Why are people of faith so threatened by athiests/agnostics?

[lordmaji]

I saw "Why are athiests so threatened by people of faith?" on gaf and thought it was interesting to see what you guys thought?

reversed of course. Why are people of faith threatened by unholy, satan worshiping, sex crazed, atheists and agnostics?

[Rman]

I'm a person of faith myself and I'm not threatened at all by atheists or agnostics.  I used to be an atheist myself.  For me reason and faith do not oppose each other.  Nor I am offended by others critiques about religion.  I've seen the good and bad of religion from a personal view as well.

[Phoenix Dark]

I'm not "threatened" by atheists at all. I see no rhyme or reason in their beliefs and they see no rhyme or reason in mine. I am annoyed by the "e-atheists" that fuck up GAF. I know many atheists in real life and none  of them are nearly as idiotic as the ones there. I think Malek is very impressive and has made me question my beliefs, for instance.

[Tauntaun]

I'm not threatened by them because I believe what I believe.  Insecurities maybe?

[Van Cruncheon]

i just don't get how atheists who "convert" select a religion, and why it always seems to be the one specific to their local/regional culture

oh wait, yes i do

[Joe Molotov]

Why are people of faith threatened by unholy, satan worshiping, sex crazed, atheists and agnostics?

I'm not threatened, they make for great movies!

[recursivelyenumerable]

Because I am an intimidating badass.

[Laramie]

The e-atheists on SA and GAF seem to be threatened by faith right off the bat.  I see far more trollish comments about religion from the e-atheists compared to the religious/faithful trolling atheism.  I believe what I believe and I'm not sure if it's right.  They believe what they believe and they aren't sure that they're right.  The problems come when one side (usually the e-atheists online and the religious in real life) don't concede the fact that they aren't positive in their beliefs.  I've had very good religious discussion on GAF with many very polite atheists but the trend is to come in and say something trollish (in every topic really) and that gets old.

tldr: Because recursivelyenumerable is an intimidating badass.

[Van Cruncheon]

I AM THE ATHIEST ATHEIST!

[Flannel Boy]

i just don't get how atheists who "convert" select a religion, and why it always seems to be the one specific to their local/regional culture

oh wait, yes i do

Yeah, there are many possible gods; atheists are going to attack the concept of god that is most salient to them. That means Westerners will focus on the Abrahamic Gods--specifically the Christian one--or various traditional theistic or deistic concepts. In the GAF thread, a poster wondered why atheists don't attack Spinoza's god. The answer is simple: no one actually believes in him. (That and his proofs are based on presupposing certain axioms are true, when there is no reason to make such presuppositions.)

[Tauntaun]

I AM THE ATHIEST ATHEIST!

Does this mean you don't believe in people?

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Prole

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[Van Cruncheon]

you are all procedurally-generated constructs in a game of sims starring me, where i am cruelly manipulated by a distinguished mentally-challenged and sexually frustrated thirteen-year-old boy

now let me pause the game and look at your model

[Flannel Boy]

Aren't we all controlled by distinguished mentally-challenged, sexually-frustrated, thirteen-year-old boys?

[recursivelyenumerable]

that would explain a lot

[Van Cruncheon]

lies; we worship moloch, not satan

[Tauntaun]

you are all procedurally-generated constructs in a game of sims starring me, where i am cruelly manipulated by a distinguished mentally-challenged and sexually frustrated thirteen-year-old boy

now let me pause the game and look at your model

I hope you take the time to notice the awesome pixelage down by my nether regions.    My pubes are like Final Fantasy hair. 

[Van Cruncheon]

you are all procedurally-generated constructs in a game of sims starring me, where i am cruelly manipulated by a distinguished mentally-challenged and sexually frustrated thirteen-year-old boy

now let me pause the game and look at your model

I hope you take the time to notice the awesome pixelage down by my nether regions. 

oh my, that's a LOT of polys

but it will take a robust and fully-featured pipeline to shade my geometry

[Van Cruncheon]

lies; we worship moloch, not satan

la la la I can't hear you. la la la you people don't exist in the eyes of God.

and from his beak issued the missive: go forth and learn their ways. become as their leaders, their lords, and their bankers; let them know your will, which is also mine.

[lordmaji]

I float in the middle of it all. Maybe, maybe not, who knows, but if you are a good person and there is something greater at the end you will go there. If there isn't anything... well, at least you were a good person while you were alive, now eat worms.

[Van Cruncheon]

or maybe the god will be irked at you straddling the fence; or maybe the god is mercurial and/or utterly unknowable and will decide to throw you into a lake of boiling cat piss just 'cuz it's funny

there is no good bet-hedging in a field of infinite possibility

me, i refuse to ratify the question of god -- why paralyze myself before the unknowable

[Tauntaun]

you are all procedurally-generated constructs in a game of sims starring me, where i am cruelly manipulated by a distinguished mentally-challenged and sexually frustrated thirteen-year-old boy

now let me pause the game and look at your model

I hope you take the time to notice the awesome pixelage down by my nether regions. 

oh my, that's a LOT of polys

but it will take a robust and fully-featured pipeline to shade my geometry

I've broken the matrix and have multi pipelines.  I hope you like tentacle penises. 

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:bowser <~~~ My rawr o face.

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[Van Cruncheon]

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[Crushed]

I corrupt your config, dat, and bin files. Your mouse is now frozen, we are free to do as we please.

[Eel O'Brian]

my best pal has just recently discovered atheism

he reads and listens to dawkins and whoever else is currently making a buck pissing off christians, then i get to hear all about it ad nauseum

i am considering telling him he's turned into a bizarro jehovah's witness over this shit, but i have the feeling he'd get mad for really reals

[Van Cruncheon]

nothing more annoying than the freshly converted, be it religion, authors, cinema, animu, comic books, the wii, mmorpgs, or gaf

zeal is the domain of teenagers and the chronically naive

me, i prefer sneering cynicism, as it allows me to suppress my adult ennui and channel it into the one thing i do truly enjoy: snarky contempt

[Eric P]

lies; we worship moloch, not satan

moloch, mo' problems

[Tauntaun]

^  Ok I lulled. 

[Eric P]

^  Ok I lulled. 

[Eric P]

PG Wodehouse looks too creepy.  i think i'm going to replace that icon fairly quickly

[Tauntaun]

^  Ok I lulled. 

(Image removed from quote.)

[Howard Alan Treesong]

mithras > jesus

[Smooth Groove]

mithras > jesus

Elitist!

[Eric P]

mithras > jesus

yes, but mothra > mithras.

and like biggie says

mothra mo' problems

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I spend all December wishing people a merry Mithrasmas

[demi]

nothing more annoying than the freshly converted, be it religion, authors, cinema, animu, comic books, the wii, mmorpgs, or gaf

zeal is the domain of teenagers and the chronically naive

me, i prefer sneering cynicism, as it allows me to suppress my adult ennui and channel it into the one thing i do truly enjoy: snarky contempt

I can get behind that

woof

[lordmaji]

nothing more annoying than the freshly converted, be it religion, authors, cinema, animu, comic books, the wii, mmorpgs, or gaf

zeal is the domain of teenagers and the chronically naive

me, i prefer sneering cynicism, as it allows me to suppress my adult ennui and channel it into the one thing i do truly enjoy: snarky contempt

I can get behind that

woof

Jock rider.

[duckman2000]

Because if a person can live a fulfilling life without any fear of a super-ghost, then that makes religious cods appear like a bunch of backwards fraidytards. It's sort of like the idiots that sold their houses and spent the money on building bunkers in anticipation the Y2K shit.

That, and I really think they have trouble coming to terms with the idea of people not needing the crutch and ever so convenient excuse of God in their lives. And of course, atheists shouldn't by any means respect religious people. There's nothing respectable about being a superstitious backwards bastard. That's like asking people to respect werewolf hunters.

The problems come when one side (usually the e-atheists online and the religious in real life) don't concede the fact that they aren't positive in their beliefs.

Atheism isn't belief, it's common sense. It's alright to lack common sense, just don't go around demanding others to respect it.

[Eel O'Brian]

^^^this is the kind of bullshit i get to hear when my friend visits nowadays, instead of just carrying on drinking beer and playing rock band

[duckman2000]

^^^this is the kind of bullshit i get to hear when my friend visits nowadays, instead of just carrying on drinking beer and playing rock band

My wife's family is remarkably religious, which is fine with me. I don't respect it, as I find it impossible to honestly respect their faith, but I can respect that it'd be largely pointless to discuss religion with them. So we don't. Seeing werewolf hunters act like bloody martyrs because others don't have perfect amounts of respect for these intrusive and viral belief systems, however, warrants a response. Religion, much like any other display of crown idiocy, doesn't actually deserve respect.

[CurseoftheGods]

I'm a person of faith myself and I'm not threatened at all by atheists or agnostics.  I used to be an atheist myself.  For me reason and faith do not oppose each other.  Nor I am offended by others critiques about religion.  I've seen the good and bad of religion from a personal view as well.

^Describes me perfectly.

[Eel O'Brian]

I remain unaffiliated

my mom's pretty religious, she reads her bible and goes to church and yet she's never tried to get me to go or preached at me

yet every atheist i've ever known has tried to cram that shit down my throat at every opportunity

all i know is that he fucked up a perfectly good saturday night while yammering on about his great discovery that it's all bullshit, man and goddamnit, i had to nod along and pretend i was interested when i really just wanted to sing "long time"

it's great that you guys have it all figured out, though, must be a comfort

[Laramie]

A militant atheist on the internet?  You must feel so alone.  Listen we're all completely enamored by your unique beliefs but please shut the fuck up and let bygones be bygones.  My faith has absolutely bearing on you just as your common sense has no bearing on me.

You're actually a perfect example of what everyone is complaining about.  We just want to have a nice conversation about religion and how people feel about it and you say, "Hurf durf, time to let everyone know I don't believe in the sky wizard."

[Tauntaun]

it's great that you guys have it all figured out, though, must be a comfort

Eel O'Brian
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Senior Member

[lordmaji]

I just don't really get it why both sides just can't say. Ok, you believe your shit, and I believe mine. end of story.

[Eric P]

I just don't really get it why both sides just can't say. Ok, you believe your shit, and I believe mine. end of story.

it's the internet.

[Tauntaun]

intarnetz are serious business 

[Eel O'Brian]

i'm *shrug* about it, really, just have a little lingering irritation that my friend only gets to come down and visit once every three months or so and there's always some new obsession

the big question i wanted to ask him but kept to myself is why do you need to buy a book to not believe in god

i'm glad there aren't any books about not giving a fuck one way or another

basically, i just hope i don't marry a chick who's secretly religious and wants to drag me to church every sunday morning, because i like to sleep in

[duckman2000]

I just don't really get it why both sides just can't say. Ok, you believe your shit, and I believe mine. end of story.

I can do that, to a degree. Using the example of my wife's primitive baptist family again, I tolerate their superstitious beliefs. I will never respect it because it's simply impossible to respect such beliefs, but I tolerate it. That is, until they start talking politics, and drag their beliefs into their political arguments. That I can not tolerate, because at least in the US, it represents a real threat against progress. I guess what I don't understand is this demand for respect. Tolerance, I can understand a demand for that. But respect? That doesn't make any sense. And it's downright comical that this demand is now coming from Christians of all types. The modern world is prime display of what a general Christian lack of respect for, and even tolerance of, other beliefs can do, given a couple of thousand years.

[recursivelyenumerable]

I am very religious and pray every day.  My prayers always go like this:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Shit's broken again.  Come fix your buggy crap.
Amen.

[xnikki118x]

I flop between being agnostic and a generic Christian. Stupid religious studies classes.

I think people are just inherently threatened by what opposes values that mean a lot to them.

I have a hard time understanding people who are fundamentalist or born-again or all gung ho JESUS IS MY LAWD AND SAVIORRRRRRR IMMA TELL YOU BOUT HIM! Along the same lines, I'm not gay, but a few of my very close friends are. I have an extremely difficult time accepting people who are homophobic.

:shrug

[Bildi]

If I have to be in a category I guess it's agnotsic (because while I don't believe in anything as such, I don't reject the possibility of things), but I don't have a problem with people who believe different things.

I love talking to people who think differently than me (as long as they're a reasonable person).  One of my best friends has fairly "out there" Christian beliefs but is a reasonable person so we have some great discussions.  We find some common ground particularly in literal interpretation of texts, our main difference being he takes the Bible as the most correct and historically accurate text whereas I take it on the same level as other texts or myths.

People who can't stand others with different views and push their ideas on others are of course annoying.  And people like that exist on all sides so no doubt we've all met someone like that.

I am very religious and pray every day.  My prayers always go like this:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Shit's broken again.  Come fix your buggy crap.
Amen.

Amen indeed.  My Logitech Harmony remote just broke this morning.  Frickin' electronics are so damn unreliable nowadays. 

[Hollywood]

Because if a person can live a fulfilling life without any fear of a super-ghost, then that makes religious cods appear like a bunch of backwards fraidytards. It's sort of like the idiots that sold their houses and spent the money on building bunkers in anticipation the Y2K shit.

That, and I really think they have trouble coming to terms with the idea of people not needing the crutch and ever so convenient excuse of God in their lives. And of course, atheists shouldn't by any means respect religious people. There's nothing respectable about being a superstitious backwards bastard. That's like asking people to respect werewolf hunters.

The problems come when one side (usually the e-atheists online and the religious in real life) don't concede the fact that they aren't positive in their beliefs.

Atheism isn't belief, it's common sense. It's alright to lack common sense, just don't go around demanding others to respect it.

Dumbasses like this is why people dislike *some* atheists. I don't care if someone believes what they believe, the the ridiculously arrogant "I'm right cause I said so" attitude is annoying bullshit. What's ironic is the same people you claim to hate are almost exactly identical in your attitude. Fundamentalist people who get up and preach about how you're going to hell if you don't do this or that, and the Bible says this and that, and their interperetation of it is the only thing that is right. Sound familiar?

I've went to a Catholic school all through grade school and high school, and had my fair share of religion classes. My beliefs are not aligned with what people like you like to pigeonhole everyone in a group believes. A lot people forget that no God doesn't necessarily mean no afterlife - Buddhism is classified as atheism in techincal terms. And if there's neither, so what? You die, and the black abyss of nothingness doesn't give a damn about if your arrogance and if were right or not; so whats the difference?

[Fresh Prince]

Without a God, religious people think that atheists feel no longer accountable to others and God and hence have no need to follow ethics and morals. Hence they become materialists whose only incentive in life is pleasure.

[Ganhyun]

Without a God, religious people think that atheists feel no longer accountable to others and God and hence have no need to follow ethics and morals. Hence they become materialists whose only incentive in life is pleasure.

Some versions of religious people think this way.

I'm of the opinion that we should let everyone believe in whatever God/Goddess/Gods/Goddesses/no God/No Gods they want to believe in.

After all, if you watched South Park, yuo'd know the correct answer to who is right, lol.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I think a lot of it has to do with that many people of faith have this idea deep ingrained.  So when saying that you don't believe in their God, they will act in a variety of responses from apathy to violent rejection of your idea.  To say that all people of faiths are against atheism is an absolute lie.  I barely know any atheists and I get along just fine with many other Christians.  What a shocker!  The fact that we have our differences in religious belief doesn't mean we hate each other.  In fact, we get along just fine and I am friends with a few holy rollers.  It is called being social.

Which is why I suspect that there are so many intolerant atheists on the board is because of the anti-social aspect of it.  If the thought of someone believing in a God is so revolting to them, chances are that they are not exactly a people person.  I am atheist myself but I don't try to pretend that I have a smug sense of superiority over the rest of the unwashed masses.  A lot of shit has been committed in the name of Christianity, Islam, etc. but does this mean I have to reject most of society now?  No.  Then again, society already rejected them so they go and type 10,000 word angry rants about how all religion is evil.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Live and let live. But militant atheists are the worst.

[lordmaji]

Live and let live. But militant atheists are the worst.

both extreme sides take the cake for me. Extreme anything can be bad.

[max_cool]

people: "hey max, what do you think about religion?"
max: "good question, I don't think about religion."
people: "Ok, but, what religion are you?"
max: "I'm not any religion, I don't hold any religious beliefs."
people: "So, you're an atheist?"
max: "sure, if that's what you want to call me"
people: "so you're not an atheist?"
max: "I don't think about religion."
people: "bu-bu-bu-bu-....."


I guess that would be atheism but whatever, I just don't give a fuck about it. We live, we die. Life is all we know we can, for certain, experience, make the most out of it you fucks!

[CrystalGemini]

Shouldn't this thread be named, "Why do people fear that which they do not know or understand?"  I feel it would be more accurate.  Just sayin'. 

[jiji]

Without a God, religious people think that atheists feel no longer accountable to others and God and hence have no need to follow ethics and morals. Hence they become materialists whose only incentive in life is pleasure.

Yeah, what gets my goat are the folks who insist that no ethics or morals can exist without God/the Bible/etc. I'm not religious and I have a perfectly good set of those, thank you.

I used to be more of a militant atheist, but over the years I've cooled into a sort of weak atheism or non-religion.  Religion (neither the built-to-explain-things beliefs nor the organization/rituals) isn't for me, but I realize the utility religion may have for others.