Do atheists fancy themselves as nonconformists?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For atheists, maybe if the question is "what religion are you?" the answer is "none" _ I don't have a religion. I don't believe in god"

Why would I use 11 words when I can say the same thing with 1? That's like using the dictionary definition of a word rather than the word itself. That seems silly.

only if you want to make an effort to help people understand what an atheist is. i.e., that's it's not a person who is anti-religion or a person who thinks religious people are stupid, or a person who thinks they have all the answers. It's just a person who does not believe in god. I guess I'd add "I'm an atheist" to the end of the quote above to make it perfectly clear. And you're right -- it's like a dictionary definition. It's purpose is to explain, not just to make a statement.

NP

It's not my job to educate people. If they want to know what an atheist is, they can figure it out for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:19:22 here.

The prefix "a-" just means "without". It seems like that's what several atheists here are describing.

It's neutral in attitude. It doesn't mean "anti-". For example, we agree that "apolitical" means you don't have a political affiliation or interest.

That said, there is a subset of atheists, perhaps small, who are "anti-theist." Anybody like the negative impact poster or 00:00 (same person?) who spends hours everyday trying to derail threads and piss people off and then try for creative ways to weasle out of their own responsibility is definitely "anti-theist." Some anti-theists probably get their "anti" from bad experiences with religion, while others seem like bored children (I'll let you guys peg 00:00.) I'd venture that anti-theists are the ones who have their identities wrapped up in opposing religion.

Now, conformism is a seperate issue. I think the Dawkins/Harris/Mayer type of loudmouth is, actually, seen as "cool" by some atheists. Not by all. If we were doing Vann diagrams I'd venture that many of the bored children type of anti-theist are also conformists. YMMV.

PP again. I hesitated to say this, but maybe it needs to be said. Some of the anti-theists I called "bored children" may actually have other psychological needs that lead them to vent their anger/frustration/whatever on anonymous internet posters.

None of this should take away from the legitimacy of anti-theists who got there via bad experiences with religion.

Yep, I know, I overthink these things. If you need me, you'll find me reading Borg and Crossan....)

Do you draw the same conclusion for people who call others "turds on a sidewalk"? Do you feel that any name calling takes away from the message?

Or the poster a few pages back who said she wanted to kick us in the nuts? What's the psychological profile behind that kind of crappy attitude?

I've said several times that I don't approve of religious folks behaving badly, either. Looked for the nuts comment, couldn't find it.

I have no sympathy for trolls and obnoxious atheists, though. When posters like you get in everybody's face, that's a problem for everybody, religious and atheists alike. If you're behaving like a jerk, then you have it coming. Note I said "you" not "all atheists."

Since you seem to know so much about me (and other PPs):
What am I like?
How specifically did I behave like a jerk?

And I "have it coming"? Really? Do you talk to people like that in real life?

Let's get the usernames so we can all see who are the people with truly mean behavior - name calling, etc. Jeff was on this thread earlier - maybe he can help.

Tip: the phrase "If you are behaving like a jerk...." is conditional not declarative. It's quite different from saying "you're a jerk."

Would you describe your own behavior as (a) hyper-sensitive, (b) super-aggressive, or both? Why, or why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Said by the poster who seems to have an inside track on how most people here think about things?

Because you were so right about me being a Trump supporter.... Are you the same poster who earlier in this thread who was speculating about who was going after that Groundhog? I have to say this is definitely a case of projection on your part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ which brings us back to the point that some of the reaction against atheism is a reaction to the awful behavior of a minority of atheists.

Of course there's some bigotry against atheists.

But in a forum like DCUM, pp wasn't able to scrape together a single anti-atheist quote that didn't attack atheists' bad behavior as opposed to lack of religion itself. Thanks, DCUM atheist minority!

Eh, somebody called atheists "pathetic" on the Christmas thread, but for the most part DCUM is pretty tolerant of atheists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For atheists, maybe if the question is "what religion are you?" the answer is "none" _ I don't have a religion. I don't believe in god"

Why would I use 11 words when I can say the same thing with 1? That's like using the dictionary definition of a word rather than the word itself. That seems silly.

only if you want to make an effort to help people understand what an atheist is. i.e., that's it's not a person who is anti-religion or a person who thinks religious people are stupid, or a person who thinks they have all the answers. It's just a person who does not believe in god. I guess I'd add "I'm an atheist" to the end of the quote above to make it perfectly clear. And you're right -- it's like a dictionary definition. It's purpose is to explain, not just to make a statement.

NP

It's not my job to educate people. If they want to know what an atheist is, they can figure it out for themselves.

Genuine questions:
-- atheist pp is out there creating bad impressions of atheists. Do you let her go unchallenged, or do you take her to task just as you would an out-of-control believer?
-- do you think Christians, Jews or Muslims accomplish anything worthwhile by saying things like "that person doesn't represent my faith"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ which brings us back to the point that some of the reaction against atheism is a reaction to the awful behavior of a minority of atheists.

Of course there's some bigotry against atheists.

But in a forum like DCUM, pp wasn't able to scrape together a single anti-atheist quote that didn't attack atheists' bad behavior as opposed to lack of religion itself. Thanks, DCUM atheist minority!

Eh, somebody called atheists "pathetic" on the Christmas thread, but for the most part DCUM is pretty tolerant of atheists.

Agree. I can think of 1-2 religious posters who take on atheism itself with words like "pathetic" and "table scraps." We all agree they're out of line and as I recall 6-7 Christians including me and a minister jumped on the table scraps poster.

Now atheists are often attacked when they behave like jerks here. I hope you guys can see the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ which brings us back to the point that some of the reaction against atheism is a reaction to the awful behavior of a minority of atheists.

Of course there's some bigotry against atheists.

But in a forum like DCUM, pp wasn't able to scrape together a single anti-atheist quote that didn't attack atheists' bad behavior as opposed to lack of religion itself. Thanks, DCUM atheist minority!

Eh, somebody called atheists "pathetic" on the Christmas thread, but for the most part DCUM is pretty tolerant of atheists.

Agree. I can think of 1-2 religious posters who take on atheism itself with words like "pathetic" and "table scraps." We all agree they're out of line and as I recall 6-7 Christians including me and a minister jumped on the table scraps poster.

Now atheists are often attacked when they behave like jerks here. I hope you guys can see the difference.

I feel like you guys (religious forum regulars if you will) have some trolls who enjoy screwing with you. Maybe they're atheists, maybe they just like being internet trolls, maybe some combination. And they screw with you by denigrating religion across this forum in random threads and by being rude.

Then you have the group of atheists like me (17:19) who always show up when there's a thread that specifically calls out atheists. We engage in intelligent and rational discourse. We never see these other threads because why would I open a random religious forum thread that has nothing to do with me?

For some reason the actions of the trolls outweigh the posts of the atheists who always arrive when specifically requested who are polite, respectful and willing to engage in discussion.

It just feels exceptionally unfair to have my belief system's reputation hinge on your experience with internet trolls. I don't come out of the relationship forum thinking all men are sex starved jerks with low drive wives. I don't judge all republicans by the comments section on national review and wapo news articles. Maybe you shouldn't judge atheists just because you happen to know that there are a couple jerks who claim to be atheists, who are mean, and who post here a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ which brings us back to the point that some of the reaction against atheism is a reaction to the awful behavior of a minority of atheists.

Of course there's some bigotry against atheists.

But in a forum like DCUM, pp wasn't able to scrape together a single anti-atheist quote that didn't attack atheists' bad behavior as opposed to lack of religion itself. Thanks, DCUM atheist minority!

Eh, somebody called atheists "pathetic" on the Christmas thread, but for the most part DCUM is pretty tolerant of atheists.

Agree. I can think of 1-2 religious posters who take on atheism itself with words like "pathetic" and "table scraps." We all agree they're out of line and as I recall 6-7 Christians including me and a minister jumped on the table scraps poster.

Now atheists are often attacked when they behave like jerks here. I hope you guys can see the difference.

I feel like you guys (religious forum regulars if you will) have some trolls who enjoy screwing with you. Maybe they're atheists, maybe they just like being internet trolls, maybe some combination. And they screw with you by denigrating religion across this forum in random threads and by being rude.

Then you have the group of atheists like me (17:19) who always show up when there's a thread that specifically calls out atheists. We engage in intelligent and rational discourse. We never see these other threads because why would I open a random religious forum thread that has nothing to do with me?

For some reason the actions of the trolls outweigh the posts of the atheists who always arrive when specifically requested who are polite, respectful and willing to engage in discussion.

It just feels exceptionally unfair to have my belief system's reputation hinge on your experience with internet trolls. I don't come out of the relationship forum thinking all men are sex starved jerks with low drive wives. I don't judge all republicans by the comments section on national review and wapo news articles. Maybe you shouldn't judge atheists just because you happen to know that there are a couple jerks who claim to be atheists, who are mean, and who post here a lot.

Maybe some people react that way because it feeds into their desire to think of all atheists as bad people. It's a form of "fake news" that people believe no matter how outrageous about a person or group of people that they already think are despicable.

[Anonymous]

Let's review the "mean" posts. Back on page 8, 16:46 had a good list started for the athiest haters. How many dozens have piled on since then? How many "mean" athiest posts on this thread? A fraction.

Why is somehow ok for the haters to be all-out jerks, but not the athiests? Hypo-f*cking-critical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would totally support making usernames mandatory for this forum and the political forum. I don't know if that's possible.

In order to honor the Trump regime?

Is your name Big Brother?

You need to get a grip. Good grief. I wore a pantsuit to vote for Hillary. But as you're demonstrating quite capably right now, it's impossible to have a discussion with posters like you around. For the greater good, we all, and you especially, need to own our posts with handles.

This idea really seems to threaten you Why?

not threatened at all
I just think it's a slippery slope.

So tell me - are you against the proposal to require voter ID?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's review the "mean" posts. Back on page 8, 16:46 had a good list started for the athiest haters. How many dozens have piled on since then? How many "mean" athiest posts on this thread? A fraction.

Why is somehow ok for the haters to be all-out jerks, but not the athiests? Hypo-f*cking-critical.

Once more with feeling: not a single person on this thread, before or after PP's list, has criticized atheists for not believing. 100% of the criticism has been about their behavior. In fact, I think it's fair to say that 100% of the criticism had been about YOUR behavior.

Clear now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's review the "mean" posts. Back on page 8, 16:46 had a good list started for the athiest haters. How many dozens have piled on since then? How many "mean" athiest posts on this thread? A fraction.

Why is somehow ok for the haters to be all-out jerks, but not the athiests? Hypo-f*cking-critical.

Once more with feeling: not a single person on this thread, before or after PP's list, has criticized atheists for not believing. 100% of the criticism has been about their behavior. In fact, I think it's fair to say that 100% of the criticism had been about YOUR behavior.

Clear now?

I am 17:19 here and at 10:19am today I listed a lot of posts where I thought believers were being rude when questioning the atheist belief set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's review the "mean" posts. Back on page 8, 16:46 had a good list started for the athiest haters. How many dozens have piled on since then? How many "mean" athiest posts on this thread? A fraction.

Why is somehow ok for the haters to be all-out jerks, but not the athiests? Hypo-f*cking-critical.

Once more with feeling: not a single person on this thread, before or after PP's list, has criticized atheists for not believing. 100% of the criticism has been about their behavior. In fact, I think it's fair to say that 100% of the criticism had been about YOUR behavior.

Clear now?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's review the "mean" posts. Back on page 8, 16:46 had a good list started for the athiest haters. How many dozens have piled on since then? How many "mean" athiest posts on this thread? A fraction.

Why is somehow ok for the haters to be all-out jerks, but not the athiests? Hypo-f*cking-critical.

Once more with feeling: not a single person on this thread, before or after PP's list, has criticized atheists for not believing. 100% of the criticism has been about their behavior. In fact, I think it's fair to say that 100% of the criticism had been about YOUR behavior.

Clear now?

+1

I am 17:19 here and at 10:19am today I listed a lot of posts where I thought believers were being rude when questioning the atheist belief set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would totally support making usernames mandatory for this forum and the political forum. I don't know if that's possible.

In order to honor the Trump regime?

Is your name Big Brother?

You need to get a grip. Good grief. I wore a pantsuit to vote for Hillary. But as you're demonstrating quite capably right now, it's impossible to have a discussion with posters like you around. For the greater good, we all, and you especially, need to own our posts with handles.

This idea really seems to threaten you Why?

not threatened at all
I just think it's a slippery slope.

So tell me - are you against the proposal to require voter ID?

Yes, I'm against requiring voter ID. In Takoma Park where I voted nobody asked me for ID, and they didn't ask my teen daughter either.

There's no "slippery slope" to democracy that begins with a measure to stop trolling on a mom's internet chat board. Methinks you protest too much.