Well, as an atheist, I do see the occasional rabid “foaming at the mouth” atheist which is rather disappointing. And there was one atheist group on the news a while back which was protesting against a monument at Ground Zero, which consisted of pieces of two of the buldings’ girders meeting at a right angle (in other words, forming a cross). The atheist group was protesting against this monument or sculpture or whatever it was. So, some of us atheists will protest against structures that non-atheists would like to see built.
But the local news can be quite funny about atheists. There was a news report that was basically “Hey, OMG, atheists exist!” And they interviewed the very sane and calm leader of a local atheist group who did a reasonable job in trying to counter a silly claim that was being presented (“Atheists hate God”) in the limited amount of time and short sound-bites that he was given.
But back to the OP:
When someone you know is suffering from a delusion, it is hard not to try to dissuade them from their delusion. If you have a friend who is a Truther or a Birther or some other insane conspiracy theorist, you may wish to show them the silliness of their beliefs. If you know someone who thinks that 2+2=3, you may wish to try to correct their erroneous belief. It is hard not to want to “fix” people. The sillier their belief, the more one wants to intervene, for their sake.
And when those beliefs affect others in a severely negative way, it seems even more imperative to try to get them to change their beliefs. That’s where the racism comparison that others have mentioned comes into play. And, while religious beliefs don’t necessarily equate to anti-atheism hatred on the level of racism, it does tend to lead in that direction, at least in the USA.
In my experience the people I have met that are against gay marriage (and for the record, I am not one of them. I am not in support of Prop 8 either, I just don’t care either way.) and have made their opinions known don’t attach a qualifier when expressing their opposition. I never hear them say something like “It’s against God’s will, they will go to hell” things. However I do know that there are those out there that do that, I just don’t think it is the norm as you claim.
I really believe that the “Bible Thumping” crowd you talk about is the minority. I have seen the type, but far and few between amongst the people I come in contact with.
Some might say so of “kill”, “imprison” and “castrate”, too. I’m an atheist who would also like to see some examples of ITR’s claims about the posts on this board.
And I’m Canadian, thus not affected by the American tangling of religion and politics.
Umm, you seem to have missed the point that ITR’s “hyper-ventilating” words are pro-Christian, anti-atheist. (Go back and read them, it’s not like it’s hard to spot his viewpoint.)
Now that you know which side he’s on and which side he’s attacking, do you still see his response as “ape-shit”, or - ask yourself - does he suddenly become more reasonable because of the side he’s on?
How do you think atheists fell when atheism is brought up, and folks jump in with:
“a sizable subgroup of atheists that want to kill you or otherwise take away your rights.”
or
“atheists telling me that I am insane or stupid or brain washed and demanding that I be killed or castrated or imprisoned for the crime of not being an atheist.”
You are indeed correct that the majority of Christians are tolerant folks who don’t go out of their way to insult or hate atheists. However enough of them do. There seems to be a misconception among many Christians that atheists “hate” God. This would be equivalent to hating gremlins or hating the flying spaghetti monster. There is NO BELIEF. It’s hard to hate something you don’t believe in.
What does irritate some atheists is:
being preached at constantly in the public sphere;
being told they have no morals;
being likened to satanists;
being told they are a threat to good people;
having to hide their lack of belief due to fear;
being told they want to kill others and take away their rights;
being told that we want people killed, castrated or imprisoned for the crime of not being an atheist;
being the most hated and distrusted minority group in the United States;
being called “Ignorant, Truth-hating, Credit-theiving, Hypocrites”
Can you? Would you say that’s common? Can I see say, ten cites?
Many, if not all religious people smugly assume they belong to the *right *religion. I’m sure you think that Hindus are misguided, or that their Gods are false. The thing is, people who have overtly dedicated themselves to fantasies like Christians, Hindus, Scientologists and the rest all have something in common. It only makes sense that you’d feel a kinship with other people’s of faith. It’s like you’re Star Trek Nerds and the Hindus are Firefly Nerds. You don’t like their stuff, but you get it.
The reason atheists get involved in your discussions is that you make nonsense factual claims. If you wanna believe in your heart of hearts that Jesus is super-special, great, good for you. But if you claim, in all seriousness, that he heals the sick, you’re starting to hurt people with your delusions.
Asserting that the religion that has no evidence for it, has magical powers, or special insight into the creation of the universe, are factual claims. Asserting factual claims with no evidence is nonsense. And it should be treated like such.
What rights are atheists trying to take away? It seems a lot like Christians are the ones who want to legislate that everyone should live by the rules of Christianity.
It takes a special kind of person to be standing on the top of the pile with a bloody baseball bat screaming about how he’s being oppressed.
I don’t much get involved with religion threads, and the reason is no one is ever persuaded by anything. My main problem with religion is that people are out there passing legislation based on it.
Suppose there was a group of people who believed in Santa Claus. Fine, whatever, knock yourselves out. But then they start passing laws. I can’t have curtains in my house to aid Santa in his mission of seeing me when I’m sleeping and knowing when I’m awake. I have to go to bed early on Christmas eve as not to impede his progress. I’m compelled by law to leave out cookies and milk. It’s gone from a silly belief to an interference in my life.
Look, believe in whatever you want, I don’t care, but if I can’t buy a drink on Sunday because Jesus doesn’t like it, or any time because Allah doesn’t like it, if you’re banning pork for the Moslems and Jews or beef for the Hindus, if stem cell research is being blocked and if women have to bring forth children in pain or the teaching of evolution is effectively banned because some people don’t like it, you’re not engaged in just a harmless hobby, you’re interfering with people’s lives.
I really don’t see any logic in any of your three examples. Regarding presidential candidates, anyone (born in the USA, over 35, and not a convicted felon) can run for President. If you mean that “bend over backwards and proclaim” that they’re Christian stand of chance of getting elected, that’s not true. In 2000 the plurality of American voters chose a ticket with a Jewish VP candidate; currently the front-runner for the Republican nomination is a Mormon. More generally a democratic country is distinguished by the fact that each voter gets to choose how to vote. You may disagree with what many voters demand from candidates, but as long as the voters can demand things from candidates we’re solidly democratic and thus in no danger of becoming theocratic.
As for the claim about religion in schools, I’d have to know what exactly you’re talking about. Certainly for most of American history schools both public and private typically had prayers to start the day and at various events, included religious iconography on walls and such, and could offer religious instruction. Nowadays all of these things are illegal in public schools. So if you think that any mention of anything religious in schools constitutes movement towards theocracy, we’d certainly be moving away from theocracy on that score. Likewise with the gay rights movement, there was no gay rights movement until about forty years ago so if you view that as a measure there again we’d be moving away from theocracy.
ITR, you misquoted Locrian to some degree. Here’s the full quote from his post:
He doesn’t call for death for believers. As I read it, he calls for an eradication of the beliefs that lead to the lists of objectionable actions he called out. You’re entitled to your opinion and interpretation, but that’s all it is, and in this case I don’t think you have enough facts there to back up your interpretation very well, not in light of the fact that the third sentence in his entire post is:
He doesn’t mention getting rid of the people who practice religion, only of getting rid of religion.
In fact, he goes on to further make the point that it isn’t people he hates or wants to do away with, in the paragraph right before the one you extracted a partial quote from:
In fact, it seems to me that what you’ve done is try and use Locrian’s words in a manner that isn’t reasonably supported by any actual reading of them in order to incite hatred towards atheists.
And yet, as I think I’ve just shown, you yourself just did the same thing you accuse others of doing. You twisted a poster’s words and misquoted him to try and bolster your side and make another side look bad. You tried to imply that he said something he never said, and that no reasonable interpretation could conclude.
You may argue that you didn’t call for his death or castration or imprisonment, and in that, at least, you’d be accurate. But I don’t think you did your argument or your “side” a great service with what you did write.
Atheists going “ape-shit” at believers doesn’t happen nearly as often as you think.
When it does happen, it’s typically because the atheists in question feel threatened by the believers. This is because believers are the ones in power, and they do not typically show any propensity to give much of a damn for the atheists when it comes to exercising that power.
Well I’m only concerned with this board as that was the thrust of the OP.
so my obvious question is…where? where is this mass of unprovoked hatred at the merest hint of god. Give me links and cites that back up your claim or I’ll just dismiss what you’ve said without further thought.
I never said that he did call for death for believers. I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove by establishing that he didn’t.
In any case, I would assert that Locrian’s post is an example of an atheist being extremely hateful towards all religious persons, in a way that would have gotten him banned from the board if it were directed at, say, blacks or homosexuals. Would you agree?
The “ape-shiat” experience can be demonstrated quite clearly in ITR’s posts. I asked a simple question and instead of getting an answer logically thought out in response to it, I got an ear full of how anyone who is a Christian is a ingnorant, bible-thumping, gay bashing, Prop 8 killing human being. When I never mentioned anything about Prop8, or L/G’s but all of a sudden here it is being brought into the argument as a mean to vilify Christians. The posts seem to me to be written in anger, but maybe I am just mis-reading. Do you think that ITR’s posts are being typed in a calm, even handed manner?
As far as a Christian expressing their belief publicly, in the context of my OP the public forum I was discussing was internet disucussion forums. From my experience (YMMV) I don’t really see Christians coming forth in discussions in which the main topic isn’t religion and bashing somone. I have however, seen Atheist go absolutely ballistic if during a discussion of let’s say Automotive Repair that some how God is mentioned in passing. They will immediatly go on the attack, informing the person that they are ignorant, stupid, uneducated. It usually then continues until the term FSM (Flying Spagehtti Monster) comes up. I can’t recall that when this happens anyone preaching to the Atheiest about his views. Like I said before, I don’t care about anyone’s views, I just am curious as to the need to constantly attack and try to insult those who do believe and why it is done in such an intense manner.
Can’t tell you how disturbed that account makes me. I can certainly agree that those on the far fringe of religion are doing the moderates that comprise most of us no favors. And I am not discounting your assertion that there are those on the web that try to push religion on others. I just really haven’t seen it on the non-religious sites I frequent.
ITR congratulations on pointing that out. It certainly shows that you are not so ingrained in your views that you would let a quote that helps your view stand even if you knew it was wrong. It says a tremendous amount about your character. Good job.
I will have to respectfully have to disagree with your assumption that I am biased towards Athiest. Simply not true, in fact I welcome a respectful discussion on why there is no God. I believe in God, but certainly not a bible-thumper of any sort. I don’t have a bible in my home and don’t attend church as much as I probably should.
In short, I respect others rights to think what they want. I was hoping my origional question would not morph into a “why you should believe vs. why you shouldn’t believe” debate. To each his own. I just wanted to get an insight as to why some seem to feel the need to chime up whenever God is mentioned and why when they do it appears to be so intense.
Exactly, the vast majority of my friends and family are atheist or merely cultural C of E (and don’t actually believe in god). I have no need to have a discussion, heated or otherwise, when they seek neither to convert me, legislate on the basis on belief, or express a disagreeable opinion that stems from religious dogma.
However, when anyone does do any of the those things then yes, they will get called out on it.
It so happens that some precious souls on message boards think that their beliefs should be protected from criticism just because they believe them to be divine inspired. Nonsense. No one has a right to remain unoffended.
You wrote this in response to my post which mentioned atheists calling everyone who disagrees with them insane and brainwashed and the like. Are you trying to defend that sort of language?
Funny thing: I hear atheists making this sort of claim all the time. Yet somehow I’ve never seen a single piece of legislation which would require that everyone take the Eucharist weekly, or that everyone must confess their sins on a regular basis, or that everyone be baptized. If it’s actually true that a lot of Christians “want to legislate that everyone should live by the rules of Christianity”, could you tell me when and where this legislation was proposed? (Or better yet, why not just link to the legislation?)
If I meet anyone standing on top of a pile with a bloody baseball bat while screaming about how he’s being oppressed, I’ll let them know. (But frankly I doubt I will.)