This is a response to CC who threadshat in my GQ thread asking about Jewish belief in the afterlife. I didn’t care, but I’m not a mod.
Anyway, CC, you popped in and said:
You got a spanking for the remark, and replied:
And since my thread is a GQ thread I didn’t want to continue any response there, so I’m doing it here.
I don’t know how old you are, but given that you’ve been here ten years I’m guessing at least 30 or so.
And since you HAVE been here 10 years I’m surprised you would be so bold as to assert that your opinion of the possibility of an afterlife is “factual”. News for youse: facts and opinions are different. I completely appreciate that you don’t believe an afterlife is possible or exists, completely.
However, just from the standpoint of ignorance fighting, I consider it ignorant to assert that something is a fact when it is impossible to determine one way or another using widely accepted methods for testing such things, and the existence of an afterlife is impossible to determine.
I can only paraphrase, but one of my favorite quotes/ideas goes something like “It is the height of arrogance to assume that the limits of our perception constitute the limits of what there is to perceive.”
And on a second note… why would you feel the need to do that? I don’t care, but I was specifically inviting religious people to enlighten me about their beliefs, and your comment was just… rude. Why?
I kind of feel like we’re in an atheist version of a Chick tract.
Thanks, CC! I never knew that there wasn’t an afterlife! Wow, if only you hadn’t shown up to explain this to us, we all would have spent the rest of our lives deluded! You’re AWESOME.
To atheists in general: We get it. You don’t believe. We accept your disbelief. Hell, I can’t tell you on a day-to-day basis what I believe. You don’t have to enter *every *thread about religion to proclaim your disbelief. No one is going to say: *Hey, **CC *must have converted, he didn’t show up to proclaim that god doesn’t exist. You won’t lose your atheist card.
If I ask if Fallen Angels can be forgiven, there is no need to pop in and say: Angel’s don’t exist.
There is a time and place for the discussions. If there is a debate about the existence of god, that is the place.
If I ask about the *particulars *of a religion, stopping by to say: There is no god is inappropriate. The religion *does *exist and a discussion about it *can *take place, even if there is no god.
OK, so you believe that God and the Angels are a fiction. Look at it this way: in a discussion about Harry Potter, showing up to say There is no magic and Dumbledore doesn’t exist is threadshitting. I personally don’t believe that the Force exists, but I don’t jump into every single Star Wars thread to proclaim it.
You’ll be a very busy person if you stop in every thread about things that don’t exist, just to proclaim your disbelief. Give it rest.
You may be adding something factual - but you aren’t adding something relevant.
As a point of fact, there is no afterlife. Also, there is no Santa Claus, and those banner adverts won’t show you how to Get Rich Quick!!! Sorry to shatter anyone’s illusions, but, you know, fighting ignorance and all that.
I was tempted to say something in the original thread, but I bit my tongue because I didn’t want the thread to be further hijacked. But since you’ve started this one…
To CC, and anyone else who’s made similar kinds of comments in similar kinds of threads: Do you really not understand what was wrong with what you did? Do you seriously not know why it was threadshitting? Really?
If so, let me enlighten you: You provided no new information. No one was better informed than they had been as a result of reading your post. Even though you claim it’s a fact that “there is no afterlife,” everyone who agrees with you already “knows” this “fact,” and everyone who doesn’t isn’t going to be convinced by your baldly stating it. Your post was inappropriate for any GQ thread, and it was only tenuously related to the question posed by that particular thread.
I’m an atheist and my feeling is: an afterlife is extremely fucking unlikely and there is no evidence whatsoever to back one up - not to mention that many major religions disagree on its nature or if it even exists - but I cannot definitively declare there isn’t one.
Speaking for yourself there. I’m not sure who “we” is, but it’s not in my experience the majority of religious people.
Agreed, generally threadshitting.
This isn’t comparable to people discussing things to be works of fictions. Religion is believed to be real.
Incidentally, how would you regard someone showing up to, say, a 9/11 conspiracy thread which doesn’t discuss whether or not there was a 9/11, but assumes it was true and merely discusses the particulars of how it was carried out, and someone came in saying “look, guys, there was no 9/11 conspiracy”? Is that threadshitting or fighting ignorance?
Agreed, and this is the most pertinent point as to why such posts are crap.
Seriously, there is no good reason why an atheist has to be a buzzkill.
For the atheists that don’t get it, picture being a dinner guest at someone’s home. Before digging, your host asks that the invitees say grace. Instead of being respectful, you blurt out “There is no god and you’re all a bunch of deluded fools!” That doesn’t make you smart and you’re not going to convince anyone. It just makes you a rude asshole and a poor dinner guest.
I’ve always felt that people who don’t believe have a deep seeded fear of people who do believe. Otherwise, why would they bother raining on someone’s parade?
I love how in a thread taking an atheist to task for thread-shitting and adding nothing to a given discussion we have atheists taking things off topic, thread-shitting and adding nothing to the discussion. So very recursive!
What you seem to mean by this is that in various religions the existence of an immortal soul (and thus, an afterlife) is presumed. So, if a thread subject regards a particular dogmatic approach to this belief, it’s a lot closer to a literary discussion than an examination of the belief itself would be.
If the thread was posed as an attempt at understanding whether there’s common agreement about any particular belief among 9/11 conspiracy theorists as a group, then such a comment would be thread shitting. And can a simple assertion (however reasonable or factual) ever really be considered “fighting ignorance” when served without a supporting argument?