What I Hate About My Athiest Friend

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To the original poster,

This is the kind of person you will encounter if you hang out around the hip kids long enough. This is the militant atheist. They don't only not believe in God, but they also make sure to hate everyone who does.

For some reason they consider themselves superior.

As I said, they have probably been oppressed by religion somehow.

Yet in my opinion they are approaching this thing entirely the wrong way. No one is really persecuting them anymore. Their parents aren't shoving bibles down their throats... yet for some reason they still keep on fighting. They judge all Christians not only by their religion but also by everything that has been done in the name of Christianity in all of its existence.

What they fail to realize is that they are spewing the same hate that the worst of Christians have spewed. Fundemental Christians tend to hate everyone who is not a Christian for idiotic reasons. These militant atheists hate everyone who is a Christian for idiotic reasons.

These people fail to realize that Christianity is no longer an omnipotent imperialistic institution. There are no more crusades in the name of Christ. There are plenty of things wrong with the church... but you can find more faults in practically any nation's government. Yet these people still hate you based on things of the past.

They fail to realize that many Christians are good people. I have met a tremendous amount of good people who claim to be Christian. I have met a fair amount of not so good people who claim to be Christians. Yet, niether of those two groups are true Christians. Many of today's Christians are much more focused on the Bible's true teachings, which are of peace and love. The Bible has been researched and analyzed. People are no longer told what to believe. The Bible is open to personal interpertation... infact, it's so open that there are many different sects of Christianity. I have met a few true Christians upon my path, and they are beautiful people. They are on a spiritual journey... and Jesus is a true figure of inspiration for them. They actually follow his teachings, and look for a deeper metaphorical and symbolic meaning within the Bible.

Most militant atheists develop some tolerance after a while... and eventually grow up. You really can't let those people get to you.

But as I said... many people will joke about religion, and try to get a reaction out of you just for kicks. Learn to ignore it, or even better... laugh at it.

 

Being an atheist doesn't excuse bad manners, if i were you i would politely tell my friend that the comment is bothersome and while they don't believe what you believe they shouldn't mock you or your faith if they are your friend.

 

Some friend. Why not just dump her?

 

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yes, a lot of atheists are indeed hateful people who bash christianity because it's the hip thing to do in this day and age. they babble on about how science cannot physically verify god's existence. but ignore the fact that a lot of scientists do believe that god exists. while i am hard pressed to believe that the earth was only made in seven days. i am pretty sure that some kind of intelligible force had somethign to do with all that there is. the liberals such as the ACLU and their ilk sure do seem to go out of their way a lot to attack christianity. they talk about how christians need to be more tolerent, then turn around and act like bigots themselves. it's pretty much illegal to pray publicly in a lot of places these days. the way i see it is, if nobody is militantly shoving what they believe upon you. why worry about what they believe? after all these countless ages humans have been around people still flock to various religions. so there must be some kind of eternal truth they are trying to reveal to everyone.

 

I think you're in denial.

Like a true bigot, you use the term "they" to attribute the sins of a minority (radical Christian fundamentalist fanatics) to all Christians, including mainline Protestants who are poles apart from the people you're criticizing. And how did the Palesinians get into this act?

These burnt offerings were of non-human animals. Which "child" are you talking about? The Old Testament specifically bans human sacrifice of children, which was a Caananite practice. There are plenty of passages in the Old Testament promoting justice and compassion. I count over 100 supporting a duty to look after the poor and aliens. It's as distorted to leave these out as to ignore the blood and guts. You're absolutely right that the OT contains a lot of gory (and frankly ridiculous) stuff like this, but many Christians put the OT in historical context. The New Testament is a New Covenant. I consider myself a Christian because I admire the example and teachings of Jesus, especially non-judgmental acceptance and unconditional love of all people, especially the outcasts and less fortunate in society. What about that is offensive to you?

 

First of all, I must say that I might have come off a tad harsh, but your post was a great tool for me to make a point with.

Anyhow...


Yes, there are still some ignorant mindsets... and that's what they are, mindsets. Let people think whatever they want to think. They do affect our lifes at times, that is true. Yet this is because this country was founded on Christian principles and a whole lot of people here are Christians. We would be impacted by Islamic mindsets if most were Muslim... it's something that's unavoidable.

Abortion clinic bombings and such shit has nothing to do with the institution of Christianity and you cannot hold all Christians responsible for it. A couple of psychos did some psycho shit... there are plenty of insane atheists out there as well. Don't attribute these incidents to Christianity... it's not like the church went out and said that abortion clinics should be bombed. As I said before, this nation is still mostly Christian, and you will encounter Christian practices... even such that are as extreme as Jesus Camp. Yet, the Christians are bound by law to leave you alone and let you do your own thing religiously... so it's not like you have to go to Jesus camp or like you have to put your children in a school where creationism will be forced upon them.

The Bible does not necessarily teach peace and love, Jesus does... that was my point. The Bible doesn't do a great job of following Jesus' teachings, but its full of wonderful life lessons. Intelligent Christians know to take Revelations, per example, as a metaphor rather than as a literal hell on earth type of deal.

You must realize that the Bible was written during a much more violent time, and well... violence was a tad more socially accepted and common. The greusome descriptions weren't really so greusome back then.

Just like if you read medieval British literature, you'll see lots of crude farce sex jokes and extremely brutal violence. That's how life was back then.

 

obviously abraham and issac wasn't the only example of human sacrafice in the bible

At the LORD's command, a man of God from Judah went to Bethel, and he arrived there just as Jeroboam was approaching the altar to offer a sacrifice. Then at the LORD's command, he shouted, "O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: A child named Josiah will be born into the dynasty of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you." (1 Kings 13:1-2 NLT)

 

And were they? By the way, Isaac wasn't sacrificed either. The example Pixeewinged provided used the prounoun "she" which led me to believe it wasn't Abraham and Isaac she was referring to.

Another point worth considering is that, relative to the time and neighborhood, the Torah is progressive on the subject of sacrifice. It condemns the practice of child sacrifice, which was commonly practiced by worshipers of Baal and Melech. And the children weren't killed first and put on the fire, they were burned alive with loud drumming by the priests to drown out the screams!

At the same time, I think we Christians should acknowledge some truth in Pixeewinged's posts. Christianity has a checkered past of religious persecution and warfare. The religious tolerance that we enjoy today, in large part, reflects the tacit terms of a truce among the combatants who learned the hard way in the seventeenth century that they couldn't get their way by force. It's also a function of the rise of secularism, and the ascension of reason and science during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I think we can be proud of the First Amendment, and for all its faults, the ACLU has been the principal watchdog in keeping church and state separate. Unfortunately, many of us have forgotten how our liberties and religious tolerance were won through a long struggle. The religious right is potentially scary and dangerous. Chris Hedges in American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, and Keven Phillips, in American Theocracy document the alarming influence right-wing Evangelicals have gained in recent decades in alliance with the Republican Party. The religious right has managed to persuade the media that it is true Chrisatianity, even though liberal Christians like me would strenuously disagree. Protestant Evangelicals like Pat Roberston, the late Rev. Jerry Fallwell, and Dobson of Focus on the Family, became major players in U.S. politics in recent decades, and the abotion issue has brought them into alliance with the Roman Catholic Church. They champion a Christian Nation philosophy in which non-Christians would be at best tolerated but subordinated to the imperatives of Christian dominance. And yes, they are constantly pushing the evangelical agenda--homophobic, pro-life, anti-evolution. I don't accept the claim that this is "true Christianity", and many progressive Christian oppose its influence as vigorously as the agnostics and atheists do. The danger is as real as the 2008 Presidential election.

 

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you just think its wrong without any reason?

someone is questioning the foundation of you saying that "she's gonna burn in hell" . and you act as if you both agreed that it's already the truth (ignoring the questioning) and saying that because it is the truth that it would offend her.

aren't you getting ahead of the conversation? isn't it wrong for you to suggest that you could have said "that she's gonna burn in hell" at that point in the conversation?

i'm merely pointing out inconsistency

 

I hate how some atheist are so intolerant of other believes. It gives a bad rep to atheist. I have never insulted someone's religious views. I am proud atheist, but I'm tolerant. Atheist get a lot of crap sometimes, why make it a cycle? I try to be the bigger person. People need to tolerate other believes.

 

A large amount of non-believers of the Christian religion do this, normally out of anger. All you really should do is pray, and then talk to her as your friend. Don't judge her for her own beliefs, but listen to what she has to say.

Try not to feel personally attacked, and try to remember when you try to force your beliefs on them, they feel attacked.

 

Who cares about jesus I want my presents!

 

OK, but someone saying "JESUS DOESN'T EVEN EXIST" isn't really talking sense, on account of how 1) he's dead, so wrong tense, and 2) there's no reason to think that someone whose life was documented by so many people, in an age before fan fiction, didn't exist, since no-one can be sure and there seems to be more evidence of him existing than, say, 90% of people alive about 100 years ago, or even now, thinking about it. There are notable historical figures whose birth and death dates cannot be established simply because they were never written down. The fact that there's no proof that they died does not indicate that they are still alive. So it follows that to assert Jesus didn't exist would be nonsense.

The problem I have with the aggressive atheist is that they're like evangelical Christian zealots without the rules and the ability to stay sober when required. Most atheists aren't like that, just as most Christians aren't Westboro dorks, and won't tell someone their religion is stupid unless seriously provoked, even if they absolutely think it's true.

The example of chocolate cars though, that's a good example to illustrate the difference; believing that cars are made of chocolate would potential have a major adverse effect on your life and safety, and it can be proven that it is not the case. These things show the difference between the example and religion.

 

I think it would be reasonable to infer that the person in question was referring to the deified Jesus with whom Christians have their personal relationship, rather than the subtleties of the historicity debate, in which case "doesn't" would be the correct tense.

"Fan fiction" sounds like rather a good description of the New Testament. The issue of whether and in what form Jesus actually existed as a human is one of those ultimately unknowable and rather irrelevant questions, but assuming the stories are based on a (single) real person, I think it's fair to conclude that the likelihood of his having done everything that was later written about him is exceptionally small...

As for the chocolate cars nitpick, I would also be grateful to the person who pointed out that the moon was not made of cheese... the relevant point being that knowledge for its own sake is a good thing, and the understanding of how we attain knowledge is aesthetically and intellectually pleasing quite apart from being so very useful

 

just tell her that whether or not Jesus existed in a physical sense, history is history, and he most certainly exists in the collective consciousness.

 

Right-o. Thing is, even if it is all dirty dirty lies, I don't see any inherent problem with believing those lies. People point to big wars fought in the name of religion as if they wouldn't have happened without it, but on the personal level, if someone's happier believing in god, and it's not going to hurt them, all the atheist trolls (as in atheists who are also trolls, I'm not tarring everyone with the same brush here) have left is some mumbled guff about one person's belief somehow being detrimental to the whole of society "somehow".

Indeed, but until we went to the moon, insisting that it definitely wasn't made of cheese would've been a failing on our part. Our knowledge changes over time as new discoveries are made. The scientific theories that religious types tend to pick on at the really theoretical ones, where people are just postulating from the available data. That's not to say that they're unevidenced, but they're also a long way from being proved, and few scientists would insist that any other theory and its proponents were stupid simply because they didn't agree with their theory - at least, not until it was proven.

My frustration over this issue is that, for the most part, atheists are indifferent to Christians just being Christians. We're aware that terrible things have been done in the name of God, but they've mostly been done by people who would've found something else to "make them do it" in His absence, and most people who belong to the religion will not go out spreading holy vengeance or whatever because they're just not that kind of people. Similarly, the idea that science is at loggerheads with any notion of God (rather than specific ones) is put about a lot, but is so rarely true. Most scientists, being scientists, don't dismiss possibilities without good reason.

But of a rant there, but this is how it ends up; we have faith that things we don't understand will still work even if we don't understand them. Whether that's something big and nebulous like the cosmos, or something small and knowable like the engine in my car, we don't have to know how they work to observe whether they're working or not.

 

I'm not religious, but fuck her. People shouldn't force their own religion, but if you want to do your thing, and you aren't disturbing anyone else, than you should be welcome to your own beliefs.
It's when you start disturbing and intruding on others that you should become concerned. If you want to start converting others, then you might start questioning yourself.