which they are biologically driven to do so) but men don’t need any of that responsibility? That doesn’t make any sense.
But as I said I don’t think any of it matters. As I said we’ve done slut shaming we’ve told women to keep Tylenol between their knees, etc. it’s been proven ineffective. We can keep saying women need to be smarter. We can start saying men need to be as well.
I’m not opposed to any of that at all. But if we really want to lower unintended pregnancies we know those are very failed ways to go about it.
1 Like
Serious societies regulate sex, and pre-Sexual Revolution we did too.
What do you mean by expect women not to have sex? Who would expect that?
1 Like
I don’t think we have enough personally. At all.
We are far behind many other countries in the measures that government helps people in these scenarios. And while ideally a 13 year olds family would help not every raped kid is going to be in a good family. And some of those raped kids are going to be done by a family member in the first place.
I believe 5 states have no time limits for abortion.
2 Likes
Well tell me what you’re thinking? I might not be opposed.
I’m just saying the types of things you seem to be suggesting have been tried forever and failed forever and I think you know that. Don’t get me wrong I’ll have the abstinence talk and make sure you are careful sexually talk with my daughter more than once.
But she’s going to know the importance of contraceptive use. Because I know historically just talking has been demonstrably ineffective. I can yell and scream at her about being a slut all day long if I want. That simply hasn’t worked in the past and no real need to think that will change.
But I don’t know what serious societies regulate sex means at all. Nor do I think the good old days were that good ever for many people.
Regulating something like sex depending on what you mean is probably not going to be that palpable to the majority of the country. Plenty of things I would rather see the government do for the good of people than provide chastity belts and decide who can and cannot have sex.
Not saying that’s what you’re proposing of course.
That’s messed up
One is, surprise, surprise, New Jersey.
That’s about right.
There’s also about a dozen that use the phrase threaten “health of the mother” not threaten “life of the mother.”
This is the second time you brought up New Jersey today, why?
People on here have called me agnostic and then they started calling me atheist but I haven’t really changed much. I don’t really consider myself anything in that regard it’s not something I tell people or identify as personally so I wouldn’t even call it a belief but others have and will which is fine. Not that important to me.
I’m not 100% confident in anything really. Is it possible that everything I was taught as a Methodist is true? I mean I don’t see why not. Is it possible what I’ve read about Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, (insert any other belief I’ve ever been exposed to) is correct? I don’t see why not. It’s not like I can sit here and say I have undeniable definitive proof that this belief is incorrect.
But if the response of any religious person is largely “our evidence is in a book if you read it then you will know for sure” we’ll that’s just not doing it for me personally. The vast majority of believers in the major faiths can’t come to agreements on what these books mean. Many of them have been revised and rewritten. And most of them are based on events that are beyond extraordinary. Why would I be anymore likely to believe that happened exactly as written than any other book ever?
I also realize that RT says he came to be a believer later in life. But I think that’s pretty rare. I think a lot of believers are believers because they are conditioned to be so. From the time they are born they are continuously told that yes these unbelievable things in this book are true. And although I believe that he does think about his faith a lot I think a lot of people don’t. At all. I think it’s an autopilot thing. At least in my experience. They never even think to question it. And what’s there to tell them different anyways?
I mean I think back to all the stuff people on this forum “believed” about training in 2000 or whatever. Stuff we read in magazines and articles on here. Many articles and even some by the same authors who are now saying things completely different. They got exposed to new studies or thinking and changed their minds. But many people in the area I was raised in? Well everyone went to church and accepted it growing up. I never questioned faith as a kid. At all. It was just what was. It’s what everyone said. I didn’t even consider somethings really until I had a kid tell me he didn’t think hell was real at 17. Maybe my experience is different than most but I was into sports and girls. It was the first time I’d even heard someone present the idea that maybe it wasn’t real. And many people stayed in the same place and taught their kids the exact same thing. Just as their parents, grandparents, etc. I dunno maybe that one conversation clicked something in my brain to become a skeptic. I have no idea but it is my first ever memory of thinking maybe maybe maybe this isn’t completely accurate. And then I got older and realized a lot of people I grew up with especially adults were just going through the motions. Not going to church was seen as weird. So everyone did it.
According to South Park maybe I should hedge my bets on being a Mormon. I’m not really a Pascal’s Wager type though.
I should also say that part of what ticks me off is not belief as much as what I view as the hypocrisy of so many believers. Like a lot. We’ve had people in these forums talk about being devout Christians and loving Jesus in the religious threads and arguing about the existence and then turn around and say horrific things about gay people. One said we should shoot anyone near the border with a sniper rifle on sight. They will say horrific things about poor people. Call them parasites and many other things. In a religious thread they will go on and on about the importance of faith and God and believing. But from what I observe? I don’t buy it. Christ would want Marines shooting people near the border with a sniper rifle? Everything I was exposed to growing up wouldn’t have led me to believe anything of the sort. Maybe he had a different book.
And in my experience outside of the forum this has been incredibly common as well. The vast majority of the most hateful people I know all claim to be believers. Or I’ve seen them in church. They put a Jesus picture on Facebook.
Many of the teachings of Christ I was told about are awesome concepts true or not. Doesn’t really matter. But they don’t seem to be followed as I was taught by many. In fact a lot seem to directly contradict them.
That’s why I liked Sloth so much when he posted. Devout Catholic I believe. We couldn’t have seen the world more differently in a thread like this and would go back and forth. But end of the day he didn’t just talk the talk. He’d be the first to talk about helping others. The last to talk shit on someone because they were poor, or a minority, or gay. He didn’t like some of that but he wasn’t about hating them.
That simply has not been my experience with a lot of people and I think a LOT of self identifying Christians in this country are some of the biggest assholes in America. They have the most disdain for their fellow Americans of anyone I’ve seen.
Most of my friends though are believers in real life. I’ve only got a handful of close people who would identify as agnostic or atheist. And they seem be down with the love thy neighbor, take care of the sick and poor type stuff that I think are great aspects of Christianity. Hopefully that type of thinking and acting catches on with more Christians.
1 Like