Cause preachers can talk about Jihads against atheists on talk shows, but somebody says god isn’t real and everything they are connected to gets examined for not complying with the first amendment.
Yup. Even ‘tolerant’ religions go batshit when they encounter unbelievers. It’s like you can root for any team, but if you decline the entire sportsball thing, YOU GOTTA FUCKIN DIE
YOU GOTTA FUCKIN DIE
Bit hyperbolic (for most people lol)
It’s more like “you and everything you stand for is unbound by morality, and you pose a threat to my entire worldview through your thoughts and ideas alone.”
Yeah we should use something more politically correct like “you will burn in hell for eternity”
True lol, talking to my Christian friends about hell is wild. The worst people imaginable can go to eternal paradise if they believe in God, but queer agnostic atheists like me get eternal torture for thought crimes.
And they’ll openly admit that they don’t think I deserve hell, but they still call it just and moral if I get sent there. Which is incredible, because it seems like they feel like it’s wrong, yet won’t call it wrong because the morals created by the men who came before them are objectively right and can’t be questioned.
The other baffling thing is that they’ll say owning slaves is wrong now because those parts of the Bible are outdated, yet still say it’s just to torture homosexuals for eternity and cite those same “outdated” books of the Bible.
/rant
You ever ask them why do they think a God with those values is one worth worshipping?
Nope, but I’m pretty sure they’d say something like “we’re not omniscient, we can’t understand God’s will”
To which I’d probably say it’s funny how “God’s will” looks a hell of a lot like what we’d expect to see if God didn’t exist
their morality is hilarious - and that they view it as intrinsic to their religion and would go murderhappy without it’s constraints, or if the right imaginary friend told them to - illustrates my fear that out atheists in many places are at risk.
A few examples:
christian fascists insist we’ll have freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion. even though the supreme court has long held “no religion” is a religion.
In Islam, if you’re a jew or christian, you can pay a fee and practice your faith. Think they extend that to atheism?
Indonesia for example:
https://www.atheismandthecity.com/2013/12/dont-cry-for-me-indonesia.html
But hardly limited there -
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-where-atheists-receive-death-penalty.html
In my experience, theists would just want an individual to believe in anything instead of nothing.
“It’s ok, you don’t have to worry, I’ve been saved, First Pentagram Church of Manson, HELTER SKELTER BE HIS NAME!”
“Hallelujah!”
Haha. You joke but that is theist belief in a nutshell. Rather believe in anything to save one’s soul in the afterlife than nothing at all and not to go to heaven or some paradise.
Circling back to this - a thought occurred to me: if you buy into the grift on any side, you’re much more likely to convert to the ‘correct’ religion - whatever that is lol
Just not even really worth ‘coming out’. Why deal with all the arguments that are likely to crop up from it? When I was the angsty teenage atheist I got off on that shit. Now…im over it.
Yeah, it’s not like you’re changing anyone’s mind anyway, so why waste the energy and social capital? I’ll sometimes ask follow-up questions to get them thinking, but no reason to poke the bear by announcing that you’re the devil.
It’s a bit sad that “coming out” as an Atheist is even a thing. Where I’m from it’s basically the assumption. I’ve met a few people that mention that they’re religious before and my reaction is always an astonished “but they seemed so normal.”
I want that to be the case in the US so much
Please tell me where you live because I’m going to move there tomorrow
It’s a tiny town called Finspång. I hate it here.
Sweden overall isn’t that bad though, if you can put up with the long nights and long days.
In many ways, Sweden is currently the greatest country on earth.
You should consider yourself to be fortunate
It is a pretty nice country. The climate is woeful, but even so we have a lot of good things going for us.
I could only imagine the worst thing about your country being “it’s cold and dark a lot” instead of “we think some groups of people shouldn’t have rights.”
You’ve not experienced cold and dark. It’s one thing to hear about it and another to live it.
There are other problems too. Like the nazi party being the second largest party in parliament.
I think the absolute worst thing is seeing what happens in the U.S. and then see our right wingers go “we should do this.”Stop and frisk was a big talking point last election. And you should see how our war on drugs is going.
I see, thank you for the heads-up. Anyway, I’m booking a plane ticket :D
But jokes apart, it’s incredible that especially a small town has so many atheists. That’s very cool.
Religion here tends to be something people keep more private. It’s not something you announce loudly, or even subtly in many cases. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone wear a cross or anything like that.
Not saying there aren’t proselytisers - my old workplace was literally next door neighbours to a JW church (and they were assholes), so there are exceptions. But they feel comparatively few and far between.
We’re not afraid to come out, we just don’t talk about it because religion isn’t important to us and we don’t feel compelled to have everyone believe in the same thing as us.
Now may you be touched by thy noodley appendage
there are totally people who dont want to be found out, cause of familial or work repercussions.
Its not uncommon for people to have to hide things like lack of faith, sexuality, “wrong” thought, etc for a variety of reasons.
Both things can be true at the same time.
It’s like disliking avocado and telling everyone you meet that you don’t like avocado. Telling someone something you’re not isn’t a character trait, so there’s no reason to bring it up.
Unless of course it’s a defense against people pushing their beliefs on you.
“You should eat this avocado”
“No thanks, I don’t like avocado”
“You’re going to go to hell for that.”
Furthermore, even if it were, people will cringe if you announce your “character traits”
One of the things that makes people dislike atheists is the tendency of atheists to mock other people’s beliefs. Things like the flying spaghetti monster, noodley appendages, etc, are atheist inventions designed to make fun of other people’s beliefs.
You have the right to make these kinds of jokes, but other people have the right to not like you for making jokes that are mocking them. But without the mean spirited memes, there’s nothing else that atheists have going on and communities like this wouldn’t exist.
Right, it’s not like there aren’t billions and billions of religious nutters out there. I mean I don’t see aethiests killing people for believing in a fairy god monster and yet if you said you’re an atheist in Saudia Araiba etc you’d be killed. The fuck sort of tolerating intolerace is that?
Aethiets are pushing up not down, mocking people for believing in fairy tales seems a very sensible reaction ? especially when they inevitably double down on their nonsense.
“One of the things that makes people dislike religious folk is the tendency of believers to destroy entire relationships over violating dogma, breaking families and refusing to support children.”
…which is to say, let’s not clutch our pearls over jokes, especially those made by communities that are often very scarred by religious abuse. “Punching up” isn’t the problem here.
And their right to tell people that their immoral and going to hell gives atheists the right to mock them.
And you’re also entirely wrong about atheist groups only existing for making memes. I’ve seen many conversations in atheist communities that are people discussing religion, the motivation to hold a belief, metaphysics and epistemological theories, history, biology, physics, anthropology and so on. People in other atheist communities (eg ex-Christian, ex-Muslim) do that as well.
I have to think you know little to nothing about the topic.
Have you ever heard how religionists talk about atheists? I respect the right of people to believe whatever they believe, but I don’t have to respect their actual ridiculous beliefs. Bringing up the FSM, which is specifically aimed at dismantling the absurdism of creationism, is pretty funny. Are you a creationist? My dad was a real Christian minister, and while I don’t believe as he did, I would never mock his actual Christian beliefs. But I’ll mock the idiotic beliefs of fake-Christian creationists any time I tell like it.
Someone needs a hug, our noodley overlord gives the best hugs!
I see no more need to announce I don’t believe in the Christian god than there I see need to announce I don’t believe in Zeus. Both questions are completely irrelevant to my life
If I ever say it I specifically say “I don’t believe in any gods.” It’s not that I don’t believe in theirs specifically. They don’t believe in any others, so what’s the difference?
Not many Polytheistic Greeks trying to outlaw medicine in my neck of the world tho.
While they’re both similarly lacking evidence and therefore irrelevant, christianity is unfortunately still relevant, as it is being used as a justification for religious based laws nonstop.
Whether you like it or not, your reproductive rights (regardless of sex/gender) are on the line thanks in large part to christianity. Therefore it’s almodt certainly relevant to you. Same goes for a myriad of other social issues.
I mean in the US at least, it could become VERY dangerous to not be an evangelical Christian cultist. (Much less a atheist)
If the Orange Man becomes dictator in November, shit is going to get bad quickly.
If the Orange Man becomes dictator in November, shit is going to get bad quickly.
I’m ethnically Jewish. My daughter is half-Jewish and queer. My wife is a librarian. We’re all atheists.
Needless to say, we’re making contingency plans.
My wife is a librarian.
I’m sorry but that gave me a chuckle.
Holy cow!
Which is quite fascinating since he’s made it very obvious that he himself doesn’t know jack shit about Christianity and that he’s not a believer. I’m an atheist myself and I’ve never seen a person more lost and uninterested when speaking about Christianity than him.
Really reminds me of the Association of German National Jews and their sad decision to endorse Adolf Hitler. We’re frequently presented with the assertion that people, in-general, are rational when they evidentially are not.
Christians know and do not care. All that matters is that they have more control.
You are describing any fundamentalist regardless of their religion
He’s describing the ones that are currently trying to bring us back to the middle age
I’d argue that most people in government feel very similarly to Trump in regards to religion, they just know its a powerful tool to use.
“If” 😪
A 2017 study found that people believe atheists are more likely to be serial killers than believers, even though federal data suggests they are far less likely to commit crimes than religious people.
Hmm.
One group uses the threat of eternal damnation to compel moral behaviour, the other has no external compulsion*.
Which group is likely to have more “good” members?
* Yeah, laws? Social etiquette?
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i think this probably has more to do with serial killers having disregard for shit in general, than atheists having disregard for religion.
Statistically it checks out that someone who doesn’t care about torture, murder, and violence, probably gives even less of a shit about religion lol.
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@ChunkMcHorkle @Lanky_Pomegranate530
35 years of faith must have been brutal mentally.
I’m Aussie so religion is not much of an issue here but I deal with it by separating the person from the faith if possible.
Belief is not a choice & I’m not convinced by biblical evidence. Feigning belief would not fool God if he exists.
My christian friends agree to disagree & we move on to other topics. I will not be the angry atheist they need me to be to reinforce their negative opinion of atheists.You were a christian scholar? Mind if I ask what sort of things you were interested in, when you were researching? I’m always curious about what the real intellectual types are pondering in their beliefs or church history.
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I used to be more forward about it, just to make sure people were aware to try to avoid awkwardness down the road. Turns out, some folks just hyper focused on it and only defined me by the one thing.
- I had one person break down crying. That was the single most awkward as I got dirty looks from other people in the room who had no idea about the conversation.
- I’ve had multiple people tell me I’m unworthy of love and commitment. And while not said, by their actions might as well, unworthy of basic respect.
- I’ve had multiple people try “converting” me.
- I’ve had some people send people to my homes and stalk me. Primary reason I have a Nest doorbell and want to know exactly when someone is going to show up to visit.
- I’ve had multiple people try various intimidation tactics to try to “convince” me to join their church.
- I had one person bust out laughing at me when I said I more closely line up with secular humanism.
- I was questioned multiple times why I’d show up to someone’s wedding… (not a wedding crasher, they basically assume only religious people get married, and that atheists cannot support others in their life paths)
I’ve since stopped telling people or making it even known at all.
This was my thing. I’m not a atheist, but the moment I talk about religion, it becomes “the thing”. I imagine this is what vegans have to deal with, like the moment they share… It becomes a shit show of people questioning everything. And like bruh, let them eat vegan marshmellows and pray to Cthulhu.
What planet do you live on where vegans keep it to themselves? They’re almost as bas as Linux users.
Oh cute, the vegans don’t shut up cliche. Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue if y’all just stopped abusing animals.
And don’t forget to install Linux.
I didn’t meant to type a long wall of text but here goes anyway.
Yeah, people here are dismissive of the news headline, but I have a similar experience coming out as agnostic atheist. Luckily, I did not get as much as negative experience as you have, but when I came out, I was tried to be invited twice on separate occasions into Christian prayer meetings. Naive me didn’t realise that both invitations are more like trying to get me “back into the flock”.
On the second invitation, I went along just to see how it was. After the second prayer session I attended, I said don’t want to go anymore. I had a long “debate” with the pastor on the phone to try to make me at least a believer in any religions. There was a bit of condescension in the conversation and kind of implied I am going to hell. The thing is, or rather problem for him, is that I don’t feel or see whatever religious folks see even when I was going to church. So, I don’t feel at least bit intimadated by threat of hell. The OG Judaism and Old Testament don’t even believe in hell so why should Christians and Muslims do as well?
Not to mention, religions across the world have conflicting claims of historical and scientific realities. If they all conflict with each other and could not agree which is the correct one, then religions themselves are false. If there are universal scientific truth to each of their claims and basis, then one religion in one part of the world should have the same or similar accounts to another religious belief on the other side of the world. But that is not the case.
I told the last paragraph to the pastor and we were pushing back each other. I do not like to de-convert people from religion but he was trying to re-convert me so I laid down all the heavy stuff to him, despite signalling that I don’t want to continue the conversation in the first twenty minutes.
I admit that I have had cognitive dissonance the following day and think “what if I’m wrong?” I simply re-think back that religious accounts conflict with each other and therefore not real. Also, it dawned on me that my emotions is probably more that I feel offended trying to be re-converted and being condescended. Conversely, the pastor must have thought I am a devil tempting him away from religion, lol.
Since then, I don’t tell people I’m agnostic atheist. Christians (and Islam) feel religious obligations to convert as many people as possible. That’s how they survive. I didn’t think much about proselytising before but I realised that the practice is rather condescending and gives them superiority complex. This is not to say that there aren’t militant atheist, but the religious zealots are more adamant from what I observed.
Where in the hell do you live?
Minnesota
Rural or urban? Have you tried saying, “I’m not religious”, there is a lot of fear mongering around the word “atheist.”. I only occasionally get a negative response from saying “I’m not religious”, but more frequently get a negative response when I used to say “I’m atheist”. However, it’s easy to say nothing about religion in Minnesota, I find most people avoid uncomfortable topics here.
I’ve lived in both rural and urban. Rural was worse by far (I don’t think that will surprise anyone). In the rural areas is where the stalking was the absolute worst. When I was a kid, I’d have strange men stop their cars and walk up to me, stop me from whatever I was doing and just demand to pray with me… then they’d leave. When I got older, a guy from a local church was stalking me at work and at my apartment.
In the metro, I’ve only had two show up that I know of (before the ‘answering the door procedure’ was put into effect).
When I just go with “I’m not religious” I’ve gotten mixed results, but yeah I’ve tried. I still try to avoid bringing it up unless directly asked
sounds like America
Sure as hell isnt here in Massachusetts.
Meh once you get out of camberville it’s not hard to find trump stickers and conservatives. I personally don’t really travel west of Springfield (or Worcester really) but I’m sure it gets worse
Same. There’s no benefit and everything to loose causally coming out. Most people will just assume you’re part of their religion, so it’s not like you even have to lie about it most places.
The US is a wild wild place. So backwards in many ways.
And forward in others, a extremely dynamic mix of cultures.
Yes. Meanwhile in SOVIET RUSSIA… Even Soviet Russia was not so backwards as USSA.
yeah, I’d pick the US over Russia (at any point in history) every single time.
What if you’re black?
Russia is a lot more racist than the US lol
LOL
What is it with people like you that can’t see the difference between valid criticisms of a good country and an actual shit hole dictatorship?
The boldest claim to make when it comes to the existence of a “god” is that we don’t know. No one fucking knows. One thing I do know is that the fundamentals of physics are beautiful no matter how it came to be. People hate not being able to explain things so they made shit up as they went, such that the idea of “god” was created.
It’s not 50/50, though. Religions have repeatedly proven to have 0 predictive power, which skews the probabilities drastically in favour of atheism.
Also there are thousands of religions over the course of history, and they’re almost always mutually exclusive. If all else is equal, the odds of any one being right is essentially zero. Being religious has an almost 0% chance of being right even if there is a right religion, so what’s the point?
To paraphrase Ricky Gervais, I only believe in one less religion than you. There are 1000 religions, and any religious person only believes in one of them and disregards the remaining 999. I disregard all 1000 of them, are we really so different?
Not only that, through the study of history we know how many cults and religions were created to begin with, which lends a lot of credence to other religions being created by humans as well.
Could a / multiple gods exist? Well it is possible. How or what that exactly is we don’t know, we can’t know. God could be a developer or system administrator. God could be you where you are really the only real thing in this universe you have in your mind. God could be the laws of physics.
In that aspect, I see the religious more like people with little knowledge and even less creativity as they just stick with what was invented thousands of years ago
This is called agnosticism. It’s great. If there is a god or God or gods it’s not really “my” place to concern myself with them. There is no way to prove whether or not they exist. I was baptized as a child and i do not actually deny God (according to Christianity this is a cardinal sin) so by the tenants of Christianity if they are correct I’m eligible to go to heaven. Besides that I generally just aim to be an alright person doing outlandish things like treating others how I wish to be treated, and not stealing while sometimes volunteering at the local animal or homeless shelter.
If some pearl clutching Christian who pays lip service to God is going to get into heaven over me, I kinda don’t want to go there anyway. I think I mostly stopped being a Christian because the sheer cognitive dissidence other Christians were causing for me with their actions was just too much for me to handle.
We do know. In order for the question of “does X exist in the real world” to even be relevant you’d need to coherently define X as a concept, and God fails even that test. Ask ten people what God is and you’ll get fifteen different answers.
Nobody but mathematicians speak in proofs. Not X just means I have sufficient reason to Believe X is either explicitly false or insupportable such that I am confident in my position.
I could dish out an encyclopedia of fabrications that you couldn’t prove or disprove mad libs style without sense or sanity and you could still confidently call me full of shit.
With every other position maybe X doesnt mean I cannot write a math proof that X is false it means there is a reasonable chance of X and yet when someone says not God 12 people discover an entire different standard.
When I say not god I don’t mean maybe god nor do I regard this as an extraordinary position.
When i lived in big cities on the West coast i was open in my Atheism. Now that i live in rural Michigan… I keep it to myself
America as a whole needs to ensure following secular ideals for its public policies and laws.
I don’t mind people using religion in their personal lives for whatever reason, but it does seem like there’s a delusion driven community level effect that leaks out from temples, churches, mosques etc. It seems most of these people “mean well” but they don’t realize how much unintentional harm they’re doing. The Satanic temple type people adding fuel to the fire of religious zealots are making things worse.
In general, I hope it becomes taboo and outlawed to base rules or laws around mythology-based scripture. Where is this social movement? I get fuck cars and all, but secular humanism is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
your yearly PSA on the TST and COS:
some clarification here. The satanic temple, or the TST as it’s known is actually really based, while it is “satanic” that’s mostly a funny haha thing, the majority of it is mostly based around being a religion that isn’t awful. I.E. being nice to people, because you should do that.
A lot of flak they’ve gotten is for things like putting a satanic club into a school (that school had a bible study club) and various other shenanigans, notably the one satan con thing they had, where people protested, but inside it was pretty chill. It’s performance art and statement pieces primarily, which are perfectly apt, i feel. Freedom of religion and all. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Anyway, the point i came here to make was that the TST is the good one, and the church of satan, or COS, is the less based one, for instance, they believe that consuming blue cheese makes you gay. That’s like the religion religion one. Nobody likes that one.
Thanks for the clarification. Tbh, I just don’t like anything that markets itself as a religion
as a staunch believer in many a thing related to freedom, this is always something that irks me whenever it crops up. So i make this a habit from time to time.
That’s totally fair though, TST is kind of like the modern anti-religion. it’s only considered a religion because it would need to be in order to be an anti-religion. Personally that’s why i really like it, it’s primary purpose is respecting people, and it’s secondary purpose is to make a statement in regards to religion. Which i think is productive.
Maybe that’s just because i enjoy sociology and this is particularly involved in that sphere. But it is what is.
Their whole point is to show the negative sides of allowing religion exceptions or rules. The marketing is a tool.
secular humanism is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
Don’t you realise you basically sound the same as someone saying
Chrisrian Nationalism is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
Islamic Sharia is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
In general, I hope it becomes taboo and outlawed to base rules or laws around mythology-based scripture.
In a democracy, if there is a sizable Christian population, it makes sense for them to base laws around Christian values. Same if there was a sizable amount of Muslims, Hindus, etc. It doesn’t make sense to give Atheism a special status above all of them as some form of “arbiter of morality”
Secular just means not structured around religion. It makes sense for a democracy to be secular as its constituents come from different religions
Humanism just means finding morality and ethics based on humanitarian ideals instead of from religious doctrine
I am not sure how you think Atheism has anything to do with the above, but yes atheists would be the most likely ones to invoke ideas of secular humanism
The reason it’s even a normalized idea that government should be secular is bc it is a better arbiter of morality. For one it is not dogmatic. More bluntly science and mathematics have validity beyond what any religion can offer.
Secularists have gotten pretty dogmatic about things, claiming that some ideas they disagree with is “religious interference” despite the ideas also having secular justification as well.
As a quasi-religious person I do agree that public policy and moral imperatives should have a secular basis. For example, when people look back at this point in history they’re going to see a particularly nasty stain in the way that 99% of the human population is responsible for a sort of perpetual holocaust of many other species of animal, all for nothing more than a little gluttonous sensory pleasure. That kind of morality is easily argued on a secular basis for all the substantial harms those lifestyles cause, and the sheer amount of tangible benefits for choosing a better way.
But secular policy is dangerous if it does not also support religious plurality. When one or two belief systems dominate, they invariably oppress smaller groups. Diversity of belief is a natural buffer against that.
That said, a religion does not necessarily need to base its exegesis on interpretation of arbitrarily chosen writings. One of the best things religious groups can do for themselves now days, if they want to adapt to the times and survive into the future, is embrace the scientific method in their own ways. Evolution shows us that the things that aren’t willing to change and adapt die.
The issue is core tenants of basically all major religions are incompatible with the scientific method.
That’s only true of institutions that are unwilling to change. Every major religion has sub-branches and other variant communities that have entirely different sets of doctrines, some more progressive than others.
Saying ‘i don’t believe in any of the mainstream man made higher.powers’ is coming out? Strange times we live in.
Strange times in strange places.
In the American “Bible belt” being known as an atheist is becoming a social pariah.
It can put your employment at risk.
In the 1960s and 1970s only scientists were ardent atheists and they had their own social circles. But there was a strong left-wing / liberal wing of Christian congregations, and nones and I don’t knows (the majority of atheists today) would assert affiliation with one of those churches. You didn’t even have to attend.
But yeah asserting a lack of faith was something teens did to be edgy. At the same time ghosts and alien visitors were thought to be real. Girls were suspended for practicing witchcraft.
Some folk believed the Dungeons and Dragons manuals featured real demon-summoning rituals that could summon real demons. Lawyers got a red phone to Satan around the time they bought their first Porsche 911. Carl Sagan was alive and cried.
No it’s not lol. I’m from Kentucky, and unless you work at a church or something nobody will care outside maybe your family if they’re super religious.
I’m from Ohio and I’ve never felt comfortable talking about my lack of belief in a higher power the same way people who do believe in one do. Will it get me fired? I don’t know because I don’t talk about it with people at work. But I know that people would treat me differently if they knew.
It might be your specific community, or mine, but I’ve never felt that.
Yeah everyone is going to have different experiences. The fact that you have had a different one than me doesn’t mean either of ours are not valid.
poor default country problem.
I stopped mentioning my atheism because it’s so common among my sociodemographic environment that it’s not anything interesting.
If anything, when casually cracking another “religion bad” joke at work, I’d better check if someone is maybe religious, and I really don’t want to insult them.
– millennial yurobro
duh. conservatives control both parties.
bOtH SiDeS?!
Well which one is the party of…? Corporations? War? Prisons? Prohibition?
It’s all controlled opposition.
And corruption. You forgot corruption.
