# Atheists: What Is You Attitude Toward Religion **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 10, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251 "2010-09-10T01:32:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/41 "2010-09-10T17:46:55Z")
I’m not against religion per se, it is just factually wrong to the extent it makes claims about the world. Religion allows people to inflate their personal beliefs and ethics into the rules of the creator of the universe. When those beliefs and ethics are good (which they often are) this might actually lead to more good - when they are evil they lead to more evil. The problem is when the fact that a person chooses a faith because it matches beliefs gets lost and it is assumed that the particular faith is the only true one - by faith, and so don’t bother us with ethical arguments or facts. So I’m against religion only to the extent it is used as an excuse for evil by those wishing to do evil, or is used to make the sheep follow without logical thought. If all religionists were ethical, it would be fine - still incorrect but fine. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/42 "2010-09-10T17:47:56Z")
I had to choose “other”: I think that generally speaking, religion is a negative influence on humanity and encourages the worst in people more often than it does the best. However, It is also a great source of beautiful concepts, art, music, architecture, and imaginative stories that are part of our shared culture. Given my choice, I would like to live in a world where religion was tolerated but had no political standing, nor received any manner of support from government. All religious officials would be allowed a fixed yearly budget cap by the state that may not exceed the mean income of a family. Their places of worship would have to be completely funded through private donations and must pay taxes. They may only include worship space. I would like to see it relegated to a quaint practice of our earlier years as a species. ---
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/43 "2010-09-10T18:14:52Z")
I guess I stopped believing around the same time I found out about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I have one of those crystal-clear recollections of a moment in the past: Standing in church at the age of six or seven (can pin in it down because we moved before I was eight), fidgeting around while people were singing, I saw a man behind us with that peculiar look of religious rapture. I tugged at my mother’s dress and whispered “Mommy, these people really believe this stuff!” For most of my life I have simply felt that religion is goofy; never managed to come up with a better word. I was always content to just let them be. I sometimes puzzled over why I should show respect to people who chose to believe goofy stuff, but I usually did, more or less automatically nodding and smiling toward preachers and nuns and the like. The past few years my feelings are changing. I now think a lot more about the dangers of religion; I’m less content to just let them be … mostly, I guess, because so many of them are not content to just let me be. And I’m not just talking about “them”, I’m talking, too, about “us”. I’m seeing what appears to be dangerous religious fanaticism in both major political parties; the Republicans seem to be overrun with Christian extremists looking to fight a holy war and the Democrats apply their quasi-liberal pseudo-atheism with the open-mindedness of Nancy Grace. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/44 "2010-09-10T18:20:12Z")
I said other. I don’t think religion should be mixed up with politics. Otherwise, I have no problems with it at all. I even participate in religious rites from time to time, just for the tradition. There are a lot of different religious beliefs in my family, from strong atheist to devout orthodox Jew. We all get along just fine. The vast majority of the time, our different beliefs are not even an issue. Because of the harmony in our family, I really don’t understand why religion always creates such a heated argument on this message board. I’m like, “Whatever you believe is fine with me.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/45 "2010-09-10T18:49:16Z")
**Curtis** , what’s with all the religious threads lately? Seriously, do you have some kind of witnessing quota at your church or something? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/46 "2010-09-10T22:34:50Z")
I think evolutionary psychology offers the best explanation of religion moreso than any of the religious ideas floating around. So I do not consider most religious beliefs to be valid. My main opposition to religion is authoritarianism, xenophobia and bigotry. Currently religion seems to be a magnet for people with these attitudes (at least for Abrahamic religions like Islam and Christianity). I tend to believe the fact that the US is so much more religious than western europe is partly why our society is in worse shape than europe (higher teen pregnancy, no universal health care, more aggression). But the two could be disconected. I would consider my loyalty to secular humanism more important than my agnosticism. So a religious person like William Jennings Bryan or Martin Luther King jr. is ok with me because they supported humanist agendas. So I’d be in category 1. I don’t take religion seriously, and generally don’t mind it unless it is being used to promote authoritarianism. Then again secular authoritarianism (like Stalin promoted) is also something I oppose. I’d side with a democratic, humanist group of religious fundamentalists against Stalin or Pol Pot any day. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/47 "2010-09-10T23:41:51Z")
Where’s the option for “think pretty much everyone who is religious is crazy, that crazy being proportional to their strength of belief, and really wish I could opt out of the whole system but can’t so I just attempt to tolerate them all and think evil thoughts wishing their demise”? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/48 "2010-09-10T23:49:19Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I’m an atheist, but I tolerate religion and even take part in some religious rites (I don’t believe, but I do fast on Yom Kippur, for instance). I don’t tell them what to believe and, as long as they don’t tell me what to believe, they can believe what they want. Just like me, in fact. I will also fast. But I chose other because I think the fundamentalists completely misread the bible. Yes, there are things like stoning adulterers, but also things like Do you kill and fundamentalists seem to love to kill. But I don’t object to benign forms of religion, although I think they are misguided. But don’t get me started on the pope. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/49 "2010-09-11T00:20:32Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > **Curtis** , what’s with all the religious threads lately? Seriously, do you have some kind of witnessing quota at your church or something? No, nothing like that. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I think evolutionary psychology offers the best explanation of religion moreso than any of the religious ideas floating around. So I do not consider most religious beliefs to be valid. > > My main opposition to religion is authoritarianism, xenophobia and bigotry. Currently religion seems to be a magnet for people with these attitudes (at least for Abrahamic religions like Islam and Christianity). I tend to believe the fact that the US is so much more religious than western europe is partly why our society is in worse shape than europe (higher teen pregnancy, no universal health care, more aggression). But the two could be disconected. > > I would consider my loyalty to secular humanism more important than my agnosticism. So a religious person like William Jennings Bryan or Martin Luther King jr. is ok with me because they supported humanist agendas. > > So I’d be in category 1. I don’t take religion seriously, and generally don’t mind it unless it is being used to promote authoritarianism. Then again secular authoritarianism (like Stalin promoted) is also something I oppose. I’d side with a democratic, humanist group of religious fundamentalists against Stalin or Pol Pot any day. Although I don’t think William Jennings Bryan would call his views “humanist”. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/50 "2010-09-11T00:52:15Z")
Bryan was a leader of the progressive movement in the turn of the century. He fought for economic justice, women’s rights, progressive taxes, etc. Those are humanist values. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/51 "2010-09-11T00:53:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > > > Just for once give the credit/blame to the FSM, and the teachings of Sheldon Cooper or - I dunno - Lemmy? > > I think it pretty much goes without saying that all human achievement can be credited to Lemmy. Lemmy on why he joined a band “It’s better than sitting around with your thumb up your arse and your brain in neutral” Gospel! ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/52 "2010-09-11T01:00:14Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Bryan was a leader of the progressive movement in the turn of the century. He fought for economic justice, women’s rights, progressive taxes, etc. Those are humanist values. I know. I’m saying he wouldn’t want it to be called “humanist” but rather “Christian” or “Christlike”. Also he did oppose the teaching of evolution in schools and fired all non-Christians in the State Department as Secretary of State. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/53 "2010-09-11T01:44:29Z")
I haven’t read any of the thread before posting this. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > 1. These atheists are largely against fanatics rather than believers in general. They believe for instance the Bible does allow homosexuality or other liberal views and thus that religious liberals are right. They sometimes slightly envy religious people for their “faith” and think of Jesus or Buddha and so on as good moral teachers. I’m not against [most] believers personally. Also, Jesus and Buddha as far as I can see did their best, but they’re very far from being good moral teachers. > [@](#): > > 1. These atheists are against religion but are mostly concerned about fundamentalists. They do think if we go accurately by religious Scripture the fundamentalists/Evangelicals are right. But they still do encourage liberals as a bulwark against fanatics as long as they don’t take the Bible literally. All the currently popular religions are at least misguided, and the framework that religion provides is wrong and potentially dangerous and as such should be criticized. > [@](#): > > 1. These atheists are against all religion. They strongly agree that going by religious Scripture that the fundamentalists/Evangelicals are right (ie if we take the Bible literally we should stone adulterers) and that liberals are not much better and just cynical panderers who have modified their positions to appeal to their public. They think all religious belief are dangerous and delusional. The idea that any of the popular holy works are correct is obviously extremely dangerous once you actually read them. Picking and choosing sections is good, if you’re so limited that you have to pick and choose instead of discarding the whole work as obvious fantasy, but it’s the very least you can do. And if you do, you’re still enabling the mentally ill who take all of it seriously. I prefer people to stand by their professed creeds or take the objections seriously. Either the bible is true and has moral weight or it is not and it has not. You can’t at the same time claim the works are “divinely inspired”, whatever that means, and that some parts of it are metaphor only because they are scientifically or morally wrong. So I picked #3 even though it’s not exactly the position I hold. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/54 "2010-09-11T04:44:19Z")
Another vote for other. I agree with what several people have already said - I have no opposition to religion and have no problem with people following their own religious practices. What I don’t like is when religious people try to impose their religious practices on non-believers. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/55 "2010-09-11T07:52:53Z")
> [@Mach Tuck](#): > > That’s a rather narrow scope of choices. I think this would have been better as an open ended question. > > As an atheist, it’s very important to me that we should have freedom of, and from, religion. I think we all hold people should have the freedom to believe what they like, but that has little to do with my attitude toward religion. I say people have the right to wear socks with sandals, but my attitude toward such dress… > [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I wish I was more ‘live and let live’ on this issue, but I believe the Christian religion is bad for poor and undereducated black people, especially poor and undereducated black children. So, I am a bit too militantly anti-religious. Yes’m. I used to be one of the “live and let live folks.” Believe what you want, just don’t bother me, etc. But there’s no such thing as religion just not bothering me; it bothers everyone. I truly believe it is doing more harm, _to the world at large_, than good. I believe we’ve had similar upbringings. If you tell me your father is an irascible WWII veteran, and your mother is some crazy Costa Rican woman, I’ll be certain that my sister is posting here. I got really lucky on the religious front being raised by a guy who is older than Jimmy Carter, and woman from Central America, you know, the people who regularly see visions of Jesus in rice grains and tortillas. Anyway, I am certain, 100% certain, --splitting tens at the blackjack table certain!-- that the lives of the folks in my old neighborhood would be markedly better if they’d stop with the god crap. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen people wave away problems with “I’ll pray about it.” What? You are seriously entrusting all of your woes in this god person? Riddle me this: why hasn’t this “god” guy helped you yet then? Oh, that’s right. It may seem like he’s not helping you, but he works in mysterious ways, and it’s all part of his hazy ass, cosmic plan that involves you dying poor and hungry. More seriously, I’d much rather forsake the dollars, and have people entrust the solutions to their problems to themselves. These conversations always remind me of a story by Julia Sweeney, in which she recounts her conversion from Roman Catholicism to atheism. When she describes her Come to Jesus Moment (heh), she declares something like “Oh my God! There’s no God!” Then she goes on to wonder about all the wronged people in the world, the falsely imprisoned for example, who have relied on prayer and god to help them. She wonders frantically, “Who’s going to help them?!” The aforementioned are not direct quotes, but out of curiosity, I just went to my bookshelf to grab the story, and will now transcribe. [QUOTE=Julia Sweeney] Then I thought: “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What about those people who are unjustifiably jailed somewhere horrible, and they’re in solitary confinement and all they do is pray? This means that they’re praying to nobody. Is that possible?” And then I thought, “We gotta do something to get those people outta jail!” Because no one else is looking out for them but us; no God is hearing their pleas. And I guess that goes for really poor people too, or oppressed people. [/QUOTE] > [@Guinastasia](#): > > **Curtis** , what’s with all the religious threads lately? Seriously, do you have some kind of witnessing quota at your church or something? LOL, “lately.” Does he do anything else? ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/56 "2010-09-11T09:53:09Z")
#3 is closest to how I feel, if not entirely accurate. I despise religion but not the religious. I have religious friends, one of whom I’m going to be rooming with soon and he’ll be hanging his Jesus pictures in the living room and that doesn’t bother me one bit. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/57 "2010-09-11T10:00:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Another vote for other. I agree with what several people have already said - I have no opposition to religion and have no problem with people following their own religious practices. What I don’t like is when religious people try to impose their religious practices on non-believers. Another “Me Too” post. Your categories are so narrow and just completely miss the mark. I would go my entire life without ever thinking of religion if it didn’t periodically get forced down my throat. I don’t care what people believe - bully for them! - and I only get my back up when I feel like religious people are trying to legislate or otherwise enforce religious rules on _everyone_. That makes me seethe and whine for a while before I settle back into my default state of “Don’t care what you believe, don’t want to know about it”. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/58 "2010-09-11T13:30:39Z")
Somewhere between #1 and #2. Probably closer to #2, but I voted #1, because, hey, can’t we all get along? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/59 "2010-09-11T13:39:03Z")
Sorry, I clicked on #3, but meant to click on “Other.” Guess I’ll have to pray for forgiveness. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251/60 "2010-09-11T17:34:39Z")
> [@Cazzle](#): > > Your categories are so narrow and just completely miss the mark. I would go my entire life without ever thinking of religion if it didn’t periodically get forced down my throat. It’s a problem I’ve noticed some Christians have - they define atheism as the opposition to Christianity. Which is no more true than saying that Christianity is the opposition to Buddhism. Atheists aren’t Christians and Christians aren’t Buddhists but they define themselves but what they are not by what they aren’t. The vast majority of atheists do not consider themselves as anti-Christians or non-Christians - atheists do not define themselves in Christian terms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-what-is-you-attitude-toward-religion/553251.md?page=4)