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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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[–] 1 point 1 day ago (9 children)

I've not been convinced of religious thinking which is why I'm non-religious, but I think it's fair for me to respect people believing in religion, so that they will also respect me not believing in religion. In some cultures in history, people have been persecuted for being atheists. I'm more in favour of people being able to believe what they want without facing discrimination due to their beliefs.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (8 children)

    What are you talking about, challenging beliefs and assumptions is not persecution or discrimination.

    You should welcome such challenges and have the courage to deal with them head on, as learning experiences, rather than some kind of lame-ass desperation to appease those with opposing views, in the hope they won't ask you awkward questions that challenge your cozy conceits.

    I wonder if you even are irreligious, you sound more like a bible basher with this kind of intellectual cowardice and dishonesty.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (7 children)

    I'm saying there have been cultures in history where atheists faced discrimination. I think atheists in western countries used to face discrimination and ostracisation. And in some Muslim countries even today, if a Muslim leaves their religion, they can face harsh penalties.

    some kind of lame-ass desperation to appease those with opposing views, in the hope they won’t ask you awkward questions that challenge your cozy conceits

    I'm not desperate to appease people with opposing views. I just know that I have met some religious people in my life who I got on well with. I didn't agree with their views, but I could still get on with them. If I come across someone and I think they're a decent person who I can get on well with, then I won't mind what their religious views are, as long as they are respectful of my lack of religious belief.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (6 children)

    Don't you think it's important that people are able to think critically and make sensible conclusions?

    I get on best with people who think outside the box and don't accept the norm. People who reject tradition, the traditional roles and hierarchies of society. So I don't really meet people on a friendly basis who are religious. Religion is tradition, literally the same thing. I've worked with people who I've later found out believe some religion or other, and from then on I can't look at them the same way, as I can't shake the feeling that they must be at least a bit stupid.

    However what I do find is that the kinds of people that I do mix with can often be a bit conspiratorially minded. I meet too many anti-vaxxers. 911 deniers even.

    It is IMO the same inability to think critically at play. It's one thing to speculate, and say "this might be true, or alternatively this could be true, or even this". There's nothing wrong with that, I think it's healthy in fact to challenge assumptions. The problem is that people pick one of many possible options - often one of the least likely ones - and then commit to that one position. These people have a faith much like religious faith in the daft ideas they choose to pin their egos to.

    This kind of faulty thinking is IMO what leads to MAGA. It leads people to support authoritarian regimes such as Russia's or Iran's.

    So I do push back on it when I encounter it, which as I say is far too often. Obviously you have to do so intelligently, and to pick your battles. No one has ever genuinely changed someone's mind through nagging or insults.

    I genuinely believe it is important for people like you and me to spread the skill of critical thinking. To encourage people not to pin their loyalties so easily to some daft idea and then doggedly stick to that regardless of the other possibilities.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (5 children)

    Maybe I'd prefer a world where nobody is religious. Maybe I'd also prefer a world where everyone shares my taste in music, and my political views, and so on. But people do have differences.

    I definitely understand the frustration with some religious people, particularly if they use religion to try to justify hateful views. Then again, there are non-religious people who hold hateful views. I think I'd rather spend time with a non-hateful religious person than a non-religious hateful person. To each their own though.

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  • [–] 1 point 21 hours ago (4 children)

    ah you don't get it. it's not about personal preferences, which of course people are free to have.

    It's about being rational. If you don't understand that being rational is objectively a superior way to think about the world, then you are also vulnerable.

    I guess I was working on the faulty assumption that people who've explicitly rejected religion are rational thinkers. There are many reasons people have for rejecting religion though.

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  • [–] 1 point 19 hours ago (3 children)

    I definitely prefer rational, evidence-based thinking to thinking which isn't supported by evidence.

    If I were to say "all religions are bad" though then I think I'd alienate some religious people who are decent. I might not agree with their religious views but if I think they're decent then I don't want to alienate them.

    For example, apparently Zohran Mamdani and Sadiq Khan (the mayors of NYC and London respectively) are both Muslims. I don't agree with those views; I'm not a Muslim myself. But I still think both of those people are relatively decent, more so than some other politicians. I guess I'm more interested in whether a person is decent, than whether a person is religious.

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  • [–] 1 point 18 hours ago (2 children)

    OK but whether someone is decent or not is very subjective. It's going to vary from person to person, even between two people who otherwise have very similar worldviews. I don't know anything about Mamdani, or Sadiq Khan for that matter.

    I am however concerned about religious people in positions of political power - I don't think they have any place there. I don't think it is possible to truly understand and apply critical thinking and to be genuinely religious - because of the "blind faith" problem, and also the magical thinking.

    However public figures are not always honest about their religious feelings. As you said, followers of the Islamic faith in particular can be hostile towards people who have left the religion, so it would certainly affect his chances at the polls if he were to come out and admit to not believing in any of the woo-woo and the supremacism of Islam. (Just quickly want to point out that all Jewish religions are founded on woo-woo and supremacism, I'm not singling out Islam in particular. Perhaps it's true for all religions, I wouldn't be surprised but I don't know, in any case I'm just talking about Islam as that's the one you mentioned.)

    I guess it is possible to consider yourself a believer of a particular religion but just not understand what that really entails. You can't believe that Mohammed was really a Jewish prophet *and* support rights for homosexuals for instance. If you call yourself a follower of Mohammed and yet say that gays should be allowed to have sexual relationships with whoever they please without feeling bad in any way, then you haven't studied your religion enough. The religion is quite clear: not only is homosexuality sinful, but homosexuals must be persecuted.

    In any case, none of this changes anything about critical thinking. It is not possible to correctly practice critical thinking and be religious.

    If you are religious, then giving up the religion is probably just the first step on the road towards becoming a critical thinker. However there's still a journey to make, and not every person to quit religion will ever start that journey, never mind complete it.

    When I think about it, when I first quit religion, I didn't do it through critical thinking. Really it was an emotional decision, just like religious belief itself. I only arrived at my current appreciation for this process of rational thought after many years of continuing to try and understand the universe, making many wrong turns along the way.

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  • [–] 1 point 17 hours ago (1 child)

    Maybe we just have different ways of looking at it.

    In terms of how Muslims view LGBT people: I mentioned that the mayor of London is a Muslim, and he has been to LGBT pride parades, so I think he's more supportive of LGBT people than a lot of non-Muslims are. So I guess it depends on the particular person. Some religious people might be anti-LGBT but other religious people are more welcoming of LGBT people.

    But yes maybe we just have different ways of looking at it, which is fine I think.

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  • [–] 1 point 16 hours ago

    well it's fine unless you're maybe still not getting it.

    It's not fine to be wrong. It's not fine to have a bad way of thinking. Not in this day and age, when we are all connected and ideas can spread (and be manipulated) so widely and so easily.

    If you know someone who supports gay rights and sex positivity, and they also say that they believe Mohammed was a Jewish prophet (the greatest ever Jewish prophet no less), then they are either being dishonest about one of those two things, or they are ignorant about what those two things really mean.

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