I, and a few other Atheists, have discussed in this sub forum, the reason for Atheist anger towards the religious. Now, I'd like to state again, that an Atheist that is angry at X legitimate religion is being foolish and guilty of the same things they are angry about. However, I understand the general anger, and here's why: Link As i said, with that info and correlating life experiences, I understand why that makes atheists angry, but I also understand that many religious people tie morals to their faith so closely, that they simply cannot understand how someone without faith can be moral, and that doesn't call for anger but tolerance. In an attempt to help people who think that way, I invite your questions and I'll do my best to explain how a godless, religionless person can be moral. (Please, lets not bash religious or non religious beliefs in this thread. I want it to be open respectful dialogue. Thank you.)
good opening. I also think a piece here is a latent belief that atheists think everyone who holds religious beliefs is delusional. That is an uncomfortable feeling. The reverse is also true and that makes interaction hard work, hard work lots of folks don't want to do. Tolerance and understanding IS the answer. Best wishes
Thank you. In my personal experience, I don't find the religious/faithful to be delusional. I find anyone comfortable with their prejudices to be delusional, whether their bias is faith based or not. Take this thread for example, I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel atheists are as untrustworthy as rapists as the article states, yet not one has taken me up on my offer. That to me is the problem with any side of any given opposition.
I'll say it this way; If God wants credit for all the good in the world then God should also get the Blame for all the bad too. If we are to accept that God is an Omnipotent entity, I think it's fair to say "What God Wants, God Gets." I'll stop being angry with Religion, when Religion stops teaching hate and promoting greed. I honestly do not get angry with people calling me immoral because that stems from a lack of understanding of my personal philosophy of the meaning of life. That is something easily fixed with a conversation and an open mind. Being an Atheist does not make a person immoral. It means that the source of your morals is not inspired out of fear of consequence of judgment by a deity or by a set of spiritual laws that are absolute in nature. My motivation comes from my desire to make people feel good by treating them the same way I want them to treat me.
eh atheist or religious, theres always going to be people who find a reason to hate others. there's no real point in getting upset about it. And shula guy, I am religious and I don't do the right thing just because I might get punished. In fact I'm pretty sure the bible says not to do good deeds because you have something personal to gain.
Most religions don't teach hate. Its specific people who use religion as a tool to promote their agenda. Its like hating hammers, because you held the nail for someone and they missed and hit your thumb. I agree 100% with your take on atheist morals. People's motivation for doing good is less important than doing good.
I AM NOT ANGRY YOU BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was just summing up what you said in less words because I'm better than you. Dinner, my place?
Fin D, Let me be clear, I did not think YOU thought religious folks were delusional but that in addition to your suggestion of religious folks having trouble understanding morality outside of faith (a point in which I believe you are correct, I am sorry to say) that ANOTHER point of contention between the two camps is the question of delusion. The suggestion that religion teaches hate and greed is absurd on its face. Have some people who hold a religious (or for that matter an atheist) position sometimes taught hate and/or greed, of course. So what? The logical end to that position would be, "Sometimes people are evil, we should do away with all people", a position which science fiction writers have played with for a century. The first citation or proof texts I would offer would be Jesus telling His followers to turn the other cheek, or pray for those who hate you, or to love one another as you would be loved. One needs to always remember that the word "love" in these contexts is not so much emotion as commitment and service.
FTR, I know you weren't saying that about me. I often cite you, my wife and the preacher that married us, as examples of what Christians should be, if they truly followed the teaching of their own beliefs. In fact, its because of people like you three that I've come to peace with the divided sides of this ongoing debate and moved past my own anger at "religion". Having said that, I'm still better overall than Lucky.
Lucky I am sure you are a very nice person and you have good motives. I believe most people are inherently good by nature. I really did not articulate myself adequately in that post . I have a difficult time finding the right words on this topic. I think most people are good, my comments were directed at religion as an organazation and the product it sells to people. Organized religion sort of tells people to do things that come from your heart and that is good (according to thier definition) but if the devil tempts you to stray, remember God is watching and if he decides not to forgive you, your going to hell. There is an implied threat in how they package it. I feel as though religion does teach hate in a backhanded way. The leaders tell thier followers that thier way is the right way to find nirvana and that nirvana is a eutophia free of hate and violence and if they stopped there then I would agree. They take it a step farther though. They place a burden on their followers to spread their religion and convert non-believers and maybe hate is a poor word but the results of this concept lead to some very bad things. Entire civilizations and cultures have been deystroyed and easily millions of people have been killed in the name of peoples religions. For some it is not enough to agree to disagree, they are made to feel obligated to convert by force if all else fails. That is what I mean by hate and that is the element that angers me. Constantine forced Christianity upon the people of his time and killed to do it. Hitler used God to justify exterminating Jewish people Bin Laden used Mohamad to justify crashing planes into buildings Self proclaimed prophets claim little girls as thier wives and rape them Preists raping little boys people being convinced to drink poison kool aide Abortion clinics blown up These are all acts of hatred and they all anger me. Religious texts are also filled with hate. The old testimate portrays God as hateful when people fail to follow his teachings. Eve brought evil upon the world Sodom and Ghomora turned to salt The great flood Exodus These are stories of hate. I'm only expressing my opinion but IMO relgion does teach hate. Not all of it but parts of it do.
Gonna be hard to have a reasonable discussion after that annoucement that religious folks are all and always wrong. I am very sorry you feel that way Shula Guy, in my opinion your view just perpetuates hate.
This has nothing to do with if you feel I am or am not a good person. Yes some religions, I believe, misconstrue the bible and make it more of an or else thing. This was part of my reason for leaving the catholic church. However, I know not all catholic churches teach this same, nor do all christian sects. The whole idea behind jesus, is so that men will not go to hell and God's forgiveness.
Again, the religion or faith doesn't teach hate. Its people that warp the teachings or beliefs of a given doctrine into hate. It is a very important distinction to understand. As an Atheist, i'm sure you value reason and logic. If that is so, remove the emotion from your line of thought and come at this issue from a logical and reasonable point of view. You know many things in the Bible are parables and not meant to be taken literally. The New Testament's principle philosophy is not one of hate, but one of love. That message gets distorted through various ways, but that's ALWAYS through a specific person's point of view. Take homosexuality. It does say in the Bible its a sin. But it does not say that homosexuals should be hated, scorned, ridiculed or judged, in fact it says the opposite of all sinners. That's what the religion teaches. Filtered through people with their own agendas, we get people like Phelps and his band of evil bastards. He teaches the hate, not the religion.
I'm sorry thats what you got from my post. Thats not what I said. I pointed out the element in religion that angers me. I am being honest about it. I do not expect everyone to agree with my perception and I respect that. The reason I even brought it up was because I did not agree with FinD's characterization of what angers atheists. I was only sharing what angers me as a point of comparison, but I apologize if I offended you because thats not my intent. Feel free to disagree with anything I said and I will engage in discussion of it without making it personal. All those things I listed anger me if they don't anger you tell me why I should not be angered by them or I'm being unfair or whatever it is bothering you about what I said. Also you referenced the bible and your interpretation of the message of Jesus, which is cool. I did the same thing only to illustrate that religion is not all peace and forgiveness in it. I will voluntarily bow out of this thread if everyone feels I am detracting from it. My appologies. Just know it was not my intent to offend anyone. FTR I also think there many positive things that are associated with religion but that was not the topic this thread was about it.
I do not disagree but its a matter of perception. Some people view the Koran as a book of love while others take hate away from it. The bible is no different. If Religion only promoted peace and good will I would not be angry but it does promote hate too. I'm not saying everything about religion is hateful but the aspect that does angers me.
I truly think that if the Bible or Koran is read by someone with no prior knowledge and not influenced by another's opinion, the person wouldn't feel they preach hate. Its when those books are filtered and guided by certain people do they appear to be hateful.
You guys talk about perception the bible or koran and such, and I think perception is also the reason for the mistrust of athiest out there. Atheisim is a little hard to understand completely. Much harder to understand than agnosticisim. The athiests that Ive known in life seemed to have a lot of bitterness towards religion and that sometimes gives off the idea that they have an agenda against christianity. The people Ive met may not be the best represenatives of atheisim out there, but thats the experience Ive had. Then the news media perpetuates the idea that theres an anti-religion agenda when you hear about getting rid of christmas lights or in god we trust and such everywhere. Stuff like that seems like such minor issues, that when you try to make sense of it using prior experience of bitterness toward religion, you come to the conclusion that the reason that things like that are an issue is because athiests want to undermine or attck anything religous. ...Its an easy conclusion for most to reach Id think. I think some may take it further and think like " well if they want to undermine and attack religion, they probably want to undermine religious morality such as the ten commandments and such" Now I know the reason for not wanting "in god we trust" in court rooms is that athiests dont want religion pushed on them and feel disrespected. To be honest though, I sometimes have to stop and remind myself of that in order to correct me from going the route of "Oh they are just going on some anti religion thing again" which is never a good thing, but with that, I can see from this aspect that alot of people may not trust athiest. They simply dont understand completely.
eh, figured Atheists are peeved because they are atheists and always cheesed off over something or the other. Can understand the reasons for it, but would point to the dissatisfaction to suggest "your doing itz wrongz"
Well to be fair, the whole War on Christmas thing does not belong to Atheists exclusively. Its more about not everyone is a Christian in this country. Its kinda of like assuming everyone in the country is a Dallas Cowboys fan. I doubt any of us would like to hear everywhere we went, "How bout dem Cowboys". Now add in the fact we're talking about something serious like faith and not a football team and maybe people can see how that can get upsetting after awhile.
What is so hard to understand about, "We just do not know and cannot prove either way so why pick a side." I guess as an agnostic I do not really understand the atheists who are certain that there is no god or afterlife of any kind and claim to use science, logic and reason as proof. When in reality, science, logic and reason says, "We have no clue, why bother."
No, I understand that stance completely. Why I think atheisim is hard to understand , is well....basically what you said....
Thats the tricky part. Maybe its because I havent walked in your shoes. I know the whole thing of "Im not jewish, but dont have a problem with hanukkah" kinda speil gets really old, but thats a mentality thats always going to be there for most. Unfortunately, that may tend to morph into "athiests are just attacking religion" which in turn causes mistrust. Im guilty of that same mentality as well at times, what I try to work on is a thought process of like " Hey, I dont always understand an athiests POV, but the issues are real....I dont understand rocket science either, but it got us to the moon" sorta thing. I guess ya cant understand everything, some things you just have to accept!
Eh, someone has to be the wet blanket, the end of it is the idea of Deity and a Cosmically personal universe is simply not palatable, which is fine but like pouring water into your gas tank, it will lead to problems down the road. Ethical cause and effect Fin D, that never changes.
Atheists lack faith in a spiritual existence of any kind is the simplest way I know to explain it. I hope that helps. Agnostics are on the fence and say maybe spirituality is real or maybe its not. Conceptually I don't see why one is easier to encompass then the other but that might just be because I am an Atheist. Some do have an agenda This is really more of a miscommunication IMO. Many of the things that seem trivial might be in a practical sense in regards of how it effects our daily living but in principle its not so trivial. I personally do not agree with how much religious influence is implied as being a part of our gov's foundation but I do not make a big deal about it because it really does not have a harmful effect on the quality of my life. I will tell you I am bothered by having "in god we trust" printed on our money. Its not something I lose sleep over but it is something I would prefer to see removed from our currency. For me that statement is false. I do not put my trust in god and according to my money I do. Some people perceive that as an attack on religion. I perceive it as a desire to correct an inaccuracy. I can see your point and I would say both sides need to be more tolerant toward one another. I think from the Atheists point of view, we are fighting an uphill battle because there is so much religious inferences fused within our gov that we give off the appearance that we are nit picking every little thing. I also think things get blurred and we Atheists are guilty of taking things too far on occasion the same as religion takes things too far. I do not draw issue with the ten commandments being displayed in a gov building but I would draw issue with a law being written based on a particular religious belief. Its a tricky line to walk sometimes. For instances I think how the bill of rights is written saying that our rights come from our creator is dangerously close to being a legal document based on a religious foundation. IMO the founding fathers really threaded the needle with how they worded that. It only flies in my book because of the ambiguousness of the definition of the word "creator".
Here's just a learning question. Its a question thats hard to ask without sounding demeaning, but I think its something everyone can learn from. The question would be: Whats the average age, income and job responsibility of a typical atheist? ....Im of the belief that no person in the world can see everything as perfect, I just dont think its possible because its not productive. I think humans are inherently designed to be productive. I also think we are inherently designed to locate and identify our weak points first and foremost to try and make them better. I also realize that if you ask one who has it all and what their biggest gripe in life is vs a guy living off the streets biggest gripe is, it would be completely different. I guess where Im going is, the triviality of gripes seem to be proportional to the quality of life of a person..... Brittney Spears getting a zitt might take that as just as traumatic to her as a guy with 4 kids loosing his job. How does an average atheist compare their own personal value of not wanting Christmas and "in god we trust" not being on money, compared to those who have nothing and hitting the dregs of their life looking for hope beyond their self. Lots of people have made huge changes via religion....what wants do atheiest want that they feel go beyond that
To have a relative simplistic and general viewpoint as your statement, atheists wouldn't have a problem with Christians if they didn't keep on messing and trying to butt in with their lives. It is not like atheists go around messing with Jews, they tend to keep to themselves.
Be angry all you want non-believers, this thread is going to hell, you all are going to hell........................except.............
