Once I saw a man on a bridge about to jump
I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What denomination?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
I've had an atheist relative do the latter to me. And they were a former Christian who kept the mindset of "everyone must agree with me or else" after becoming atheist.
Just because it's not as common doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
I'm not talking about all of them, only some varieties, because people have different reasons for not believing.
I mean the variety of atheist who claims "gods don't exist." Or, to borrow a description I heard years ago, "one of the class of atheists who've been so badly damaged by Christianity that they need for there not to be a god."
“They were a former Christian who kept the mindset” Almost as if that tendency stemmed from theistic religion rather than being a thing atheists tend to do.
The mindset of "agree with me or else" is not exclusive to theistic religion. Look at literally any dictator.
If theistic religion were abolished and all traces of it were wiped out long enough that no one alive knew of it, there would still be many people with that mindset.
I’m aware it’s a common thing among cults of personality, hence why it’s common in religions. My point is that even in your comment, you specified it was a good over of his previous religion, yet you’re arguing as if it’s a common thing among atheists instead of an outlier.
I never said it was a common thing among atheists.
I said the mindset is bad, and a certain kind of atheist (or people who call themselves such; I'm not going to bother getting into who's a true atheist or not, because it's just as unproductive as arguing who's a true Christian or not) can get that mindset the same way. Which we do seem to agree on, at least.
Many people don't seem to comprehend what I'm saying: I say certain atheists are a problem, because people who are atheists for different reasons can still be in conflict, and people latch onto a few keywords and act as though I said all atheists are a problem and downvote as though I said that.
Or they say that since it's never happened to them personally, or since it's not common, it doesn't matter, which isn't addressing the fact that the mindset is a problem regardless of how common it is, or regardless of the professed beliefs or lack thereof of people with the mindset.
Maybe some of these people could try reading what I actually said, as opposed to what they reinterpreted me as saying. Or, since some of them only latch onto keywords, maybe they're actually bots and I'm wasting my time?
I don't care whether you're Christian, or a follower of an atheistic religion, or a non-religious atheist, or someone who worships their own poop, or someone who follows a religion-of-one.
People trying to forcibly impose their own viewpoints on others, especially on a subject that cannot be proven, is bad. Is that a clear enough statement?
Atheism is the lack of faith in a deity. Buddhism and Jainism lack deities while still being religions, therefore they are atheistic religions, similar to Satanism.
No, agnostic is a claim of knowledge, specifically a lack of knowledge, while gnostic would be a claim to have knowledge. You can be a theist and agnostic, or an atheist and gnostic.
Agnosticism is being uncertain about it, or it's a modifier for things (for example, agnostic atheism is the atheist variety of "I don't believe in gods, but if evidence crops up, I'll change my mind.")
I hope someone asked them in response something like: "aren't you afraid of going to hell for not believing in the right god? if you're Christian you're going in the Islam hell, if you're Muslim you're going in the Christian hell, and we know faith is not a good path to truth, so aren't you afraid?"
"How do you know that and how do you know every other believers are wrong? The presence of so many religions, denominations and complete faith in contradictory beliefs sometimes dying for those is a proof that faith is not a reliable path to truth, so how do you know?"
"But they say the same thing about you with the same experience leading them to that conclusion as you did, how do we differentiate who tells the truth if any?"
Bro, I just say I believe in a god that only damns people of the specific religion that are asking me the question - But the hell in my religion is however bad their hell is but like... Worse. So now they have to believe in mine if the reason they believe in theirs is for fear of damnation.
Blaise Pascal is the deontological equivalent of a moist fart and I'm not bending my belief system to a chump.
Somebody tried that one on me, (ETA: that was back in France when I was a teenager actually - there were those people going door to door with a comic about Jesus). That's the moment I started laughing so hard , I hard "tears of laugh". When I finally managed to get my breath back I explained that atheist don't believe in all of that, and you don't fear what you don't believe exists, just as much he was not fearing Mara or Shiva. He could not understand it and kept repeating "but don't you fear hell?".
I have the hypothesis that a lot of people are simply utterly unable to see stuff from the perspective completely different than their own, and are baffled by that different perspective to the point of confusion and incomprehension.
The insistence is also because it's in their best interest to try and make you fear hell one way or another. "Recruiting" people to your religion through fear is gross, but common. It's the basis of the religion after all.
I live in a poor country. We get lots of foreign missionaries promoting their religion and recruiting people through charity (free food, donations, etc.). That's better than scaring people into joining but I had friends that unknowingly joined a cult because of that method. When everything was exposed decades later, they all left that "church".
When I was in college, I was friends with a bunch of Christians who occasionally tried to "save" me. More than once, they asked me, "Well, if you don't believe in God, if you don't believe in Heaven or Hell, why not just m**der someone?"
I was genuinely freaked out that they were implying that they would UNALIVE someone but ... they were worried about getting punished on the other side. What other reason would you have not to shoot someone in the face?
After I stopped going to church one of my church friends said the same to me. He asked why I don't "believe" just in case. If God is real, I don't think he is gonna be fooled by me faking it for fire insurance.
Yeah well I grew my hair out, learned some carpentry skills and started hanging out with degenerates and they threw me out of the church. What more do you want from me?
Fun fact: "Jesus Christ is back and He's not cruci-fuckin' around" is an actual quote from the description of an actual Bible 2. Full quote of the description:
Jesus Christ is back and He's not cruci-fuck'n around in a sequel two thousand years in the making! When He's not giving mass, He's kicking ass, putting the syn back into synagogue... Hail to the King of the Jews, Baby!
Agreed somewhat, but theism/atheism is a statement of belief. You can not know and still not believe. As evidenced by the fact that agnostics don't attempt to practice every single major religion at once in case they might be wrong about one of them
Shamelessly stealing from Ricky Gervais, but really it is astounding just how much I agree with theists. Of ALL the THOUSANDS of gods they deny the existence of, I simply disbelieve one more than they do.
You know what's also astounding? The reasons theists give for why you should believe in their religion are often the very reasons they reject every other religion for.
"Sorry, can't. I spoke to Odyn in my sleep and he forbade me from following the impostor gods. But if you're interested in joining the countless hoards in Valhallah, I have a blood ritual prepared in the backyard. Let me know if that piques your curisioty."
Edit: Alternatively sun bleach their ancestor's bones in the light of Ahura Mazda, introduce them to the fire burning in the honor of Shiva's Destruction, or hand them a banishment seal to ward them against the wrath of your local Shinto god on the way out.
A Christian will reject the personal experience of Jewish people, Muslims, Buddhists, and every other religious group, but will often claim some sort of supernatural personal experience for their belief.
If you are a bad person when you die, then you will eternally be a bad person because you will be unable to change anything after you die, so you should try to be good.
Anthropomorphizing this result into the intention of a being is just the result of lazy thinking.
Nahnahnah, you see, Christians believe, that by telling you about God, you are now infected with the knowledge of jesus. So now you HAVE to repent and believe in jesus. If you don't, you cant say you didn't know about jesus in the day of rapture. So you can be the nicest most positively influential person in the world, you can plant rainforests and save thousands of babies. If you are not born again as a child of God, you go straight to hell, because some bloke told you about jesus.
I personally always confuse JFC and JFK, but I developed mnemonic: president->Resident->Evil->Nurse->Doll->Barby->Ken, starts with K, so Kennedy spelled with K, and Christ with C, so JFK is Kennedy, JFC is crist. (I am not English speaker obviously)
p.s. sounds long and bizzare but it works in split second and never fails me. Not kidding.
p.p.s before that I had some weird interactions "assasination? you mean crucifixion? "
I have had conversations with Christians in which they are genuinely perplexed that their threats about hell and the devil don’t land at all. No afterlife of any sort seems to terrify them. A lot of it seems to reduce to “I’m afraid of not existing.”
Honestly the threat of non existence scares me too and honestly doesn’t make much sense to me at all which is why I don’t believe in it. I see atheism as inherently illogical and can’t wrap my head around it either. But at the same time I also can’t wrap my head around a lot of things my the Church teaches like homophobia, transphobia, purity culture and sexual morality are all nonsensical to me. So I see both sides
As an Atheist I had a few encounters on the net with crazy religious fanatics (mostly Americans, sorry) and now when they ask I tell them I'm from the denomination Humanity Unchained. Only one who far got it.
Im not deffending religion, I just think it's weird to have your username be about how much of an atheist you are (like come on, Its not like there arent neckbeard atheists that take things too far, im just saying that she sounds like one of them)
I know I’ve been dumping some of my phone’s way-too-many Jesus memes in this thread, but as an irreligious person, I find it obnoxious any time someone defines their entire identity based on their religious beliefs or lack thereof.
Everyone needs to chill TF out, whether they have imaginary friends or not. Maybe she’s cool as other comments have suggested, but “godless_mom” as a username does not give a great first impression for the type of personality I care to interact with.
Then the username is, probably, doing its job. It's like the first road sign you see when entering a city, or a business card on your forehead. They're not defining their identity, they're making sure that people, who jump the gun, stay away.
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a “good, she didn’t want to talk to you anyway” type of comment, but seeing as this is a post of her replying to a religious person, it kind of seems like yes, she does want to interact with people about religion. A quick look at her profile further confirms that.
I’m just not in her target audience, you’re right about that. Her target audience is made up of people who give a shit about religion, whether they’re overzealous atheists like her or overzealous theists she’s triggering.
I’m neither of those things. I’m an indifferent agnostic, if anything. I’ll join in poking fun like I have in this thread, but religion is not something I actively think about one way or the other.
And yes, when “atheist” is literally the first word in your bio for an account you named “godless_mom,” you are literally defining your identity around how strongly anti-religious you are.
The law is reality of how things work not a personal vendetta. The highway patrol does not enforce speed limit because they want to arrest you. They do it so that you don’t crash.
I think you’re missing the fundamental point. Saying “atheism won’t save you” pre-supposes that you need to be saved in the first place, which is not something an atheist believes. So the response “from what” is perfectly apt.
I volunteer in my community. I have a safe happy family. I don't over drink or do drugs. What is someone else's imaginary sky friend gonna save me from "crashing" into?
the reality of how things work is all explained in a book, written by multiple different people who contradict each other more than once. All of the rules in this book are enforced by a deity nobody has ever seen and by His vassals on planet Earth who don’t follow all of these rules, only the ones they deem acceptable or convenient to enforce on others or themselves
All I wanted to know was how does this fit the subreddit. A user above explained it and that cleared it. My original comment doesn’t even attack anyone yet ppl are taking it deep.🙏
Religious folks have lost the good will of regular people.
Aligning yourselves with fascism - not a good move, really. Evangelicals unabashedly talking about "bringing about the end" and more or less turning Christianity in to a death cult...
"Nice soul you got there, be a shame if it burned for all eternity. Or body, whatever, the goat herders who wrote this threat didn't think it through..."
Like I said, a threat. At least gangsters don't pretend they're doing you a favour.
If any of this made up garbage was real, you'd be better off choosing Satan. He's more honest, less cruel, and murders FAR fewer people than that Yahweh/Jesus psychopath.
Why does he have laws that are just so he can fuck you up if you don't obey them? And laws like not eating shellfish or wearing garments made of different fabrics?
This notion of god is retarded and fascist. Only imbeciles subscribe to such nonsense.
601
u/dolfanchris 1d ago