Seraphim said- Why anyone would start a “Freedom From Atheism Foundation” is beyond me?
Have you not read your own Bible, eg the lovely passages such as, "the fool says in their heart there is no God"?
Note the expression, "says in their heart": that's a phrase that means NOT to verbalize that concepts to others, but it means to THINK it, to CONSIDER it.
In ancient Israel, voicing that sentiment out loud to others was a sin against God that violated one of the 10 commandments and was a death penalty offense; any atheist who dared say it out loud was simply stoned to death for commiting the blasphemy of suggesting Jehovah didn't exist.
In later Judaism (i.e. when under control of the Persians, Greeks, Romans, etc), believers weren't allowed to kill others under Hebraic law by their overlords (who conquered their land and imposed their own rules), so the Jews eventually turned to the non-lethal practice of shunning. Xianity however was eventually adopted by secular authorities in Rome, and the Roman gov't had no problem executing those who were foolish enough to publicly commit blasphemy by saying there was no God or Jesus.
The practice continued until the recent past, when the Age of Enlightment began to introduce the concept of freedom of religion (including the right to be an atheist, i.e. freedom FROM religion).
Until even recently, blasphemy was still considered a crime that warranted death; the last person executed in the UK for blasphemy was Thomas Aikenhead, a 20 yr old Scottish student from Edinburgh who publicly insulted God by comparing the Holy Bible to Aesop's fables, and being amazed at the populace's inability to see through the motives of the Church.
From Wikipedia page, he wrote this on the morning of his execution:
On the morning of 8 January 1697, Thomas wrote to his 'friends' that "it is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure. . . So I proceeded until the more I thought thereon, the further I was from finding the verity I desired. . ."
Although not executed, punishment for blasphemy continued in UK up until 1922, with the imprisonment of John Gott, who dared to publicly criticize Xianity.
The United Kingdom finally abolished its laws against blasphemy (which were 'dead letter' laws anyway) in England and Wales only five years ago, in 2008!
Adam
