Are we atheists just as bad as religious people?

[LukeMC]

puertopez, it depends on the situation. If your friends mention something in passing, it'd best for you to just leave it. For example:

"I'll pray he gets better"
In this situation you might be tempted to respond with:
"Pray? You do realise that prayer has been tested in double blind studies and has been proven not to make any difference at all? And in some cases, it was correlated negatively with recovery?"
Really, you'd be better off letting the point slide, or at the very most you could say "why don't you actually DO something instead of praying for God to do all the work? "

However, if somebody were to claim positively that they believe in the power of prayer... well, the claim has been made! It is your intellectual duty to combat it. And the same goes for ALL bad science and ANY bigotry.

It's probably best that you only debate in moderation, for friendship's sake. However, even if you pick out every single fault with everything they ever say in a relentless mission to turn them into atheists, you're still not as bad as the religious. You're spreading facts and fighting bad reasoning, not promoting ancient propaganda and terrible science

[binny]

I live in Boston, so it's not that bad. My state is very liberal and I have a lot of atheist friends.

Except for my husband and my sons till at home I have no atheist friends here, that I'm aware of. I suppose I would know if I did. I do have cybor friends who are atheists My being an atheist has not been brought up, yet, to any friends. My family is well aware because I always bring it up to them, but I really don't discuss religion with anyone. Probably because my dad always told me never talk about religion or politics in social gatherings.

[Retorth]

I don't know of many Atheists in my area either. People don't normally discuss religion much. That was why I turned to AF to meet like-minded people.

[Edwardo Piet]

The problem with when the religious do it is that it's a bunch of unsupported claims being shoved in people's faces.

Perhaps you could argue that Gnostic atheism could be that to some extent, because they "Believe" that there is definitely no God, and in some sense they could be thought of as bad as the religious if they shove that in others place. But only 'in some sense' as I said, because there's a fuck load of beliefs in religions, and some of them can be very harmful.

Agnostic atheism on the other hand, the mere disbelief in God - the most you could do is tell others that you don't believe and that "here's why", that's rational and constructive. No harm in that. Unlike shoving unsupported beliefs in people's faces.

And Gnostic atheism is an unsupported belief. Because absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. You can't prove that God doesn't exist, so to believe that you know he doesn't, that he definitely doesn't - is a positive belief without evidence. So that would be another unsupported claim possible to be shoved in someone's face. Unlike Agnostic atheism.

EvF

[fr0d0]

Ah hey no need to get hostile. Whenever I do explain things, I do it with tact and I only continue if they want to further discuss it. I think I got my answer, there doesn't seem to be a difference and I won't go talking to other people about it unless they talk to me about it first.

I didn't mean to sound hostile. My 'get a grip' comment was directed at anyone that lets go of their self control in the excitement of sharing what they think no one else knows even if the person isn't interested (I'm sure I could've said that in fewer words! ).

I've been guilty of it myself in the distant past too.

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I have addressed your central question in an essay titled, "Why Argue About God?" Those who care to read it may download the attached file.

I believe we should be intolerant of ignorance too. And that religious control is very wrong. Arguing and questioning our beliefs and reasons for them & against them is absolutely essential I agree. You'd be brain dead if you didn't question/ going against your own nature.

The question in hand though is should people proselytize.

[dry land fish]

I don't think religious people are bad. I know many religious people that are good people and I love them very much. Religion is bad and is used to abuse people in various ways. Even when people think they are doing a "good thing" often times they are doing harm with religion. The thing that sets Atheists apart from religion other than the non belief in any supreme being is that we use our brains to tell us what is right from wrong. We think about things and we use our reason to decide if we will support something or not. Each of us will come up with different ideas on what is right and wrong but when it comes to things like gay marriage, abortion, legalization of drugs..etc...we will look at scientific facts and reasoning to decide if it should be legal. Not all Atheists will believe that any of those things should be legal but the fact that we come to conclusions on our own is what is important. We won't just jump to a conclusion because it's written in some book.

Because of that I feel we are overall more humane and fair.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

The one thing I find most annoying is Christians always trying to shove their faith down my throat.

The last time that happened to me in real life was in 1974,at work. It stopped as soon as I threatened to punch his lights out.


There is no such group as 'we atheists'.


I have seen no evidence that the word 'atheist' is useful to infer ANY human quality or attribute. (except for a non belief in gods)


Imo atheists have no claim to the high ground on any issue or human quality.

[Retorth]

I agree. Basically, "Atheist" is a reference to the disbelief in a god or gods, and not a group or society (unless someone creates one with that name).

[Edwardo Piet]

Being an atheist doesn't make you positively more moral, it is more the fact that you will by definition be without religious beliefs, beliefs that can often be immoral, and are always delusional/superstitious because they lack evidence. And like DLF says (and said very well I might add) - it's more to do with the fact that us atheists are not limited by the beliefs of religion, we can just use our brains without that stuff.

It's not that the religious are necessarily bad people, or that atheists are necessarily good - it's more to do with the fact that religion itself is an evil, a lot of evil can stem from it - and you don't get those quite possibly - at least potentially - harmful beliefs driving you when you're an atheist. It says nothing of the character of whether a person is moral or not deep down, it says of what drives them - atheists are not driven by religious dogmas (by definition). They can still have other 'evil' ideologies driving them of course, but it's just one less nasty belief driving you - and IMO, religion is the big one out of the nasty belief systems. I agree with Chirstopher Hitchens (among others) that it's the greatest source of evil in the world.

EvF

[Meatball]

It's annoying when people outwardly project their beliefs at any opportunity. I would consider the OP an annoying atheist.

I'm private about my spirituality (of lack thereof), but I won't shy away if it's brought up as a topic of discussion or in some sort of confrontation (See: missionaries).