The Obsession with Discussing the Supposed Rudeness of Atheists

[TheRocketSurgeon]

You might want to rethink that.  What you are saying is, when someone labels himself a theist, you would be wrong to "assume" that the person believes in a god.  Of course, it is not an assumption at that point.  It is just taking the person at his word.  If someone is a stupid moron who does not know how to properly label himself, that is a failing of his, not of the people who initially take him at his word.  I will grant you, however, that there are quite of few complete morons who label themselves inaccurately.  Of course, if they are that stupid, when they directly tell you, "I believe X," you would be equally wrong to suppose that you could count on that being true, since the person clearly has no clue what they are talking about.

I will grant you that certain assumptions can be made depending on the self attributed label.  I'm a theist, so it is safe for you to assume I believe in God, because if I didn't then as you said I would be stupid for labeling myself as a theist.  But if I identify as a theist, you cannot assume what branch of theism I follow.  I identify as Christian.  This gives you more info to glean assumptions from, for example, you can assume I believe in the God of the Bible, that Jesus Christ lived, died and was resurrected.  Nothing really beyond that since there are "Christians" who believe all are/will be saved, that only the elect will be saved, pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, no tribulation, original sin, no original sin, old earth, young earth, creation, evolution, etc.  You could assume, but you might be incorrect.

I said this in the other thread as well, it's when people get told what they believe by someone else is when they tend to get upset.  I always try to ask what someone believes about something I wish to discuss before asking and assuming I know what they believe based on how the identify and label themselves.

You guys are all being entirely too reasonable.

Defeats the entire purpose of this thread! 

Can't y'all get anything right? We're supposed to be flame-warring and hating on each other. 
  
Get your shit together, everybody!

[abaris]

They even ignored the sign I had put up that says "this is an atheist household.  Do not knock if you are pushing religion"

That's like fly paper to missionaries. You're advertising, you need to be saved - in their opinion.

[Edwardo Piet]

@ Beccs

---

For me being insulting depends on the situation.

Even when a get religious people knocking on my door, I tended to be polite and say "thanks for your thoughts, but I'm not interested".

That ended one day when I had worked a 16 hour shift close to Christmas one year, finally got home at 2pm, had a shower and was just starting to nod off on the couch when there was a loud bang on my door.

Bloody Mormons.  They even ignored the sign I had put up that says "this is an atheist household.  Do not knock if you are pushing religion"

They were told to fuck off.

---

I'm the same, I'm normally just polite now out of decency but something like that would piss me off too.

[Kingpin]

I will grant you that certain assumptions can be made depending on the self attributed label.  I'm a theist, so it is safe for you to assume I believe in God, because if I didn't then as you said I would be stupid for labeling myself as a theist.  But if I identify as a theist, you cannot assume what branch of theism I follow.  I identify as Christian.  This gives you more info to glean assumptions from, for example, you can assume I believe in the God of the Bible, that Jesus Christ lived, died and was resurrected.  Nothing really beyond that since there are "Christians" who believe all are/will be saved, that only the elect will be saved, pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, no tribulation, original sin, no original sin, old earth, young earth, creation, evolution, etc.  You could assume, but you might be incorrect.

I said this in the other thread as well, it's when people get told what they believe by someone else is when they tend to get upset.  I always try to ask what someone believes about something I wish to discuss before asking and assuming I know what they believe based on how the identify and label themselves.

You guys are all being entirely too reasonable.

Defeats the entire purpose of this thread! 

Can't y'all get anything right? We're supposed to be flame-warring and hating on each other. 
  
Get your shit together, everybody!

Sorry I forgot to refer to my handbook....Let me see....Oh yes here it is.

"REPENT you heathens!!  Turn from your wicked ways and accept the Lord your God!"

Is that better?  Ugh, I feel dirty.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Sorry I forgot to refer to my handbook....Let me see....Oh yes here it is.

"REPENT you heathens!!  Turn from your wicked ways and accept the Lord your God!"

Is that better?  Ugh, I feel dirty.

[marianomanto]

How can I convey that your belief is evil, poisonous and a lie, when just stating it this way is already offending you?

Do you believe religion is always poisonous, that every person who believes in a god is evil or does evil on account of holdng that belief?  If so, those seem like some pretty difficult beliefs to back up with evidence.  What do you got?

Thanks for the challenge. I did not say every person that belives in God is evil, but I do think religion is a poison to reason and morality. Like Hitch says: there are wicked things that can only be done in the name of Faith: suicide bombing, circumsition, etc.

I further think that even now, religion retards the advancement of civilization in many ways. For facts to back this up, you only need google to find the crimes that have been made in the name of God for milenia and that are still being done. For example: The pope himself (at the united nations!!) the other day called homosexual marriage a "colonization of the normal way of living of our societies that ignores the nature of genders (...)". That did not surprise me, he is the pope he is just doing what church does. What surprised me is that I did not find amongst my believing friends a single comment on this! They all respected his "authority" even when he was plainly homofobic. For other subjects, they are well open to discuss and debate ideas. But for things like this, their mind is poisoned, its tabu, they cannot talk against it.
Religions are in principle wrong and, in my opinion, if the principles that edify an belief are wrong, then the whole thing is wrong. No matter how hard you cherry pick singular verses or examples between the genocide and homofobia and slavory.

Sorry for the long answer I hope I didnt bore you.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Last I checked, there's no approved atheist way to say anything aside from "I don't believe in gods."

I say "bless you" not out of faith, or out of the belief that the person's soul has just been ejected, but because in the culture I was raised, that was the polite thing to do. I see no harm in the phrase, and don't feel like I'm selling my atheism short for saying it.

"Bless you" is short for "(May) God bless you."  See:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

If meant literally, it is a denial of atheism.

... which is exactly why I made explicitly clear why I say it.

You did read that part, right?

[Minimalist]

Stereotyping or generalizing people is always bad.  People are individuals and may choose to label themselves under certain banners, but that in no way gives anyone the right to assume what they believe or how they behave without getting to know them personally.

Agreed. Generalizing is always bad. Even when you're talking about cops, Catholics, Protestants, or Republicans. 
Interestingly enough, no one seems to complain about those generalizations.

That's cause those people all suck.

[Pyrrho]

---

You might want to rethink that.  What you are saying is, when someone labels himself a theist, you would be wrong to "assume" that the person believes in a god.  Of course, it is not an assumption at that point.  It is just taking the person at his word.  If someone is a stupid moron who does not know how to properly label himself, that is a failing of his, not of the people who initially take him at his word.  I will grant you, however, that there are quite of few complete morons who label themselves inaccurately.  Of course, if they are that stupid, when they directly tell you, "I believe X," you would be equally wrong to suppose that you could count on that being true, since the person clearly has no clue what they are talking about.

I will grant you that certain assumptions can be made depending on the self attributed label.  I'm a theist, so it is safe for you to assume I believe in God, because if I didn't then as you said I would be stupid for labeling myself as a theist.  But if I identify as a theist, you cannot assume what branch of theism I follow.  I identify as Christian.  This gives you more info to glean assumptions from, for example, you can assume I believe in the God of the Bible, that Jesus Christ lived, died and was resurrected.  Nothing really beyond that since there are "Christians" who believe all are/will be saved, that only the elect will be saved, pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, no tribulation, original sin, no original sin, old earth, young earth, creation, evolution, etc.  You could assume, but you might be incorrect.

---

I said this in the other thread as well, it's when people get told what they believe by someone else is when they tend to get upset.  

---

I always try to ask what someone believes about something I wish to discuss before asking and assuming I know what they believe based on how the identify and label themselves.

---

I have found quite a few people who get upset when one takes them at their word and one assumes that they are not clueless morons when they label themselves.  Isn't the whole point of putting a label on oneself to tell others about oneself?  When you say, "I am a Christian," do you not intend to convey some information with that sentence?  Like, that you are a Christian?  Please understand, I am not accusing you of the failing of which I am presently writing.  I do not recall you ever mislabeling yourself.

But with some clueless morons who mislabel themselves, when one assumes that they have labeled themselves accurately, they sometimes get upset and accuse one of telling them what they believe, when the reality is that one merely took them at their word.  They ought not be offended when one pays attention to what they say and takes them at their word, but, being clueless morons, they do not do what they ought to do.

Everyone who says that they are theists, ought not be offended if someone supposes that they believe in a god of some sort.  The same idea applies for every label that people use for themselves.  If you label yourself, you ought not be upset if others accept the label for you.

Often they will bring up the idea that they have the "right" to label themselves anyway they want.  However that may be, it is irrelevant to the fact that if one makes false claims about what one is, one ought not be surprised if others suppose that one is intending the truth.  It is then one's own fault that there is a miscommunication, not the fault of the person who is in that situation being accused of telling the other person what he believes.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

"Bless you" is short for "(May) God bless you."  See:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

If meant literally, it is a denial of atheism.

... which is exactly why I made explicitly clear why I say it.

You did read that part, right?

I also do this, explicitly make clear that I am not saying "God bless you", but deliberately using another term.

In French (Spanish and Italian have almost-identical words), the term is "Salut" (sah'-loo), and it simply means "health".

German is similar, meaning "good health". They are wishes of prosperity.

"(May) God bless you" is an expression of superstition, from a time when people believed that sneezing was a sign of evil spirits in the air trying to possess you, and the blessing was to ward off the evil spirits. I think that people, even Christians, would do well to abandon this concept.

Then again, I think the same of saying a blessing for the food about to be consumed (thanking God for the bounty is another matter), that the evil spirits might be cast out and the food not harm its consumers.

I wonder why more Christians don't take umbrage with the Germ Theory of Disease, since it's what destroyed those two concepts.