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What are your biggest pet peeves in the atheism community? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/atheism@lemmy.world
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Here are my top 3:

  1. Whataboutism with Christainity - I've been a vocal critic of islam in atheist spaces for well over a decade. There has not been a single instance of me criticizing islam where I did not get a hoard of atheists bringing up Christianity for no reason. There's no relevance and no point to it, but they get really mad when I try to focus on islam. It's like why can't they just accept that islam or other religions can be criticized on their own merits independently?

  2. Self centered American atheists - Whenever I ever bring up my and my family's experiences in the middle east and how horrible islam is over there, there will always be a handful of ignorant American atheists who can't comprehend that the world is more than their country. No ISIS and your dumb MAGA uncle are not the same.

  3. "All religions are bad" - I hate this statement because it's like "all lives matter". Yeah, no shit all religions are bad. That's literally the baseline of any atheist community. All the discussions lie in the nuances beyond that. Smearing this statement all over atheist spaces is completely meaningless.

What about you guys? Are there any things in the atheist community that you noticed that make your eyes twitch? I would love to hear them.

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[–] 2 points 3 days ago* (4 children)

When atheists try to convince others that there is no god. Let people have their faith, as long as they let you have your lack thereof, and as long as they don't hurt anyone.

I'm an atheist, I do not believe in god. But scientifically speaking, we just don't know.

Science gives us models that allow us to describe the world. These models don't necessarily have to be correct, they need to be the simplest explanation of our observations. These models also only describe the 'what', not the 'why'.

So anyone claiming to stand on the side of science, while confidently exclaiming "There is no god" without any scientific evidence, is just an idiot. And mocking religion on top of that just makes you an asshole.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I do not believe in god

    exclaiming “There is no god” without any scientific evidence, is just an idiot

    I just want to be clear here - you're calling yourself an idiot? I respect the honesty and given what you've said I'm definitely not going to contradict you.

    Religious people don't think that maybe there's a god. They claim that there *definitely* is a god. And not only that, they claim to know what this god thinks about you and how it thinks you should live your life. And you think atheists are the idiots? Pffft

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Believing something and knowing something is not the same.

    I don't believe in god, my father does, we both admit that we don't know if there is a god.

    There are varying degrees of religiosity as well. Some are absolutely convinced, others just don't want to think that their loved ones completely disappear when they die. I personally know many people who believe in some kind of god or afterlife, who just make that their personal business and don't bother anyone with it.

    I also never said atheists are idiots. I think people who harass others for their beliefs, while not being able to prove that theirs is any more correct, are.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    I don’t believe in god, my father does, we both admit that we don’t know if there is a god.

    I'd argue you're not really an atheist, if you accept it's an open question. Full disclosure - I think that is actually the correct position to hold on the matter, but I often call myself an atheist because that most closely describes my position quickly. I don't like to use the term "agnostic", because that tends to give people the idea that I think that one of the established world religions might be true, which is absolutely not the case.

    So to get back to your point, that anyone who declares "there is no god" is an idiot.

    The reason I objected to this statement is because anyone who says this is usually referring to a specific god.

    Statistically it's the Jewish god, Jahweh, or Jehovah, as that's the god that a frighteningly large number of people worship (to be clear this is the same god that some people call Allah or God depending on what offshoot of Judaism they have lumped their chips with).

    And it is completely fair and reasonable to say that this god does absolutely 100% definitely not exist.

    In fact, we know this god does not exist. And it is stupid to think it could exist. Ahh I called it "it" - but actually this god is genuinely a man. It looks like a man. It *is* a man, an invisible supernatural man that lives in the actual clouds, and human men are created in its image. It, I mean he, has hands. A cock and balls. A god that exists all by itself, is male? That by itself is such a stupid ignorant idea as to rule out this as a possible entity in real life.

    There are many other logical arguments you can use that are equally strong and equally make the possibility of such a god existing vanishingly unlikely. Less likely than, let's say, water being made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, or the earth being a round sphere rather than a flat plane.

    Do you think someone standing up and saying, "The god Jehovah / Allah / God does not exist" is more idiotic than saying "We live on the surface of a mostly-molten ball of rock"?

    If so we should discuss this further, because it is not. There's no question about this. It is not up for debate. That god does not exist. And of course it therefore follows that all those Jewish religions are also completely and utterly false.

    This is a fact. Hopefully you realise that too. So please don't allow genuine idiots (if your dad is one then I'm sorry) to shove a whole load of codswallop in through the door just because it's possible some kind of "higher being" might exist in the universe, or even outside it.

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