WTF Atheists!?

[thesummerqueen]

And I thank you for chosing my words wisly for my next thread. Please do keep in mind (and no this should not be the main exuse) I am not English and am not 100% in my comfort zone when I type in English or when I have to deffend my oppinion.

This is why I keep coming back to clarify - I am keeping that in mind. I spend most of my online time talking to people from all over the world with varying degrees of control on their English, actually. Most of them are European.

I don't expect you to agree either. How can you if you do not know what i'm on about. You're not "old" because you don't know what i'm on about. I'm a youthworker believe it or not and see a lot of things like the one i raged about. Kids/teens/young adults do EVERYTHING on the internet and are obsessed by what is in/hip to do and very sensitive to what they see and what others do. I think if you check your own thread you'll see that these "scene kids" "hipsters" and other people like these are quite young.

First - I made that thread halfway in lightheartedness and halfway in curiosity. It might help communication if I tell you that most of my tone when I'm interacting on this forum is meant to be a bit sarcastic, a bit sassy, and usually full of amusement. Very rarely is there malice, and I generally save that for the most asinine members. I joked about being "old" - partially to poke fun at the real old farts, who were left in peace for too long while I took a break from the forum.

Something that has always interested me since the time I was the age of these "scene" kids is the way people label themselves. When I was in school, I didn't belong to a particular group. I had no "label," except perhaps "nerd," and in one of those stupid moments when kids were going around pointing at others in the class and saying their label out loud, they didn't have one when they got to me. I was interested in so many different things, I couldn't see myself settling on one style or genre of music. Now I'm curious as to how people define the differences, because these "scenes" seem so fluid and similar, it's hard to tell why they would label themselves one way or another. It's rather like my fascination with how the atheists will call themselves various names - either to make themselves sound better or to try and express a different value system.

I agree with what you say about kids, but it doesn't necessarily lead to the actions you were speaking of. Hence me asking for examples.

Just because you have never seen immature Atheist (wich I had never eather) doesn't mean it doesn't happen in a scale wich is growing. Hense the post!

Well, now, hold on - I've seen plenty of immature atheists. Maturity has nothing to do with atheism. What I said was I had never seen an atheist attack another's religious beliefs simply because it was "cool". Even kids are capable of knowing that this stuff is bullshit. I've never even seen a theist attack an atheist or a person of a different religion because it was "cool" to do - it was always because they had been indoctrinated into thinking that it was "wrong" or that the other person was somehow "evil" and must be preached to. This isn't like kids encouraging each other to smoke. It's making me laugh just imagining someone saying "C'mon, all the cool kids are atheist." Really?

I'm not writing you off as someone who rips on peoples oppinions. Just someone who rips on mine and soesnt even know what i'm on about. Or when "they are wrong or saying something indefensibly stupid." < your words. How can you find my post stupid, wich was obveous by the way, when you don't even know what i'm on about. I'be seen your other post asking about what i'm on about. Why not come to me? If you would of approuched me a little different I woud of.

Hey, I'm still here waiting for clarification. I didn't say I wasn't going to pick it apart, but you're welcome to keep helping me understand. I read your post and thought I knew what you were on about. If I don't understand still, please help me to figure it out. I have all the internet time in the world.

Second, I didn't come to you about the "scenepoints" stuff because it was a much more generalized question about that whole lifestyle/phenomenon in general and wasn't an attack towards you or meant to clutter up YOUR thread. You might have taken me making such a thread personally as some kind of light insult, but actually I was trying to respect you by asking my related, but not on-topic, questions in another space so we could continue this conversation here. You are welcome to tell me what you know about hipsters, scene kids and emo things over there. But as none of those things have anything in particular to do with atheism, I left them somewhere else.

I do think the way you and others say things could work better for both parties if they didn't have the need to be heard so much. The whole world is loud. People need to listen more and will listen more if you calm down. How is it abnormal to think this?

It isn't abnormal. I actually like Phil Plait's "Don't Be a Dick" speech, with one caveat: sometimes a dick is what's needed. If you need more reasons other than what I gave you some posts ago, I can list them. Sometimes you need someone to cry out and rail and rage. The problem then is not how loud they are, but whether or not the point they're making is valid and informative. You must see that there are shades of gray in this.


The reason most people start up in arms is because they feel they are being attacked. In the case of most atheists, I would expect that many of them are instinctively reacting to the fact that they have been preached too all their lives and they are tired of hearing the same old shit over and over and over again. At least here in America. I understand it's different in Europe. But you can't deny that you started this post with strong language as well, so why did you expect any different in kind?