*trigger warning* What if atheism's not all it seems?

[Whateverist]

Hi, all

I used to frequent these forums just over two years ago when I was a staunch atheist myself - I used to post anti-religion memes on Facebook, thought Richard Dawkins was super cool, laughed at the *obviously* intellectually inferior religious fools (because the only measure of one's intelligence is whether they refute a god and submit themselves to the great and glorious concept of ~rationalism~ - right?), and generally, I acted like a very proper atheist.

However I do agree with you that some atheist people do seem to be a bit too preoccupied and even upset about other people believing. People like that do indeed remind me of the more extreme religious folks That try to force their beliefs down your throat through name calling and mockery. Two sides of the same coin with these type of people, so I agree with you there.

You were a shitty atheist.

Ha, so there are levels of goodness and properness for an atheist and how they conduct themselves? Sounds suspiciously like other world views that you seem to disagree with.

As for the good and bad concept existing: Because we still live in a society which has religious concepts entrenched in our culture, we don't see that good and bad are concepts which at a fundamental level were heavily influenced by religion. Things like helping those who are needy and putting others before ourselves. And even though religion is starting to die, these parts of it have still survived even though we now often mistakenly think they are nothing do with religion. Imagine no religion at all and just a cold Darwinian style society which never had religion - how do you define good and bad?

By your own admission you were a shitty atheist, meaning you behaved arrogantly and with little self reflection before .. exactly the kind of atheist C_L was saying are the counterpart to the worst sort of theists.  I stand behind what I said and I'm surprised if you see that as an ad hominem.