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A very long list of folks including Mary Wollenstonecraft, Frances Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Voltairine de Cleyre, Barbara Ehrenreich, David Eller, Sigmund Freud, Ruth Hermence Green, Stephtn Jay Gould, Anne Nicole Gaylor, Tom Paine, John Adams, George Washington, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Robert Ingersol, Charles Darwin, Nicolas Copernicus, Carl Sagan, John Stuart Mill, Ashley Montagu, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Clarence Darrow. Katherine Hepburn, Thomas Jefferson, Charlie Chaplin, Jonathan Balcombe and J. M. Masson, though generally religious in their early years, all described themselves later in life as atheists, agnostics, deists or freethinkers.
They had little problem working alongside those choosing religious beliefs, - they didn't hate religion, they disliked the misdeeds and legacy of religion in general. Their "non-belief" didn't stop the from fighting for rights, including those of women, minorities, the environment. Many worked for the benefit of non-humans as well, even to the point of
being vegetarians or vegans.
These people were disparaged in their day, many even suffering physical attacks and imprisonment. What they professed was that they did not personally need any gods or goddesses to belief in freedom of speech, assembly, etc. Without these freethinkers we would not have accomplished what we have in the past in the arenas of peace and justice.
I put many years (starting around the end of WW II) into religious study and evolved into a "freethinker". I've worked with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and others. All I've ever asked from the religious is that they respect my right to free speech and perhaps consider my speaking and writing with an open mind. My philosophy is basically one of cooperation and unity, rather than "us and them" divisiveness.
They had little problem working alongside those choosing religious beliefs, - they didn't hate religion, they disliked the misdeeds and legacy of religion in general. Their "non-belief" didn't stop the from fighting for rights, including those of women, minorities, the environment. Many worked for the benefit of non-humans as well, even to the point of
being vegetarians or vegans.
These people were disparaged in their day, many even suffering physical attacks and imprisonment. What they professed was that they did not personally need any gods or goddesses to belief in freedom of speech, assembly, etc. Without these freethinkers we would not have accomplished what we have in the past in the arenas of peace and justice.
I put many years (starting around the end of WW II) into religious study and evolved into a "freethinker". I've worked with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and others. All I've ever asked from the religious is that they respect my right to free speech and perhaps consider my speaking and writing with an open mind. My philosophy is basically one of cooperation and unity, rather than "us and them" divisiveness.
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Posted by Star the magic vegan at 01/26/17 16:45:12
It is such false propaganda to call atheism 'free thinking.' The two greatest examples of atheism in implementation are the previous Soviet Union and the current People's Republic of China regimes. Neither permit free thinking. They control the press, television and currently in China the internet as well. They disappear dissidents, throw true free thinkers in forced labor camps and most recently organ harvest them in filthy prisons.
It is also humorous for atheists to claim tolerance for religions and claim that atheists can work well with 'them.' It is humorous because while in the minority atheists are so tolerant. As the number of atheists grow, they demand power sharing. When their numbers grow more, they repress religious discourse in the public arena. When they seize political control, they torture, execute, imprison and experiment on coreligionists before they organ harvest them.
I love how she enumerates the above list of what she considers social leaders of the atheist movement. Remember, the list of religious social leaders is so long, it cannot fit on this web page. Here are a few: Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Joan of Arc, Every US President, Akhenaten, Farrakahn, Dalai Lama, Michelangelo, St. Francis of Assisi, Mahavira, and the list goes on and on. There are Theist doctors, scientists, lawyers, political figures, artists, athletes, musicians and they are in all professions. The social contribution of religion's humanistic contribution is by far the greatest contribution of history. Atheism, by contrast, is not simply dwarfed, but is barely a blip on the screen.
Ahims32fa constantly feels that her free speech is threatened. I wish it was that simple to turn deluded thinking off. We all have free speech. No one's right to free speech is in question. What is in question is the truth content of speech. Atheists are a deceptive bunch, offering an amoral cosmology that reduces human consciousness to proletariat workers and consumers. There is nothing enlightening about atheism, there is nothing expansive about atheism, there is nothing moral about atheism.
Her claim that atheist propagandized pseudo 'free thinkers' are somehow pivotal to the vegan movement is silly. All vegan reformation is welcome but let us not forget that it is religion that brought us the vegan diet. 65% of India is vegetarian because of the Hindu, Jain, Punjabi and Buddhist religions. Buddhism, Taoism and temples that teach the wisdom of Confucius maintains a large vegetarian population in Taiwan and Thailand. It is these cultures that arrived in California and blended with hippies and nutritionists to start the vegan movement.
It is easy for atheists to claim cooperation and non decisiveness when they are a minority. When they become a majority such as in Fascist Europe during WWII, the trains arrive on time to pick up the Jews, another coreligionist group. They pick up the Tibetans and Falun Gong members in China for torture, they picked up Christians of all faiths in the Soviet empire. I do not respect the false propaganda of the atheist's current movement of alleged 'free thinking' but, yes, even they have the right to free speech no matter how false it is.
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Posted by happah10 at 01/27/17 00:20:05
Star,
Suggesting that athiests are intolerant is a lot like when people invoke the whole 'Hitler was vegetarian therefore vegetarians are inherently evil' fallacy.
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Posted by Star the magic vegan at 01/27/17 09:42:55
happah10
Hitler turned out not to be a vegetarian based on recent historic research.
All is such a frightening word to alleged liberal thinkers. I stay away from such generalizations in most cases. In this instance, however, I am claiming that the historic record shows all Atheistic governments are intolerant, all Atheism is intolerant of religion amid other biases and atheists in general do reflect this prejudicial intolerance.
Atheists love to stand in front of vegetables to sugar coat their atrocious amoral viewpoint with veganism, they love to step in front of SJW, Feminism, Black Lives Matter and other groups to infiltrate with their communist logic annexing other people's political action movements and they love to act like victims as they spread a doctrine that persecutes Theists.
Atheism is not a philosophy, it is the absence of philosophy. Atheism has no morality. Atheism is therefore barbaric, egocentric, self serving, deceptive and unenlightened. There may be individual atheists that acquire fame, acquire power, invent something, lead movements, but these attributes are not caused by atheism, rather other aspects of those individual's personality have contributed to their rise. Atheism is non creative. Atheism only reacts to Theism in negation. It is purely annihilating and non creative by definition.
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