Crybabies, yeah. Couldn't hack without an established system, sure. They'd turn into Starving Pack Animals without a Burger King to eat at after smashing McDonalds.

But I've never met a Lazy Protester. Take it from me, I'm lazy and I never complain in public, My Arse is glued to this chair and my finger are much too busy typing lame BS on Discission Forums to ever Actively Protest anything.

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"Persistence Is The Father Of Invention"
-Crazy Old Man In Training

..............quick story on anarchists ( of which I am not an expert) - I was over at a good friends house and saw a book laying on the table - I picked it up and it was all about anarchy and such, pretty heady stuff. I find out from my friend that his 18 year old daughter is reading the book and so I told him that he needed to keep an eye on her as that anarchy stuff could get kind of dangerous. He tells me "she's too lazy to be an anarchist" and that she can't get out of bed on time to make the anarchy meetings..............


From that day on I referred to his daughter as the "Lazy Anarchist". He was right, nothing came of it, she attended only a few meetings and then moved on to other interests.

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I Can't Explain

The fact that anarchists hold meetings seems absurd. Who heads the meeting and do they all revolt against him/her.

The real question here is what are you when you simply reject all rule except self government?
A dissident maybe?

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No no and no

I can't even be an anarchist in my on house!!

I completely understand!

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I Can't Explain

And I can't spell either. The word should be "OWN" not on but my excuse is that my cat was telling me it was time to feed her!

' anarchy as a therapy ' at its best ! !

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

I just want to pop my usual $.02 (with change) in here as I'm something of an odd-ball myself who is very "anti-establishment".

While I don't consider myself an anarchist even in the remote sense, I tend to be very anti-government. Not because I think "rules" and "laws" are bad but because here in the US I firmly believe that government has become more about power and greed and less about leading and doing what's right for the people. Very often here in the US the Congress and Senate make laws based on which lobbyists have the deepest pockets as apposed to concepts such as "right" and "wrong" or the general good of the population. Some folks can certainly debate that but there is plenty of evidence to support it. In other words, laws in this country often are not made "by the people, for the people" as much as by big pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, the NRA, etc., etc..

In addition to that, as a person who's be predominantly poor most of his life (in financial terms at least), I find it impossible to believe that a congressman or a senator or anyone else who's making over $100,000 a year...I don't think a person such as this really understands what it's like to be poor or to go hungry. While my wife was going through her ordeal with cancer, at one point we were down to only $15 in the bank and very literally the only way we were able to feed ourselves was by standing in bread lines....let me tell you that it's a -very- humbling experience. You do genuinely re-evaluate the things in life that are truly important. In one case we were standing there after my wife had been through a chemo treatment...her skin was a bright yellowish green and she couldn't even stand most of the time we were there. I don't think there are many political leaders in our country who truly understand this type of humility. I've long felt that if all of our leaders had to live as poor people do at the so-called "poverty level" as outlined by our government, instead of voting themselves raises every now and again, things would change in this country VERY quickly indeed.

Now that said....
It's been my experience that most anarchists are usually younger people in their mid to late teens/early twenties and for most of these "kids" (no offense to anyone here) it's not so much about really believing in something such as "a cause" as much as it is about doing something "shocking" to try and set themselves apart the way every generation tends to do. As a Pagan who's married to a Wiccan (if you don't know these terms, please go look them up) I see this all the time. Kids who are interested in Wicca NOT because they really believe in this tradition or these beliefs but simply because they want to shock their parents, their friends, their teachers, society, etc., etc.. We tend to call them "Blessed Wanna-Be's" LOL!!! The funny thing about this is that once a couple of kids starts doing this, then their friends start doing it, then everyone around them starts doing it...rebellion becomes a fad and fad becomes a trend and then after a while it's just not "cool" any more. With anarchists. Wiccans or anyone else of this nature you can usually tell the "true believers" from the "posers". A person who is really a true believe in something has either maintained these values for a good portion of their life or in some cases were even raised with these values where most "wanna be's" are typically people who just discovered said rebellion and are trying to "prove" they're "real" by being overly-outward about it and cramming it down everyone else's throats.

There are certainly some true anarchists out there...people who genuinely do believe that society would be better off without government. I think in this case they really just don't understand the real dynamics behind human culture. Personally I don't think a society based on true anarchy is really possible...any "community", from a primitive tribal society to a major world power will always have it's "leaders" and it's "followers". Without really going into too much psycho-analysis, I think it's just our nature as humans. As much as we try to separate ourselves from the animal kingdom, we are still very much animals at heart...and those roots tend to run deep. Perhaps instead of anarchy or democracy (or communism, nationalism or any other "ism"), we should simply choose our leaders by letting the idiots mount each other they way dogs do. Either way though we do need a driving force in society to make decisions...even if those decisions are sometimes very wrong.

As to the matter of anarchists forming communities which seems counter-intuitive with the concept of anarchy itself, again I would blame human nature here. Like-minded people, regardless of their goals will tend to "group together"....sort of like guitar players on an internet forum! LOL! Once you have "a group" then there is a tendency to put that groups goals above the goals of other groups. People who own strictly Gibson Les Pauls and hang out on the Gibson forums have a greater tendency us Strat players here at Fender.com and vice-versa...they think they are better than we are and we think we're better than they are. In regards to anarchists, perhaps in it's own way this should simply be seen as their way of bringing order out of chaos. Either way my believe is that regardless of political affiliations, religious beliefs or even cultural influences (or what brand/model guitar you play), people should try to do the "right" things for the "right" reasons. Your friends, peer group, parents, teachers, religious leaders, government leaders and so on may tell you one thing but each individual should look into their own heart and ask "Is this really right? Does this really make sense?". More over, if it doesn't make sense, each individual should at least try and do something about it. It's my believe that if we all did this...and taught our children to do this, that regardless of these other influences, our society as a whole would be a far better off and groups such as anarchists wouldn't be as prevalent (although they would certainly still exist) because it wouldn't be about rebellion as much as simply doing the right thing.

I guess that makes me an "idealist" huh?

Ok....just my extended $.02 worth as usual...please don't spend it all in one place.

L8r,
Jim

Reminds me of an old bumper sticker:

Be the first one to dress and act like everyone else.

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Ignorance IS bliss - and I am the happiest person here!

I feel ya, it'd be like if there was a Church of Atheists....Oh wait, they do have those...Its like these people don't understand the definition of what they define themselves as...
http://firstchurchofatheism.com/

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

I would have to debate your analogy here bowl. If you look up the definition of "church" part of that definition includes "a place of public worship of a non-Christian religion" as well as "any non-Christian religious society, organization, or congregation". In short this can include a non-theist belief system as well. Without getting into too much of a theological debate on these forums (I'm happy to do it in private), one of the problems with many belief systems is that they tend to think of terminology as an exclusive. If for example you're catholic, you have a pre-defined sense of what "church" may mean but often don't see outside of your own sense of that meaning.

One of the problems here is that people are raised to believe that only their belief system is the "right" belief system. As a Pagan I actually run into this a great deal. Because I'm a white male of ordinary heritage (meaning I'm a mixed Polish individual) people assume I must be Christian/Catholic. When I tell them I'm not, their first assumption is that I simply don't believe in "God"...which is also not true. I could be Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist or I could believe in a host of other belief systems as well but because I look to be of a particular heritage, it's assumed that I'm either Xian or atheist/agnostic.

I would also add that there's a great deal of ignorance involving this particular issue as well. Again as a Pagan when I walked around wearing a Pentacle, a great many people assume it's a Pentagram and that I'm a "devil worshiper". In a way this always makes me laugh because most Pagans in general don't believe in "the devil" or "evil incarnate". Very simply you can't worship something (or someone) that you don't believe in. Again here though we're simply confined by the way we think and the way we were taught (or not taught) to believe.

In the case of the Church of Atheists, it's simply a matter of practical convention. It's based on the belief that people of a non-theist belief system should have certain "rights" as it were that are normally associated with a more traditional belief system. For example the right to be married by someone other than simply a "justice of the peace". It's a very valid point of view and while I do understand the point you were trying to make, in that sense, your analogy here is quite flawed. "Church", "religion" and "a belief in deity" are all very separate things.

Peace,
Jim

If your not going to worship your god in a church/temple/synagogue/whatever then what do you worship? the carpet?

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No no and no

The key here is your term "in church" implying that it's a "place" and not an organized gathering or sense of community....that's the difference. Again using my Pagan beliefs as an example (since much of it is actually similar to various agnostic and/or atheist beliefs in this regard), I don't go to any specific "church" per say. Our "church" is where ever we should choose to gather as a group for any given reason such as a ritual. Here in Northeast Ohio we have a rather active Pagan community. That community as a whole consists of Wiccans of various traditions, generic/eclectic Pagans such as myself and even a few Buddhists and a couple of Jews. Our gatherings have been held at places from common public parks, including Public Square in downtown Cleveland where one wedding was performed, to private land to any given individual's living room or basement.

In your sense of "worship your god in a church/temple/synagogue/whatever" you establish these terms specifically as "a place" but it's not a specific building or piece of land, it's a sense of "community"...and that community can consist of atheists and/or agnostics as well...see my point? Think of it this way, loosely put the term "church" (or whatever) simply means a group of like minded individuals who gather together united in their common system of belief (or lack there of) and anything beyond that is simply a matter of ritual. In reference to atheists, just because they "don't believe in a God" doesn't mean they don't believe in or should be excluded from a sense of "community".

Yeah i know all about the 1st century AD teachings of the church being the population of believers not the bricks and mortar. the link provided was to a place for marriage and other pointless rituals carried out by the established religeons.

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No no and no

I wasn't looking for a huge debate, I just thought it was entertaining that a there is an Atheist Church, since most people relate church with religion, and atheists aren't typically thought to be into religion, that it just seems funny...

Anarchy is an absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose...so if a group of people who are into anarchy meet together, because they are into anarchy, don't they now have a cohesive principle and a common standard or purpose? Meeting because they are into anarchy? But then by virtue of their meeting, that is no longer anarchy, but for sort of movement or change to occur among the masses, there needs to be a cohesive principle...so to me, anarchist meetings seem funny initially, just like a church for atheists does, but I am sure that they are probably justifiable for whoever is into these things...

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA