http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion
My answer is:
How To Suck At Atheism
1. Assume all believers are judgmental.
2. Assume Christianity has held back scientific advancement, in spite of visionaries like Isaac Newton, Galileo, and even Georges Lemaitre.
3. Assume teaching your child the family's faith tradition is tantamount to forcing dogma on them.
4. Adopt a cartoonish unrealistic worldview of Christians.
5. Assume religious believers fear sex.
6. Pretend that anybody who mentions God is "forcing their religion down your throat".
7. Lump all religions in one basket and ignore the great differences between them.
8. Convince yourself that you're nothing more than a purposeless "bag of meat", a completely insignificant accident, despite your internal wiring that tells you otherwise.
9. Focus 99% of your hatred on Christianity but use the terms "religion" or "theism" to make it look like you're being more fair.
10. Spend hours on the internet trying to badger people into believing the same crapola you've been indoctrinated with.
5 comments:
Stoogie, lets have a little look at your interesting list
1. Assume all believers are judgmental.
Not at all, however you have to admit that the representatives of religion that get the most press and make the most noise to tend towards being highly judgemental of others, I appreciate that this is a media bias but non the less true
2. Assume Christianity has held back scientific advancement, in spite of visionaries like Isaac Newton, Galileo, and even Georges Lemaitre.
Back in the day you could get into considerable trouble if you were not the right flavour of Christian so hardly surprising that many of these great men of science toed the party line, if only to be allowed to get on with what they actually wanted to do. And while the whole dark ages thing is overplayed there are plenty of examples of ‘Heretical’ and yet correct ideas being suppressed, Hell even today the Catholics actively campaign against contraception despite the proven benefits.
3. Assume teaching your child the family's faith tradition is tantamount to forcing dogma on them.
This is a tricky one, on the one hand it is only reasonable that you raise your kids according to your view of the world, on the other hand there are plenty of religious practices that make no sense unless you are introduced to them before being educated in critical thinking. Taken to the extreme you get communities where it is almost impossible for a child to leave as they are so badly prepared for the wider world
4. Adopt a cartoonish unrealistic worldview of Christians.
Hate to mention pots and kettles but the posts on this site and many if the comments suggest that there is a fairly cartoonish view of atheists held here about
5. Assume religious believers fear sex.
Fear, No. Want to control, Yes. Religions generally want to control their congregations and sex is a very good way to do it, dictating who you can and can’t bang is fundamental to many religious teachings.
Split post due to character limit
6. Pretend that anybody who mentions God is "forcing their religion down your throat".
No at all, but given that God is used as the justification for a lot of statements made by the more vocal religious then it is easy to see how this opinion gets formed.
7. Lump all religions in one basket and ignore the great differences between them.
While there is a great deal of difference between the many religions practised in the world they do all have some pretty big similarities, chiefly being the belief in a god or gods without any form of evidence, additionally adherence to ancient texts is pretty popular. Given this is the main bit of religion that most atheists disagree with the differences lose a lot of their import
8. Convince yourself that you're nothing more than a purposeless "bag of meat", a completely insignificant accident, despite your internal wiring that tells you otherwise.
In the grander scheme of things I have no purpose, other than the biological imperative to pass on my genes. While the exact combination of events that produced me could be portrayed as an accident that does not make me insignificant, that makes me unique. The fact my ‘internal wiring’ could lead me to think things about the universe is irrelevant unless these thoughts can be proved externally to me.
9. Focus 99% of your hatred on Christianity but use the terms "religion" or "theism" to make it look like you're being more fair.
Like most of the posters that you are going to deal with I was born and raised in a Christian dominated country, so no big surprise that they are the ones that most of my arguments go to. However that doesn’t change the fact that I think Muslims, Hindus and scientologists are just as wrong in their thinking. Oh and I don’t hate Christians, except that one’s that want to use their faith like a club to try and affect my life and freedoms.
10. Spend hours on the internet trying to badger people into believing the same crapola you've been indoctrinated with.
Yet you post ‘Crapola’ like this list. Are you just enjoying the echo chamber or are you trying to convince others that your point of view is correct? How long have you been posting for?
Logic lad:
1. The point is, broadbrushing is silly, and atheists are famous for it, as evidenced by their online posts.
2. I underastand history, nonetheless, scientific advancement has not been held back by Christianity.
3. Your response is highly conjectural.
4. Pots and kettles? I just respond to what atheists post online. Christians don't hold a monopoly on nuttiness.
5. Not all religion is about control, and Judeo-Christianity is misunderstood here. The practices that my faith frowns upon are usually unhealthy, anyway.
6. Wrong. It's just become another symptom of the hypersensitivity of the the anti-religious crowd.
7. Believing in God without evidence is purely subjective on your part. Testimony and history ARE evidence. Atheists need to deal with this obvious symptom of intellectual honesty on their part.
8. Thanks for making my point. There is no purpose for existence outside of Nature for the Atheist.
9. No freedoms have of yours have been limited by Christianity.
10. Gee, did my pointing out the silliness of the Oatmeal blog offend you?
And this post took about an hour.
I don't spend lots of time online. I have a life that exists outside the computer. My online activity is mostly related to my employment. I am limiting my recreational computer time to outside activities. Try it sometime.
Stoogie
1. If broad brushing is silly, then why do you insist on doing it? As evidenced by this post.
2. So the fact we had to ‘rediscover’ most of the teachings of the Greek philosophers from the Arabs had nothing to do with Christianity destroying the pagan books then?
3. You are really trying to tell me the FGM is not an insane practice that is only justified by religion. That is not conjecture that is reality.
4. Fair enough, so we agree that both sides of the discussion has nutters. So what is your point?
5.Religion is, and always has been, about control of the masses by the elite few. Why so many silly rules that don’t effect anyone apart from the person involved? Why so many rules about sex? Why do many of the leaders of churches feel that these rules don’t apply to them? It’s all about power and control.
6. How am I wrong, expand on this point or I will assume that you don’t have one. And let’s not talk about hyper sensitivity when it comes to pearl clutching the religious are by far in the lead.
7.It is not subjective, believing in things with no evidence is irrational, if you don’t agree then please explain why. This bit of history ‘prooves’ god? And testimony is subject to all the normal cognitive biases so hardly very reliable, particularly when the testimony includes tings that contravenes known laws of physics
8. A pleasure, that fact you believe there is a purpose outside of nature is entirely down to you, believing in things that are not true does not make you deep, just makes you wrong.
9. My freedoms and many other peoples are restricted due to laws that have no rational basis, they exist purely because of religious beliefs, for example the Sunday trading laws in UK, and do I really need to mention same sex marriage?
10. I have no idea what you are talking about with respect to Oatmeal blog, I have never read it or even heard of it. My point was that you seem to think that you are doing something different to atheists who put their beliefs on line, care to point out how?
I only read and write this sort of thing in my breaks at work, strangely I have far better things to do at home. Besides it was not the amount of time a post takes that was my point, this blog has a large number of posts on it so I was wondering how long you had been blogging for?
And please explain your final ‘try it sometime’ comment. It makes little sense at the end of the post.
Stoogie
Soory, just re-read your last comment, must have had a brain freeze first time, I understand what your last comment meant, i believe i addressed it in my previous post.
Can i ask why you feel the need to get personal in an otherwise fairly urbane exchange of views?
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