When is God convenient for the Atheist?

Question

Im not preaching, Im just asking. when it comes to 'under God' in the pledge or 'In God We Trust' on money, we need a lawyer to protect the non-believer from God. But when it comes to floods in LA and fires in CA, its 'an act of God' for insurance or 'God help those poor people' for the talk show puppets. I don't care what your religious views are, I just wish people would be consistant, or at least stop being so hypocritical.

for some of you that never heard an atheist blame God, have you never heard "I don't believe in God cause he never did nothing for me!" And the answers need to stop saying 'you' this and 'you' that, I didn't state which side of the fence Im on.

sigh... I never said all atheists were hypocrites. I think my question was clear (but that is my opinion)

I read what I write, and if you never heard of some phrase, how would it apply to you. Stop taking cyberspace so personal.

Wow, do all of you feel you are being attacked for you personal opinion? If Christians weren't afraid God was being taken away from them, they would stop building churches, and if the atheist didn't feel religion was attacking there beliefs, there wouldn't be lawsuits trying to make public displays of religion a crime.

their not there, sorry

If Leviathan changes 'any' atheist to 'real' atheist, he is getting best answer for paying attention.

well for the people who complained about inconsistancy, read http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AuiMlw9BF8jgcpH9OYazDHXd7BR.;_ylv=3?qid=20071024042316AAxJClf and answer that thread. Levi. wins. points tomorrow

shut up, stupid head stupid face... your face is stupid stupid head. You're so mean that Im gonna cry or something. (I just wanted to make the complainers happy, figured they want some kind of negative response) Namaste

Answer 1

When people come on here saying they don't believe in god because something bad happened to them, I - as an atheist! - will probably tell them to go back to church and pray. That kind of feeble intellect needs a crutch. Kids grow up and understand santa doesn't exist - they don't say 'I don't believe in santa anymore because I didn't get the presents I wanted' what happens is a bit more sophisticated than that.

An 'act of god' isn't a literal term - no insurance company offers backing against anything supernatural. They mean chance happenings. Similarly I would argue your use of the word Thursday (Thor's day) does not make you a believer in the Norse religion, so perhaps you need to develop your own common sense to be 'consistent'.

I doubt any REAL atheist would say 'god help those poor people' an atheist would want something real to help them, not a fictional sky-fairy.

Some people call themselves atheist when they mean 'theist angry with god'.

kind regards

Answer 2

Another legal term for the supposed "Act of God" is "Force Majeure," meaning, a larger force that is not under control of humanity. IE, lighting, or weather, or floods, or what-have-you.

You wanna call that "God," it's fine with me, but I prefer not to ascribe every aspect of nature to a willful God. It's just weather, people.

I guess maybe it's better if it's just one God, but frankly I find it distressing that humanity can't seem to progress beyond praying to the rain god and doing chants for the fire god and suchlike.

--Edit--
I wouldn't normally do this, but if the question "asker" is going to treat this like a message board, it's only fair to reply.

I can categorically state that I have never heard an atheist say: "I don't believe in God cause he never did nothing for me!" And not just because it's ungrammatical - I understand the sentiment you're attempting to get at, and I can assure you that atheists, agnostics, and various unbelievers are not just mad because God won't pony up with some goodies.

As to the asker's assertion, in a question edit, that "And the answers need to stop saying 'you' this and 'you' that, I didn't state which side of the fence Im on."

Yeah... well... see... you're not quite as sly as you think.

Answer 3

Here's the thing. Forget about Atheists; a Christian has a solid basis for not wanting religious references on our currency. Some people care about that stuff. Personally I have more important things to worry about. However, the issues you're talking about are Constitutional issues, not just religious issues.

What you view as a lack of consistancy comes from your confusion of the issues.

Answer 4

I say JESUS CHRIST! when I stub my toe. I day goddamnit. I am an Atheist. What does it matter. Yes it's called and 'act of god' for insurance purposes because that's the actual legal term for it. I refuse to say 'under god' in the pledge and I wish our money didn't say 'in god we trust' but there's nothing I can do about that. Besides, blasphemy gets the fundies panties all in a wad. lol

Answer 5

You're kidding, right?

Atheists don't say "God help those poor people", or if they do, they're simply using an expression to indicate their sympathy. If an insurance company uses the expression "acts of God" in its documents, we don't get to change it, and if we did, the believers would scream bloody murder.

"we need a lawyer to protect the non-believer from God"

Bull. No atheist worries about being protected from God, obviously. Doesn't the fact that you have to lie so much to defend your beliefs make you wonder about the quality of those beliefs? It should.
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"for some of you that never heard an atheist blame God, have you never heard "I don't believe in God cause he never did nothing for me!""

I've never heard that, but if I had, it obviously wouldn't be from someone who was "blaming God".
Read what you wrote, and think about it.
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"I read what I write, and if you never heard of some phrase, how would it apply to you. Stop taking cyberspace so personal"

In other words, you have no interest in making sense.

Stop taking cyberspace so personally - you're wrong, so just admit it, kid.
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"If the atheist didn't feel religion was attacking there beliefs, there wouldn't be lawsuits trying to make public displays of religion a crime".

There aren't. What planet are you living on, kid?

Publicly _funded_ displays of religion of course already are against the law - the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

You're listening to too much right-wing propaganda. It's gullible people like you that get dictators into power.

Answer 6

You are not serious. Tell me you aren't?

I don't say 'god help those people'

I might use 'godammit' as an exclamation because I have been raised in a culture that says it all the time. Like 'touchwood' , or 'hell's teeth' etc

This should be on an etymology forum, not a religious one...LOL.

Answer 7

"act of god" is an expression referring to any calamity that was no one's fault, nor easily anticipated. It may have originated in a religious context, but the term is now aa non-religious one, particularly in the insurance field.

I've never heard an atheist saying "God help those people."

Wishing people -any people- would be consistent is like trying to shepherd a flock of cats. If you look, you'll find plenty of inconsistent people in any walk of life, especially in organized religion.

Answer 8

i doubt the same people who write insurance policies, or designs money are atheists.
i am an atheist, but i don't care if "in god we trust" is on my cash or not. i am just not sensitive to that sort of thing.
in fact, "in god we trust", "under god" and "act of god" are all things out of my control......so how does that make ME a hypocrite?

Answer 9

Oh there are lots of instances where god is convenient. Who created stupid people? ;)

Seriously - the non-believer need not be protected from god, we need to be protected from god's followers.

Answer 10

You're confusing common phrases, legal terminology and basically just twisting context to turn it against the user. It's not cool, man.