Anti-Religious Trolling On Mumsnet

The OP is absolutely right - these posters have an agenda to shut down conversations about belief and religion by ruining the threads repeatedly so that people don't feel like starting them any more. And it's working and it should not be allowed to happen.

Dione, thanks for this thread which I think is making a general point.

Oh fuck, I know some people believe that illness or disaster is brought on you by lack if faith, and I'm really sorry that you ( and others) underwent this. At a minimum it is insensitive at a bad time.

On the evangelism, I think it's much harder. For several reasons. One is that if you do think that someone is going to go to hell if they don't believe, then you want to give them as many chances as possible. I have friends, Catholic and Muslim and Protestant who are lovingly and truly worried about my lack of state of grace and forgiveness not want to see me burn in eternity, or whatever.

But actually, I don't like prosetalising in any form. And I object to it in politics as much as religion. Do you object to getting political tracts - for so they be- as much as religious ones?

And I too found some of your statements offensive.

So we just need to be sensitive to our use of language.

How do you all feel about a thread being started specifically to berate a specific poster (ie me)?

Sad, that it should come to this. Embarrassment if it were myself involved. I would have hoped to resolve any issues but it is not always that easy.

I'm not religious but I would never belittle anyone else's beliefs. In some ways I envy people that have complete belief in their god. It might be quite nice to have an epiphany.

I do have friends that have found god and it has changed their lives around for the better.

I do agree with that, Bo, actually.

I'm just an atheist because I dont believe in God or religion. I've never read Dawkins et al.

Judaism *

I started the Jusaism thread but thankfully most of the posters were very helpful, just the one dick head trying to be smart.

Bertrand not saying you should but that it would be lovely. I have no difficulty in general believing people, even if my perception of what actually happened differs from their own. They tell it from their point of view. Of course some will just lie, even in terms of their own sense of truth but I would feel sorry for them, in that they cannot trust enough to admit the truth of their experiences.

Also atheists need to be able to talk about their non-beliefs without being stereotyped as a cohesive body with a 'manifesto' and a 'leader' with Dawkins' name thrown in at every opportunity.

I completely agree and MN HQ do need to do something about it IMO. There are certain people who deliberately try to derail and vandalise a thread about religion and stop people talking about the original topic they posted about. Usually it starts with 'I've always wondered why...and yet you still believe in God'. This happened to me recently and I pointed out that whilst you may be able to post whatever you like on a forum, that doesn't make it decent behaviour and that if they want to have a debate then the polite thing would be to start their own thread.

"Wouldn't it be rather lovely if everyone just believed us in our experiences?"

Why should I believe in someone's experience if I know it to be false?

However, I would be perfectly happy to "live and let live" if people of faith did not insist on their right to impose their faith on me.

And that I am over reacting and need to "suck it up" if I express concern about Christian privilege in this country.

I actually find it very irritating that I cannot just be believed in my experience.

I don't disbelieve you, Ohfuckaducky, I just wanted to clarify at what point talking about personal beliefs becomes offensive to you. I don't seek to offend, as part of my beliefs, so it would be rather stupid to purposefully engage in behaviour that others find offensive (although this can be difficult as some people are very easily offended). There is a balance though, I don't think I should have to hide my faith or never mention what I believe, ever - that would feel rather repressed.

Wouldn't it be rather lovely if everyone just believed us in our experiences?

"If the debate calls for it, I'll definitely have my say from an atheist POV. But there is an area on this forum for religious people to chat about issues which are important to them and I think we need to respect that."

And people do. I never go onto prayer threads, for example. But I have still been told that, as I said, I must have no sense of wonder, not impulse to charity and no moral compass..........

what would be the point of derailing every religious thread by jumping in and belittling others' beliefs? Bit like running into every church in my area and shouting 'what a load of shit!' at the congregation. Pointless, childish, rude

Hear hear.

You will have to learn to suck it up fucky without throwing your rattle out of the pram. People having conversations about things you don't like is part of life.
And you are still repeating the same comments and trying to justify them.
It is ott to try and say leaflets through the door, conversations on a message board, people saying God in passing is harassment of you.
Not in a sarky way, but you do need to let that stuff go. Obviously horrible personal remarks about your mum etc are different.

Trolling is shit whatever form it takes.

I'm an atheist and while I agree 100% with 'sky fairy' sentiments - what would be the point of derailing every religious thread by jumping in and belittling others' beliefs? Bit like running into every church in my area and shouting 'what a load of shit!' at the congregation. Pointless, childish, rude.

If the debate calls for it, I'll definitely have my say from an atheist POV. But there is an area on this forum for religious people to chat about issues which are important to them and I think we need to respect that.

I disagree that the title "What are you doing at 3pm" is goady or click baity and surely once opened and seen what it was about posters who are not interested can just close the thread and move on to something that does interest them, it is not compulsory to post on a thread once opened.

The non-believers got their way the thread was deleted even though it was clearly never started with the intention of being offensive.

What's wrong with being offended, deal with it, suck it up, ignore it, why tell-tale-tit it.