Cause 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.
Yup. 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
Just 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.
It'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
We're not afraid to come out, we just don't talk about it because religion isn't important to us and we don't feel compelled to have everyone believe in the same thing as us.
Now may you be touched by thy noodley appendage
there are totally people who dont want to be found out, cause of familial or work repercussions.
Its not uncommon for people to have to hide things like lack of faith, sexuality, "wrong" thought, etc for a variety of reasons.
It's like disliking avocado and telling everyone you meet that you don't like avocado. Telling someone something you're not isn't a character trait, so there's no reason to bring it up.
Unless of course it's a defense against people pushing their beliefs on you.
"You should eat this avocado"
"No thanks, I don't like avocado"
"You're going to go to hell for that."
I see no more need to announce I don't believe in the Christian god than there I see need to announce I don't believe in Zeus. Both questions are completely irrelevant to my life
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.
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.
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.
Really reminds me of the Association of German National Jews and their sad decision to endorse Adolf Hitler. We're frequently presented with the assertion that people, in-general, are rational when they evidentially are not.
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?
I used to be more forward about it, just to make sure people were aware to try to avoid awkwardness down the road. Turns out, some folks just hyper focused on it and only defined me by the one thing.
I've since stopped telling people or making it even known at all.
This was my thing. I'm not a atheist, but the moment I talk about religion, it becomes "the thing". I imagine this is what vegans have to deal with, like the moment they share... It becomes a shit show of people questioning everything. And like bruh, let them eat vegan marshmellows and pray to Cthulhu.
The boldest claim to make when it comes to the existence of a "god" is that we don't know. No one fucking knows. One thing I do know is that the fundamentals of physics are beautiful no matter how it came to be. People hate not being able to explain things so they made shit up as they went, such that the idea of "god" was created.
America as a whole needs to ensure following secular ideals for its public policies and laws.
I don’t mind people using religion in their personal lives for whatever reason, but it does seem like there’s a delusion driven community level effect that leaks out from temples, churches, mosques etc. It seems most of these people “mean well” but they don’t realize how much unintentional harm they’re doing. The Satanic temple type people adding fuel to the fire of religious zealots are making things worse.
In general, I hope it becomes taboo and outlawed to base rules or laws around mythology-based scripture. Where is this social movement? I get fuck cars and all, but secular humanism is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
your yearly PSA on the TST and COS:
some clarification here. The satanic temple, or the TST as it's known is actually really based, while it is "satanic" that's mostly a funny haha thing, the majority of it is mostly based around being a religion that isn't awful. I.E. being nice to people, because you should do that.
A lot of flak they've gotten is for things like putting a satanic club into a school (that school had a bible study club) and various other shenanigans, notably the one satan con thing they had, where people protested, but inside it was pretty chill. It's performance art and statement pieces primarily, which are perfectly apt, i feel. Freedom of religion and all. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Anyway, the point i came here to make was that the TST is the good one, and the church of satan, or COS, is the less based one, for instance, they believe that consuming blue cheese makes you gay. That's like the religion religion one. Nobody likes that one.
When i lived in big cities on the West coast i was open in my Atheism. Now that i live in rural Michigan... I keep it to myself
I wonder if it has anything to do with all of the “bad atheism” that’s populating the internet.
By this, I mean to say that actual TRUE atheism isn’t about hating Christians, but if you look here, and on Reddit- any community involving atheism is nothing but anti-Christian rhetoric. Not other religion- just Christianity. AND A LOT of hate.
Actual atheists don’t define their ideology based on who they hate. It’s simply just not believing in religious idolatry. Nothing more and nothing less.
So if you find yourself hating on someone simply because they believe differently than you do. Maybe ask yourself if any of that seems familiar to you at all. And then back away from the nonsense. Because maybe It’s you that’s making it difficult for the ideology of atheism to be taken seriously.
I think the atheism you are referring to is teenaged angst filled atheism. They are lashing out at their oppression. They can come out of their shell later into a more refined version of atheism.
poor default country problem.
I stopped mentioning my atheism because it's so common among my sociodemographic environment that it's not anything interesting.
If anything, when casually cracking another "religion bad" joke at work, I'd better check if someone is maybe religious, and I really don't want to insult them.
-- millennial yurobro
While I was in the angry atheist online camp when I was the only atheist I knew and needed a community, I've since evolved into an apathetic view of individual belief.
Screaming at the thumpers won't do any good. Eye-rolls are more effective. And explaining religion to the young is as simple as saying it's just something some people do, like sports.
No 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.
I'm a bit surprised with the number of religious people I know irl tbh. I've only met maybe one other atheist at school. These people realized that their ancestors believed in another religion and were probably killed and forced to convert right? Probably about half are actually just agnostic and the remaining full believers.
I mean I'm not trying to convert anybody I'm just tryna understand why.
"Hesitant to identify because of the social stigma?"
This is proof they fear what they don't understand. I exist without faith in a higher power. I don't share "not believing in a god" because it's like saying "my eyes are not brown". It doesn't tell you what color they are.
Me saying I'm "atheist" tells you absolutely fuck all about what I do believe. I do believe that humanity has the potential to solve all the problems we have right now, and it would be likely easier without religion interfering.
Murder, theft, intentionally harming relationships (etc.) and other crimes are things I simply don't want to happen to me. So I won't do them to others. Seems easy enough.
If we assume everyone we meet is suffering, and on their own path away from it, we tend to be better people toward them, and our own struggles help too.
I came to the conclusion a while back that all these religious nuts end up doing what an authoritarian tells them to do, because they understand the authoritarian, and fear everything else.
I was raised religious and walked away from my faith the day it became my choice, 18. I haven’t been in a church since – that was nearly 20 years ago.
Still to this day I’ll have to gently remind my family I’m atheist about twice a year, and they’re still equally shocked and horrified every time.
Because theres nothing to fucking evangelize lol. "Excuse me ma'am, do you have time to discuss our lord and savior, nobody?"
Archive Today will help you look at paywalled content the way search engines see it.
Depending on severity, you might be warned before adverse action is taken.
Application of warnings or bans will be subject to moderator discretion. Feel free to appeal. If changes to the guidelines are necessary, they will be adjusted.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.
Provable means able to provide proof to the moderation, and, if necessary, to the community.
~ /c/nostupidquestions
If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!
This is mostly YouTube at the moment. Podcasts and similar media - especially on federated platforms - may also feature here.
Start here...
...proceed here.
As a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.