Shouldn't Atheists learn to accept religion?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Ig,

The two don't separate as easily as you make it look in my opinion. A person's beliefs often become a part of their personal identity, and once they are an integral part of your self image, maybe you partly draw your sense of self-worth from them (who am I? a believer, servant of God - this justifies my existence /actions/life choices and gives me a purpose beyond mundane things), an attack on these ideas is in fact an attack on the person. The two things don't factorize, a physicist would say. Disagree?

The intermeshing of self and belief is terribly hard to unwind.

[ignoramus]

And that could we be ultimately why religion is bad.

What? You don't like mustangs? OK, here have a beer.
What? You don't believe in my God? OK, here, have bullet to the head!

[Losty]

My point is that being shit at accepting criticism is a human fault not some kind of theist issue. People struggle with it across the board and many theists don't struggle with it at all.

And my point is that with a preconceived construct which places high value on conformity in place, criticism from outside is more easily deflected.

Not every human is shit at accepting criticism. Religion, however, increases the likelihood of that being the case. Don't take my word for it ... disagree with any religionist online and criticize their beliefs, and see how they respond. Do the same with atheists. Tally up the resulting butthurt.

The personal investment in believing in a personal god is, I think, quite a bit higher than the personal investment in saying "meh, I don't believe."

I think you're being unfair in comparing religious people with atheists in this way.

We are talking about hating someone's beliefs not hating their unbelief.

If you want an example of how atheists can get in a huff when someone calls their beliefs stupid, look in CL's circumcision thread. People said believing circumcision is wrong is a stupid belief and some people went batshit crazy over that.

I don't believe that being sensitive about having ones beliefs attacked is a strictly theist thing, and I haven't seen evidence that theists do it more than atheists.

[Pat Mustard]

I think religious belief is different from things like anti-vaccination in that it doesn't cause any bodily harm to people.

That's ridiculous.




And before you say that you are different than muslims remember what you were a couple of centuries ago.

Seventy years ago. Most of those who operated the gas chambers were committed christians. And christian antisemitism was part of why they were ok with killing millions.

[Redbeard The Pink]

My problem with it is that it invariably erodes critical thinking and human rights, and it informs the decisions these people make...decisions which could affect me.

I do not care that it comforts them, or that they use charity work as a way to cram their message. The cost is just too high.

I'm pretty sure they likewise don't care if you care.  Like us they probably don't make all their decisions with the goal of maximizing the peace of mind of people who think differently than they do.

The question was not about whether we should care what others think, but whether we should just accept that religion is a thing and stop fighting to shrink it or at least halt its spread.

For an alleged atheist to show up here and say "Why don't we just happily coexist with religion because, I mean really, what harm does it actually do?" is completely asinine because it ignores all the harm that religion does, in fact, do.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I don't believe that being sensitive about having ones beliefs attacked is a strictly theist thing[...]

It's a good thing I never said that, then!

[...] and I haven't seen evidence that theists do it more than atheists.

When it comes to the beliefs about god/lack of god, my experience is that religious folks are more sensitive about having their faith criticized, largely.

[Losty]

I don't believe that being sensitive about having ones beliefs attacked is a strictly theist thing[...]

It's a good thing I never said that, then!

[...] and I haven't seen evidence that theists do it more than atheists.

When it comes to the beliefs about god/lack of god, my experience is that religious folks are more sensitive about having their faith criticized, largely.

Of course they are, they're the only ones with beliefs and faith to criticize.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Are you saying that there are no positive/strong atheists? I mean, they have a positive belief that god(s) don't exist -- and it could be argued that it's a faith.

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you think that that's how a strong atheist would describe their position.....or was it simply a convenient way to set up for the "it could be argued"?

-Anything can be argued.



I'm a strong atheist....I probably wouldn't be one if I could muster an ounce of faith for anything. Gods just fall by the wayside in that regard.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Do you think that that's how a strong atheist would describe their position.....or was it simply a convenient way to set up for the "it could be argued"?

-Anything can be argued.



I'm a strong atheist....I probably wouldn't be one if I could muster an ounce of faith for anything.  Gods just fall by the wayside in that regard.

In the sense that making a positive assertion about a possibility without support ("there is no god" springs to mind), it could be argued that that is a statement of faith ... whether or not the person admits as much or not.

I try to be careful not to impute things to others, so I use phrases like "it could be argued".

I know that some strong atheists make the positive assertion that there are no god(s). It's been my experience that they don't seem to get so butthurt by challenges to that assertion.