At the very least, even the mildest believers encourage and excuse the “nutters” by making their delusions seems more respectable. Someone who, say, justifies their crazy behavior because they believe in elves isn’t going to be able to do as much damage as someone who justifies them with a belief in God, because it’s socially acceptable to laugh off someone who claims that the elves demand we do something. If disbelief and disrespect in God became the norm, they’d no longer be able to convince people that their craziness is worth taking seriously because they slapped the “God says so” label on it.
FYI this survey says atheists are 0.7% of the US population. But there is also a category for no religion which is larger.
http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/AmericanReligionSurvey-ARIS/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf
Please, that’s just silly. It is a rock-solid, according-to-Hoyle fact that there is no evidence for Christianity being correct.
It isn’t hate speech to point that out. And Christianity causes a lot of harm with whatever good it brings, it certainly isn’t hate speech to point that out.
What it really is, is Christians, like yourself, being unable to stand being questioned and held to the same standard that say, Astrologers are.
And that’s enough reason to treat all theists with disrespect and judge them? In some cases, be openly hostile? Personally, I don’t think so, and I think that when atheist do that they contribute to the hate and misunderstanding of atheists and the perception that all atheists are jerks. (I’m married to an atheist).
I don’t know of anyone I know well that doesn’t hold some belief I think is stupid. Many of mine are honestly money related - OTHER people are so irrational when it comes to money. But that doesn’t mean that their comments on the price of gas are an invitation for me to rant about how they should live within their means.
Rachel Maddow recently did a piece on the “echo chamber” of politics - when you spend all your time debating with people who agree with you - you sound like an idiot when you start talking to people who have other opinions. This board - on the topic of religion - has a tendency to be an echo chamber for atheists - drowning out any “rational religionists” from discussion unless they have a lot of patience.
When I put on my sunglasses, my money tells me it’s my god…
Life is a foxhole. Some people might have more luxurious amenities down there, but none of us are getting out of it.
Although you haven’t defined what you mean by ‘hate speech’, I’ll use the definition: aggressive criticism, for the purposes of my post. Please correct me if my definition doesn’t suffice.
This board allows hate speech against everything, from Christians, to Muslims, to gays, to blacks, to Hispanics, to women, to cat haters and everything in between. I don’t see Christians being singled out for untoward ire. I do see battles between the pro and con Christian position, quite often, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a culture of Christian hate on this board, it just means debate on the topic occurs more frequently here, which I think is a good thing. Christianity deserves no more special, protected status than any other topic. I hold that it deserves less than some.
Yes, there are virulent non believers who may be a bit over the top at times, but there are an equal number of rabid believers here, probably more actually, who express their position in an extremely hostile manner.
If you consider any direct criticism of Christianity unreasonable then of course you will see this board as chock full of maniacal anti Christian extremists, but I don’t believe that view comes close to defining this board.
Can you give us some examples of this persecution that everyone is taking for granted? Are you referring to when people debate the very topic of religion and then rationally analyze the value of religion?
Where are all of these off-topic, hateful atheist slams that everyone seems to think the board is littered with? You seem to be arguing against a straw man that doesn’t exist.
The atheists on this board generally don’t go around threadshitting in random places. Typically, discussion relating to atheism takes place in threads to discuss religion. And even then, most of the discussion is civil. There’s probably a condescending, mocking tone - but we treat people with unscientific beliefs in roughly the same way.
So please, give us the examples of all of this supposed persecution. Religious people have a persecution complex where anyone saying “So what’s your evidence for believing in God?” will be regarded as hate speech and harassment.
In real life, you live in a little bubble because no one dare criticize the sacred institution of religion, so anytime you face people just asking you to justify your beliefs in a way we might ask a conspiracy theorist or astrologer to justify your beliefs, you freak out. You aren’t allowed to ask rational questions about religion, FILTHY ATHEIST! STOP WITH YOUR HATE SPEECH!
The echo chamber here is the religious people in American society who have their silly beliefs treated with kid gloves by everyone, so that any sort of criticism or questioning appears to be an attack way out of the social norm.
When people want to make a case for religion in GD threads, they’re engaged with on a similar level to what they give. There are all sorts of fancy (yet obviously hollow) philosophical arguments that people use and they are usually responded to in kind. The reason the “rational religionists” can’t get a hold here is because religion (at least with a magical, interventionist god) cannot be rationally justified. There are people who are religious, who are intelligent, and who are otherwise rational, but their religious belief is not rational. It’s a choice of comfort over intellectual honesty. They cannot win an argument because they are arguing for Santa Claus. They are not scared off by a hive-mind of hateful atheists, they are scared off because the level of debate on this board will destroy whatever they put forth.
Personally, I gather one doesn’t have to be a “virulent nonbeliever” to offend the religious. A condescending eye-roll and equating their dogmas to belief in the powers of Uri Geller (and I know of no objective distinction that can be made) will suffice.
Counterexample. At the Catholic funeral to which I am referring, there was a notorious atheist professor who frequently got into religious arguments with the deceased. I know that because he spoke at the funeral and told everyone present that he thought the guy’s religion was bullshit. It didn’t exactly ruin everything, because he was obviously speaking from the heart and dealing with his own grief. But if you honestly think an atheist wouldn’t voice such thoughts aloud at such a sensitive time, well, I saw it.
To be fair, they think they deserve to go to be physically tortured for all eternity, too. The message isn’t that you deserve hell, it’s that *everyone *deserves hell. Hence the expression ‘‘saved.’’ I’m not saying it’s rational or healthy, but it’s not about you, it’s about humanity’s fundamental inadequacy in general. There’s no reason to take it so personally.
I didn’t say it wasn’t wrong to be offensive-I said it was unfair for some religionists to take personal offense when their particular religion was questioned on this board. I don’t think there should be a religious exemption when it comes to questioning claims. Do you?
I stopped participating in religious debates because of the threadshitting. I pop back in once in a while to see if its changed, but it hasn’t. So all of them I’ve every bothered to read.
You may not perceive this. That is fine. We all have different perceptions. And yet, you’ve been told by MANY theists that they share this perception.
I’m not talking about “share the case for religion” btw. I’m talking about threads about Catholics ordaining women - that turn into “Catholics are evil” and spawn other threads about how Catholics are evil. (That one was recent.) A discussion about why Catholics do not ordain women (which I don’t agree with) is interesting - but we don’t have those - we have slam fests against the Catholic church.
In real life I attend a UU church that questions religion regularly and am married to an atheist - my daughter is an atheist and my son is agnostic (as in “don’t care.”) I’m a Deist who has no obligatory, intercessory God. I’m not sure where you are getting my “real life” from, btw.
I can’t say I’ve noticed a lot of thread shitting but I have noticed a general attitude of disdain and a lot of snide comments and sarcasm. There’s a level of bluntness with words like delusional, and FSM references which is mocking rather than discussion. If people think that way they are free to express it but please recognize that it effectively shuts down a discussion and discourages believers from participating in others.
I’m a little confused by the hijack you describe above. I know pelople will stop by to hijack a discussion and post crap, but can’t we be assertive enough to shut them down. Remind them that’s not the subject. Ask them/tell them to take it elsewhere, and if necessary, ask the mods for help. Is it really futile to try? How about just ignoring them?
In the real life situations you’ve just described, you talk about discussing religion with people of many beliefs in a church setting and with your own family, both being situations where you have a vested interest not to offend those you are with personally on a regular basis. It is this way for most of us, I would guess. That is why it is refreshing to be able to discuss the whys and wherefores of religion in a setting such as this, where it hasn’t been put on a “must not be treated like the other incredible claims because it might offend the general populace” pedestal. And if you think that religionists get the short end of the stick here, go take a look at the “reasoned Christian response” I received from Shodan just a few posts back. Hell, take at other posts from religionists(not atheists) that have brought up “Jesus horses” and Catholic bashing in what I assumed to be a strawman argument.
Does it also count as hate speech if we mock 9/11 Truther conspiracies, or birthers or moon hoaxers?
That’s a good point. Don’t be thin skinned and then engage in a discussion with people who don’t believe as you do. A reference to the FSM might be seen as mocking but believers need to understand that for atheists it’s a very legit comparison. Believers need to understand the basic premise that altough they hold certain things as sacred, others do not and if you don’t really want to know what they think, don’t enter the discussion.
I know several people who respond to witnessing with , “I’ll listen to you if you listen to me”
My favorite kind of witnessing is when they tell me they used to be just like me. They were hardcore atheists. They could defeat all manner of Christians in debate. They fought against the Lord as hard as they could, etc. Does that ever work?
The perception I get in this thread seems to be that believers think atheists follow them around the boards and threadshit and harass them, like the aforementioned hypothetical atheist going to a funeral and telling everyone the guy isn’t in heaven. I don’t see that happening much on the board. Discussion of religion is usually confined to threads that are specifically about religion - and if you feel that you’re being persecuted there because someone makes a rational/skeptical argument against the particular religious topic, you have way too much of a persecution complex.
I think that many people share this perception could be explained away by the aforementioned persecution complex. People look at any criticism of their religion, no matter how neutrally toned or inoffensive as persecution. For example, look how Richard Dawkins is publically viewed. Before I’d seen him speak, I thought he was this fire-breathing demon who hit religious people with an axe at every opportunity because that’s how religious people basically describe him. But it turns out he’s a quiet, polite old guy who dares question the special status religion has in our society. I’ve never seen Dawkins say anything egregiously insulting or over the top whenever I’ve seen him (I haven’t read his books or seen that much of him, so maybe I missed it) - it’s always a polite and rational critique. And yet look how he’s regarded by the religious.
Almost no direct, to the point, not intentionally inflammatory criticism of religion is taken as hate speech and persecution. It’s a defense mechanism - what are you going to do, counter the arguments rationally? Nope - so just conjure up special pleading as to why religion should be treated differently from all other topics.
That may be the case. I haven’t read the thread in question and I could see a lot of specifically catholic topics getting hijacked because of those issues. I don’t think this is a general problem with the boards, though - non-religious contentious issues like this get hijacked all the time.
I meant you as in the general you - religious people in the US. Religion is sacrosanct in the US, at least Christianity. You cannot question it, even politely, without getting massively counterattacked. Religion is afforded a special place in society where it can’t be treated like any other similarly unscientific beliefs. You might see a crippled midget black lesbian child molester president before a qualified, competant atheist.
Our society, as a whole, is extremely religious and no one likes the guy who dares to say there’s no Santa. Even ardent skeptics often completely sidestep the religious issue or handle it with kid gloves when they’re otherwise happy to debunk homeopathy or conspiracy theories and other things with equivelant evidence.
It’s programmed into us that you Just Do Not Mess With Religion. And so when you come to this board and you see people willing to do just that, it violates your sense of social norms. You see it as being way more audacious than it actually is. Your normal day to day life has accustomed you to the special status of religion, and any place that deviates from that, even if it’s not especially hateful towards religion, will seem that way if it has any sort of criticism at all.
Essentially, if you wouldn’t criticize people for being condescending, mocking, or even just plain polite criticizing of conspiracy theories, belief in a flat earth, astrology, etc. then you shouldn’t treat religion differently. Yes, I realize it’s your sacred cow. It’s a very common sacred cow. It’s no different than any of those in any objective way. There’s no reason to give religion a special status in this regard except for an argumentum ad populi.
I was impressed with the premise in Sam Harris’ The End of Faith that religoin has to lose it’s prtected status and I agree. We still arn’t there. I don’t think we need a lot more sarcasm and mockery in the world or on thses boards but believers do need to understand that beliefs will be questioned and it’s correct to do so.