Besides the Infidel Guy and Norm Allen there are basically no African atheists.
To top that off I’m African, Nigerian to be more precise so i feel like 1% of a percent of a fraction of the African atheists..

Well, Barak Obama has frequently mentioned that his father was an atheist.

I thought his dad was a Muslim..?
Well, usually, agnosticism is a huge step for Africans.
People kill due to their superstitions.. and I mean SUPERstitions.
I could probably give a few examples..

If you listen to his speeches and he explains in his first book, his father was born a muslim but became atheist as an adult.

Hmmm..! interesting. If that’s true then what I’ve been suspecting may be true:
The president isn’t really religious and his church pandering is political, at best.
I hope so anyway..

I find it sad that one of the places with the highest degree of superstition is Africa and the islands that have that Voodoo religion- Haiti and alike.  I hope that is a misconception, but much that I have read and heard, it doesn’t seem to be.  It would seem that education has not reached these places.

Yes and thanks to the christian church, they have incorporated 18th century practices such as accusing small children and women of witchcraft (and killing them), exorcisms (which may or may not kill them) in addition to the superstitions indigenous to the areas.

Absolutely true..
There’s a village (of course, not all Africa is a village, I lived in the city [it’s beautiful]) in the southern part of my country
and a man charges gullible parents to kill their ‘witch’ children. He CHARGES THEM TO KILL THEIR OWN CHILDREN!

Goes without saying, he is christian..
and yes, education is a factor. My parents bought me science books when I was young, little did they know that they were building the foundation
for my non-belief.

I find it sad that so many religious people find an excuse to mistreat, abuse, even kill children.  Killing of children is not encouraged in the U.S., but abuse is quite often enabled or even done among the religious in the U.S.  Most of it is mental abuse, rather than physical, but it seems the more austere the beliefs the worse abuse is, even more so in less educated countries.

While ‘killing’ - at its most basic- is no tolerated in the US, there are parents who do not vaccinate their children and when they do get sick, they pray
for help from God..
The kids from homes like that usually die, and the parents are usually sent to prison but
laws aren’t made to prevent such stupidity from reoccurring.

Those religious shields need to be removed, or the US might as well be promoting them

You are very right, even the girl who had diabetes was not treated for it and died because her parents prayed.  Without a doubt, there is nothing that fails like prayer.  They are not going to get help unless they take their kids to a doctor.  The thing is, many of these parents get off due to their religion, which IMO is wrong.  I don’t know if this girl’s parents got off though.

For the child’s sake, I hope they didn’t..
It’s weird, in most African schools (even dedicatedly Christian ones), evolution is thought without barriers or disclaimers.. Creationism is then taught in the religious classes, should you choose to be in one.
Why is the US, Africa’s role model the place where creationism is being pushed into science classes..?
And fundamentalists here are just as bad as in the most uneducated part of Africa..

frankly, it saddens me..

lionel054 - 01 March 2009 02:20 PM

For the child’s sake, I hope they didn’t..
It’s weird, in most African schools (even dedicatedly Christian ones), evolution is thought without barriers or disclaimers.. Creationism is then taught in the religious classes, should you choose to be in one.
Why is the US, Africa’s role model the place where creationism is being pushed into science classes..?
And fundamentalists here are just as bad as in the most uneducated part of Africa..

frankly, it saddens me..

Well, there are two issues here, at least from my perspective.

First, there is the idea that religion must be somehow curtailed from undue influence, and I can’t disagree with that. But ignorance, insensitivity to Human needs, and religion are not the same thing, and we must hope that the Internet can educate people everywhere to a higher standard and gradually displace most religionists of any color.

My second issue is that Humanism is being equated with atheism, whereas it is far more than a non-belief. It is instead a positive belief in our own species, in its powers and potential, and what the atheists or religionists are up to is their own matter and only of contingent importance. Humanism is inclusionary of all people, the same way we accept all children, and from there it is much more important to determine which ideas are worthwhile, for our actions, rather than spending time and effort denigrating those of others from a self-righteous stance.

Not that you are doing that, and certainly fundamentalism in Africa, South America, India, Arabia, Indonesia and the US can seem to be an overwhelming “problem”. But I maintain that it is not- rather it is the absence of discourse among Humanity toward eliminating war munitions, poverty, corruption and the abuse of women, children and the elderly that is paramount.

Atheism, you can then see, has no salient place within those problems. And yes, Obama is just playing the political game in pretending he’s Christian - he’s an intellectual and that is one world view that is not inclusionary of fundamentalism…

I agree.. I can’t quite say I’m atheist.. I’d choose humanism because I actually like the human race..
I feel we offer so much more than we give. And of course, we need to stop the tired debate and try to advance
our efforts to make our lives better.

Human species, not Human race.
Welcome aboard.

*facepalm* :D
my bad..
humanism 4ever!!