I’m not saying you should respond to anything at all, but what you choose to respond to (or not) says volumes. At this point, I’m just trying to find out why you felt it was unremarkable that a helpless animal was harmed for the sake of one person’s incredibly venomous intolerance. Given your tendency to tear into even the most innocuous of claims by people of faith, I would wager that had the anecdote been about a Christian refusing to treat an atheist couple’s pet, your opinion would already be registered.
Do the other waitresses go around and say “I am a Christian”, or “I am a Muslim”…or “I have anal sex with my husband on tuesdays”?
Well, sounds like you married the right guy then. Congrats. What are you complaining about exactly? It seems to me that your beliefs are trumping your husband in all the practical ways.
People who think the government is trying to control them through chips in their heads also feel the pressure. Doesn’t mean it’s real. I feel no pressure from society to keep my mouth shut. What I feel from society is pressure to conform to a standard of behavior of live and let live. This isn’t a religious thing IMHO. In my neighborhood there are people of various sects and religions…and folks like me who don’t have any. The ‘pressure’ is to not put on that sign and parade about saying “I am a Christian you heathens!” or “I am a Muslim, infidel!” or “I am an atheist you poor deluded saps”. You COULD do those things…but they would lead to conflict if you did them.
And why? No one is forcing you to go to church at gun point. No one is forcing you to put up a nativity scene in your front yard, or decorate for Easter. No one is really forcing you to do anything. It’s YOU and folks like you who carry that chip on their shoulders…you are looking for fights with society so you can show how different and superior you are to those poor deluded religious types. And a certain element of the rabid on the religious side will be more than happy to oblige you in that fight.
Yes, I can see how repressed you are. This of course doesn’t get into the atheist nut jobs…
-XT
xtisme,
I am not a waitress.
Yes, others do wear signs. I see a ton of necklaces with crosses on them every day. It is in effect, a sign. Now, I wore a necklace that was left to me by my husbands Grandfather, it was a cross. Those who knew questioned me why I wore it. The cross meant nothing, the necklace meant something.
I absolutely believe that I married the right person. I had a 5 year relationship with a guy that was Jewish. Most of my friends are on the religious bandwagon and know that I am not. While they pretty consistently try to convert me or pray for me or tell me that I actually do believe in god, they are also more the tolerant variety, as our relationships show. That is the exception. The number of times I have announced my Atheism and been called amoral or crazy or been shunned far out-number the fundy friends I keep. Heck, one of my most favorite posters here is by all accounts of my set of beliefs, an absolute nutjob. However, she is such a nice person and presents her views in such a non-judgmental, non-jerk way, that I absolutely, without a doubt, respect her as a person.
I don’t pick fights. For the most part, I avoid religious discussions. I find them tedious and painful. I came into this thread because it was about something I experience. Lo and behold, I get to be called names for participating in a thread that by all accounts, shouldn’t have the religious folks in here harassing us.
To participate in this thread, we don’t have to be militant Atheists, we just need to be Atheists that have experienced challenges for being such.
I’m holding back. Understand that the reason I am holding back is that I think this thread has validity in its intended purpose, to find out what challenges Atheists face. Maybe someone on the fence is wondering what life is like without deistic faith, maybe we can help each other learn how to deal with the issues that we faith, but noooo, we can’t have that, NOT EVEN IN ONE THREAD.
One of the flaws in your logic is that you think that I think that I’m better than anyone. As a general rule, I don’t. I certainly don’t because of whatever faith or lack thereof I may or may not have, nor do I make assumptions about the quality of people using that same standard. Basically, I assume you are a pretty ok human being until you prove to me otherwise.
So would you mind, doing as I asked, stop shitting on this thread, go find a religious one and leave us the hell alone with your religious bullshit?
Like I said, i’ve not been to Stormfront, so I really wouldn’t know if the comparison is accurate or not. Having said that, I did say i’d probably disagree with it. I’d apologise on behalf of religious people for the comparison, but i’m not one, and i’m not entirely happy doing it anyway.
Just as a general observation, do people not realise they’re actually hurting themselves like this? Religious people are mean to them, so atheists go take it out on some other seperate religious people (because only cheap pettiness can give satisfaction), so those religious people jab back at other innocent atheists, and so it all passes on in a great chain of people saying “Well, I was hurt first, that gives me the right to be a bastard to people who haven’t done anything to me but are part of their group!”
Bastards is bastards. We could just stick to that.
I know the difference between right and wrong.
Gods should try to be more convincing, I guess? If I knew what gods knew and had the powers that gods have, I might try engineering situations so people could act in clear conscience. As it is, it sounds like you’ve crafted a way for people to commit crimes and atrocities and absolve themselves. “I wouldn’t have done it, but I was doing god’s will!”
Probably far more harshly than I’d judge a lesser being. How monumentally must you screw up as an all-powerful, all-knowing being that the only way out for you is to command someone to murder a child? And your only hope is that they have faith enough to convince themselves that this wrong action is Good in some mysterious way? This is a god who plays games.
The questions deal with whether or not theists are insane. Its really not important how they justify their inability to tell right from wrong.
How about if he asked someone else? Or did it himself?
I can’t know whether He asked someone else unless He tells me Himself that He did, and He hasn’t.
Same as the answer I gave before. I’d no longer worship Him. (I would answer part III now, but I’ll wait to see exactly how you phrase it.)
Do you think you could express the challenges you face in terms other than our stupidity and insanity? I mean, I face a lot of challenges — intolerance, rudeness, and whatnot — from people whose religion is completely unknown to me. For people on the fence, it may sound like you’re more obsessed with religion than are people of faith themselves. The opening salvo here was that we’re brainwashed and now we’re being called nutjobs. Some of you won’t even treat our sick pets. If you consider those things to be your challenges, you may benefit from a new sense of perspective.
My meaining was that the current world climate and the way it seems to be heading is insane. Not that religion is insane. I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
I stand by my belief that sanity/rationality is disturbingly rare in those in power, especially in the USA and ‘rogue states’, and particularly in those who incorproate religiousity into their govorning. It’s not a pot-shot at religion, it’s a pot-shot at the way religion is used to run the world.
Fair enough, but can you understand how people might interpret this post as a blanket assertion about religion?
Yes I can. I can be careless at times.
I don’t mean to make short ill-conceived anti-religious statements, but sometimes it’s hard not to.
I should leave debates like this up to my much more eloquent fellow Atheist-Dopers.
Honestly, I intentionally left out details like that so as to avoid giving you a soapbox from which to compose a page-long post in which you wax philosophical on the nature of Love and it’s relationship to God while asking the standard probing questions regarding how I Know that my mom loves me. I think it should be quite obvious from the context of my post that I love my mother and she loves me. I wouldn’t go over there for Thanksgiving if I hated the woman.
If you recall, in this post you asked “…what would constitute proof or evidence [of God]?” and followed-up with the reasonable point that the ability to do something Really Neat™ doesn’t necessarily make someone God. The text you quoted was a response to this point. Specifically, that God can look into my mind and know exactly what He’d need to do to convince me. It might not be something I can relate to you on a message board, but if He’s God, He knows what it is and ought to be able to do it.
I don’t mock God and, in fact, I can’t mock God because I don’t believe He exists. Also, if asking God to provide a quick demonstration of His existence is a “ridiculous demand” then all those people who pray for God to heal grandma’s cancer must be worse than Hitler! And no, I haven’t told Him to “leave me alone.” It might surprise you to learn that we’ve never spoken because, as I keep saying, he doesn’t seem to exist.
Well, at least it was until the Christian Pity Party showed up.
You can’t really be so hurt by the words of a few malcontents on the internet, can you? At most, people are saying “God belief is stupid” rather than “Everyone who believes in God is stupid.” Just for kicks, I rifled through the thread to see how often the word “stupid” was used to describe religious people. Would you like to know what I found? One, two, three, and four posts… all from you.
What a load! Would you mind pointing out which of my posts says, “Durr, all Christians is DUM!!!” I imagine you’re referring to this post wherein I strip you of the right to assert the existence of a being for whom there is (debatebly) absolutely no evidence and then get huffy when someone says, “Nuh uh!” You’re the one who is heaping derision on Christians in general, not me. My parents, whom I love (even my mom!) and respect, are both Christians. Most of my extended family, too! Heck, if you can believe the polls just about everyone I meet when I go outside is probably some sort of Christian. I don’t assume any of them are stupid or insane. I think they’re nice people who, for a variety of reasons, have chosen to believe something that I don’t seem to be able to believe. Such is life. But hey, if it turns your crank, don’t let me stop your ride on the persecution pony. Happy trails.
Don’t you have to factor in the whole “he has a life” element, which may lead to interesting topics not being discussed because he has some aversion to them, but because he has stuff to do and writing posts on the Dope pays zip?
Anyway, I could buy that recessiveMeme loves his (her?) Mom, as indicated by the willingness to go to her house on Thanksgiving. I went over at her house last Arbor Day for some good lovin’ too, giggety.
(I hide the challenges of my atheism behind a facade of humour)
Thank you very much for clearing that up, Lobsang. I can definitely sympathize with being misread, and I’m sorry as well that I took the worst possible interpretation. (I will say, though, that officially atheist states can be quite [sub]Kim Jung Il[/sub] irrational.) 
Absolutely. It was a mere curiosity to me that in the course of his busy life, he chose to ignore veterinary abuse but pursue a board analogy.
A “mere curiosity” “speaks volumes”? What would a moderate curiosity say? An encyclopedia? Would a major curiosity be one of those “if every atom in the universe was a printing press” deals?
Eh, I’m just bustin’ yer chops…
Frankly, I wondered why you chose to make such a big deal over such a non-controversial point, namely that it is hard to describe anyone briefly. It is very easy to leave out something that the other person might think is absolutely essential. You’ll recall that I was asked to describe God so that the person could know exactly what I meant by the term. I spent more than an hour thoughtfully composing a reply that I hoped would hit all the philosophical buttons with as much brevity as I could muster. Your decision to step in between the other poster and me was something of a surprise. Your decision to paraphrase and parse what I said with such sarcasm and ridicule was a bit jarring.
But it is also the case that you are a temporal being and don’t know what’s around the corner. You cannot use the fact that God has not done that for you yet as evidence either for or against His existence. I was myself taken by surprise when it happened to me.
It is a catch-all term for everything from brainwashed to insane. I already posted a manifest of the actual insults, complete with post number references.
Well, I appreciate that. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. If you’ll forgive me, I’ll make an effort to drop my guard in the future. (Incidentally, please don’t be cavalier about my rights. I will not allow you to deny them from me unless you have government sized guns.)
Yes, I know. 
The board would suck without you. (Seriously.)
Thank you, that’s very kind.
Wow, do you usually seek out people who are licking their wounds and scream at them for not doing it in a manner that suits you? Honestly, dude, please come down from your cross and go somewhere else.
Yeah, I’m sure vetbridge is the only veterinarian in his area.
That’s what I thought this thread was about, too.
Is there a reason that you’re taking these things personally? I didn’t take them as meaning “all Christians”, at least to any meaningful extent, but your defensiveness is making me start to wonder.