(May 25, 2012 at 12:16 am)Aiza Wrote: The psychoticism and social maladjustment thing isn't my "opinion".

ok, atheists are the ones who are psychotic and socially maladjusted. however, walking up to someone's house on a saturday morning in a bell dress (women) and bad fitting suits (men) and knocking on my door - that's how to fit in. or the girl i used to work with, who wore some pants that fit tight in a particular spot, so i commented on her cameltoe (i kno, juvenile, but so what, i thought it was funny). she turned completely red and told me her mother told her if a guy looked at her in that spot, the devil would come out of it. he reminds her he's in there by making her bleed once a month. you guessed it, another psychotic, religious fanatic. how about the 17yo daughters who hold the bible in one hand and hold their mom's hand in the other, when they're walking thru the city? how about those standing on soapboxes, wearing sandwich boards and megaphones at busstop corners in the busy city? i bet most people not of their persuasion would think they seem sane. joel osteen, pat roberts, even creflo dollar, must i even mention evangelists and their racket. oh yeah, then there's always the perfectly non-psychotic child molesters. come on ...

Quote:I think its dumb when people generalize atheists based on some bad apples just like I think its dumb when people generalize Christians or Muslims (and I could easily make a post about why that happens).

this i can agree with, i can say that there are issues with individuals both ways, but i'd like to see your study that claims it as overwhelmingly one way.

in fact, it makes me wonder, if this wasn't part of the reason you converted (back) to a theist - to fit into the more socially accepted group. didn't have the fight to stand on your own? needed more friends? just curious.

Excuse me, I study psychology. You're spouting bullshit.

(May 25, 2012 at 2:18 am)jackman Wrote: ok, atheists are the ones who are psychotic and socially maladjusted.

No on average irreligious folk are slightly more so, there are plenty of exceptions. Here are some of the studies I was thinking of, and if you want I can get more, with respect to mental illness, relationships and even physical health:

Religion and the five factors of personality: a meta-analytic review (Irreligious have higher degrees of psychoticism)
Religion and depression: a review of the literature. (Irreligious at greater risk of depressive disorders)
Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt (Irreligious have greater aggression and impulsiveness, less reasons to live)
Religiosity, Homogamy, and Marital Adjustment (Irreligious have poorer marriages)
The Influence of Religion on Fathers' Relationships With Their Children (Irreligious fathers are less supportive)

Also correlation =/= causation either way: atheism doesn't make you depressed, but perhaps depressed people who aren't thinking clearly become more alienated from their communities and therefore are also more likely to become alienated from their religion. Either way I don't condone stereotypes since there are plenty of aggressive, impulsive, psychotic, abusive religious people and friendly, thoughtful atheists who are wonderful fathers and husbands. To go onto a non-religious example: men, on average, commit more crimes than women do, are more prone to certain mental disorders, are slightly more selfish on average, and most dictators have been men. But it would be really dumb to stereotype all men that way or to not trust men over something like that. I try to judge people as individuals first. When I post these studies its just the tiny grain of difference which, combined with atheist communities being mainly about criticizing "theists"/religion, combined with many terrible anti-religious persecutions committed by atheists in living memory, ends up adding to an unfair stereotype of atheists as being hateful or aggressive, when most are the same as anyone else.

But again: it ends at the unfair stereotype and mild distrust. When it comes to real hate crimes or persecutions, atheists by far get off rather easy. There's never been a state-sponsored mass-murder of atheists like there has been for...well nearly anyone else, and atheists are pretty well underrepresented in terms of being the victims of hate crimes, unlike Jews or Muslims. So for me these sorts of threads bring up mixed feelings: while stereotypes are wrong and I don't want people to distrust atheists....can you really pretend like you have it the worst, when atheists haven't suffered half the persecution as most other groups, and almost no violence at all?

Quote:in fact, it makes me wonder, if this wasn't part of the reason you converted (back) to a theist - to fit into the more socially accepted group. didn't have the fight to stand on your own? needed more friends? just curious.

Not at all. I never felt like I was standing on my own, most of my friends were atheist or very apathetic. If anything, the reason I became atheist was to be more socially accepted. Right now I feel much more "alienated" to be honest, though its not a bad feeling...it feels like I have a secret within me that is very beautiful. Its more of a feeling of excitement and being apart from the world. Even among religious folk, I have met very few IRL who are as devout as I am, let alone in my own peer group. Some of my friends don't even know that I am a theist now, let alone one who wants to be a sister! Most of the new friends I've made have been other discerning women, I see them visiting convents or in some online groups. But eventually we will have to part, when one of us enters one convent and the other one enters another.

I am thinking that you REALLY NEED to interact with the REAL world Aiz

Hoo hoo HOOO BOY YES, I've been waiting to get into a conversation on this topic.

I am going to point out the major flaws in your argument, Aiza, and I will start by quoting the article you cited.

Quote:State atheism is the official promotion of atheism by a government, sometimes combined with active suppression of religious freedom and practice. In contrast, a secular state purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion.

Very important factor to mention, you are referring to state-sponsored atheism. You are basically saying that people who trade a god of theology for a god of government are the same who deny all gods. An atheist who desires to force other people to abide by his command considers himself a god, as only a god could possibly be in high enough power to ever consider his judgment superior to another's judgment based on sheer opinion.

Quote:Only one country went so far as to officially ban the practice of religion and close down all religious places of worship: Albania under Enver Hoxha.

As opposed to the entirety of Europe for over a thousand years being under the absolute dominion of the CATHOLIC CHURCH? Remember those days? With the Inquisition, and the public executions by burning at the stake for apostates, the confessions-by-torture, the church tithe, the crusades, all this shit that's already been hammered at like Megan Fox if she became a $5 whore and about as often?

These dictatorships are all totalitarian ones. They are not just in control of your body, but also of your mind. They want to control your very thoughts, feelings, and emotions. They are religions unto themselves in the guise of atheism, but a god is something all-powerful, is it not? And what is more all-powerful than the control of someone's thoughts, emotions, their very LIVES? Ohhhhh yes, Aiza. These ARE religious institutions, with the heads of state being the gods. They are not gods of the sky; they are gods of the state, the nation. "State atheism" may be the term, but it is in and of itself a paradox.

So you see why I immediately discard that as an example of cruelty by atheists towards the religious. And yes, some who have purported themselves to be atheists have done cruelty to religious individuals. And if you consider Stalin you might even say that atheists have done more cruelty to the religious than the religious have done to the atheists. Well, three things first: 1: We didn't have the same record-keeping of citizens 500+ years ago that we have attained in more modern history, only rough estimates, so that is not a very clear answer to make, and they DO occasionally find new sets of mass graves every so often of people burned or executed by the church, so the number is still technically climbing. 2: Remember that Stalin himself was in a sense a god. He didn't kill theists alone; nooo, he executed maaany Russian atheists too. You see, he targeted those who were threats to his power. He was a totalitarian, the god of state, and he eliminated those who threatened his status. The church just so happened to have a very large amount of sway still in Russia at that time. If there had been a united atheist/secularist group on that scale, bet your ass he would've massacred them, too. And finally, 3: Hitchens put it best when he ruminated on how he would have hoped religion would have more dignity than to constantly make the claim of "at least we're not as bad as these despots!"

Quote:Sure. And how much of your time do you think atheists spend "pointing out the flaws" in "theists" vs. time religious people spend pointing out the flaws in atheists? The point is that there is more negativity going one way vs. the other at least in my experience.

Allow me to answer this with a quick detailed breakdown...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discriminat...ted_States

Quote:Atheists note that few politicians have been willing to identify as non-theists, since until recently such revelations would have been considered "political suicide", and welcomed Democratic California Representative Pete Stark's 2007 decision to come out as the first openly nontheistic member of Congress. In 2009, City Councilman Cecil Bothwell of Asheville, North Carolina was called "unworthy of his seat" because of his open atheism. Indeed, several polls have shown that about 50 percent of Americans would not vote for a well-qualified atheist for president. A 2006 study found that 40% of respondents characterized atheists as a group that did "not at all agree with my vision of American society", and that 48% would not want their child to marry an atheist. In both studies, percentages of disapproval of atheists were above those for Muslims, African-Americans and homosexuals.

Yeah, above muslims, blacks, and gay people. You know, those people who are consistently considered the least-loved people in the US? Yeah, we atheists are loathed even more than them.

Quote: Many of the respondents associated atheism with immorality, including criminal behaviour, extreme materialism, and elitism. Atheists and atheist organizations have alleged discrimination against atheists in the military, and recently, with the development of the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, atheists have alleged institutionalized discrimination. In several child custody court rulings, the parents of atheists have been discriminated against, either directly or indirectly. As child custody laws in the United States, are often based on the "best interests of the child" principle, they leave family court judges ample room to consider a parent’s ideology when settling a custody case. Atheism, lack of religious observation and regular church attendance, and the inability to prove one's willingness and capacity to attend to religion with his children, have been used to deny custody to non-religious parents.

Now, to put that all into perspective:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States#Religion

Quote:According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as Christian, down from 86.4% in 1990. Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort; another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%. The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990. The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990.

78.4% of the population of the US is christian, compared to 16.1% being Atheist/agnostic/irreligious. 48% of this country say that their child marrying an atheist would be worse than them marrying a black person, a muslim, and/or a gay person. Taking into consideration that none of the 16% of irreligious folk are going to say that their child marrying an atheist would be the worst thing imaginable, that squarely means that well over half of the christians in the US have only the absolutely worst views of atheists and therefore have NO positive views of atheists AT ALL. This is a majority Christian nation; I highly doubt that they encounter many atheists but trust me when I, an atheist who will freely admit to being one when inquired but ONLY when inquired, say that most Christians are a load of dicks when it comes to talking about atheists, ok? I've felt curiosity about that very same issue myself, in fact. I have played who I used to be, a Methodist, on Christian forums and lightly inquired about atheists and received a fiery, scathing response from many, MANY of their number who rarely have anything nice to say on the topic.

And finally:

Quote:Irreligion also correlates with psychoticism and social maladjustment.

I hope you are taking into account that people with religious beliefs who have psychological disorders often take them as being religious experiences and that people who are atheists are far more likely to see such psychological disorders for exactly what they are: psychological disorders, whereas the religious claim the issues are caused by "demons" and "possession" and "the holy ghost" and "being gifted" and other such tripe.

I highly doubt you did, however. Your perception, you will pardon me for noticing, is limited only to your own views and does not extend much beyond it from what I have seen thus far.

---

(May 25, 2012 at 5:09 am)Aiza Wrote: But again: it ends at the unfair stereotype and mild distrust. When it comes to real hate crimes or persecutions, atheists by far get off rather easy. There's never been a state-sponsored mass-murder of atheists like there has been for...well nearly anyone else, and atheists are pretty well underrepresented in terms of being the victims of hate crimes, unlike Jews or Muslims. So for me these sorts of threads bring up mixed feelings: while stereotypes are wrong and I don't want people to distrust atheists....can you really pretend like you have it the worst, when atheists haven't suffered half the persecution as most other groups, and almost no violence at all?

Uhhhhh. You ARE joking, right? Do you know ANYTHING about the Inquisition? Have you ever noticed how the concept of atheism seems really low-key if it even exists at all during the last 2000 years?? You are now starting to talk right out of your ass and it's starting to kill my opinion of you REALLY fucking fast, it's like a white person saying "What are you black people so angry at white people for? It's not like you guys were ENSLAVED or anything, jeez!" Because YES. YES WE WERE prosecuted, and HEAVILY. To avow atheism within earshot of the church or its toadies was an instantaneous death sentence in the middle ages. Well, not instantaneous, you usually got the rack or the wedge or the horse or something else equally as horrific.

(May 25, 2012 at 5:39 am)Creed of Heresy Wrote: Very important factor to mention, you are referring to state-sponsored atheism. You are basically saying that people who trade a god of theology for a god of government are the same who deny all gods.

You seem to have made up a new definition of god so you can segue into a giatn "no true scotsman" argument. A political agenda is not a god, and you can still be an atheist with a very clear political agenda, even one which is totalitarian. There are Christian totalitarians, Muslim totalitarians and atheist totalitarians. These were atheist totalitarians, and they killed a lot of religious people simply for being religious. You would never let me say that a Christian totalitarian was no longer a "real Christian" since they had replaced Jesus with the state, right? Also, interestingly enough, while there has been very many democratic and tolerant nations with state Christianity, there's never been a government with state atheism that didn't get rather totalitarian and ugly.

I am not trying to say "at least we aren't as bad as those despots" but given the high amount of people who were killed and persecuted in living memory by atheists contributes to anti-atheist prejudice. Which is what this thread is about.

Quote:Yeah, above muslims, blacks, and gay people. You know, those people who are consistently considered the least-loved people in the US? Yeah, we atheists are loathed even more than them.

No, you are less trusted in positions of political power. That's not loathing. Again, I can easily point to hate crime stats in which atheists/irreligious are very much underrepresented. I am not saying its RIGHT but lets be honest here.

And when you think of the "least loved people" you think of blacks? Muslims I can see at times, but blacks and gays not so much. Honestly, I would vote for an atheist if they shared my politics (sadly they would be unelectable if they shared my politics!) but if I had children I would be uncomfortable with them marrying outside Catholicism (assuming they were Catholic). I don't loathe atheists though either way, but its been proven that mixed marriages aren't as strong and it can hurt the catechesis of grandkids and the transmission of tradition as well. If your child wanted to marry a super devout fundamentalist person you may feel uncomfortable as well.

(May 25, 2012 at 5:39 am)Creed of Heresy Wrote: YES WE WERE prosecuted, and HEAVILY. To avow atheism within earshot of the church or its toadies was an instantaneous death sentence in the middle ages. Well, not instantaneous, you usually got the rack or the wedge or the horse or something else equally as horrific.

HEAVILY? I mean...can you name any atheists (as we understand the term today--a lack of belief in any gods) who were killed by "the Church or its toadies" for being atheist? Ever? I looked around a long time and found maybe one. I guess you can say that theoretically, if there were atheists around back then, and they had spoken out, then they would have been persecuted--but thats a big if. And NONE of that is in living memory, as you say yourself its based half on hearsay because we have such little information from that time.

Now compare/contrast all the religious who were killed for being religious by atheists in LIVING memory. Don't brush it off with some no true scotsman fallacy. See how angry and capslock you just got about the idea of some atheists maybe being persecuted. You don't know of any real deaths that happened, but the idea that a death could have happened even hundreds of years ago got you very upset. Now look again at that state atheism page, and switch it around and pretend like those were all religious governments doing that to atheists. You mentioned the Inquisition with a lot of emotion. Lets look at the bloodiest Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition. It wasn't technically run by the Catholic Church but it was run by Catholics. Over the course of ~400 years it killed ~1300-3000 people (none of which were atheist as we know the term today, at least that I have managed to find). The USSR killed more religious in the first 5 years of their power. When I said "atheists haven't experienced half the persecution" I was being rather generous, I think.

I'm not trying to say atheists are "worse", I'm not trying to say discrimination against atheists is OK, but I am trying to say that the bulk of persecution does not fall anywhere near atheists. None of the atheists ITT had anything to do with any persecutions of religious anymore than I have to do with the Crusades, and most would never want such a thing. But there is no doubt that religious people have faced far higher persecutions at the hands of atheists than vice-versa, especially in living memory which naturally is going to be the strongest in people's emotions.

I think if anything, if you want to play around with slavery metaphors, you are being like the white guy who says "white people also were enslaved!". Sure, I'll admit the possibility that we simply lost the record of atheists who were killed by the Inquisition. Maybe there was a few. But again, when you compare it to the amount of people killed in anti-religious persecutions, all of which happen to be much much more recent....welp. It's still no contest, is it?

So, we are arguing that atheists aren't demonised, because the major faiths are all too busy murdering and persecuting each other?

You're doing a fine job of showing why religion is dangerous. Keep it up.

The issue cannot be No True Scotsman, nobody is denying they are atheist. We are denying they committed the atrocities BECAUSE they were atheist.
You cannot however, deny atrocities have been caused BECAUSE they believed in God.

You did not read my post beyond rapid skimming. I shouldn't even bother replying but I have one left in me before I hit the hay.

No, no despot has ever killed religious folk just for being religious. They kill religious folk because they are parts of institutions that have power that rivals their own. When was the last time you heard of a democratically-elected government [one-person party "republics" do not apply, I mean a genuine democracy/republic of multiple competing parties] opting to murder people solely based on their religion?

The nazis. You know who supported the nazis during their campaign of genocide?

The catholic church. Yes. Your religion is complicit in the murder of 6,000,000 jews. Congratulations, your own argument turns on you.

Quote:No, you are less trusted in positions of political power. That's not loathing. Again, I can easily point to hate crime stats in which atheists/irreligious are very much underrepresented. I am not saying its RIGHT but lets be honest here.

Uh, yeah, did you not read the 48% being uncomfortable with their son or daughter marrying an atheist, which is a higher number than blacks, muslims, and homosexuals?

Again, you did not read my post, and unfortunately for you that will not help your case against anyone else here, DEFINITELY not me. The rest of your post is grasping at straws.

The reason we don't hear about many atheists in the middle ages is because if you were smart you shut the hell up and didn't tell anyone about it, but one of the highest crimes to the church was unbelief. GEE. I WONDER IF THAT MEANT THE TORTURE-HAPPY SADIST CATHOLIC CHURCH MIGHT'VE KILLED ATHEISTS WHO SPOKE OUT. HMMM. Naaaaah, surely those gentle, all-loving individuals who were famous for commissioning people to build meticulously and lovingly designed torture devices would have been ULTRA-TOLERANT of people espousing unbelief when one of the church's highest affronts is to be an unbeliever. Fucking laughing my ass off, here.

Plus there's the whole population density issue where atheists have always been a sheer minority, and christians a vast majority, and there were far more people in the mid 1990s than there were in the middle ages. So actually yes, it is a contest of percentages. If we can hardly find any record of atheists in the middle ages, and we look at the kinds of people the church really loved to execute, and we look at the laws that basically state that the ultimate sin is to deny god, and then we look and try to find some records of atheists and find so very precious few and oftentimes from smuggled sources, AND THEN we consider how much literature the church was so fond of burning if it didn't suit their views?

Yeah, the evidence is pretty fucking clear what the percentages of murder are, there...

LOL, Aiza, are you seriously turning to communist countries to justify stereotypes about atheists in America? Y'know, what I have against theists is all those human (inluding babies) sacrifices they like to do. Sheesh!

You know who opposes state atheism as much as you do? Us.

(May 25, 2012 at 5:11 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote: I am thinking that you REALLY NEED to interact with the REAL world Aiz

That would require massive doses of Haldol Decanoate.