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[Conciliator]

God(get it) those comics are a fucking blight. I wish I could will them out of existence.

Living in the South, I feel inclined to compare prejudice against atheists with homophobia - not to say we suffer as much anywhere near as much violence or oppression as gay people, to be clear - people are scared of all atheists in the world, except for the ones they already know, whom they're cool with if the atheists aren't complete douchebags. It speaks to the strength of prejudice that when something that dismantles our prejudice comes along, we just write it off as an exception.

 

[gutter_trash]

Taliban society

 

[zoukka]

I love how everyone ignores the most warped thing in that advert

 

[Mortrialus]

Christian and Muslim groups got their panties in a bunch. They considered it "hate speech".

This is why I shake my head at people demanding that atheists just need to be more respectful. Questioning or criticizing any religious belief is considered offensive to practitioners of the religion no matter how politely worded or true it might be. Christian holy texts state that the existence of atheists is offensive. There is no possible way for atheists to look respectful to Christians.

I love how everyone ignores the most warped thing in that advert

Answers in Genesis? Ken Ham is a pretty big tool.

 

[lunarworks]

This is why I shake my head at people demanding that atheists just need to be more respectful. Questioning or criticizing any religious belief is considered offensive to practitioners of the religion no matter how politely worded or true it might be. Christian holy texts state that the existence of atheists is offensive.

It's the height of insecurity, basically.

God himself is extremely insecure, demanding constant worship and various rituals in his honour. "You don't believe in me? You don't honour me properly? You're going to burn in hell for eternity!" (Of course, if there is a god, I just pissed him off with that statement.)

 

[Mgoblue201]

I've been looking for an excuse to post these fun facts:

According to the most recent compendium of history’s worst atrocities, Matthew White’s Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, “We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!”, they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.

 

[Ketchup Boy]

I have my beliefs, but I'm never going to label myself into a corner as an atheist, religious man, Democrat or Republican. If I'm a democrat, republicans won't listen to my arguments and vice versa. If I were an Atheist, many religious people wouldn't listen to my views and vice versa as well.

Grouping people together, putting people on different sides divides us and hurts us in the long run. Whats most important is we do research, analysis and adhere to logic to decide whats best for us as a society and always keep in mind that we're connected with each other, the earth and the universe & thus, we are equals.

 

[Mgoblue201]

Despite my "stridency", I actually have very little opinion about the existence of god or the ontological question of what we mean by god as a phenomenon or being. What I am fervently against is the belief in the existence of a personal god who interacts in human affairs. As such, I demure from calling myself an atheist, but my beliefs are probably just as unpalatable to a believer as someone who actively welcomes the label of atheist.

 

[King Boo]

i wonder if i'll ever see the day where atheists and believers can stop shoving their opinions into each other ears, and just treat each other as equals.

Believers, you guys should let God do all the judging. Your kid isn't going to get raped by some evil atheist. and militant atheists, just shaddap. your preaching about there is no God is pretty much the same as those annoying missionaries.

 

[Kurtofan]

i wonder if i'll ever see the day where atheists and believers can stop shoving their opinions into each other ears, and just treat each other as equals.

It's the case in most of Europe.

 

[Zzoram]

i wonder if i'll ever see the day where atheists and believers can stop shoving their opinions into each other ears, and just treat each other as equals.

Believers, you guys should let God do all the judging. Your kid isn't going to get raped by some evil atheist. and militant atheists, just shaddap. your preaching about there is no God is pretty much the same as those annoying missionaries.

The day theists stop trying to teach religion in public school would solve the majority of this conflict.

 

[zoukka]

Answers in Genesis? Ken Ham is a pretty big tool.

The kid holding that cannon.

 

[Parallax]

The day theists stop trying to teach religion in public school would solve the majority of this conflict.

no it wont.

 

[King Boo]

It's the case in most of Europe.

but i live in mighty U.S. but if what you say is true, i guess it's a start. hopefully it can spread

 

[Zzoram]

no it wont.

That's the major clash that gets people involved in the conflict.

 

[Mgoblue201]

The common (and perhaps natural) consequence of religion is to express itself. Asking a believer to keep something of eternal importance to themselves doesn't even make sense, at least to the believer. And as long as religion continues to put itself out there - by proselytizing, by expressing itself through politics and the laws of a nation - secularists have the right to openly criticize it.

 

[06nbarnhill]

That's the major clash that gets people involved in the conflict.

Ya.....no.

Conflict is a part of human nature. If you can't find something worth having a conflict about you just devolve into stupid conflicts. However....the amount on conflict remains constant.




And on the OP.....I am non religious myself (though i don't identify as an atheist since I don't reject the possibility of a god....just that I think most religions are bullshit) and I don't really trust most atheists either. Not sure why.....I never really thought about it before. Maybe its just that most of the Atheists I know are douches.

 

[Parallax]

That's the major clash that gets people involved in the conflict.

you mean other than the "you are stupid for believing in said deity/your a soulless monster for not believing in said deity"? both sides have extremes that the other uses as a representative of the other. and all the major players arent willing to get along.

 

[Shotgun Kiss]

The study, conducted among 350 Americans adults and 420 Canadian college students, asked participants to decide if a fictional driver damaged a parked car and left the scene, then found a wallet and took the money, was the driver more likely to be a teacher, an atheist teacher, or a rapist teacher? The participants, who were from religious and nonreligious backgrounds, most often chose the atheist teacher.

That's a fucking stupid question, and if the whole study and its findings is based around it, then it's discredited entirely.

Sheer common sense tells you that any given teacher (regardless of circumstances) is more likely to be an atheist than a rapist.

Not to mention throwing "rapist teacher" in there sounds almost comical, to the point where not many people would acknowledge it as an option.

 

[Torhthelm Tídwald]

The summary of the study is horrible. See here for a much better summary. The study was not intended to show the rate of distrust of atheists, it was trying to find the reason for the distrust. They divided the groups randomly and gave them different stories, and they compared the results between them. The rapist comparison was simply to provide universally distrusted group as a control. The other stories gave a story that showed, for instance, someone personally unpleasant, but people did not associate atheism with him. So this:

Secondly, a word of advice to Atheists (and in no way excusing the study findings), try to be less antagonistic, hypocritical and more appreciable of other people's opinions or beliefs. It doesn't help that the vast majority of atheists are often as vehemently arrogant or as challenging of opposition about their beliefs as the extreme religious. If the internet space is anything to go by (which I appreciate on the whole it isn't), Atheists are not shy to mock, degrade, humiliate and insult religious folk and religion en masse, and that certainly doesn't help their cause.

I believe this is actually is counter productive to their principles at times, because it just breeds further divides, animosity, defensive antagonism (from both extremes) and a lack of compassion or understanding as a result.

Is simply flat wrong. This study shows that any combative attitude by atheists has nothing to do with why they are distrusted.

Here's a link to the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22059841

I couldn't find a full text source that my university subscribes to, but from what I've read, people were not shown atheist teach and rapist teacher next to each other.

Then the students were asked whether it was more probable that Richard was either 1) a teacher, or 2) a teacher and XXXX, where XXXX was either a Christian, Muslim, rapist, or atheist. Obviously and logically, the correct answer should always be 1, because the probability that the person will be a teacher and something else will always be lower than the probability that the person will be a teacher.

The answer they found was that people made this error about 29 times more often if XXXX was “atheist” rather than one of the religious groups, and that the responses were not significantly different between “atheist” and “rapist”. There was also a correlation between the likelihood of making the error and how important the subject rated god in their lives.

So (if I read it correctly) each person only saw two options, but different groups saw different second options. There was no direct comparison between atheists and rapists. Also, the conjunctive fallacy part was deliberate.

In short, atheists are distrusted because religious hate speech about them (such as that billboard) goes unanswered all too often. They don't to shut up in the name of politeness, they need to be even louder with their message that you don't need God to be good.

 

[Carcetti]

This is an irritation shared by religious people. I believe we are affectionately deemed theist and thus clumped together since Vishnu, Thor, & Yahweh are clearly the same.

Wait! I'm genuinely interested here: How are Yahweh, Thor and Vishnu different if we're not looking at the amount of worshipers?

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

I've been looking for an excuse to post these fun facts:

According to the most recent compendium of history’s worst atrocities, Matthew White’s Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, “We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!”, they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.

Communism occurred in the 1st and 3rd biggest nations in the world as well.

 

[Shanadeus]

Here's the same chart with a few talk bubbles:

Flawed bubble.

God doesn't exist because God is not falsifiable.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Also, Klebold was Lutheran. So when are you going to say all Lutherans are gun-toting psychopaths?

Not that it matters one bit, but I read Klebold was never confirmed, despite attending confirmation classes at some point. So at some point, we can only assume, Klebold decided not to go through with it. He was brought up in a dual-religious home--in the traditions of Christianity and Judaism--but was not really a Lutheran, if he was already 17 and decided not to be confirmed. The vast majority of Lutheran churches in the USA have confirmation at age 13-14.

 

[Bananakin]

The summary of the study is horrible. See here for a much better summary. The study was not intended to show the rate of distrust of atheists, it was trying to find the reason for the distrust. They divided the groups randomly and gave them different stories, and they compared the results between them. The rapist comparison was simply to provide universally distrusted group as a control. The other stories gave a story that showed, for instance, someone personally unpleasant, but people did not associate atheism with him. So this:



Is simply flat wrong. This study shows that any combative attitude by atheists has nothing to do with why they are distrusted.

Here's a link to the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22059841

I couldn't find a full text source that my university subscribes to, but from what I've read, people were not shown atheist teach and rapist teacher next to each other.



So (if I read it correctly) each person only saw two options, but different groups saw different second options. There was no direct comparison between atheists and rapists. Also, the conjunctive fallacy part was deliberate.

In short, atheists are distrusted because religious hate speech about them (such as that billboard) goes unanswered all too often. They don't to shut up in the name of politeness, they need to be even louder with their message that you don't need God to be good.

Thanks for posting this, now that I understand it, this is actually a recently interesting study. I feel a bit embarrassed about my earlier post in the thread now. I suspected the headline was sensationalizing things, but I really should have just read the abstract.

I find the results weirdly disheartening though. I mean, I knew atheists weren't well-liked and all that, but it's just a strange feeling to know that a large portion of the population distrusts you for no real reason.

 

[jaxword]

Not that it matters one bit, but I read Klebold was never confirmed, despite attending confirmation classes at some point. So at some point, we can only assume, Klebold decided not to go through with it. He was brought up in a dual-religious home--in the traditions of Christianity and Judaism--but was not really a Lutheran, if he was already 17 and decided not to be confirmed. The vast majority of Lutheran churches in the USA have confirmation at age 13-14.

I wouldn't doubt it. I was pointing out Gattsu25's ignorant trolling.

Isn't that kind of shit-and-run on a thread bannable? Gattsu25 clearly isn't replying.

 

[Complex Shadow]

gaf ads, never disappoint.

 

[Slurpy2k20]

I have my beliefs, but I'm never going to label myself into a corner as an atheist, religious man, Democrat or Republican. If I'm a democrat, republicans won't listen to my arguments and vice versa. If I were an Atheist, many religious people wouldn't listen to my views and vice versa as well.

Grouping people together, putting people on different sides divides us and hurts us in the long run. Whats most important is we do research, analysis and adhere to logic to decide whats best for us as a society and always keep in mind that we're connected with each other, the earth and the universe & thus, we are equals.

People on earth that do this: 0

 

[Shanadeus]

I have my beliefs, but I'm never going to label myself into a corner as an atheist, religious man, Democrat or Republican. If I'm a democrat, republicans won't listen to my arguments and vice versa. If I were an Atheist, many religious people wouldn't listen to my views and vice versa as well.

Grouping people together, putting people on different sides divides us and hurts us in the long run. Whats most important is we do research, analysis and adhere to logic to decide whats best for us as a society and always keep in mind that we're connected with each other, the earth and the universe & thus, we are equals.

Yeah, I dunno.
There are plenty people out there that I do not consider equal to me in worth because of their opinions.

 

[Sye d'Burns]

I'd say I distrust priests as much as rapists, except so many of them are one and the same.

It's public school teachers you need to be wary of now.

 

[Mgoblue201]

Communism occurred in the 1st and 3rd biggest nations in the world as well.

Pinker also takes population into account. For example, he claims that the Crusades killed approximately a million people in a world of 400 million people, which, comparatively, would be like 17.5 million people today (although I assume that includes all the Crusades).

 

[SmokyDave]

Can't say I'm surprised. Some psychopaths cannot conceive a moral system that doesn't involve fearing a god. To those people, atheists must look scary as hell. No morals!

 

[JGS]

Wait! I'm genuinely interested here: How are Yahweh, Thor and Vishnu different if we're not looking at the amount of worshipers?

They're about as different as atheists. To me, all atheists look alike.

 

[Sharp]

The question is pretty much designed to play on stereotypes about atheism. "Atheists don't care about moral code, they don't think God is watching so they would totally hit and run and steal your money because hey--who's gonna know?" Rape is an awful awful thing but I don't think (stupid) people associate it with the same sort of attitude.

In conclusion, this study was worthless before they tested it on a single subject.