Ex-Muslim to give talk on living without God

“I had a reply from the Charity Commission. Despite what it says on their shopfront, the Beacon Of Light Foundation isn't a registered charity (well, not with the Commission). They have,however, made an application.”

“taxidave1 - you hit the nail on the head when you said that many problems were caused by religion, however your error is laying the blame with God!

charlie2times - everyone 'indoctinates' their children abotu something if you want to look at it that way. However, Christianity encourages people to decide for themselves.

pingu61 - every system of belief, whether religous of otherwise, has an element of intolerance by definition but doesn't mean you shouldn't respect other people's views.”

“Faith is up to the individual and in my book a good thing. But the more I hear and see of religion the more I despair.”

“His choice I suppose, same as it's my choice to be a Christian.
But I don't see the need to give a talk about it, or the need to have this talk promoted in the press - even to sell a book.”

“Pingu, I very much agreed with your post.

However at the same time I can't help thinking that it's all well and good us being moderate and understanding from the comfort of our living rooms and work desks, but as Kay alluded to, unless violence is challenged out there in the real world no good will come of it.

It IS concerning that the author seems to be preaching atheism in a way that hints at rules and structure. Do we need to be guided into the 'right' way of being an atheist?”

“Lol Andrew the only reason Christian fundamentalism isn't a force in Europe is because we exported them to America.  Before then we did have a policy of Burning women alive because they were thought to be Witches.  In the US a fair amount of military foreign policy is still driven by religious belief and people working at abortion clinics are routinely targeted with threats and violence by far-right Christian groups.  Like many systems of belief no religion is necessarily bad in itself, unfortunately humans have a tendency to twist any system to justify their own negative thoughts and behaviours.  It is said by the Bible that the meek shall inherit the Earth, the meek probably should be those that try to live as good people, with morality and ethics not prescribed by dusty books or others despite living in a world where many find it preferable to subscribe to belief systems that have historically been used as methods of control and indoctrination into ways of living that are not relevant to the world today...”

“Yes, but George Bush would say 'God Bless America' before eating a pretzel...”

“Don't forget the words uttered by - George.W.Bush before he and Tony Blair went looking for Saddam's WMD's . I think they went something like 'God Bless America' !”

“There are rabid fundamentalists in every religion. As a Christian the worst result would be getting slapped with a prayer book.”

“What worries me is that I don't see much difference between fundamentalist believers in one or more deities which fails to tolerate any other religion, and fundamentalist atheisists that don't tolerate any other religion. Intolerence is generated by incompatible cultures, and intollerent individuals, not by differences in religious beliefs.

So rejecting your intollerent religious upbringing to become an intollerent speaker against that religion isn't a change at all, it's just rebelion. When he's saying that atheism shoud be a "way of life", alarm bells should be ringing.

Atheism is a belief system which, when described as a "way of life", becomes a religion.”