World Famous Atheists, Agnostics and Non Theists
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alissowack wrote: »West Brooklyn wrote: »alissowack wrote: »We think we need to be the authority in saying that it is possible for it to be accepted.
We can't just go around accepting things that defy reason and logic.
But, we can't think that everything is about reason and logic. What I've noticed is that critics of religions are afraid of commitment...then it could just as well be said that the religious are afraid of the facts or the truth. Critics present the facts and think that the "evidence" alone will do the explaining; that there is no need to be devoted to what it means in respect to the values and perspectives they have about life. The religious present "? " thinking their devotion is enough to ignore the details of what their religions really teach.
You have nothing to back up the claim that critics of religions are afraid of commitment. Values and morals -- all of that can be found without religion. Religion provides some people with a "meaning" to their lives but we create our own purpose. Life is what you make of it. -
West Brooklyn wrote: »alissowack wrote: »West Brooklyn wrote: »alissowack wrote: »We think we need to be the authority in saying that it is possible for it to be accepted.
We can't just go around accepting things that defy reason and logic.
But, we can't think that everything is about reason and logic. What I've noticed is that critics of religions are afraid of commitment...then it could just as well be said that the religious are afraid of the facts or the truth. Critics present the facts and think that the "evidence" alone will do the explaining; that there is no need to be devoted to what it means in respect to the values and perspectives they have about life. The religious present "? " thinking their devotion is enough to ignore the details of what their religions really teach.
You have nothing to back up the claim that critics of religions are afraid of commitment. Values and morals -- all of that can be found without religion. Religion provides some people with a "meaning" to their lives but we create our own purpose. Life is what you make of it.
Why is it that you think I'm using values and morals (though I didn't mention morals) to validate religion? We've gone through that before. I'm suggesting that there is a lot more to understanding life than just reason and logic. You proved my point. You are already asking for me to back up what I say. I'm not suggesting that you commit to what I say, but it is to say that it's uncomfortable for you to just take my word for it. In saying "show me the evidence" there is this implied "I don't trust you". The challenge presented is not really meant as a sincere quest for the truth; just a way to tell me to back off. Though disappointing it could possibly be, I would much rather hear "I don't trust you" as a respectable answer.
And just so it doesn't seem one sided, there are people in religion that use someone's trust to their advantage. They prey on the fact that there are people who do trust in them for the answers to things. They won't question their intentions. The "shock" isn't so much of whether religious texts are fraudulent. If they are, then they just are...no harm done; you just get rid of it. It's finding out that the person who is "preaching" never had your best interest in mind that sets you off. It's learning the fact that you have been lied to that is devastating. People who have fallen way from religion have more to say on how they've been hurt by it than whether they conducted studies to find it false. -
That's who I am, personally. I enjoy reasonable and logical things. It's not that I don't trust you; We're debating. I don't agree with you on certain things so I need you to back them up and create an argument, not to just ramble.
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alissowack wrote: »People who have fallen away from religion have more to say on how they've been hurt by it than whether they conducted studies to find it false.
I've found that people like to discuss both
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@westbrooklyn. Well, that's fine if you like logical and reasonable things. But I would find something wrong if family tells you that they love you or some complete stranger says they hate you and you feel compelled to ask them run a series of test to prove that. Or, in proving your love somebody (or hate somebody) you feel the need to talk about the biological chemical reactions first.
...and just because something is more than the other doesn't mean the lesser doesn't exist. I wasn't saying that those who fall away from religion never talk about conducting studies. -
It would be reasonable and logical if their words were proved by their actions. If they told me they loved me without the action to prove it or their action contradicted their words of love, yes, I would tell them to prove their love. That is reasonable and logical.
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If someone told me they hated me, I would then ask them what is the REASON and hopefully he or she would be able to explain LOGICALLY why or else I would have to dismiss them
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The studies conducted are the debates, the study of scriptures, analyzing theistic ideas and concepts, testing claims of supernatural happenings. It seems that non theists specialize in conducting studies. Again, you need to back up what you're saying.
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Like I said, you need an argument. Whats your point? People become non theists when the studies they've conducted leads them to believe or know that theism is unreasonable. At that point, they discuss things as need be I assume. Humans are emotional beings. What does it matter what we talk about or how we go about it as long as it's relevant?
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@westbrooklyn ...the point in me saying what I said is this...not every aspect of life is about presenting an argument or debate. I'm in no way trying to disprove the importance of reason and logic. But, you give the impression that no one can just be having a casual conversation or just make an innocent observation about something without you over-analyzing it. Someone tells you "I love you" and you are wanting data of all the times this person said "I love you" and seeing if the word-to-action ratio is steady enough to accept what was said to be sincere...no, uh...reasonable. Somebody says something is funny and you want a go run a test on 100 random people and see if the percentage is even high enough to even consider laughing at it. Someone is going through a hard time and trying to express pain and you console them with a stat sheet saying things will be OK...because a large percentage of people feel exactly the same way when hard times trigger them.
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I come here to debate. I go to GnS for casual convo (unless of course a debate worthy thread is made).
What would you like to converse about? -
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West Brooklyn wrote: »I come here to debate. I go to GnS for casual convo (unless of course a debate worthy thread is made).
What would you like to converse about?
Maybe if you saw the point I was making, you would see that this is exactly what you want. I am making an argument, but you think I just want to "talk". I at least try sometimes to read people's post so I don't overlook things. Not always perfect. -
alissowack wrote: »West Brooklyn wrote: »I come here to debate. I go to GnS for casual convo (unless of course a debate worthy thread is made).
What would you like to converse about?
Maybe if you saw the point I was making, you would see that this is exactly what you want. I am making an argument, but you think I just want to "talk". I at least try sometimes to read people's post so I don't overlook things. Not always perfect.
You have no argument I have not addressed already unless you're trying to say something else; you'd have to let me know what that is. To my understanding, this is/was your last argument:alissowack wrote: »not every aspect of life is about presenting an argument or debate.
This is true but it does not change the fact that I am a reasonable and logical person, nor does it have anything to do with what we were originally talking about which is ? being outside time and interfering with our universe, which is illogical and unreasonable. It's not really about arguments or debates; you and I can have either or to discuss it but when it comes down to it, it's pretty clear cut. Like for instance, is a square circle possible? We can go on for days debating this but at it's root, it's illogical and unreasonable. It has nothing to do with love, pain, sadness, hate, or anger from family or strangers.
If you want to exit this debate that we were both willing to continue, and you were perfectly okay with before you had nothing else to run on, feel free to at any time but don't try to play victim and flip flop around a bunch of B.S.
If you want to express your feelings without any opposing views, don't talk to anybody; keep your thoughts to yourself or at least write them down somewhere at home. Nobody's forcing you to debate here.
If you do want to debate, pick an argument and stay with it. -
West Brooklyn wrote: »alissowack wrote: »West Brooklyn wrote: »I come here to debate. I go to GnS for casual convo (unless of course a debate worthy thread is made).
What would you like to converse about?
Maybe if you saw the point I was making, you would see that this is exactly what you want. I am making an argument, but you think I just want to "talk". I at least try sometimes to read people's post so I don't overlook things. Not always perfect.
You have no argument I have not addressed already unless you're trying to say something else; you'd have to let me know what that is. To my understanding, this is/was your last argument:alissowack wrote: »not every aspect of life is about presenting an argument or debate.
This is true but it does not change the fact that I am a reasonable and logical person, nor does it have anything to do with what we were originally talking about which is ? being outside time and interfering with our universe, which is illogical and unreasonable. It's not really about arguments or debates; you and I can have either or to discuss it but when it comes down to it, it's pretty clear cut. Like for instance, is a square circle possible? We can go on for days debating this but at it's root, it's illogical and unreasonable. It has nothing to do with love, pain, sadness, hate, or anger from family or strangers.
If you want to exit this debate that we were both willing to continue, and you were perfectly okay with before you had nothing else to run on, feel free to at any time but don't try to play victim and flip flop around a bunch of B.S.
If you want to express your feelings without any opposing views, don't talk to anybody; keep your thoughts to yourself or at least write them down somewhere at home. Nobody's forcing you to debate here.
If you do want to debate, pick an argument and stay with it.
Well, at least you found the argument I was posing to you...and you agree with it. Why you think I'm trying to change you...I don't know. That was all I wanted. Now you can continue with your thread...sorry for the rabbit trails. -
Sam Harris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris_(author)
Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American author, philosopher, public intellectual, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason. He is the author of The End of Faith, which was published in 2004 and appeared on The New York Times best seller list for 33 weeks. The book also won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction in 2005. In 2006 Harris published his book Letter to a Christian Nation, a response to criticism of The End of Faith. This work was followed by The Moral Landscape published in 2010, his long-form essay Lying in 2011 and the short book Free Will in 2012.
Harris is a well-known contemporary critic of religion and proponent of scientific skepticism and the "New Atheism". He is also an advocate for the separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and the liberty to criticize religion. Harris has written numerous articles for The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek, and the journal Nature. His articles touch upon a diversity of topics, including religion, morality, neuroscience, free will, and terrorism.
In his 2010 book The Moral Landscape, he argues that science can help answer moral problems, and can aid the facilitation of human well-being. He regularly gives talks around the United States and Great Britain, which include speeches at University of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford University, Tufts University, as well as TED, where he outlined the arguments made in his book The Moral Landscape. Harris has also made numerous television appearances, including interviews for Nightline, Real Time with Bill Maher, The O'Reilly Factor, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Last Word, among others. He also appeared in the 2005 film The ? Who Wasn't There. Harris is considered an outspoken and definitive advocate for science and reason construed as alternatives to theistic religion.
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Susan Blackmore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Blackmore
Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July 1951) is an English freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine.
In 1973, Susan Blackmore graduated from St Hilda's College, Oxford, with a BA (Hons) degree in psychology and physiology. She went on to do postgraduate study in environmental psychology at the University of Surrey, achieving an MSc degree in 1974. In 1980, she got her PhD degree in parapsychology from the same university, her thesis being entitled "Extrasensory Perception as a Cognitive Process." After some period of time spent in research on parapsychology and the paranormal, her attitude towards the field moved from belief to scepticism. In 1987, Blackmore wrote that she had believed herself to have undergone an out-of-body experience shortly after she began running the Oxford University Society for Psychical Research (OUSPR):
Within a few weeks I had not only learned a lot about the occult and the paranormal, but I had an experience that was to have a lasting effect on me—an out-of-body experience (OBE). It happened while I was wide awake, sitting talking to friends. It lasted about three hours and included everything from a typical "astral projection," complete with silver cord and duplicate body, to free-floating flying, and finally to a mystical experience. It was clear to me that the doctrine of astral projection, with its astral bodies floating about on astral planes, was intellectually unsatisfactory. But to dismiss the experience as "just imagination" would be impossible without being dishonest about how it had felt at the time. It had felt quite real. Everything looked clear and vivid, and I was able to think and speak quite clearly.
In an article in 2000, she again wrote of this:
It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.
She is a Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and in 1991 was awarded the CSICOP Distinguished Skeptic Award.
Blackmore has done research on memes (which she wrote about in her popular book The Meme Machine) and evolutionary theory. Her book Consciousness: An Introduction (2004), is a textbook that broadly covers the field of consciousness studies. She was on the editorial board for the Journal of Memetics (an electronic journal) from 1997 to 2001, and has been a consulting editor of the Skeptical Inquirer since 1998.
She acted as one of the psychologists who was featured on the British version of the television show "Big Brother", speaking about the psychological state of the contestants. She is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.
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Christopher Hitchens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", contributed to New Statesman, The Nation, The Atlantic, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays, and concentrated on the subjects of politics, literature and religion. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure. Known for his contrarian stance on a number of issues, he critiqued revered figures such as Mother Teresa, and Diana, Princess of Wales.
Initially describing himself as a socialist, Hitchens began his break from the established political left after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks "exhilarated" him, strengthening his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan described him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.
A noted critic of religion and a self described antitheist, he said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in ? were correct", but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion." According to Hitchens, the concept of a ? or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. His anti-religion polemic, ? Is Not Great, sold over 500,000 copies.
Hitchens died on December 15, 2011, from complications arising from oesophageal cancer, a disease that he acknowledged was likely due to his lifelong predilection for smoking and drinking. His death prompted tributes and eulogies from a range of public figures, including Tony Blair, Richard Dawkins, Martin Amis, James Fenton, and Stephen Fry.
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Asa Philip Randolph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Philip_Randolph
Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a leader in the African-American civil-rights movement, the American labor movement and socialist political parties.
He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly Black labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington Movement, which convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. After the war Randolph pressured President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, ending segregation in the armed services.
In 1963, Randolph was the head of the March on Washington, which was organized by Bayard Rustin, at which Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech. Randolph inspired the Freedom budget, sometimes called the "Randolph Freedom budget", which aimed to deal with the economic problems facing the Black community, particularly workers and the unemployed.
Randolph had some experience in labor organization, having organized a union of elevator operators in New York City in 1917. In 1919 he became president of the National Brotherhood of Workers of America, a union which organised amongst African-American shipyard and dock workers in the Tidewater region of Virginia. The union dissolved in 1921, under pressure from the American Federation of Labor. In 1925 Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) and was elected president. This was the first serious effort to form a labor institution for employees of the Pullman Company, which was a major employer of African Americans. The railroads had expanded dramatically in the early 20th century, and the jobs offered relatively good employment at a time of widespread racial discrimination. In these early years, however, the company took advantage of the employees. The union helped support The Messenger until 1928, when it needed to use funds for other purposes.
With amendments to the Railway Labor Act in 1934, porters were granted rights under federal law. Membership in the Brotherhood jumped to more than 7,000. After years of bitter struggle, the Pullman Company finally began to negotiate with the Brotherhood in 1935, and agreed to a contract with them in 1937. This gained employees $2,000,000 in pay increases, a shorter workweek, and overtime pay. Randolph maintained the Brotherhood's affiliation with the American Federation of Labor through the 1955 AFL-CIO merger.
Randolph emerged as one of the most visible spokesmen for African-American civil rights. In 1941, he, Bayard Rustin, and A. J. Muste proposed a march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in war industries and to propose the desegregation of the American Armed forces. The march was cancelled after President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, or the Fair Employment Act. Some militants felt betrayed because Roosevelt's order applied only to banning discrimination within war industries and not the armed forces.
But, the Fair Employment Act is generally perceived as a success for African-American labor rights. In 1942, an estimated 18,000 blacks gathered at Madison Square Garden to hear Randolph kick off a campaign against discrimination in the military, in war industries, in government agencies, and in labor unions. Following the act, during the Philadelphia Transit Strike of 1944, the government backed African-American workers' striking to gain positions formerly limited to white employees.
In 1947, Randolph, along with colleague Grant Reynolds, renewed efforts to end discrimination in the armed services, forming the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman abolished racial segregation in the armed forces through Executive Order 9981.
Randolph was notable for supporting restrictions on immigration. He opposed African Americans' having to compete with more people willing to work for low wages. In 1950, along with Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, and, Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, Randolph founded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). LCCR has been a major civil rights coalition. It coordinated a national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.
Randolph finally saw a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom with the help of Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is often attributed in part to the success of the March on Washington, where Black and White Americans stood united and witnessed King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
As the U.S. civil rights movement gained momentum in the early 1960s and came to the forefront of the nation's consciousness, Randolph was often heard on television news programs addressing the nation on behalf of African Americans engaged in the struggle for voting rights and an end to discrimination in public accommodations.
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Zackie Achmat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zackie_Achmat
Zackie Achmat (born Abdurazzack Achmat in 1962) is a South African activist, most widely known as founder and chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and for his work on the behalf of people living with ? and AIDS in South Africa.
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Jimmy Wales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales
Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966) is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the for-profit Wikia web-hosting company. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, United States, where he attended Randolph School, a university-preparatory school, then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance. While in graduate school, he taught at two universities, but left before completing a PhD in order to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of a Chicago futures and options firm. In 1996, he and two partners founded Bomis, a male-oriented web portal featuring entertainment and adult content. The company would provide the initial funding for the peer-reviewed free encyclopedia Nupedia (2000–2003) and its successor, Wikipedia.
On January 15, 2001, with Larry ? and others, Wales launched Wikipedia, a free, open content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity, and as Wikipedia’s public profile grew, he became the project’s promoter and spokesman. He is historically cited as a co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the "co-" designation, declaring himself the sole founder. Wales serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit charitable organization he helped establish to operate Wikipedia, holding its board-appointed "community founder" seat. In 2004, he co-founded Wikia, a for-profit wiki-hosting service. His role in creating Wikipedia, which has become the world’s largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name him in its 2006 list of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World".
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FuriousOne wrote: »alissowack wrote: »FuriousOne wrote: »alissowack wrote: »Why would ? need to operate the way we operate in order to be valid? What is so "convenient" about a deity that is an authority over everything? What position would anybody be in to "test" this? If anything, people would avoid even coming up with this. It requires that we sacrifice more than just our intelligence. What I'm getting from this is you don't want to go any further. The thing about this concept is the issue isn't about right or wrong. It's about life or death (I'm not getting apocalyptic on you). It's one thing to be right or wrong and live to tell about it and another to be dead and we can be neither one. We will experience death for ourselves one day and we won't be in a position to make valid to anybody alive what we understood.
Survival isn't about the individual. It's about survival of the organism. So life and death and inconsequential other then species death. What add to the specious can only be beneficial when used for benefit. If what we offer is used for benefit, then the memories of our actions are imprinted in the further actives of the species no matter how small. The continuation of working processes is proof that the accumulation of like activities by other members of the species adds overall value to general survival. You're the one thinking in individual terms. The sun acts nothing like us and doesn't require our input to exist yet it can be observed and impacts other objects such as earths rotation and gravity. It does affect us directly in way of energy and creation from previous suns. You're also telling me that we can't perceive ? until we sacrifice (death?). What evidence do you have that our multiple parts will trans-mutate into a form (other then energy consumed by other forms or broken down into elements) that's limited and contained by this universe which can interact with ? beyond intelligence (which only functions while active and preserved via glyphs and DNA matter).
Human interaction is only in the manner of observing what is present and what causes impact through interaction on the smallest level even if it's just energy emissions rather then matter and gravity. I'm just wondering where you are getting these theories from if you haven't witnessed any presentations or been presented with any evidence others can observe. How can something live outside of space time and interact with space time with no effect other the magic? You're postulating your own sudo theories and explanation that ? exists with no need of explanation or possibility of explanation. Sounds like you've set limits on yourself. Evidence isn't about right or wrong because it stands on it's own. You're interpretation is your own but others can have input and show alternative and a more sound understanding when it's presented. I ? requiring need to "operate" implies interaction and residual effects would be left if that ? chose to "operate" in this universe. There is also the aspect that operation is still bound to the universe, and we aren't going beyond our means to do so.
Well, when we die, we die alone so that would make it "individual". What we are doing to preserve life is totally different from that. You treat my approach to this as if I am offering death as a method of testing. I'm not expecting you to die just so you can find out. I'm saying that when we die, we won't have a choice whether we want to know or not. We won't even have the liberty of saying "Ha, I told you so!!!"
The thing about questioning an individual is that we don't simply as question just so we know. We question their authority, their credibility, their integrity and such in the things we question an individual about. You could question me and find me a fraud. But, that doesn't get rid of the possibility of ? Existence. It just means you figured me out...that's all. I think people take more pride in implanting doubt in great minds (my mind is not that great however) than just whether they sincerely have any commitment to what they understand. The issue of ? 's Existence will still be on the table whether people treat it as the main course or that disposable paper napkin.
I only question the evidence. Scientific discoveries have come about in the most precarious manner but that evidence was still accurate and could have been discovered in more acceptable ways. Humans put a negative spin on the usage of a discoveries like creating a bomb vs self sustaining energy. My problem is, people are the ones putting forward the question of ? . The question wouldn't exist without mans input in the first place. So people can also dismiss the question of ? as a probable cause of things especially when we eliminate the examples that people use for Gods existence. We can also question the legitimate characteristics of a ? existing in this universe or the possibility of anything existing outside of it, if there is an outside. We may die alone but we spread our genes and knowledge so parts of us live on or at least our contribution whether active or passive still affected others around us. I know that animals and bacteria consume us which is the true form of reincarnation of energy (or transfer). Beyond that, our bodies break down to base elements and energy. Tell me how our conscientiousness can survive death without a functioning brain?
You're telling me that we can't know but yet you seem to know that ? exist outside space-time and you also put forward the possibility that our bodies can do something miraculous post death. We can come to conclusions without the input of others using separate tools and interacting with evidence differently while arriving at a similar conclusion. We don't require the authority of others because what we test exist to us all. Some things depend on your capabilities and resources but it's not impossible for one to come to their own conclusions separate from others and have others test their theories with rigorous examination. Discovery doesn't exist in a bubble where know one can employ their own tests. A reproducible effect verified and tested by independent parties allows evidence to stand on it's own. The question of ? has artificially been prolonged through efforts to suppress questions using various means.
I could be wrong...but I could have sworn you were saying something else last I read this. When I offered my concept, I offered it in a way that both religious and irreligious are not in a position to control this deity; that this deity is a being apart from who we are. I know you've heard of the term "infinity". We might as well get rid of the term if there can't be some implied sense that the term is a "rough sketch" of a deity's being. Whether we think it's possible or impossible, I wasn't trying to build a case for myself. I've even offered the possibility of me being a fraud. Yet, you felt compelled to speak of things based on this assumption I am really trying to push you believe in Christianity. Sure, it's no secret what I believe though. I didn't say anything about what happens after death. I said that in death we will find out and won't be in a position to affirm what happens. You're sounding like West B. right now. -
Your clique is a bunch of weirdos.....
You can run but you can't hide fella.... -
Mutabaruka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutabaruka
Mutabaruka (born Allan Hope, 26 December 1952, Rae Town, Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican Rastafarian dub poet. His name comes from the Rwandan language and translates as "one who is always victorious". He lives in Potosi District, St. James, with his partner and their two children. Mutabaruka continues to perform and write poems on every issue known to man. He is known for his expression and lively performances as much as for the poems themselves. Some of his themes include sexism, politics, discrimination, poverty, race, and especially religion. Mutabaruka's stylistic form is in a way pathos related. He uses stories and experiences to get readers to think about issues in ways that they would not normally think about them.
Mutabaruka's first book, The First Poems, was launched in the 1980s and took off well. A sequel entitled The Next Poems was launched on 10 March 2005. The "double-barrelled" books are well known to the Jamaican community as well as other dub-poets. In the spring of 2007, Mutabaruka had the chance to teach African American studies at Merritt College. His time there further showed through in his poems.
On 20 February 2010, Muta was honored by the National Centre for Youth Development (NCYD) and the Rotaract Club of Mandeville for over 30 years of outstanding work in the field of the arts. Also, later on in 2010, Muta was recognized by Senegal. In all of Mutabaruka's work, he never forgets to give back to the people who influence him. On 28 September 2010, Muta recited a tribute poem in honour of Lucky Dube, whose music "liberated the oppressed". Recently, Muta spoke at the First Jamaica Poetry Festival on 17 August 2011 in honour of Marcus Garvey and Louise Bennett. Leaving a mark on people who oppose you is very hard to do. Mutabaruka does this with extraordinary power, poetry. On the final day of the Rastafari Studies Conference, Muta was examined as an Icon by the professors of the West Indies.
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100816/lead/lead9.htmlJamaica Gleaner News wrote: »Rastafarianism is a rather inchoate movement, something which we hope a serious conference of scholarship about Rastafari will have the courage and honesty to explore. One of its principal proponents, Mutabaruka, is an atheist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdAXGmYRSlY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzZYAZ3ngKk&feature=relmfu
http://youtu.be/1LPn2tbjBhg