Atheist/Anti-theist/Agnostic Troper Group

Not really, it's so bizarre and confusing that someone COULD believe these things in any aspect that it is, in principle, interesting.

Also that they could reconcile their personal religion with the existence of all the others and say "but mine is the right one." That too is interesting.

And of course the history of the major religions tends to be interesting, like how there was an entire group of christianities (dualist christianities) that got wiped out largely by the christians and now don't really get talked about, or how several more localized religions had the opportunity to become big but just didn't for some reason, or how some big ones (Like Manicheanism) just disintegrated and essentially vanished.

Hello fellow atheists.

Out of curiosity, what moral philosophy do you follow outside of just being a decent person?

I've never much liked ethical philosophy. It tends to break down at any given edge case, and fixing it for one inevitably creates new and exciting edge cases where it breaks down. Even after that, it almost always places value on some arbitrary or subjective thing. (Consciousness, happiness, they sound super great but it's treated as a given in all of the ones I'm aware of why these things have some intrinsic value when it's not entirely clear why they should be considered to have that assigned value, and happiness especially leads to all kinds of weird edge cases where it makes sense to steal sad people's organs and give them to happy cannibals.)

I just do what I do based on the knowledge I have to find more things to know about and try to make it so other people know more things too, and in the long run make life-difficulty optional, rather than mandatory and all-too-often assigned at birth.

I just go where the wind blows (metaphorically speaking) and try to avoid doing anything that would be considered a federal offense.

I personally follow the simple, if it's not damaging anyone then it's morally permissible.

I'm a bit worried that so many American Christians are outright cheering for Italian Fascists and Vladimir Putin. It is horrible that people hate the idea of being good people so much that they cheer murderers and racists, and that it is mainstream. You'll see a lot of people cheering the Russian army against Ukraine because they hate gay people and think that Putin is a strong man who can stand up to "the lgbt agenda". For the Americans in this thread: What do you guys do to fight back the anger or bitterness you get from dealing with the worst religious people in America who cheer for things like that?

I'm a bit busy trying to pass college right now so I don't do all that much. I didn't even know about this until you brought it up (but in hindsight, its not surprising).

Why do so many Christians like to pretend as if they're the victims while discriminating and wanting to kill others for their irrational hatred?

x3 I don't, I already accepted that religion's primary ability seems to be to fuck people up, then the apologists say "not all religions" or "but it gives them/me purpose" or "religion encourages helping other people". It's not a question of did religion make someone worse off, it's a question of how much worse of it made them. Fundamentalist Christians are obviously among the worst I've personally had to deal with, (living in the US where that is the main kind of religion.) and Creationism conditions people to accept conspiracy theories, so at this point, I'm fairly confident there is no such thing a "harmless" religious belief. There are less harmful beliefs, but there are none that are actually good that you couldn't get without the religious elements.

So essentially, be angry and bitter. There's no reason not to be, and plenty to be. The apologist argument of "all these good things in society happened because of religion, even if you don't believe, it must have done good" falls apart when you consider there hasn't been a control group. There's no parallel earth we can look at where religion didn't happen (probably because such a thing would be nearly impossible, humans are far too good at assigning meaning to statistical noise).

I don't know, my local Rabbi is kind of the nicest person I know so religion clearly doesn't screw up everyone. And my parents are pretty great too. And also happily married. I know, shocking isn't it.

Just passed by a "Christian Science Reading Room." What is that? Among its many claims it included "healing the sick" and "raising the dead."

Yeah. You know what actual Christian Scientists call what they do?

Science.

"Christian Science" is a term quacks and faith healers use for their pseudo-biblical snake oil.

Why do people treat trans people as delusional and insane for wanting to live like their psychological gender instead of their physical sex but the same people will be offended if you dare to say that universe wasn't made by a magical bearded man or that there's no scientific evidence for a soul?, they would get angry at you for not respecting their beliefs, I'm talking mainly about conservative fundamentalist, always arguing science doesn't care about your feelings but apparently that doesn't apply to what they want to believe on for nothing other than emotional reasons.

Because "Facts don't care about your feelings" is a good way to (pretend) to win an argument. They don't actually have a thought-out position other than "I don't like those trans people", they just say things that are trivially true and usually unrelated to the topic and act like that's a victory.

It has nothing to do with The Dead God who will Rise Again and Destroy The World, or any other religion, in principle. Conservatism, religious and secular, as a general rule, has very few arguments for its points that hold up to scrutiny, and thus tends to rely a lot on weak arguments repeated many times, or a quip in place of an argument. Note how the Far-Right Atheists argue very similarly to the Conservative Christians or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or whatever, except instead of retreating to a position of faith when challenged past their first few bad arguments (which, faith can't be argued with, because it's literally taken as gospel. Faith is axiomatic) they usually shift to different bad argument tactics.

It never was about facts or feelings, it was about saying something trivially true ("Facts do not care." This is true, facts do not care.) and thus implying your position must be not just false, but so completely false that every fact is against it, despite the fact they usually haven't bothered to come up with actual facts that are relevant to the question or managed to link whatever you're talking about to a thing that is actually counterfactual, in which case it wouldn't be a complete non-sequitur to say "facts don't care".

The thought terminating cliche is an important tool in the bad argument toolbox, along with a few other things.

Also some people are just assholes.

and to add more to the comments already given there's also the fact that most people are raised with religious beliefs being pushed into them practically since birth while for most of history Trans has been believed to be something to be ignored at best or despised as sick, sinful and wrong at worse so it's no shock that people have a bias against transexuals and a bias in favor of religion even if religion is arguably much more absurd than the idea of gender identity.

They hate those who are different. It's that simple. They merely use religion as an excuse, but it's all bullshit.

Is it true that atheists are liberals? Is there such thing as a conservative atheist?

Why do our religious views have to be linked to our political ones?

Oh there can absolutely be conservative atheists. The religious right in America being so firmly welded to the republican party means they won't be as prominent in the states though.

Edited by Elfive on Oct 26th 2022 at 9:39:14 AM

Most self proclaimed 'rationalists' online and plenty of centrists could be categorised as conservative atheists.

Religious belief is usually closely tied to political belief. However, religious belief is also deeply personal. People rationalise how their political beliefs fit into their religious beliefs differently. Religions do have an internal diversity of thought. The same is true for the non-religious.

I’m just atheist because both the fact that the Bible doesn’t make sense to me and that there’s no evidence for God’s existence.

Edited by IC1101 on Nov 5th 2022 at 10:39:10 AM

You ever wonder about how many things are perfectly acceptable in organized religion but would be called out as weird and cult-like in any other context?

Like, it's okay to chant ominously in unison in Church but in every other situation you're definitely part of a cult.

Not only that. If they obey the words written in a work of fiction, that´s considered a normal behavior, but if you do the same with a "Batman" comic then you are a weirdo.

Edited by Oculto on Jan 5th 2023 at 1:38:28 PM

Are theists allowed to comment? If yes, I got to say I probably qualify as an ally. I defend atheists in a Mama Bear/Papa Wolf way. I HATE statements like "without God, I'll never succeed" or "faith is important" because, well... Einstein and Stephen Hawking were atheists and they definitely were successful. And faith is not any more or less important(or better) than lack thereof.