Lanky_Pomegranate530CNN: Atheists are still reluctant to ‘come out’
originaluciferduh. conservatives control both parties.
bOtH SiDeS?!
AlwaysNowNeverNotMeWell which one is the party of..? Corporations? War? Prisons? Prohibition?
It's all controlled opposition.
public_image_ltdAnd corruption. You forgot corruption.
OliviaCause preachers can talk about Jihads against atheists on talk shows, but somebody says god isn’t real and everything they are connected to gets examined for not complying with the first amendment.
mojofrododojoYup. Even ‘tolerant’ religions go batshit when they encounter unbelievers. It’s like you can root for any team, but if you decline the entire sportsball thing, YOU GOTTA FUCKIN DIE
YOU GOTTA FUCKIN DIE
Bit hyperbolic (for most people lol)
It’s more like “you and everything you stand for is unbound by morality, and you pose a threat to my entire worldview through your thoughts and ideas alone.”
Yeah we should use something more politically correct like “you will burn in hell for eternity”
True lol, talking to my Christian friends about hell is wild. The worst people imaginable can go to eternal paradise if they believe in God, but queer agnostic atheists like me get eternal torture for thought crimes.
And they’ll openly admit that they don’t think I deserve hell, but they still call it just and moral if I get sent there. Which is incredible, because it seems like they feel like it’s wrong, yet won’t call it wrong because the morals created by the men who came before them are objectively right and can’t be questioned.
The other baffling thing is that they’ll say owning slaves is wrong now because those parts of the Bible are outdated, yet still say it’s just to torture homosexuals for eternity and cite those same “outdated” books of the Bible.
/rant
You ever ask them why do they think a God with those values is one worth worshipping?
Nope, but I’m pretty sure they’d say something like “we’re not omniscient, we can’t understand God’s will”
To which I’d probably say it’s funny how “God’s will” looks a hell of a lot like what we’d expect to see if God didn’t exist
A few examples:
christian fascists insist we’ll have freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion. even though the supreme court has long held “no religion” is a religion.
In Islam, if you’re a jew or christian, you can pay a fee and practice your faith. Think they extend that to atheism?
their morality is hilarious - and that they view it as intrinsic to their religion and would go murderhappy without it’s constraints, or if the right imaginary friend told them to - illustrates my fear that out atheists in many places are at risk.
Indonesia for example:
loc.gov/…/indonesia-atheist-to-be-charged-with-bl…
atheismandthecity.com/…/dont-cry-for-me-indonesia…
But hardly limited there -
In my experience, theists would just want an individual to believe in anything instead of nothing.
“It’s ok, you don’t have to worry, I’ve been saved, First Pentagram Church of Manson, HELTER SKELTER BE HIS NAME!”
“Hallelujah!”
Haha. You joke but that is theist belief in a nutshell. Rather believe in anything to save one’s soul in the afterlife than nothing at all and not to go to heaven or some paradise.
Circling back to this - a thought occurred to me: if you buy into the grift, you’re much more likely to convert.
EdibleFriendJust not even really worth ‘coming out’. Why deal with all the arguments that are likely to crop up from it? When I was the angsty teenage atheist I got off on that shit. Now…im over it.
Yeah, it’s not like you’re changing anyone’s mind anyway, so why waste the energy and social capital? I’ll sometimes ask follow-up questions to get them thinking, but no reason to poke the bear by announcing that you’re the devil.
DojanIt’s a bit sad that “coming out” as an Atheist is even a thing. Where I’m from it’s basically the assumption. I’ve met a few people that mention that they’re religious before and my reaction is always an astonished “but they seemed so normal.”
I want that to be the case in the US so much
Please tell me where you live because I’m going to move there tomorrow
It’s a tiny town called Finspång. I hate it here.
Sweden overall isn’t that bad though, if you can put up with the long nights and long days.
In many ways, Sweden is currently the greatest country on earth.
You should consider yourself to be fortunate
It is a pretty nice country. The climate is woeful, but even so we have a lot of good things going for us.
stinermanI could only imagine the worst thing about your country being “it’s cold and dark a lot” instead of “we think some groups of people shouldn’t have rights.”
You’ve not experienced cold and dark. It’s one thing to hear about it and another to live it.
There are other problems too. Like the nazi party being the second largest party in parliament.
I think the absolute worst thing is seeing what happens in the U.S. and then see our right wingers go “we should do this.”Stop and frisk was a big talking point last election. And you should see how our war on drugs is going.
I see, thank you for the heads-up. Anyway, I’m booking a plane ticket :D
Religion here tends to be something people keep more private. It’s not something you announce loudly, or even subtly in many cases. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone wear a cross or anything like that.
Not saying there aren’t proselytisers - my old workplace was literally next door neighbours to a JW church (and they were assholes), so there are exceptions. But they feel comparatively few and far between.
𞋴𝛂𝛋𝛆No stigma. I assume all such questions have an alternate agenda.
Like I know better than to talk about my stance with any religious nutter. Their beliefs are not grounded in facts and no amount of logic can overcome their emotional outlook. All you can do is make yourself an (enemy) outsider. Anyone that asks me to brand myself on some survey or upon questioning has an agenda, in my opinion. Why should I put my name on some witch hunting list. Witch hunts have always been attacks on academics and abject thinking.
Becoming a first generation atheist is a class in skepticism, misdirection, and manipulation. It is not easy rejecting your entire friends network and questioning foundational ideas learned when we were gullible little children. I’m not about to shoot myself in the foot by feeding the sky wizard monsters with no fundamental logic skills. It’s as stupid as walking into a maximum security prison and opening all the doors. I’ll always defer to answer such a question, select other, or nondenominational.
One cannot reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
personally, i like branding myself as nothing, or one of the various flavors that i feel like partaking in for my own amusement. Sometimes i want people to understand me as little as possible, other times i want to fuck with people. It’s about the optics.
rustydominoAtheist here. What’s the problem?
The prejudice of other people. I had a boss once, an older lady that was super nice and baked lemon squares for us all the time. But she was super Catholic. I once overheard her say to the Pentecostal coworker that she doesn't think anyone has to believe exactly what she believes, as long as they believe. And then they went on to express their distaste and distrust of anyone that doesn't believe in god. I was new in the office. I kept my mouth shut. It was never brought up to me directly. I just enjoyed my lemon square and did my job. I think they knew subconsciously, but they never pushed it so I was just Schrodinger's believer...as long as they didn't ask, I was just like one of them.
Bahnd RollardThe lack of support structure, and the frequently harsh consequences for announcing your beliefs (or lack there of). Becoming an atheist usually means your not joining a new group either as there isnt exactly a weekley meeting of the “we dont believe in X” club. (TST tries to help with this)
On top of that leaving some groups can be very bad for ones mental and physical health. JW and Islam have parts of their dogma that supports retaliation against individuals who leave. (not picking on them, just the ones off the top of my head, im sure there are others)
With that in mind the calculus changes, one has to weigh the risks of announcing that you are questioning the beliefs of a group that you are a part of and if they are going to react rationally while you think their beliefs are irrational.
Flying SquidDo you live in Indiana? Because I do. And in a lot of Indiana, saying that out loud will cause you a lot of problems.
i have had many conversations where people assume i’m christian is a way that makes me really uncomfortable; my choices are to “well, actually,” or plaster a fake smile and nod in agreement.
i do the latter, but i hate it.
onlysky.media/…/in-2021-atheists-made-up-only-0-1…
A 2017 study found that people believe atheists are more likely to be serial killers than believers, even though federal data suggests they are far less likely to commit crimes than religious people.
Hmm.
One group uses the threat of eternal damnation to compel moral behaviour, the other has no external compulsion*.
Which group is likely to have more “good” members?
- Yeah, laws? Social etiquette?
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i think this probably has more to do with serial killers having disregard for shit in general, than atheists having disregard for religion.
Statistically it checks out that someone who doesn’t care about torture, murder, and violence, probably gives even less of a shit about religion lol.
I mean in the US at least, it could become VERY dangerous to not be an evangelical Christian cultist. (Much less a atheist)
If the Orange Man becomes dictator in November, shit is going to get bad quickly.
Which is quite fascinating since he’s made it very obvious that he himself doesn’t know jack shit about Christianity and that he’s not a believer. I’m an atheist myself and I’ve never seen a person more lost and uninterested when speaking about Christianity than him.
HalashamReally reminds me of the Association of German National Jews and their hilarious sad decision to endorse Adolf Hitler. We’re frequently presented with the assertion that people, in-general, are rational when they evidentially are not.
Default_DefectI’d argue that most people in government feel very similarly to Trump in regards to religion, they just know its a powerful tool to use.
Christians know and do not care. All that matters is that they have more control.
You are describing any fundamentalist regardless of religion
He’s describing the ones that are currently trying to bring us back to the middle age
Zuberi 👀“If” 😪
If the Orange Man becomes dictator in November, shit is going to get bad quickly.
I’m ethnically Jewish. My daughter is half-Jewish and queer. My wife is a librarian. We’re all atheists.
Needless to say, we’re making contingency plans.
My wife is a librarian.
I’m sorry but that gave me a chuckle.
It really shouldn’t.
Holy cow!
There isn’t much benefit to doing it.
You get to join the atheist parade every year and can go to atheist club every Sunday!
Wtf does coming out mean? Atheists hardly proselytize, what is the process of “coming out”
jbrainsIdentifying openly in public.
snooggumsI don’t openly identify as someone who is atheist for the same reasons I don’t openly identify as someone who doesn’t collect stamps. It just doesn’t come up if I avoid the places where people tend to ask.
i think specifically here, the first openly public exclamation of such.
It’s like coming out as gay.
RandoCalrandianNot really. More like coming out as Human (as opposed to those who’ve deluded themselves into believing they are more than that)