Religious people acting like religious people. Alert the media. In that thread, they once again prove that, for many religious people, religion is not about making yourself a better person… it’s about letting yourself feel superior to others. Behavior like in that thread should result in us either pointing and laughing, or completely ignoring.
I’ll remember that next time somebody brings up “the invisible pink unicorn” or “the flying spaghetti monster”.
If there is one thing that should be known about me on this board is that I can not stand hypocrisy..
Yeah, atheists bring up ‘the invisible pink unicorn’ to make themselves feel superior. It couldn’t be to try to show theists what their beliefs look like from the outside. God you can be dense sometimes.
+1 for the materialism quip though.
You can’t stand it so much you’ll manufacture it!!!111
Monkey-boy, have a seat. You’re not a paragon of integrity and intelligence. You’re a dipshit on a message board. Calm down. Let go of the poop and pick the fleas off your nut-hair.
There-there. It will all be better. Have a banana.
“Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.”
- Christopher Hitchens
Yes, and when you hear people randomly saying things like that in non-debate religious conversations, walking into a religious service uninvited and bringing up the flying spaghetti monster, walking up to priests out and about and letting them know that their beliefs are equivalent to worshipping an invisible pink unicorn, posting in a thread about the death of a known religious figure and saying, “Well, I hope he realized how silly his beliefs were before he died”, carrying atheist signs outside churches and synagogues… then yes, you are right, those people are every bit as bad as the religious people I was talking about. Absolutely. Sure, there are atheists who are assholes, just as there are assholes in any group you could possibly imagine.
But I’m guessing that’s not when you hear those phrases, for the most part. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that you mostly hear it in response to being told we’re evil, silly, wrong, going to hell, etc. Or, in other words, in response to the exact behavior I was talking about.
Is it hypocritical to say these things in response to it? Maybe. I don’t think so, because it’s a defense, not a random feeling of superiority. But I can understand the argument. But if the religious would leave non-believers alone, and stop trying to influence law and policy with their beliefs, you’d hear very little from most atheists. There’d be very little reason for them to be vocal about their non-beliefs.
Well, of course! You may not win the argument, but you cannot lose. Which is why it is a stupid argument, and fit only for people who like to argue for its own sake.
Not always to make themselves feel superior, but rather to make those who believe in God to feel inferior.
The invisible pink unicorn can be a tool to further debate about the existence or not of a god. It can also be used to ridicule and disparage. It’s not only one or the other. In my experience, it is far more used to mock than educate. YMMV.
Doesn’t everybody?
Then let’s go instead with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
If you want to be viewed as an intolerant, religiously bigoted dick, that’s cool with me.
Such as? Please explain the differences to a nonChristian as to why he should believe in the divinity of Christ but not in that of Zeus. I’ll tell you in advance that quoting bible verses isn’t going to suffice.
But after that we can stop, right?
So how do you respond to people who ask for a comparison of God and Zeus? Zeus is no mockery like unicorns or spaghetti - he was quite sincerely worshiped by millions of people for hundreds of years in a place that arguably also established the principles of western democracy (more so if you include the Romans and their Zeus-analog, Jupiter), so Zeus isn’t something one can just shrug off and still claim honesty. I can get choosing to ignore Zeus (or writing him off as a sign of the misleading power of Satan, or something), but that’s only a self-comforting stance, not a rational one.
From the POV of any athiest, someone dying after devoting their life to a myth is a tragedy, not a victory.
Would you want me to post that sentiment in someone’s RIP thread?
Oh, heck no. I know some sincerely religious people who wouldn’t dream of it, being smart enough to know that no such argument is worthwhile.
My mind is clear on the subject, of course there is no God, the whole notion is ridiculous. My soul calmly and silently disagrees. I try not to let that bother me, with great success so far.
I tell them that those two are both avatars of Vishnu and they should shut the fuck up and stop mocking anybody’s belief system.
Shit. Maybe worldwide atheism is Ragnorok.
Poor Odin.
Zeus would rape a monkey if he had a chance…
Oh shit, I understand now.
That’s OK - he turns a blind eye to it.
Regards,
Shodan
“That really gets my goat.” —Thor, sitting in an empty chariot.
The Norse gods, for the most part, were belligerent, aggressive and hyper. Though one was low-key.