My perception of the behavior on this board is not that people follow others around harassing them over their beliefs, but that you cannot have a respectful multi-sided discussion about religion here, any more than you can debate the merits of George W. Bush as President. Which does not make this a welcoming place for those who are religious, since they might want to actually participate in threads about religion. It isn’t a welcoming place for conservatives either.
No you didn’t - you said this.
You seem to be claiming that your being offended is something we should care about. Why?
Is it unfair for some atheists to take personal offense when their particular salvation is questioned on this board?
Plus I think it is pretty obvious that you are being disingenuous - we are not talking about, and nobody on the SDMB objects when, a religious belief is questioned. That’s a strawman.
What is objected to is the kind of aggressive assholery that is the stock in trade of more than one atheist on the SDMB.
It’s a rather clear double standard - you have said quite clearly that you find the expression of a given opinion about the state of your soul to be desperately offensive. But the characterization of all theists as deluded fools is apparently not offensive at all.
As is often the case, it is a question of whose ox is being gored. Big surprise there, of course.
Regards,
Shodan
I think you’ll find that it isn’t until irrational claims are made that people get twitchy.
The discussion of the factual nature of religion is always left on step one. What evidence do you have? That’s the religious person’s fault, not the teeming atheists out there. Believing in something with no evidence is silly and advocating for something while having no evidence is silly².
If the debate was about which religion has the best rules, or the most well-written holy book it would be different. Those are opinions that it’s interesting to debate about. But declaring by fiat that your particular vision of Jesus is correct without any evidence isn’t going to be tolerated in a debate forum any more than saying 911 was an inside job and posting a link to some twat mumbling incoherently about controlled demolitions.
No, we are not talking about criticism, even aggressive criticism. I mean “religious people should all be killed”, “all theists are delusional”, etc., etc. The kind of thing that gets dumped into every thread that mentions Christianity or religion even tangentially.
As Dangerosa points out, some topics cannot be rationally debated on the SDMB. Because anti-religious feeling is just as likely to be faith-based and irrational as religious thought.
Most of the problem, if it is one, is here. I suspect you honestly don’t see the threadshitting and harassment. Your lens doesn’t let that thru, just like it changed olivesmarch4th’s example of something she witnessed (if I understand her correctly) to a hypothetical.
Regards,
Shodan
Mote. Beam.
Someone who believes something bizarre without evidence is by definition not being rational about that thing. They may be rational in other areas of their life. But the crux is religious people are making factual claims about the creation and reason of the universe based on exactly zero evidence.
This isn’t something that people should do. And tiptoeing around the issue isn’t treating it equally. Again, the reason you feel like you’re being called a fool when someone points out there is no evidence for your religion being true is that you realize that you can’t argue it on the merits.
In this case it isn’t the atheist being a jerk, it’s your rational mind trying to protect the fantasy.
Wow, you use the “whenever my side is flawed in some way, just declare that all sides are equally flawed” thing even outside of politics. Are pro and anti-astrology stances just as likely to be faith-based and irrational? Pro/anti-vax? How in the world are the positions of “my god rules the world and here’s how” and “there’s no evidence of that” remotely equal positions? This is absurd.
No, I get it. “Flying Speghetti Monster” and such seems inherently condescending. It’s true and a valuable way to demonstrate a point, but it does seem pretty much always mocking in my tone.
The problem here, actually, is an issue of irrational attachment to sacred cows. When we have threads debunking 9/11 truthers or moan hoaxers, we don’t have threads entitled “Why are all these skeptics on the board harassing and scaring away all the quality 9/11 truthers around here? This board is bigoted against conspiracy theorists” but this is exactly the sort of reaction you get when you attack religion in the very same way that you would attack other beliefs that are no based on evidence. You want religion to be handled differently. But you have no reason that should be, other than that society in general treats the issues differently.
This thread is exactly the equivelant of 9/11 truthers or astrologers or whatever asking why this board has so many mean skeptics that mock them when they bring up their view, and how it scares off otherwise decent, rational conspiracy theorists and astrologers. Why aren’t you off defending them and declaring how this board has “hate speech” towards flat earthers?
You just brought up the “whose ox is being gored” thing, and I’m saying that you only notice how people dismissing and arguing against religion is “hate speech” and yet fail to notice this when other beliefs without evidence are attacked in the same way because this is precisely your ox being gored.
Based on the poll , the number of atheists here is 64 times the level in the US population. So it’s probably pointless to argue a topic when the group is so slanted. It would be like arguing about Reagan at a meeting of far left wing people.
Poor persecuted religious people, there’s just no use in making their case with a crowd so hostile. Sure, they have compelling arguments and evidence to support their beliefs, but what’s the use? Us mean atheists would just use our groupthink to shout them down anyway.
Give me a break.
Arguing it would be fine. If the theist side had any evidence at all.
We never get that, we get “I just know.” We aren’t talking about whether ice cream tastes better than cake, those are opinions. Theists are making claims about facts.
And claiming persecution when you can’t argue based on evidence is a defense mechanism. If you’re embarrassed that your beliefs can’t hold up to requests for evidence, that might be natures way of telling you to change your beliefs.
Oh no, people get twitchy lately when the word Catholic is mentioned. Somewhere in the next dozen or so posts someone will bring up pedophilia, even when the topic is “what are the necessary conditions for an annulment in the Catholic church.”
Except in rare cases I don’t argue about anything on internet sites. It just seems kind of silly to me. The arguments seem to be the same over and over. So the 64x ratio is irrelevant to me but it might be to others.
It is pointless to argue how many angels dance on the head of a pin because the only thing that is provably real is the pin.
Any discussion that has one group of people saying that something is real, but with no proof, is not going to end well when the other people in that discussion are asking for proof. It is even worse when the first group asks for the rest of us to change our activities based around their belief.
“I believe that god (flying spaghetti monster) wants all of us to do, or not do, activity x. I have no proof that he wants this, or that he even exists, but I’m going to do my best to make sure it happens”. People get upset over crap like this and the people making such claims are going to take flak over it.
Conditions for annulment: “Present the priest with a hairless boy, still flush with the fat of youth.” 
It is a pretty big news story that the RCC covered up abuse for decades (shit, probably for millennia). It would come up if people found out that Microsoft hid executive rape in a systematic manner too.
Actually, I think you’re the one who just brought up pedophilia. (No, you can’t count my current post as being the one that brought up pedophilia!)
I think it is more an issue of the thread shitting and harassment that you don’t believe in.
I guess you didn’t see where I said that criticism, even aggressive criticism, wasn’t the problem.
As far as objecting to the other blind spots of the SDMB, it is pretty much a lost cause. As has been mentioned, it is not possible to have a rational conversation on some topics on the SDMB - religion (especially Christianity), George Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, and pretty much any Republican within striking distance of being elected.
It’s a little like arguing that there is a thing called “orange” with a whole board full of color-blind people.
I have no trouble with religious discussion or religious debate. But you don’t get that for long on the SDMB. Almost inevitably, some one or another of the Usual Suspects shows up, and you get a post full of anti-religious witnessing.
It gets old after a while.
Regards,
Shodan
And don’t dare say anything nice about Star Wars episodes 1,2,3!!
I’m not sure if you are saying this because it is something you actually believe, or because it is part of your stated goal of prodding/riling up the SDMB liberals as much as possible because you think that is amusing. Personally I find it impossible to have a rational conversation with you on the topic of politics because it’s tough to have a rational discussion with someone you can never be sure isn’t deliberately baiting you. (I otherwise like you quite as a bit as a poster, for what that is worth (probably not much!)
Although ‘religious people should be killed’ is a bit much and, I’ll stipulate, stops, or at least squelches, most opportunity for discussion or debate, ‘all theists are delusional’ is actually a defensible position and, if not taken, knee-jerk, as an insult, can actually be fodder for further debate.
I disagree. I’ve witnessed and participated in religious discussions on this board that were quite rational. Yeah, things do tend to go off the rails from time to time, but that’s to be expected when dealing with diametrically opposing perspectives on any topic.
How is this any different than calling the religious gullible?
You call us blind, but you don’t present evidence to support your view of us being blind. What is it you can see that we can’t and why?
If you were to tell me that you owned a Buggati Veron and I knew you only made $30K a year, I’d be skeptical of your claim such that I’d want to see it. If you showed it to me, my next question would be how did you get such a car on a limited salary, not that I didn’t believe it exists when it right before my eyes. I am not deliberately choosing to not believe, I am waiting for you to pony up the proof to convince me. I doubt any other atheist is any different. Prove it and we will come. It is not because we are blind.
I think believers discussing with non believers ought to recognize that they actually have no hard evidence for a lot of thier premises. God’s existence, An afterlife, etc. Just accept that you believe those things without evidence and don’t defend them from that perspective. It’s not nessecary.
OTOH if believers want to have a thread discussing a particular point of doctrine which assumes that certain foundational beliefs are true, God exists , Jesus was his Son, and the NT is fairly historically accurate, then let them have their discussion without being compelled to jump in and point out that the NT isn’t historically accurate and there’s no real evidence god exists at all. They know what you think already and that wasn’t the premise of the discussion. If you don’t believe the premises the discussion is based on don’t participate, or discuss as if they are true.
I know I get tired of discussions that start with “if God exists then X” and soon the thread is full of demands to prove god exists. Never said I could, wasn’t the premise to begin with. IOW, don’t hijack the thread because you have an atheist boner.