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Reading through the threads on here, I witness one common theme: atheists giving believers a hard time and mocking their gods and faiths. The same atheists who oppose fundamentalist Christianity in the United States, or Islam as a state religion in many countries. They seem to want every country to embrace atheism as a state "religion" but we all saw how well that worked out for the Soviet Union.
I'm not a religious person, but I find it really obnoxious. You people are no less annoying than the fundamentalist Christians who want to make their religion a part of our laws and use them to rewrite American history. Until these Moderator cut: deleted attitudes go away on both sides, we will never be able to function well as a society.
Last edited by june 7th; 06-12-2014 at 07:06 AM..
Reason: Rude or accusatory comments within posts are deleted.
Yes, making a big deal out of not believing in god is pretty much as obnoxious as making a big deal about believing. I will say this though in mitigation, in a world where religiosity is on the rise, with a high rate of doctrinaire religionists, it's easy to understand why some atheists get boring.
Reading through the threads on here, I witness one common theme: atheists giving believers a hard time and mocking their gods and faiths. The same atheists who oppose fundamentalist Christianity in the United States, or Islam as a state religion in many countries. They seem to want every country to embrace atheism as a state "religion" but we all saw how well that worked out for the Soviet Union.
I'm not a religious person, but I find it really obnoxious. You people are no less annoying than the fundamentalist Christians who want to make their religion a part of our laws and use them to rewrite American history. Until these Moderator cut: Orphaned attitudes go away on both sides, we will never be able to function well as a society.
When the religious right declared that God was a Republican and made Christianity a tool for political activism, Christians placed a target on their beliefs and have no right to complain about the backlash. Live and let live died with the founding of the Moral Majority in the late 70's and it's decision to politicize Christian believers. If Christians want to stand on their make believe politically, then they have every right to experience their make believe to being kicked right out from under them in response.
Reading through the threads on here, I witness one common theme: atheists giving believers a hard time and mocking their gods and faiths. The same atheists who oppose fundamentalist Christianity in the United States, or Islam as a state religion in many countries. They seem to want every country to embrace atheism as a state "religion" but we all saw how well that worked out for the Soviet Union.
I'm not a religious person, but I find it really obnoxious. You people are no less annoying than the fundamentalist Christians who want to make their religion a part of our laws and use them to rewrite American history. Until these Moderator cut: Orphaned attitudes go away on both sides, we will never be able to function well as a society.
What's obnoxious is people likening atheists to fundamentalists when the two aren't in any way similar. Atheists aren't the ones trying to legislate their beliefs into law and they aren't the ones trying to get others to believe they're evil and worthless. Equating atheists with fundamentalists only shows you are unfamiliar with fundamentalist Christianity.
Reading through the threads on here, I witness one common theme: atheists giving believers a hard time and mocking their gods and faiths. The same atheists who oppose fundamentalist Christianity in the United States, or Islam as a state religion in many countries. They seem to want every country to embrace atheism as a state "religion" but we all saw how well that worked out for the Soviet Union.
I'm not a religious person, but I find it really obnoxious. You people are no less annoying than the fundamentalist Christians who want to make their religion a part of our laws and use them to rewrite American history. Until these Moderator cut: Orphaned attitudes go away on both sides, we will never be able to function well as a society.
The accusation of atheism being some kind of fundamentalist religion together with sly hints that we would end up like the Stalinist state is not new. But it is always worth being reminded of this.
I won't post the Dark Matter video about double standards (1) or maybe I will. Let me just put the rationale in order.
1) what we say makes logical and evidential sense and god -claims don't. It is our social duty to let people see the Other side of the case.
2) We are militant, because we see that religion has no business interfering in social life and its numbers and authority have to be removed. However, Fundamentalism is not the correct term as there is no atheist Dogma to be fundamentalist about. It is of course a sly hint that we are as bad, unreasoning and fanatical as the christian fundamentalists or,,random factors forbid, Islamic ones.
3) too many atheists with too much influence and we have have Stalin again. Sorry. The fault with the Stalinist state was that it was based on authoritarian dogma enforced with terror, not sound reasoning. Knowledge was suppressed as much as freedom. The increase of atheism is no more than the global increase of understanding that the word is round, not flat, and that stars are balls of gas in a nuclear conflagration, not gods with an influence on human life. Yet Astrology is still popular and not suppressed, even though it has no real influence on society and still bilks and deludes the deludable. Religion in an atheist global worldview would be like that.
I had a look at the Christian forum just now. The threads made me shake my head. The quality of thought is really poor and I am sure that those erudite and thoughtful Christians that I remember from my early years of posting, are just not in evidence. What is, is confusion about just what they are supposed to believe, plus confusion about atheism and what we believe.
On the other hand, there have been some damn' good threads by those of a more questioning style. Looking for something that makes believable sense about religion and the god -claim. (2)
I will say now that a god cannot be ruled out, and a sorta -god, a creative deist -god, or the invisible thinking force that planned and made everything (the god of Einstein) is possible. Dawkins himself said that a case can be made. That only makes such a god not impossible, it doesn't make it probable.
The claims of a god here with us are not so likely. The claims of ID (Irreducible complexity) and miracles, plus prayer, and NED's are at best still unexplained (thought voices and the feeling of a 'presence' and even the ecstatic effect of prayer/meditation is being understood) and at worst without credible foundation (Behe, Arkeology and Fatima and Knock).
The god -claims of religion and the Holy Books are less valid even than that...and when I talk about under 0ne percent probability, I mean it. The reliability of the Bible has been one of the cornerstones of religion here and as imported from the US. Bible reliability is now crumbling and the case is being made and needs to be made.
So we are not going to be made to shut up and slink away and leave religion to peddle its worthless claims to a public that, regrettably, doesn't check up such claims itself. We are not going to be unsettled by accusations of Fundamentalism (though I am militant and happy to stand up and say so) or crafty warnings about Stalin and Pol Pot.
In fact, attempts to try to smear atheism is just going to see me post and toss more pebbles into what I still suspect may be the atheist Avalanche.
(1) Billy is a Christian and isn't ashamed to say so..he boisterously spreads the good news ...he is admirable...Johnny (Jimmy?) is an atheist...if he doesn't believe, why does he bother? Why can't he let people believe what they want? He is reprehensible.
Apologies for the bloody foopball advt. The bloody World cup hasn't started yet and already I'm sick of it.
(2) Including the one about the 600% increase in Christianity in Vietnam. wouldn't that make the increase more than the entire population?...Yep. Wiki says that Christianity is 16% last count. Even knock a 'nought' off and that is over the total population.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-12-2014 at 07:17 AM..
Reason: a ''i' here, an 'a' there, and 'H' elsewhere..details, details..
What's obnoxious is people likening atheists to fundamentalists when the two aren't in any way similar. Atheists aren't the ones trying to legislate their beliefs into law and they aren't the ones trying to get others to believe they're evil and worthless. Equating atheists with fundamentalists only shows you are unfamiliar with fundamentalist Christianity.
Yes you are. Whenever an atheist campaigns and successfully forces a community to give up a religious tradition then you are trying to legislate your beliefs into law. Atheists want a society where religious ppl must only dare speak of their beliefs behind closed doors far away from public view.
Reading through the threads on here, I witness one common theme: atheists giving believers a hard time and mocking their gods and faiths.
Arguably the most "militant" atheist here is Nozz, and all he ever says in essence is that there isn't a shred of evidence for god and nothing any theist has presented here constitutes evidence. If you call that "giving believers a hard time" you are arguably correct, but what is wrong with that? Don't believers feel free to give evolutionists a hard time with their notions of ID? It is simply debate. If you don't want to debate, don't. Go over to the crocheting forum or something less controversial then.
As for "mocking god and their faiths", I'd have no more respect for Nozz than you if he were actually mocking, as in, making fun of something just to be cruel. But he has an actual point. There IS no evidence WHATSOEVER. Which makes assertions based on nothing, ridiculous. And that which is ridiculous IS worthy of ridicule (I'm speaking of ideas, not the people espousing them).
What you are bemoaning is that as a theist you are no longer tiptoed around and given the utmost deference for your ideations, you actually have to justify them. If that is unfair, mocking and cruel, then you are very thin-skinned and taking it personally and you should ask yourself why that is.
Yes you are. Whenever an atheist campaigns and successfully forces a community to give up a religious tradition then you are trying to legislate your beliefs into law. Atheists want a society where religious ppl must only dare speak of their beliefs behind closed doors far away from public view.
I am not an atheist, but that sounds nice.
Keeping your relationship with god between you and god.
Not creating a big fat scene all the gd time.
Yes you are. Whenever an atheist campaigns and successfully forces a community to give up a religious tradition then you are trying to legislate your beliefs into law. Atheists want a society where religious ppl must only dare speak of their beliefs behind closed doors far away from public view.
Generally speaking the only thing an atheist is going to succeed at "forcing a community to give up" are things they should be giving up. I would imagine that the emancipation proclamation "forced communities to give up" slavery traditions and that the imprisonment of someone for bullying / assaulting a gay person with the enabling and tacit or overt approval of the community would be "forcing the community to give up" violence and hatred and bigotry towards gays. Sad, innit?
As for your characterization of the ideal world of the atheist being one in which the religious cower in secret meetings behind closed doors and otherwise durst not even hint that they are believers, that is tosh. I'm sure that somewhere in the world is an atheist or two who actually is an intolerant bigot, and we have our fair share of self-absorbed boors, but in the overwhelming scheme of things we have zero problem with anyone believing anything they want to believe so long as they can be respectful of the differing beliefs of others in the public square. If you want to wear silly costumes, close your businesses on Thursdays or whatever, knock yourself out. We reserve the right to be bemused by such things, of course, but we could care less. So long as you don't try to make the world agree with you via things like blue laws, exemption from rules of hiring and compensation because god commands it, and things of a similar nature, then we have no problem with that.
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