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Ive read a book that made a good case that both "sides" have it wrong and are exaggerating: the atheists see more and more fundamentalists (or evangelicals, or religious conservatives, or whatever else you want to call it), while the religious conservatives see more and more godlessness and liberalism and all the rest.

Perhaps (as the book suggested) the real issue is that the middle ground is disappearing and the battle lines are being drawn. One only has to do a brief search to see that atheism isnt some fringe thing; and only to look to the political arena of the last few years to see that fundamentalism isnt dying either.

What would be helpful in all this is if someone's claim that all the atheists out there were being so terribly persecuted in what might be the most liberal and most forgiving time for atheists this country has seen.

Would it make sense for somebody to say "Yes, I am very religious - I'm an atheist", or would people find that odd?

Yes, perfect sense. The atheist exhibits the essence of the true believer in every regard: He is perfectly certain about the claims he makes. "Though ours is a godless world," says Hoffer, "it is anything but irreligious." Indeed.

religion
-noun
6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience

The strident atheist shares a kinship with the very people he seeks to discredit.

We worry about Iran because they are something new, a nuke possessing country who may not be subject to MAD. In the end the 'godless commies' had one thing going for them in the world peace issues of the Cold War. They wanted to rule the world but they didn't really want to 'win' by being the last survivor in a post apocolypse scenario, the party leaders liked the good life and wanted to keep living it, especially since they didn't much believe in an afterlife to be rewarded in for wiping out the enemy in this one for.

We just don't know if Iran would be so constrained. We pretty much have to take Ajad at his word that he doesn't give a crap if atomic hellfire rains down on him after his rightous jihad of nuking Israel and the US, as we would be fools not to...

This 'Ajad' chappy (who he?) sounds completely unlike the previous US president who believed he was living in "the end times" and that the second coming of Christ would result in 'armageddon': a battle against the Antichrist in the Middle East!

Also, I'm pretty sure that Ahmadinejad hasn't threatened to nuke the US or Israel, as he claims that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons.

A country burning off scads of natural gas because they don't consider it valuable enough to capture and use probably doesn't actually need nuke power plants for electricity generation.

LOL. Where did you get that one? Iran gets more than half of its energy from natural gas, and has the third largest consumption in the world after the US and Russia. It also has to import some to meet its needs!

In the end the 'godless commies' had one thing going for them in the world peace issues of the Cold War. They wanted to rule the world but they didn't really want to 'win' by being the last survivor in a post apocolypse scenario, the party leaders liked the good life and wanted to keep living it, especially since they didn't much believe in an afterlife to be rewarded in for wiping out the enemy in this one for.

In other words, they (the Soviets and now the Russians) cared about their childrens' futures. Contrast that with images of Hamas and Hizbollah dressing their babies as suicide bombers.

Exactly right. We don't worry about India having the bomb and last time I checked they were 'brown people' too. They are not likely to use one, especially in a first strike.

We worry about Iran because they are something new, a nuke possessing country who may not be subject to MAD. In the end the 'godless commies' had one thing going for them in the world peace issues of the Cold War. They wanted to rule the world but they didn't really want to 'win' by being the last survivor in a post apocolypse scenario, the party leaders liked the good life and wanted to keep living it, especially since they didn't much believe in an afterlife to be rewarded in for wiping out the enemy in this one for.

We just don't know if Iran would be so constrained. We pretty much have to take Ajad at his word that he doesn't give a crap if atomic hellfire rains down on him after his rightous jihad of nuking Israel and the US, as we would be fools not to. What we don't know is whether the military structure he commands is equally suicidal. Since guessing wrong, and especially considering the pitiful track record of western intelligence regarding things middle eastern/Islamic, could be a civilization extinction event we probably should err on the side of caution. A country burning off scads of natural gas because they don't consider it valuable enough to capture and use probably doesn't actually need nuke power plants for electricity generation.

Now we can enforce policies which say that workers can't stop until they are completely worn out.

It's being tested in godless socialist Australia, not in U.S. So, not yet.

Your point should be obvious to all, but the sad part is there are still enough active voters in America to amount to about half of the votes going to the Republican candidate for President. They hear that candidate say that Obama is going to raise their taxes, he's against "small" business. he's raising the deficit (not stimulating the economy), He's godless and wants to take away my guns... Who's the "bookrunner"? Part of the wealthy elite that own not only the Republicans, but all of Congress.

I think it is important to remember not to hold Occupy and other protest movements to differing standards in this regard, than other more conventional political action groups. The vast majority of them, especially on the national level, do not have a unified agreement on the "issue" itself, much less a singular entity calling for singular action for a singular change.

Take something as acute as those who are anti-abortion - one may think, especially from the "outside" pro-choice perspective that they have a unified front of people who just assert to "make abortion illegal", but that is incorrect. There are a variety of anti-abortion groups who have varying belief systems (most religiously focused, but some are not and see it as a secular issue of humanity), views on the issue (some believe only late-term abortions should be outright banned, others believe that all abortions should be banned save for when it would threaten the mother's life and/or resulted from rape or incest, still others find it acceptable only if the fetus was afflicted with birth defects that would leave it a short life of pain outside the womb if any, and finally there are those that oppose it entirely), and finally methods of bringing about change (Some call of legislative bans at various levels of government, others wish to overturn Roe v Wade through a series of Supreme Court decisions, others wish to sway the American Medical Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to expel abortion performing physicians , while still others want to petition hospitals to refuse the use of their facilities for abortions and deny privileges to physicians who perform etc....).

Be wary; those who call for or oppose a strong united front are practicing a very sly form of propaganda because of its effectiveness at staying under the radar. When Fox News and AM radio personalities state that "Godless communist liberals want to make it illegal for your children to believe in god and turn your children into flaming homosexuals", they're trying to create fear by suggesting there's a nearly unassailable wall of empowered, collective "evil" out to get their target market. This entirely fake supposed assemblage of gay men in red chaps and Karl Marx jock straps who meet every week to drink cosmopolitans and congratulate each other on how many good, Christian boys they've turned into cock-loving slaves of Lenin can only be opposed by all "Real Americans" working together to oppose them with their own "united front" - thus, we see the rise of the Tea Party - where subscribing to the CORRECT singular, ultra-extreme ideology is seen as a strength; in truth, the only strength possible to stop the faux, constructed ideology "at any cost". Its horrible how well this technique works on certain demographics.

That said, the Occupy movements do have a variety of actionable plans for change and attainable goals in mind. This is not a movement that just generically wants "things to get better", but can identify many of the broken pieces of the current machine and plan to fix them. Take October2011.org, which is one of the pages that was started in conjunction with a "push" of the movement into Washington DC. If you head to the "Issues" page, a single click away from the homepage, you'll see the following, which easily proves all the "This movement has no message and doesn't know what they want" crap that corporate media blathered on about during their "fair and balanced" news coverage,...

"
1. Corporatism– firmly establish that money is not speech, corporations are not people, only people have Constitutional rights, end corporate influence over the political process, protect people and the environment from damage by corporations.

2. Wars and Militarism – end wars and occupations, end private for-profit military contractors, reduce the national security state and end the weapons export industry. War crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace must be addressed and those responsible

We need someone to make sure no one is engaging in un-American activities like free speech. Civil rights are the slippery slope to godless communism!

Great movie.

Another great one is: Network (1976)

Some great quotes there ...

Howard Beale: [arms outstretched to the heavens] Edward George Ruddy died today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems, and he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition, and woe is us! We're in a lot of trouble!
Howard Beale: [calmly strolling toward the audience] So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books! Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers... This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA - the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?
Howard Beale: [ascending the stage] So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth.

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got

Yes, as an Aussie I can't help but laugh when Americans say their MSM is a "godless, left-wing propaganda machine".

You are right about Stalin being an atheist, but it wasn't atheism that motivated his actions. He just generally "eliminated" anybody who had power he could not control. The church was just one of many examples.

I don't think this is true. Clearly many or most of Stalin's crimes can be explained by motivations like greed for power. But thats also true for most of the crimes commited during religious wars. Most of it can also be explained by non-religious motivations like greed for power, resources, money, etc.
But during religious wars there are also crimes commited where non-religious motivations fail to explain why people commited these crimes. I believe something similiar is also true for some of the crimes commited by Stalin: You can explain most of his crimes by ""eliminated" anybody who had power he could not control", but for some of his crimes, such an answer fails. Stalin didn't just kill religious leaders, but also killed many almost completely powerless village priests, monks and nuns. There was also the League of the Militant Godless. You'll fail to understand why these people were killed, if you don't look at the role of atheism within the communist ideology.

So atheism wasn't his motivation but communism? Not really, that is just like saying: "Oh religion wasn't part of the reasons for crusades, catholism and the pope was the reason."

Mussolini - 'Mussolini publicly reconciled with the Pope Pius XI in 1932, but "took care to exclude from the newspapers any photography of himself kneeling or showing deference to the Pope." He wanted to persuade Catholics that "[f]ascism was Catholic and he himself a believer who spent some of each day in prayer..." The Pope began referring to Mussolini as "a man sent by Providence." Despite Mussolini's efforts to appear pious, by order of his party, pronouns referring to him "had to be capitalized like those referring to God..."'

Mussolini was a radical socialist (Communism was born in 1921), he founded Fascism as an anticlerical movement and he was a self proclaimed atheist. The "Fasci da combattimento" (hence the name fascism) were a paramilitary formation born to repress the socialist and catholic trade unions. However most of Italy was deeply religious at the time and he could not gain a complete control of the Italian society without a truce with the Catholic Church. But that was Realpolitik, yeah: he was atheist and a hypocrite.

Just confront what you posted with this text about the Second World War in USSR: "Stalin abolished the League of the Godless (founded in the 1920s) and arranged a temporary truce with the Orthodox Church; in return, the Metropolitan of Moscow publicly announced in 1942 that Stalin was "the divinely anointed leader of our armed and cultural forces leading us to victory over the barbarian invasion." Church reopenings were attended by multitudes of devout believers. The regime proudly communicated news about fund-raising efforts by churchmen and congregations to purchase tanks for the army; Ehrenburg openly described people praying, and Simonov wrote poetically and movingly of "the simple crosses on Russian graves." .

I don't know what Wikipedia says but I can assure you that Stalin was in fact an atheist.

Napoleon - 'As an adult, Napoleon was described as a "deist with involuntary respect and fondness for Catholicism." He never believed in a living God; Napoleon's deity was an absent and distant God, but he pragmatically considered organised religions as key elements of social order, and especially Catholicism, whose, according to him, "splendorous ceremonies and sublime moral better act over the imagination of the people than other religions".'

He was so fond of Catholicism that he crowned himself as emperor and doubted that Jesus was a divine being. Citing Dupuy, reported by Bainville: "We are fooling Egyptians with our pretended interest for their religion; neither Bonaparte nor we believe in this religion more than we did in Pius the Defunct's one (that is Pope Pius VI)".

Again he was pretty much an atheist and a hypocrite ("It is by making myself Catholic that I brought peace to Brittany and Vendée. It is by making myself Italian that I won minds in Italy. It is by making myself a Moslem that I established myself in Egypt. If I governed a nation of Jews, I should reestablish the Temple of Solomon"). Nothing new.

Hitler - 'After his move to Germany, Hitler did not leave his church. Historian Richard Steigmann-Gall concludes that he "can be classified as Catholic", but that "nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."' His interest in the occult is also widely documented.

Considering Hitler a Catholic is risible. Hitler's position is ambiguous but it's well documented that he mocked transubstantiation (a Catholi

Virgin birth. Resurrection. Incarnation. ONE god or three? Believing in things that don't have any actual proof of any kind, believing in things that are shown false by science, justifying continuation of believing even when proven false.

OMG! The whole point of religion is evolution! All religions proclaim some sort of evolution from the plane of this world because life sucks and they've known it since the Lemurs climbed from the trees.
So how do you proselytize your particular religion and make it believable so that everybody understands it? You use analogy. Analogy was once an ancient science and its epitome was the story arc of the Garden of Eden and The Fall from Grace. So where does that put Man? It explains why his life is shit. You are born, suffer and die. You want everybody to go crazy? How the hell do you save the human race (or your particular tribe) from going psychotic with that kind of knowledge? Every major element in the Old Testament continues that arc and describes well enough what happened to ancient middle east society by inference: The 10 Commandments (stop killing people, stop screwing your neighbour's wife etc), Sodom and Gomorrah (don't be promiscuous), don't eat pig cause they're rife with worms etc. .
But that wasn't enough. There was no saving the fact that your life was still not so good, so when Jesus arrived on the scene, there was hope for ascension. People have lost the understanding of why Jesus is so important as he was the first (and only) one to have died and returned to 'show the way'. Unfortunately the specifics of the way was lost. Even the gnostics don't know. Apocryphal works lead us nowhere. Immersion in 'Love for all' is the only thing that remained, powerful as that may be.
Every culture has something similar. There has been no godless culture ever. Even Bhuddism's God is oneself. Either it is ancestor worship, some kind of monotheistic god (there are 3 monotheistic gods, all different BTW), true pantheism, nature spirits (just talk to a Nordic farmer) and Shamanism.
The move towards empiricism can be seen as a failure of religion and the growth of secularism which needed its own God - name it money, science or delusion.

All of the implications of the godless world. Like last week when Arfa what's-her-name died -- that's one less vagina to be used, and not a fuck was given by any supernatural entity.

Tragic.

You're forgetting something. The difference is that many of us here on Slashdot live in America, know what happens first-hand, and therefore actually know what we're talking about when we bag on America's government. With China, we're going solely off of preconception or based on what's presented to us in our media. That's racism.

We self-criticize because we live here and care about what happens here. Fair enough! Criticizing some other nation thousands of miles away and making grossly exaggerated characterizations of how communism (or Chinese culture, or whatever boogeyman you can care to think of) makes them baby eaters and godless pagans when we've got enough problems to worry about at home is a waste of time, a waste of effort, and makes the rest of us look like a bunch of wankers.

No doubt someone will be along to state that the Danes, Finns and the rest are godless commies.

We must be, since we have universal healthcare and free higher education.

Interesting, I thought the UK was slightly ahead. Then again, I think the article I originally read dated from before the election.

No doubt someone will be along to state that the Danes, Finns and the rest are godless commies.

I guess the latin confused you. It's common for people who do not understand that some issues involve physics too complex for them to understand. So they get opinionated, get on their high horse, and truly believe they are right.

Facts will not dissuade them, like they don't dissuade you. Never mind power will need to be produced. Never mind nuclear is at the moment the least dangerous source of power by FAR, in terms of casualties (including Fukushima) per generated power. But apparently that is irrelevant, because we're talking about that scary nuclear thing you don't really understand. Not understanding being the important part of course, coal burns and looks safe - because you understand it! Coal killing almost ten times more people then nuclear every year during normal operation is... safe!

Problem is that people like you get fanatical about things they do not understand, take it personally, and start calling people with facts on their side "a menace", "godless heretics", "terrorists" "child molesters" and so on. Essentially, pitchforks come out to burn the witch. Discussion and dialogue has no place, because you don't want to discuss anything. You just want to burn the witch. Facts be damned.

Maybe if people had the intelligence to not believe in imaginary beings created by the brain we wouldn't be in this mess. Lack of critical thinking skills is correlated with belief in god...blah blah blah

Sorry, but you don't know any better than anyone else does. Your opinion is just that, and you know what they say about opinions.

Bias on the other hand, such as what you show, seems to be a shared belief. Bias on either side is the problem, not Theology or the lack of Theology.

And no, the jury has not closed to those with an open mind. To you it may have closed. The big bang does not answer questions of the origin of the Universe. Theories of a multiverse just confuse the issues more. Plato's questions regarding the "Origin of Good" and Aristotle's questions regarding "The un-caused "cause" are just as valid now as when they were asked originally. Those theories are just as sound as anything you can show me regarding theories of a godless Universe.

Funny how many people evangelize atheism with the same, or more, conviction you get from some of those in traditional Religions.