This is for everyone. Theists and Atheists.
Just had an interesting conversation with my brother this morning while we were fixing the roof of an out building, replacing the tin sheet that got a hole burnt into it by the lightning strike from the thunderstorms yesterday (Sunday 03 June 2018). I forget what led up to his comment of the section to which I ask, "What do y'all think?" Italicized text are my thoughts never spoken.
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Bro: You know people like you atheists don't do any real work. You all tend to be scientists. Not real workers.
Me: And you are always telling your son to work smarter, not harder. Really?
Bro: Yeah. Us believers tend to be the ones who do the real work like carpenters, masons, transportation engineers, steel-workers, priests. Scientists just sit in their labs in front of computers.
Me: Priests work hard?
Bro: Yeah. It takes a lot of work to save peoples' souls.
Me: OK.
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He is correct about one thing. When I am at home working, I am sitting in front of my computer downloading data and analyzing it. However, I guess he does not consider all the driving around Yellowstone and hiking to all the stations and making sure they are working is not work.
What do y'all think? Are us atheists a bunch of lazy bums or what?
Kind of reminds me of Arte Johnston's catch phrase on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, "Verrrry interesting..."
rmfr
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@Arakish:
Tell your brother that Satan is working through IBM, FACOM, etc., to create a race of robots to perform all those "real" jobs, leaving just the unreal brain jobs performed by us atheists.
In fact a robot priest is already on the market.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/30/robot-priest-blessu-2...
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@Algebe Re: Robot priest
Holy shit! I think that is a cousin of mine!
e has not heard that RELIGIONS FEED ON THE IGNORANT. It is because you do not care what you believe, do not research it, do not explore its' reasonableness, that you are a believer. It is because you would rather move your feet and your hands instead of your mind, that you have allowed religion to control you.
What I think:
Your brother is a jerk, just like my fundamentalist brethren brother, who makes equally stupid uninformed comments about others simply because they dont believe in a god who when they die will let them live an eternity of workless idolant lazy bliss.
Fuck 'em both. I have always worked hard.
Got to go back to it...take care Arakish.
Double post.
Sounds legit, I was an actor, performer and writer most of my life...I only did "real" work between those gigs. Its not as if my work was real work, I mean, just walk on, do a shakespeare play as a major character, or spend an idle hour writing a 90 minute screen play...pffft. My various sets of in laws were all of one mind: a) I was going to hell b) I should get a proper job c) could they get free tickets? But then I have not attended any family celebrations for 30 odd years, no christmas's, weddings, funerals, baptisms, its been great not to hear them moaning on.
I actually just quit a very labor intensive job as a boat hauler for a local canoe rental place. Temperatures got too much for me and I started regularly vomiting and passing out from heat exhaustion, but I was good at my job. My boss said I was one of his finest. Too bad I can't work there anymore because getting nine dollars an hour for fifty hour work weeks was really good for a new college student.
Arakish :-
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Bro: You know people like you atheists don't do any real work. You all tend to be scientists. Not real workers.
Me: And you are always telling your son to work smarter, not harder. Really?
Bro: Yeah. Us believers tend to be the ones who do the real work like carpenters, masons, transportation engineers, steel-workers, priests. Scientists just sit in their labs in front of computers.
Me: Priests work hard?
Bro: Yeah. It takes a lot of work to save peoples' souls.
Me: OK.
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Scientists do things like discover how the universe really works - like how the weather happens, like how electricity works, like how atoms work. This information is used to help make cars, 'phones, TV, agricultural chemicals, medicines etc.
I am an atheist, retired now, but did not work in a lab. in front of a computer, at least not to do research. I'm sitting in front of a computer as I use my brain, and type this posting, (and that computer is a product of scientific knowledge). I was a high school teacher. There are many skill sets, some more physical, and some more more intellectual. They can all contribute to improving the lot of humankind. Using your brain is a good thing and can be difficult.
The religious might be a lot less religious if they used their brains more. Unfortunately, some religions preach for one NOT to use one's brain. If there is a god, why did that god give us the brains we have, (to use in almost everything we do), including carpentry, masonry, transportation engineering, (a scientific pursuit), steel-working, priestifying, sitting in labs in front of computers. Of course scientists do much more than just that anyway.
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There is a meme :-
Scientists fly rockets to the moon and beyond.
Theists fly 'planes into buildings.
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That meme is as bad a generalisation as your brother's. Life and sociology is a lot more complex than shoe-horning people into narrow categories. BTW, it must be very hard to save peoples' souls, if there are no such thing as souls.
Mutorc.
@Arakish: Bro: Yeah. It takes a lot of work to save peoples' souls.
I've seen a guy at the local mall saving people's soles. He also saves their heels, cuts keys, and sells watch batteries. He works very hard. He's called Mister Minit.
@Arakish
I've spent much of my working life caring for the elderly and/or supporting people with disabilities. Pretty labour intensive- I've got the back and shoulder injuries to prove it. Does that count as a real job with your silly brother?
Something about your brother's slap at atheists reminds me of the alt right/alt lites' slap at the gender pay gap: women are paid less because they don't do dangerous and/or dirty jobs. My bad back and shoulder have a bit of a pained chuckle about that some mornings, especially when it's cold.
Hey, Arakish! Here's something for your brother! LMAO
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@Arakish
you should have replied
"well if you think theist are workers and praying really works then why the fuck are we up here fixing the fucking roof?"
"and why are you telling me this bullshit? if prayer really work, then why can't you just pray and turn me into believing your shit??"
"if you're really a worker and atheist aren't, well what am i doing here?"
hhhmm...
I am an atheist. I sit in front of a computer. A lot. So much that I have to purposely get up and take exercise breaks. I do not have to work physically hard at all. I do my own yard work simply because I want to get out once in a while and do something physical, with the earth.
I also studied very hard in college to get to where I am. To learn the skills I have I had many 80 hour weeks and sleepless nights. Now that all my tools are well developed, I am coasting on my previous labors. Since I do freelance "gig" work now, and am the sole proprietor of my own business, a business of one and a computer, I now just take the easy jobs that I already have most of the work done, with the occasional surprise where a job ends up being a lot harder than I thought it would be.
Sometimes I am super busy and have more work than 10 of me can do in a day, other times weeks will go by where I am free to converse on atheist republic all day :) A cycle built around: windows and mac OS and linux security updates for the most part.
So do I work hard? Sort of. I have had plenty of times where an entire company grinds to a halt until I can get their proprietary software up and running again. Where I will work 20 hours straight if I run into unexpected problems, (with breaks for short naps and exercise to keep my productivity up,) so all the "real" laborers can go back to work the next day. (I mostly work with small to medium sized companies that do not have dedicated software engineers on hand or their current staff gets in over their head.)
The people who don't consider using your mind real work tend to be the ones who never engage their brains anyway. Growing up in the rural south I was the odd kid because I was smart. I came into a lot of bullying about that. I had relatives say I was lazy and that I should hope for an office job since I couldn't do real work. My highschool educated mother was the only person in my family or community who valued education. I graduated top of my class, went to an excellent state university with minimal family assistance and put myself through graduate school. I became successful in human services, several terms as state president and when I retired I received a lifetime achievement award. Oh, and I'm an atheist. Yeah, I never worked. At Thanksgiving gatherings I look at the collective DNA in the room and think "shit, I hope I'm adopted."
My family runs a small business (publishing press house) in which I helped when I was a kid during my free time and school vacations, back then when making kids learn the family business didn't look immoral. I've worked and studied for my whole life, non-stop in any of those, and sometimes I even had two or three jobs at the same time (with the only exception of this last year, in which I've been unemployed). Always plus housework, the worst job of them all.
So, to answer to your question, I'm an atheist, and I think I'm far from being lazy.
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I hear ya Flamenca. Just out of college I was a public school special ed teacher 7-3, a ballroom dance instructor 3:30-10, except Thursdays when I had graduate class from 6-9:30. I studied all weekend. And I was engaged to be married. Oh for the boundless energy of youth.
I am a registered nurse. Come with me for a day and tell me it was easy (let alone womens work)!
I hate classifications. I detest doing it to others, and despise when anyone attempts to label me in some category.
arakish, tell your brother I said he's full of shit. I have worked hard all my life, because I understand it leads to good income and also a high level of physical health. And trust me, this 280 pounds construction worker is very fit and strong. All of that hard work got me a better job, where I did IT work, basically minimally physical but more problem solving than anything. So I get to use my brain a lot now.
People like that never get past understanding that "Revenge of the Nerds" was not a documentary.