Atheist zealots annoy me to no end.

[cosmosdan]

@Der Trihs

“Atheist zealots”, which means any atheist that points out the obvious, instead of pretending that absolute nonsense is something other than absolute nonsense. There is no honest, rational way of speaking about religion without insulting it, and it’s followers. Because religion is stupid, and it’s destructive, and it’s obviously so.

There’s huge difference between an honest “I don’t believe in any god or gods and personally I think it’s all nonsense” or even an honest,“I can’t understand how intelligent people believe those superstitions” and the personal insults** Lobo** chose to use.

It’s ironic and pretty humorous that you, who repeatedly spouts off your personal unfounded beliefs and pet theories as if they are facts makes this kind of statement. No matter how many times other posters including fellow atheists have pointed out your errors you steadfastly repeat them. Of course thats your privilege. It’s just a joke that you speak with such disdain when about believers doing a similar thing.
Per the OP. I don’t think there’s any real comparison between atheist zealots and believing zealots. Believing zealots have a much longer list of worse offenses. It’s healthy for all concerned to examine beliefs. I think the attention atheist authors are getting is a good thing.

[Lord_Ashtar]

@Der Trihs

“Atheist zealots”, which means any atheist that points out the obvious, instead of pretending that absolute nonsense is something other than absolute nonsense. There is no honest, rational way of speaking about religion without insulting it, and it’s followers. Because religion is stupid, and it’s destructive, and it’s obviously so.

You are most certainly allowed to hold that position, just as others are certainly allowed to find you annoying for choosing to express it at every given opportunity.

[Mosier]

@Der Trihs

What does Mao have to do with anything ? Oh, yeah, we are all supposed to pretend that Communism = atheism. In reality, Communism was a religion; one of Christianity’s “spawn” that I referred to. Just another faith based system, bloodthirsty as such systems tend to be, and insane as such systems ALWAYS are.

I’m sure that you probably really would kill me, if you could get away with it.

You have a serious martyr complex.

[Grossbottom]

Number of Christians in any given church: many.
Number of Christians in any given church self-identifying as unreasonable zealots: zero.

Number of Jews in any given temple: many.
Number of Jews in any given temple self-identifying as unreasonable zealots: zero.

Number of Muslims in any given mosque: many.
Number of Muslims in any given mosque self-identifying as unreasonable zealots: zero.

Number of atheists in this thread: many.
Number of athiests in this thread self-identifying as unreasonable zealots: zero.

Conclusion: The zealot is incapable of self-identification. Self-reporting is worthless as an identifier of zealotry or fanaticism, and observation of the behavior of other zealots will cause little or no concern to the zealot himself. Any atheist who spent time self-reporting or relying on personal observations to deny zealous atheism in this thread is probably just as susceptible to the herd mentality he or she is so proud of decrying.

Recommend: Napalm, bayonets, alcohol, and good lapsed Catholic girls who can still fit into their high school uniforms.

[MissTskTsk]

Religious zealots–I don’t like them.
Non-religion zealots–I don’t like them.
Chevy and Ford zealots–I don’t like them.
Linux and Windows zealots–I don’t like them.
Vegan and meat eating zealots–I don’t them.

Ya, pretty much any zealot bugs me, and it seems that they exist in all realms and for all topics, likes and dislikes.

I’ve always seen zealotry as an individual character flaw, one, that grossbottom just described rather neatly. They rarely recognize their own flaws.

[Czarcasm]

@MissTskTsk

Religious zealots–I don’t like them.
Non-religion zealots–I don’t like them.
Chevy and Ford zealots–I don’t like them.
Linux and Windows zealots–I don’t like them.
Vegan and meat eating zealots–I don’t them.

Ya, pretty much any zealot bugs me, and it seems that they exist in all realms and for all topics, likes and dislikes.

I’ve always seen zealotry as an individual character flaw, one, that grossbottom just described rather neatly. They rarely recognize their own flaws.

That’s nice, but you still have to admit that there are many times more religious zealots than non-religious zealots, and that the religious zealots are much more organized. It would also be nice if you could provide cites for your previous claims.

[MissTskTsk]

Actually, not really… I’m a software engineer and I’m way more affected by the Windows vs. Linux zealots. They really are intolerable, insufferable and nasty. I design for Windows, but I have no zealtous allegience to that platform. it’s a job, but I swear, some of these zealots treat the argument like a religious zealot would.

As for the previous claims, my experience comes from the fact that I’m an hobbiest jewelry designer and when traveling for work in the past, I would go out of my way to attend street fairs etc… to check out new designs. But just now… I went to google images and typed “atheist booths” and several photos in several cities popped up.

The organized humanism or atheist groups do exist, and they do “educate” people… which in my opinion, is no different from what other religious groups do. Yes, there are fewer of these atheist groups, but, there are fewer overall atheists in this world.

There are atheist zealots, I’ve met them personally… but they’re the last ones to admit they’re zealots.

My perspective is slighly different from a lot of folks perspective as well. I live in an area of the USA that is highly educated, largely secular, and it’s been said that the PNW has fewer church attenders than anywhere else in the USA… of course, this lends itself to active humanist groups for this area; something that really doesn’t ever bother me, unless they’re going to make assumptions about what my beliefs are or make an attempt to tell me what my beliefs are, in which case, I’ll feel the need to correct their incorrect assumptions.

Here’s an interesting map of the number of religious adhearents in the USA.

Interesting 2000 map

Here’s fairly comprehensive list of atheist organizations around the world and in the USA Atheist Orgs I’ve run into some of these groups, they can be pretty aggressive. I was called stupid by a member of the Oregon Rationals Society once… never mind that I’d already agreed with him regarding my support of science and evolutionary theory, I was stupid merely because I had a faith. Is the whole group like him? No, probably not, but he was a zealot.

[Gala_Matrix_Fire]

@MissTskTsk

I was called stupid by a member of the Oregon Rationals Society once… never mind that I’d already agreed with him regarding my support of science and evolutionary theory, I was stupid merely because I had a faith. Is the whole group like him? No, probably not, but he was a zealot.

That guy was no true atheist.

[MissTskTsk]

@Gala Matrix Fire

That guy was no true atheist.

He’d have argued that point with you…

[SisterCoyote]

@Triskadecamus

I think, upon reading the differing versions of “annoy me no end” threads that it’s zealots that annoy me. The flavor doesn’t matter much.

Tris

Yes. This. (Oh, look, a Me Too post on the Dope!)

Although Zealots and fanatics don’t annoy me so much as they frighten me.

[Guinastasia]

Der Trihs, let me pose a question to you: say you were in charge of a nation, and had the opportunity to ban all religious practices. Would you do so?

[Der_Trihs]

@Mosier

You have a serious martyr complex.

No, I just have a very low opinion of believers.

@cosmosdan

There’s huge difference between an honest “I don’t believe in any god or gods and personally I think it’s all nonsense” or even an honest,“I can’t understand how intelligent people believe those superstitions” and the personal insults** Lobo** chose to use.

Not really. Telling someone that they have foolish or evil beleifs is the same as calling them foolish or evil. Claiming otherwise is generally an attempt to slam people while pretending that you aren’t hostile or contemptuous of them; the old and stupid “hate the sin, love the sinner” routine. Which seldom convinces anyone save those who want to be convinced.

@Guinastasia

Der Trihs, let me pose a question to you: say you were in charge of a nation, and had the opportunity to ban all religious practices. Would you do so?

No. Doing so would be unethical, impractical, counter productive, and hypocritical.

[Lobohan]

@cosmosdan

There’s huge difference between an honest “I don’t believe in any god or gods and personally I think it’s all nonsense” or even an honest,“I can’t understand how intelligent people believe those superstitions” and the personal insults** Lobo** chose to use.

If you tell me the moon is composed of fairy shit I’ll call you a moron until I see some proof. If you tell me there is an invisible dude ready to torture me forever because I don’t telepathically kowtow to him nightly I’ll call you a spectacular fucking moron until I see some proof.

Believing absurd things with no proof is stupid. And people should look down on those who do.

So I’d also like to point out that I don’t consider myself a zealot, because I’d never hurt anyone who wants to believe in god. I would hire them if they could do the job and wouldn’t deny them housing or opportunities. I simply don’t smile and pretend like the ludicrous idea of theism is a fair choice. It’s a childish choice and I find those that choose it unworthy of respect. I know perfectly nice religious people and I’m friends with at least two, but I certainly don’t respect their intellectual integrity or reason.

[Czarcasm]

@MissTskTsk

He’d have argued that point with you…

He might…if he existed at all. Why don’t you tell us about this “Oregon Rationals Society” that he is supposedly a member of?

[Sitnam]

@MaxTheVool

So religion as a concept doesn’t make people do evil things, but it provides the framework in which particular religions, or religious leaders, can lead to evil.

Richard Dawkins point exactly. For religious leaders to point at fundamentalist extremists and say they were not acting in accordance of the true faith ignores the point, the religious institution bears some of the blame for providing the environment for those extreme ideas to flourish.

[Triskadecamus]

@Sitnam

Richard Dawkins point exactly. For religious leaders to point at fundamentalist extremists and say they were not acting in accordance of the true faith ignores the point, the religious institution bears some of the blame for providing the environment for those extreme ideas to flourish.

Much like politics.

Tris

[MissTskTsk]

@Czarcasm

He might…if he existed at all. Why don’t you tell us about this “Oregon Rationals Society” that he is supposedly a member of?

Nothing more than I met him and a couple of others from the group (who were interesting folks) through my sister who is a professor at a Portland area university. It was a faculty event.

[Mosier]

@Der Trihs

No, I just have a very low opinion of believers.

Isn’t it hypocritical to make a snide remark about how you’re “certain” someone would murder you if they had the chance, when you’ve personally made comments about how you would murder hundreds of thousands of American soldiers if you had the chance?

[Mosier]

@Der Trihs

Yeah, right. And how many millions have I killed ?

Just had to add that quote for emphasis, sorry.

The fact that you havent committed mass murder doesn’t prove you’re a decent person. It just proves you haven’t had the opportunity. In fact, you’re the only person on the board I’ve seen enthusiastically hope for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and you even went a step further and told us that murdering them would be the first thing you did with sudden hypothetical omnipotence.

[Der_Trihs]

@Mosier

In fact, you’re the only person on the board I’ve seen enthusiastically hope for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people,

Wrong. Quite a few people were for the war.

@Mosier

and you even went a step further and told us that murdering them would be the first thing you did with sudden hypothetical omnipotence.

Destroying an army of conquest and occupation isn’t murder.

Trying to compare killing people simply for what they believe, and killing them for being guilty of engaging in or helping others engage in mass murder and conquest doesn’t work. Or are you going to claim that people who shot at the invading Germans in WW II were “zealots” as well ?