Why Religious People Are Scared of Atheists - Page 2

The prank may be foolish, but it reminds me of an uncomfortable truth about atheism.

We heathens may be growing in number, but that comes at a price. The larger our group becomes, the less we can claim to be an exclusive, elite club only for the truly enlightened.

All the "idiots" that were previously Christian? A lot of that crowd will be atheist going forward, and the same irrational behavior that made them look bad will be on our side.

Allegiances to ideologies can change; human nature isn't going anywhere. Our ultimate focus should never be on these petty flag-waving rivalries, but rather on promoting rational thought and tolerance.

Having a religious faith doesn't make a person dumber, just like being atheist doesn't make you smarter. Or more reasonable or enlightened or whatever on both sides. (Although I've always found agnosticism to be more philosophically and logically sound than atheism.)

Sometimes the Us vs. Them thing is overplayed. I am not threatened or scared of atheists or what they believe or don't believe. I'm more afraid of the Tea Party. Atheists have no reason to fear me and 99.9% of all the people I've been around my entire life.

You do your thing, I'll do mine. Everybody just mind your own damn business.

I understand your point, but I think Atheists are just now realizing that we need to "come out of the closet", so I don't think we can entirely expect them to stay quiet.

To strain the metaphor, atheists are tired of having to hide who they are, and really want to scream "we're here, we're heathens, get used to it". Of course some are going to be flamboyant and in-your-face about it, but that's part of the growing pains.

I look forward to the day when Christianity (as with heterosexuality) isn't the assumed norm, and that plurality of beliefs is normal and boring reality.


I do take issue with the idea that agnosticism is more philosophically sound than atheism. Most atheists I've met are agnostics as well, in that they don't say that you can know for sure that God doesn't exist. They just don't mind saying that in the absence of good evidence, it's safe to say that God probably doesn't exist.

Fucking hell...it is their holiday!

A celebration around the time of solstice may have been co-opted by the Christians in order to entice pagans into the fold. But CHRISTMAS is a fucking Christian holiday! If you wish to celebrate Solstice then you are celebrating Solstice not Christmas. If you celebrate Kwanzaa you are celebrating Kwanzaa. Same for Channukah. But if are you saying that you are celebrating Christmas you are literally celebrating the birth of Christ. It's right in the fucking name!

You might want to google "atheist celebrating christmas". It's not just a christian holiday anymore. It never was really.

It's almost (almost) like saying if you celebrate Columbus Day you believe Columbus discovered America.

Define "celebrate Columbus Day."

Dammit. Uh, taking the day off? Heh.

ETA: The point was, of course that the title of a holiday doesn't make it sacred.

Complaining about the Christians co-opting Solstice and making it their own while you celebrate Christmas and still maintain your atheism is decidedly hypocritical.

Then why aren't we seeing some kind of "agnosticism coming out of the closet" trend? Agnosticism is "I don't know, and I don't care," ...that's certainly more logically sound than "...in the absence of good evidence..." which is highly problematic.

I'm not complaining about Christians co-opting anything. I'm saying that some atheists celebrate Christmas. That's all.

The way I see it, which is maybe wildly optimistic, is that with the wide availability of information, religion is marked for death, at least as the major organizing force it is now. The Internet changed everything so fundamentally that we living here at the dawn won't really get the full ramifications of globalized thought. Different ways of looking at the world are reaching into places they would never have been before, like, say, Yemen. So there's going to be a fundamental shift in understanding, and Ithinl that gradually, superstition is going to be the main thing to get left by the wayside.

Which is a long way of saying that atheism is inexorably crawling towards greater and greater prominence, and the various slights and/or prejudices atheists suffer today are insignificant in the face of a cultural shift that likely won't be fully apparent until were all dead. So in that regard, all the contemptuous hectoring of religious people is going to do is piss them off, and amuse me, I guess. I really love Maher's indignation. But it doesn't really strike me as the smartest attitude to take with people you're trying to convince of something, especially when we're going to get there eventually anyway.

Unless that guy from Collapse is right, I guess. An apocalypse of some kind would probably fuck everything up.

Perhaps a better response to the question asked at this thread's title is, because they make stuff like this:

Am I terrible because the Holocaust one made me laugh?

Christians fear our superior grasp of sarcasm!

I thought it was all the guilt free sex.

I was explaining why Kate was being called out. Apologies if it seemed like I was attacking you.

Went back and re-read some of this. Gotcha. My bad, Ryan.

I'm a Catholic and consider myself religious, but that was absolutely brilliant.

Troll Scientists was my favourite.

Fox News viewers debate Atheism sensibly on Facebook

"I love Jesus, and the cross and if you dont, I hope someone rapes you!"

 

Some of these have to be fake accounts.

That meme is simply the greatest thing that ever was. Can't stop laughing.

Deleted due to bad links

I hate the word "atheist".  It automatically assumes the existence of a God and you're just the ignorant moron who doesn't believe it.  Why even label someone who doesn't believe in God?

 

I always have this one for Christians:

 

What if someone were born in a cave and that was his home for his entire life?  No bible, no church, and dies never even having heard of God.  What is his fate?

 

They can't answer.  Or you could just do the dinosaur one.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways."

 

I'm Agnostic, some people call it being lazy and not wanting to take a stance, I see it more as accepting my mortality and just wanting to live my life the best way I can and whatever happens when I die, happens.  Is there a God, maybe, is there nothing after death, maybe... either way, it doesn't effect whats going on in my life right now.  If there is a God, he sure as fuck doesn't care what's going on in our world.  

 

My family, on my wife's side and partially on mine, are STRICT Christians.  You can not debate anything with them.  Anytime you ask a question about their faith, it stems back to one of four answers.

 

1. Only God can know that.

2. I just love Jesus

3. No true Christian would ask that.

4. or the dreaded "I'll pray for you"

 

Just my experiences with Christians, they have their heads up their own ass.  For people that claim to be tolerant, and loving, they demonstrate none of that when confronted with questions or culture that goes against their ever changing belief structure.  I remember when I told my inlaws I wasn't Christian, they looked at me like I just killed their dog.  

 

The responses in that post don't surprise me one bit.  It's amazing how people can preach one thing, then just contradict it in every way possible two minutes later.

 

Oh, Jesus loves all his children...oh wait, you don't believe, well I hope he rapes you!!!  

 

 

That...doesn't even make sense.  Sorry.  I can only imagine your outrage if a Christian claimed that the term Christian was silly because of course there is a God.  It's a term.  There's probably better things to get concerned over.

 

 

I asked a Christian that question only once, and he had a very specific biblical response so maybe you're just asking the wrong ones.

 

Depends on the group.  I know people, Born Agains, who will preach that no one outside their church has reached heaven since the time of Jesus. 

 

Others will just save there were no cavemen, and that any "proof" that science shows about their existence is just something God put there to test people's faith... weed out the true beleivers. 

They say the same thing about dinosaurs. 

 

 

I dunno, for the sake of not having to say 'person who doesn't believe in God' every time?

 

The term 'atheist' doesn't assume the existence of God, it just assumes the existence of religion. Would you say the words 'apolitical' or 'asexual' are inherently biased or loaded? They're all neutral descriptive terms.

Probably.  I just don't like the word.  Maybe its the way it sounds.