Confirmation bias by people who don’t see the beam in their own eye.
If so-called “militant atheists” were a tenth as aggressive as the Christian right in this country, we could have this conversation.
The US has at least four times as many churches as public schools. Almost ten percent of billboards are offering a religious message. References to “God” are on our money, begin and end our speeches, and are indoctrinated into our kids in a supposedly “secular” pledge. FOX commentators have on-air orgasms if people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Most states don’t allow gays to marry, and many still have blue laws, because the Bible says so. Almost every major newspaper has a “faith and belief” section, and pass on this stuff credulously. References to atheists in the media are invariably hostile. Several religions go door to door and assault you in public places to convert you to their religion. We’re constantly passing laws that are thinly described biblical prohibitions. Despite it never happening, atheists are constantly told we’re bad people for forbidding people from praying in schools or football games. Dishonest reporting of religious issues is widespread, and nobody takes any notice of it. Automobiles displaying atheist imagery are routinely vandalized. Judges who say they’ll rule on the Ten Commandments instead of, say, US law are elected and praised by the populace, and their followers send death threats when said judges are removed for not following the law. Separation of Church and state is in the constitution, and routinely ignored unless it’s so egregious it can’t be. There has never been a non-Christian president elected in the US.
This is all “normal,” and it’s fine to make OTHER people conform to your beliefs as long as those beliefs are religious. But if an atheist says he/she’s an atheist, they’re “a militant atheist getting in people’s faces.”
So yeah, we get a little upset about being lied about and forced to live our lives based on other people’s fairy tales. But the idea that we have anything like the power to destroy Christianity in the US is paranoid ranting.
When I finally accepted that Jesus Christ was NOT my savor I kind of had the urge to tell somebody about. It was a big moment for me. You know, just like every single Christian that I come into contact all day long seems to feel like they have to tell me about Jesus.
Apparently it’s only obssesive and rude to talk about religion if you aren’t a Christian.
They do it to show that there is nothing special about religion. That non-believers can be every bit as righteous, jerkish, intolerant and nut-job evangelical. In this, they succeed admirably.
Atheists are not disdainful of (or obsessed with) “something they don’t even believe exists.” That would be illogical. Some atheists are disdainful of or obsessed with the belief of others in that apparently nonexistent thing and the use of those beliefs to justify what some of us consider to be objectionable behaviors.
Just as there are certain believers who feel obliged to “preach” about their beliefs, there are certain atheists who feel a need to declaim their lack of belief. Seems pretty clear-cut when you really think about it.
Don’t you just hate those door-to-door evangelizing atheists, the atheists that go into churches trying to get evolution mentioned in the sermons, the atheists that have multiple shows(and even networks) on television and radio pushing their agenda, and the atheists that…screw it-I can’t keep a straight face.
The majority of quiet moderate atheists and believers are just living their lives and not drawing attention to themselves. So it’s the small minority of fanatic atheists and believers who are out witnessing and attacking those who don’t agree with them that draws public attention.
True, but I think there’s often one level deeper than that. I believe that those on either side of the debate who feel the need to ‘witness and convert’ others to their way of thinking are profoundly anxious, and this drives their need to try to get everyone around them into alignment. People who are secure in themselves are much better able to tolerate difference in others’ beliefs. I am an atheist, for example, and a lot of my closest friends are some sort of believers or other. None of us spend any time arguing about it. I went to a very nice Bar Mitzvah last weekend. I like going to Temple sometimes, or the Catholic church down the street occasionally. I enjoy the cultural differences without feeling swayed. I don’t think militants of any stripe can do that very well, they seem to find the difference threatening.
Yes. I have this reputation as some “obsessive atheist” - yet I’ve posted virtually no threads on the subject of religion. I’m responding. I’m not “witnessing” by posting Why Religion Is Stupid threads, much less going door to door and bothering people IRL. What gets atheists labels like “obsessive” or “militant” is responding with anything other than “admitting” there’s a God, or at least claiming that you are miserable and evil due to being an atheist.
If people who believe that rabbit’s feet are lucky were trying to write that fantasy into law and pushing the idea constantly, then I’d have a reputation as a “militant anti-rabbit footer” I’m sure.
If the fanatic believers were a small minority, then they wouldn’t be able to pass laws imposing their fanaticism on others, which they often do. In America at least it’s the live-and-let-live believers who are the minority.
Having started a thread in the Pit when it wasn’t warranted, I thought I’d go with the least incendiary category, so that’s why I placed it where I did. It’s OK in GD if TPTB feel it’s warranted.
As a non-religious person who has simply never considered religion an important force in her life, I used to have this question as well.
I asked around, and it turns out a lot of the most vocal non-believers I know feel like they have been hurt in a meaningful way by religion. Be it gay people who had it pounded into their heads that they were sinners, kids whose churches or religious families were complicit in abuse, or just outsiders whose community used religion to make them feel even more unwelcome, they often felt like that religion had been used as a tool to hurt them.
I know quite a few non-believers and anti-religionists IRL and actually have not encountered what I would call preaching either from friends and acquaintances or on this board.
What one does come across are assertions that all religious people are stupid and evil. In real life this is quite rare in my experience and pretty much confined to very young people–I think it’s just that very typical joy of discovery and the immature, but sincere, conviction that anyone who disagrees with one must be stupid and probably has nefarious motives in doing so as well.
That happens on this board also but again I suspect it’s quite young people who have newly fallen in love with the Four Horsemen and are overexcited about it. Most atheist posters here do not partake, but there are times when the newly converted are very active and seem to dominate.
And to be fair to Der Trihs, he really doesn’t preach. He just considers everyone who disagrees with him about anything to be evil and stupid, and says so, not just on matters religious.
The main person I have in mind here is a Facebook friend who I refuse to unfriend because I really genuinely like her, but I won’t hesitate to put her on hidden status when she jumps on this bandwagon. She was raised Catholic and went to parochial schools but says she never “got it”, and based on other things in her life, it’s also really, really obvious to me (and a lot of other people) that she is a survivor of father/daughter incest. :eek: :mad:
I mean, 30 memes a day? We get it. Really. WE.GET.IT.
I feel the same way about the people who post 30 “I love Jesus” memes, or 30 anti-Obama memes, or whatever. As for the latter, advocating his assassination will get you unfriended AND reported.
No; it’s being too young and excitable to realize the likely consequences, or to care about them. Once they’ve lost their job over it, been divorced, or been disowned by their family they’ll learn to lie about their beliefs like properly conformist Americans.
Hardly. I just get tired of having my basic morality questioned and considered less-than for not believing. The religious folks can stop judging me and I’ll be happy not to have to defend and protect myself.
Ah, there’s a theory I’ve heard before, though I don’t think it has come up yet in this thread: the theory that outspoken or angry atheists are such because they have issues with their (earthly) father.
