Quote of the Day, Department of Religious Affairs

[bloodyrosemccoy]

“When I say I realized I was an atheist when I was a teenager, I’m simplifying things a bit, because I was always an atheist. My big revelation wasn’t so much a realization that I was an atheist as it was a realization that other people weren’t.”

This quote was brought to you by our discussions of churchgoing at work. My coworker was totally cool with my being an atheist, because he’s one too, but he was also puzzled by the idea that I had been raised that way. Who knew atheism could be the default setting?

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I had wonderfully cartoony ideals when I was a kid. I still try to live by them, but I have to remember that not everyone does. ;)

I think a lot of our problem is that we still have a lot of leftover behavioral responses FROM our evolutionary path, and not everyone overrides them even though they're no longer adaptive and may not be ethical now that we can make that choice.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Exactly! We got ahead of ourselves. Agriculture is really useful in some regards, but it needs some additional adaptations that just ... didn't happen at the same rate. (The one that I always think of is how the switch from nomadic to stationary lifestyles led to serious problems with sanitation. When you're on the go, you don't really need to worry so much about where you put your poop, because it tends to decompose quickly enough. If you build a house and live there all year, that's a lot of poop piling up. Took thousands of years to even START figuring out that was a problem.)

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I love this pairing of comment and icon. Because I, too, grew up with ridiculously lofty ideals (and occasionally have trouble remembering/believing how narrow-minded some people can be)... and I attribute it in large part to the fact that the only TV shows I ever watched were educational things like Sesame Street... and Star Trek TNG.