The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians

[Redbeard The Pink]

Man...these last few threads of Randy's have been like, "Hey, would you guys like to bathe in a lake of my tears? Here you go!"

[Longhorn]

Great. Where?

Here: 

From what I've seen, Randy has had much nastier things said to him than he's said to anyone else here. The way you're portraying it above is as if Randy came in here and was a big bully to people who were nothing but kind and welcoming to him. "Randy is the villain, and everyone else is just the innocent snow flake, and now we're all heroes for calling him all sorts of horrible names." 

^That's what it sounds like you're saying. And I'm sorry, but that is extremely one sided and is not the case. 

I guess you can continue to cuss him out and call him nasty names if you really believe it's the right and noble thing to do. But if you're going to do that to a person, I urge you to at least take a look at some of his very first posts here on AF and see if things really started the way you seem to think they did.

Yeah, from what YOU'VE seen. When you weren't the receiving end of his arrogant sense of superiority, or his purposefully inflammatory remarks, or puke worthy comments on matters you would expect at least some decency in dealing with. You're saying we're one sided, but you haven't had the displeasure of seeing Randy's bad side personally. The responses he gets don't come from nothing.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

You can stuff that "victim card" schtick where the sun don't shine, dude. That's not the point of my OP.

Nor am I some sunny little evangelical who expects you all to say the sinner's prayer with me because it's all just so obvious that Christianity is true. No, I expect some hard-nosed give-and-take, and I was hoping for some honest discussion of the issues. Atheism has some strong arguments, and I have to face them. But theism has some good arguments, too...despite what you may have heard from the low-information atheists in this forum.

But forgive me if I've invaded one (and only one, btw) subforum of YOUR HOUSE (the idea of which contradicts what others have said about this being a public forum) which was set up ostensibly for the purpose of discussing Christianity and then ACTUALLY ATTEMPTING to discuss Christianity.

Oh, I see where I went wrong...this subforum is where atheists gather to mock Christianity...not to discuss it.

Perhaps the sign on the door needs to be changed to reflect what Tiberius, Cthulhu Dreaming and others really envision.

When you speak to us like dogs, and then try to claim that the reason we counterattack is because we're just here to bash Christians, it's playing the victim card. Period. Are we less likely to give "benefit of the doubt" to Christians, based on our long, collective experience with proselytizing types? You betcha. But we don't attack because of a person's faith. Look at the Christians here with better reps than most of the atheists here, despite their strong faith-stance. It's you, Randy.

Your second paragraph is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. I grew up as an evangelical, and I still own or have read a large number of apologetics books, from Mere Christianity to Orthodoxy to The Case for Christ to Darwin on Trial to The Language of God, et cetera. In college, I read large excerpts from guys like St. Augustine and St. Jerome, as part of Biblical History courses. So your comment, "...despite what you may have heard from the low-information atheists in this forum" is not only snarky, it's revealing of your bias against us as atheists out of ignorance of The Truth™.

This is indeed a public forum. And all are welcome. We have said so repeatedly. I have said so previous to this post, in this thread. But it is still our house; it is "a safe place" for atheists to gather. We have a Christianity sub-forum on which we discuss many elements of Christianity-- more often than not, what we are discussing, if you'll look, is the myriad ways in which Christians attack non-believers (often causing cruel treatment of us by family members and/or social circles), try to push their religion into law or social policy (into our lives), or the ways in which the dominant form of Christianity in our countries will attack science, education, and liberty. On occasion, a theist or an atheist will post a thread that is about apologetics or other doctrine, and a discussion will ensue. But it's not the purpose of the thread, nor is it our job to give one shred of leeway to someone who makes bald assertions or copypastas, or who is demeaning or derogatory toward us, and you have a long history of doing so. I've silently sat back and watched you do it, to my increasing frustration, until I felt I had to say something, at last, here.

And yes, we do mock Christianity. There is much about it that deserves mockery. Even other Christians mock Christianity; entire professional comedic careers -- Mark Lowry, for instance, whom I've seen live twice (my mom's a huge fan). Much of what the 40,000 denominations think about theology is outright hilarious! And from our perspective, most of it is pretty funny...think of the way you see Hindu rituals or the Muslims praying en masse, with their asses in the guy's face behind them. And as I have said, this is our "safe space" in which we can say the things we could never say in real life, while the Christians who surround us have no problem lying about atheism, making atheists out to be untrustworthy and evil, and with socially ostracizing us for no other reason than an expression of our nonbelief. Some of us are going to mock.

In the end, we are in every conceivable way more open than our counterparts on the Christian forums, by a long shot. The mockery you experience from us here is a fraction of what most of us go through in real life all the time, something we would never do to others. Hell, the fact that I'm still talking to you after you've told me I'm ignorant of Christianity, pretended that the reason we say mean things to you is because we just want to attack Christianity and not discuss it (rather than a response to the hostile way in which you discuss with us), and telling me to shove my "victim card schtick" up my ass, should indicate to you that we do not prohibit you in any way for your Christianity, but only for the way in which it is presented.

[Kingpin]

You can stuff that "victim card" schtick where the sun don't shine, dude. That's not the point of my OP.

Nor am I some sunny little evangelical who expects you all to say the sinner's prayer with me because it's all just so obvious that Christianity is true. No, I expect some hard-nosed give-and-take, and I was hoping for some honest discussion of the issues. Atheism has some strong arguments, and I have to face them. But theism has some good arguments, too...despite what you may have heard from the low-information atheists in this forum.

But forgive me if I've invaded one (and only one, btw) subforum of YOUR HOUSE (the idea of which contradicts what others have said about this being a public forum) which was set up ostensibly for the purpose of discussing Christianity and then ACTUALLY ATTEMPTING to discuss Christianity.

Oh, I see where I went wrong...this subforum is where atheists gather to mock Christianity...not to discuss it.

Perhaps the sign on the door needs to be changed to reflect what Tiberius, Cthulhu Dreaming and others really envision.

When you speak to us like dogs, and then try to claim that the reason we counterattack is because we're just here to bash Christians, it's playing the victim card. Period. Are we less likely to give "benefit of the doubt" to Christians, based on our long, collective experience with proselytizing types? You betcha. But we don't attack because of a person's faith. Look at the Christians here with better reps than most of the atheists here, despite their strong faith-stance. It's you, Randy.

Your second paragraph is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. I grew up as an evangelical, and I still own or have read a large number of apologetics books, from Mere Christianity  to Orthodoxy  to The Case for Christ  to Darwin on Trial  to The Language of God, et cetera.  In college, I read large excerpts from guys like St. Augustine and St. Jerome, as part of Biblical History courses. So your comment, "...despite what you may have heard from the low-information atheists in this forum" is not only snarky, it's revealing of your bias against us as atheists out of ignorance of The Truth™.

This is indeed a public forum. And all are welcome. We have said so repeatedly. I have said so previous to this post, in this thread. But it is still our house; it is "a safe place" for atheists to gather. We have a Christianity sub-forum on which we discuss many elements of Christianity-- more often than not, what we are discussing, if you'll look, is the myriad ways in which Christians attack non-believers (often causing cruel treatment of us by family members and/or social circles), try to push their religion into law or social policy (into our lives), or the ways in which the dominant form of Christianity in our countries will attack science, education, and liberty. On occasion, a theist or an atheist will post a thread that is about apologetics or other doctrine, and a discussion will ensue. But it's not the purpose  of the thread, nor is it our job to give one shred of leeway to someone who makes bald assertions or copypastas, or who is demeaning or derogatory toward us, and you have a long history of doing so. I've silently sat back and watched you do it, to my increasing frustration, until I felt I had to say something, at last, here.

And yes, we do mock Christianity. There is much about it that deserves mockery. Even other Christians mock Christianity; entire professional comedic careers -- Mark Lowry, for instance, whom I've seen live twice (my mom's a huge fan). Much of what the 40,000 denominations think about theology is outright hilarious! And from our perspective, most of it is pretty funny...think of the way you see Hindu rituals or the Muslims praying en masse, with their asses in the guy's face behind them. And as I have said, this is our "safe space" in which we can say the things we could never say in real life, while the Christians who surround us have no problem lying about atheism, making atheists out to be untrustworthy and evil, and with socially ostracizing us for no other reason than an expression of our nonbelief. Some of us are going to mock.

In the end, we are in every conceivable way more open than our counterparts on the Christian forums, by a long shot. The mockery you experience from us here is a fraction of what most of us go through in real life all the time, something we would never do to others. Hell, the fact that I'm still talking to you after you've told me I'm ignorant of Christianity, pretended that the reason we say mean things to you is because we just want to attack Christianity and not discuss it (rather than a response to the hostile way in which you discuss  with us), and telling me to shove my "victim card schtick" up my ass, should indicate to you that we do not prohibit you in any way for your Christianity, but only for the way in which it is presented.

Seriously Rocky (do you care if we call you that?), you've only been here two weeks but man I enjoy your posts.  Again, hit the nail on the head.  It's not the subject that is being presented that is causing the attack, but how it is presented that causes the issue.

[The Grand Nudger]

The only thing all of our failures have in common, Randy..is ourselves.  

You've failed to convince...because you are unconvincing, you've failed to secure treatment as a friend or equal..... because you have failed to act as a friend or equal.  You've failed to present a vision of christianity that is exempt from contempt or mockery...because you present a vision of christianity that is contemptible and silly. You could lazily blame all of this on your audience...but that won't help you improve your delivery -even if it were your audience's fault-, it won't help you achieve your goals. If you hope to be taken even a fraction as seriously as you appear to take yourself, you need to put in the effort. No one else can do that for you, and it's pointless to blame others for your inability or unwillingness to do so...as pointless as it is to throw a temper tantrum about how mean the atheists are for, essentially, not having recognized the brilliance of the work you've yet to put in. You could change any and all of this at any point you deigned to do so, the ball is and has always been in your court.

Do work. Stop bitching....and do work.

[Mister Agenda]

Randy does make a valid point though. Let's not pretend there isn't a bit of a double standard here. Not everyone does this, of course, there are plenty of super nice/sensible people on AF. But it does happen.

You have a point, but it has a lot to do with the number of Christian trolls we get. After the first couple hundred, we started to assume the worst from new ones. And a few of us assume the worst and stick with that. It does seem that the insulting varies widely with how polite the Christian is to us, however polite but inane is also likely to draw some hostiity.

[Huggy Bear]

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Actually......


There, fixed it for ya.

[abaris]

It's not the subject that is being presented that is causing the attack, but how it is presented that causes the issue.

It's the tone that makes the music, as they say. And that's certainly not exclusive to religious topics.

[Iroscato]

I'm fairly sure some chap called Jesus used to waffle on about turning the other cheek to those who strike you...

[Mister Agenda]

Nobody really listens to that guy Jesus. It should be called 'Paulianity'.