I honestly think this is kinda discriminatory towards atheists :V

Not all are like that. In fact, a great portion of atheists aren't like that at all.

It really only seems like they target Christianity the most only cause they're the really big religion that seems to try and convert the most.

That, and pretty much everybody is scared of going against Muslims :V

But yeah, this is just completely discrimination over anything else, Nya~.

I would say no more than Christians or any other religion.

You are going to have certain people who quietly believe whatever they want to believe and are fine to not talk about it often.

Then there are others who go out of their way to push their beliefs on others. Those people are part of every religious group (or non-religious group) that exists.

By definition, an atheist is just someone who doesn't believe in God. There is nothing in the definition of that term that suggestions they demand people don't talk to them about religion or that they force the idea of there being no God down anyone's throat. So in its purest essence, there's nothing hypocritical about being an Atheist.

But of course, ANYONE can be a hypocrite.

Also, what people fail to realize is that there are actually 4 groups of people when it comes to beliefs. It's not merely as simple Theist vs. Atheist... because there's also the idea of gnostics and agnostics that come into play. Remember that these two terms are different than atheist/theist.

theist: "God exists"
atheist: "God does not exist"
gnostic: "I know for sure whether or not God exists"
agnostic: "I know for sure whether or not God exists"

so your 4 combinations work out to be...

1. Gnostic Theist: "I know God's existence to be a fact." (these are the ones more likely to insist their believes are correct and yours are not, but this isn't all-inclusive either)

2. Agnostic Theist: "I believe in God, but I'm not so arrogant that I'm going to say I know for 100% sure because there's no way we as humans can" (tends to be the more level-headed religious people)

3. Gnostic Atheist: "I know there's no such thing as God for a fact." (these are the annoying atheists)

4. Agnostic Atheist: "I don't believe there's actually a God, but I can't prove it." (tends to be the more level-headed atheists)

That's kind of a basic summary anyway... I don't mean offense to anyone who falls into any of those groups... it is, after all generalizing and I'm intelligent enough to realize that any group will fail to complete describe its members and that every rule has its exceptions. I'd never judge people just because they say they're this or that. I'd much rather let them show themselves to me for who they are. I actually never used to get along with religious people at all, but I never write them off and I've met a few at this site who are really cool people. If I just assumed they'd be like others, I'd have been cutting myself off from potential friends... but that's getting off-topic. My point is that all-inclusive statements like the one posed as the topic question are destined to fail.

The name of this thread is just begging for trouble. I vote we abandon it.

Briefly, though, hypocrisy is more common amongst the most fanatical people of any stripe.

I have to agree with geogree and Crazy Li.  It's a pretty broad statement to say that all atheists are hypocrites.  LOL  There are hypocritical atheists, non-hypocritical atheists, hypocritical theists, and non-hypocritical theists.

We need to actually understand and remember the actual definition of hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy is not based off who is right and who is wrong.  Hypocrisy describes the act of stating you believe one thing and then acting in opposition to your own statement.

People are hypocrites.
Everyone. I doubt anyone has gone without being one.
Thats not down to what they believe, but there mentality.
Some people are more hypocritical than others.

And telling people there ir no god is not neccessary. Neither is telling people there is one.
If one individual does its pretty much open season for the other.
Debating points of it isnt hatefull either.
Flat out telling someone what they believe is ridiculous is rude, hatefull not really.

I dont know most atheists to go around announcing it either, unless faith or science comes up.

And generaly atheists dont hate religious people any more than the reverse is true.
People assume that disagreement or debate is hate. Its a major over reaction.

The way you typed that seemed to be in a manor similar to your acusations.

And im unfased. Im not throwing around words like hate, intolerance, stupidity.

Although personaly I think you were just trying to gauge a similar reaction as from christians questioned by atheists, switch the shoe so to speak.

Hate is different to arguing, and thats the key concept.

That and hating people generaly dosent benefit either party.

It's interesting that you think every atheist that you know has told you. I'm an atheist, and in real life everyone has always assumed that I'm a Christian. It's not a bad assumption to make, considering I went to a Christian or Catholic school since the second grade. But it's worth mentioning that you shouldn't just assume someone's religious beliefs.

I feel like it's also worth noting that telling someone what you believe isn't really shoving it down your throat. Using your beliefs to pass legislation that impacts everyone regardless of their beliefs, however, is another story entirely.

Anyway, I'm not going to close this yet. But I'll keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.

Edit: Obviously Crazy Li thought it was alright too, but given that we had a vote to abandon thread I thought it was worth saying.

Crazy Li : what does that make me then?  
I don't really care if god exists or not.. To be honest.. I just focus on my own life.. I accept other peoples views on religion and respect them for it...  I don't care for gods... I care for people.....

anyways With everything that has a difference of opinion you are bound to get the obnoxious idiots who believe they are right or the best and everyone else is wrong...  Heck we wouldn't be humans if we didn't have these views ...

People just tend to generalize the more extreme ones...

Everyone has their moments of hypocrisy. It's even in the Bible that it is impossible for a Christian to obey all the laws God gave us. What difference can there be between serious hypocrates and those who are just a bit hypocritical? Simple. Levelheaded people will work to avoid hypocrisy, but will admit their own mistakes.

I've been bullied by my peers at church; I bullied my own friend once. I know double standards when I see them, and I know I've done them. I love truth, yet I've spoken lies.

I remember a friend once told me, and I paraphrase, "Be careful when you point the finger at someone, because you'll have three more pointing back at you."

At least I'll know that when I talk about my beliefs.

"Do they specifically target Christianity or do they also hate Muslims, Jews, and other religions? "

I'm not sure if your religion pushes you to hate people with other belief systems but my atheism certainly doesn't.  Maybe you meant to say "do they also hate Islam, Judaism and other religions" which changes the hatred from the people who practice the religion to the actual religion itself. Either way I feel like you are making a broad generalization that is most likely false.

One thing to keep in mind is that everyone is an atheist to some degree. Since atheism is just rejecting the claim of a god it means that people of one religion have an atheistic view of other religions gods. Does your atheism towards non-Christian religions mean you hate those who practice these religions or that religion in itself??


As for atheists specifically targeting Christianity I would say that statement could be considered true but is purely situational. Let me ask you this, Why aren't atheists targeting people who believe in Zeus? Because even if there are people who still believe in Zeus (which I doubt there really are) they aren't a big enough group to establish any sort of enforcement or push an agenda based on their religion.

Take a look at this pie graph representing religious populations in the USA.
According to this graph 79% of the United States is Christian. If ever there were a single religion that made sense for American atheists to target surely it would be Christianity. With the same reasoning it makes sense for atheists in other parts of the world to focus on the religion that dominates their location. For example, in the middle east I fully expect atheists to target Islam ( or Judaism in the case of Israel). I also expect there to be a much smaller percentage of atheists in that part of the world due to religion playing a big part of politics but that is off topic and for another discussion.

Since Islam and Christianity are offshoots of Judaism, an atheist who refutes the god claims of one of these religions is actually refuting the claim of god in all of these religions. If some one were to say that Jesus or Mohammad didn't exist but believed that the main god figure in these religions did exist it would make them more or less Jewish and not a complete atheist (based on my understanding of the relationships between all three religions ... but I am no expert).



I want to ask you and any other religious people reading this a question. Have you ever had an encounter with some one advocating atheism without an initial declaration with any sort of religious context. In other words, is the atheist instigating the discussion or simply responding to your religious claim.

I only ask because I have never seen or even heard of an atheist engaging in this sort of action without being provoked by a religious statement. It's not like atheists are going door to door to spread the good news of no lord. From my experience atheists generally respond to religious claims instead of just randomly telling people they are atheists which is the opposite of the joke in the original post portrays.

The way I see things it's kind of like the golden rule to treat others as you want to be treated or as Jesus said in Matthew 7:12 " Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them " . If you don't want to hear about atheists beliefs than don't tell them about yours. If you publicly display your beliefs than you should fully expect others to share their beliefs with you.

Being an Agnostic Atheist, I take offense to this claim.

I don't hate Christians, I respect them, and their religion. I don't hate them, nor do I hate people of other religions, such as Judaism or even Islam.

I appreciate the study of religion, and great stories from the Bible, Qu'ran or others.

I don't believe in it, I just read it.

I don't push my beliefs on others, because I don't like when people do that to me.

You wouldn't be able to tell unless you asked. That's why I find that post of yours offensive.

The "Gnostic" Athiests that do push their beliefs mainly tend to push towards Christians for some reason, which I don't understand.

The same goes to Christians/Jews/Muslims/etc., they have the two types as well, and can force their religion too, who hate those of other relgions, or those without religions, and there's some who don't, it doesn't just run one way.

"Religion is like a weiner. It's great to have one, and you can even be proud of it. Just don't go shoving it down people's throats. Especially children."

As hesitant as I am to go on with this thread at all, I'm afraid there's a correction here which simply must be issued.

"I want to ask you and any other religious people reading this a question. Have you ever had an encounter with some one advocating atheism without an initial declaration with any sort of religious context. In other words, is the atheist instigating the discussion or simply responding to your religious claim.

I only ask because I have never seen or even heard of an atheist engaging in this sort of action without being provoked by a religious statement. It's not like atheists are going door to door to spread the good news of no lord. From my experience atheists generally respond to religious claims instead of just randomly telling people they are atheists which is the opposite of the joke in the original post portrays."

This may be partly technically true in a way, but you could apply it to anything. People in general don't do *anything* "unprovoked". It's exactly equivalent to denying that there are many Christians who evangelize aggressively and obnoxiously just because they don't do it unless somebody sets them off by saying anything remotely different from what they believe. Of *course* they need to be "provoked" but with pseudoskeptics such provocation usually takes the form of any remote mention of God (swt) or religion, even an offhand or nonliteral one.

For example I remember once hearing of a Youtube flamewar that started when someone commented on a video about whales by calling them "the most beautiful of all God's creatures", and this triggered an unspeakably nasty antitheistic diatribe. And don't tell me, "Well, it's Youtube, what do you expect?" This happens all over the net and a fair enough amount in non-cyber life as well. Bookstores are choked now with nasty, bullying, childish 300-page rants on God and religion. It's gotten so bad that I'll immediately block anyone at Twitter (my handle is AndrewLivingst2, if you're interested) who ever so much as utters the phrase "flying spaghetti monster". Nobody *needs* to go door to door when they have the net.

warmaker : I think it all boils down to what ones beliefs are to be perfectly honest with you. I do believe in god and do my best to observe mass every day or almost every day via online. One of the main reasons I choose to do things that way rather than physically getting up and going to church is frankly fear of judgment by others.

I made some mistakes in my youth and really didn’t get the wake-up call that I needed until I was in my early twenties. I will freely admit to you as I am pushing 30 that I still have my flaws and I am far from perfect. I just hope that God will forgive me for my mistakes, help me mend any fences that I may have broken and allow me to be a person who helps people. I only want to be known for good things. It is something that I struggle with daily because I do have guilt about my teen years. I just hope no one who knew me back then has any resentment toward me.

Although I have my beliefs I am always respectful of others and never try to judge anyone for anything. I guess the simplest way to put my philosophy is after everything I’ve been through in life from physical challenges (I’m disabled), to mistakes I made both in things I had no control over and things that frankly I was an idiot. I freely admit that there was a time when I was inauthentic, meaning I was a bs’er and that is something that I also feel guilty about many years later and years after getting my wake-up call. Basically, my philosophy is after everything I’ve gone through some of which was self-inflicted how could I ever possibly bring myself to judge others?

I realize it isn’t like that for some people but for me that’s how I see things. I really think it boils down to what one’s beliefs are. I just try to be a good listener and not push my beliefs on anyone. Simply put everyone is different. To me the concept of peace is possible and is more within reach than most realize if we as a society could just stop judging others.

RalphTheWonderLlama :
I think the point was simply to rebuke the statement that atheists feel the need to announce their faith, not to take a dig at christianity.
But it is less likely because as far as i know you dont get atheist preachers.

But it is youtube...people fight about anything on the net.

As for books theres anti jewish, anti atheist, anti black and antie gay books too. That dosent mean that people of the same grouping as the writer agree with it.

That is down to human nature, not any specific belief.

Equaly i dont get why atheists are offended by this. The wording of the question is pretty rude or else not thought out, but besides that, why care?
Its not much better than the christians who claimed attack when i questioned them. Its just a disccusion. No one is actualy stating atheists are bad, impartiaility is a good mindset to go into in such discussions.

thenumberone : Little puzzled with your statement "atheists feel the need to announce their faith."
 
Wouldn't being an atheist mean that you don't have faith? I guess if you say that Atheists have faith would be like saying that Anarchists form societies (which would be contradictory). Thou I guess this would depend on the meaning to "faith" since the word can be used in a non-religious text.


But anyways I agree with your statement 100%

I am an athiest but I don't really think completely God is not real. no! I just don't know but for me to believe I need evidence. But I mostly stay away from this topic but this post I find incorrect. Maybe 25% are like that but I don't really care. either way I love everyone! Any religion.

Oldschool41, *everything* a person can do involves faith of some kind or other, whether or not you're aware of it at the time.

I forgot for a moment I had decided not to visit until my Viz points got lower. Well, until then, in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening and good night.

Okay, I'm an atheist and there isn't much there to prevent that, But I am not so ignorant that I will deny any and every chance of a God existing at all, Although even if I do take up a religion I will always believe in evolution as well and sadly I think anyone that is ignorant enough to deny evolution need to wake up, I'm also not against religion in any way shape or form, I just don't like people pushing they're religions on me. I am always ready to listen and debate with anyone trying to prove something I don't believe in but don't expect me to believe it when we're done, as always enjoy your time on vizzed.com and have a great day.

I don't think all atheists hate "being told about God and religion and having it forced down their throat", I think some of them are on the fence of believing in a God and not believing.

I haven't bothered with reading all of the replies here, but this could mean they target "Muslims, Jews, and other religions (Christianity)" because those three basically believe in the same God except with diversity.

For the joke... I don't get it - are you saying rage against faith?