AIBU to find this slightly odd behaviour from atheist friends?

[handsandknees]

I am an Evangelical Christian. People who know me well know that. I am happy to talk about it if people want to, but I don't go on about it.

Last Easter one of my friends posted a long status on facebook basically ranting against the Christian Easter message and saying that she didn't want or need Jesus to have died for her, thank you very much. Up to her what she writes of course, but the tone was very aggressive and I wondered why. I didn't comment but later she sent me a personal message asking me what I thought of her post.

Then this week another friend posted a photo on my wall which said "Proud to say I'm an atheist". I haven't responded but just wondering why would someone do this? I am not offended just find it a bit strange.

Why do you think they would do this?

OP i think you just need to let it go tbh. your friend's post about Easter was a bit nonsensical.

Either Jesus died on the cross for her, and tough. What is she going to do, build a time machine and pull him off it?

Or Jesus didn't die for her as it is all a myth made up by some men hundreds of years ago and therefore doesn't matter.

Just ignore.

handsandknes presumably you've met people within your church (assuming you have one) or other churches or religions who care what others believe? And try and convert you to their vision? The Atheist Friend is just the same, the converting zeal is in them. In private matters, which religion normally is, it's generally thought of as rude to convert someone, but of course it's no different to other views which may be more appropriate to try and convert (racist, homophobic for example).

I wouldn't worry about it and ignore - it's just a feature of the person, if you like the others, ignore that one.

I wonder if your friend posted the photo in response to the recent denial of women bishops decision by the CofE? It's the kind of thing in the media that might have prompted a 'share this photo on FB if you're glad to be an atheist' thing. TBH I am a Christian but the decision has made me very uncomfortable a few times in the last few weeks in a couple of situations. I can imagine it prompting that sort of FB thing going around.

Your other friend with the Easter rant and personally inviting your disagreement, well, that's just odd and a bit rude. But sometimes people feel they can be odd and rude about religious beliefs, and that's just bad manners/poor judgement.

It's just occurred to me - is it possible the guy who posted 'proud to be an atheist' did it on the day the CofE voted against women bishops?

tsk, x-post!

Digressing back upthread:

Agnosticism - "don't know" - is a different matter. It, and not atheism, is the basic default position for non-believers.

The main definition of 'agnostic' is 'One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.'

Its an intellectually rigourous position and one which most atheists (and quite a lot of Christians) who've thought about it adopt. Its not really the default position for non-believers. A better term for a large number of people might be 'apatheists' (a term I thought I'd invented but which is actually quite old).

Many people are agnostic atheists ...and agnostic on the question of invisible pink unicorns to the same degree.

Think the people who've suggested the odd post this week might be women bishop related...are you CofE? But it is odd, and rude, to post something like that without a shred of context.

Oh come on now. Who on earth is agnostic on the question of invisible pink unicorns? You're just not making sense.

And actually, if we're going to start bandying words like 'default' around, the 'default position' for humans is atheism. A baby has no faith.

I think actually the majority view is agnosticism. Even wrt to pink unicorns. Most agnostics I know approach it as, "I don't think God/pink unicorns exist, but could change my mind given evidence"

A baby doesn't think there is no God because a baby doesn't think about the matter at all.

Do you honestly know anyone who entertains the possibility that pink unicorns could exist and so they remain undecided on the question?

Ok then, Goldmandra. A child has no faith either. Until s/he is told to.

Who on earth is agnostic on the question of invisible pink unicorns?
Philosophers...
You're just not making sense.
...so, very likely

Read up on 'Russells Teapot'. Its about the impossibility of proving a negative, hence why the onus is on theists to prove there is a god (which they can't) not on atheists to prove there isn't one.

Do you honestly know anyone who entertains the possibility that pink unicorns could exist and so they remain undecided on the question?

Nope. That's the point. You can't prove they don't exist - but you don't need to. I'm an agnostic a-IPUist in the same way as I'm an agnostic atheist.

I'm an atheist. (Well, I accept that the evidence that I have thus far been exposed to demonstrates that an interested deity is so unlikely that the balance of probability leans towards non-existence )

I'm an "out" atheist, pretty unusual still in this part of rural Northern Ireland.

Facebook is full of sappy semi-religious "spiritual" crap. If people get a kick out of it, then that's nice. People who post it endlessly get hidden. I think I've posted atheist stuff a few times - I posted something about the CoE vote. It's more likely to be aggressive feminism though.

BTW, I attend church as part of my job. All the churches, on a rota basis. Spend quite a lot of time wondering if people are actually listening to the words coming out of their own mouths!

Have you asked your friends why they posted as they did?

"Do you honestly know anyone who entertains the possibility that pink unicorns could exist and so they remain undecided on the question?"

It's not about being undecided though, it's about being willing to be convinced with evidence.

Ok then, Goldmandra. A child has no faith either. Until s/he is told to.

How so? A baby has no faith if by that you mean religious beliefs.

At what age do you think a child becomes able to believe in God?

I accept that my nine year old probably believes because the people around her at school, church and home (some) don't question the existence of God but my 15 year old has a much considered opinion of her own.

The problem I have with the position that atheism is the absence of belief, is that means that you must claim knowledge. Which is to reject all skepticism.

As a scientist I struggle with that.

It is rather strange. I am a non-believer myself but would not dream of putting anti-religious stuff on facebook or asking my Christian friends what they thought of my rantings. It is just plain rude. I might not agree but I try to respect their beliefs

The late great Douglas Adams said:-

"God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining."

Nowadays we have science.

I didn't comment but later she sent me a personal message asking me what I thought of her post.

Well done -the only thing to do with someone who wants a reaction is not to give it to them! I would just say something vague like -'we all think differently'.

What do you all mean pink unicorns don't exist :(

The problem I have with the position that atheism is the absence of belief, is that means that you must claim knowledge. Which is to reject all skepticism

Atheism is a belief - in the same way that a-IPUsim is a belief.

Atheists are agnostic only in the sense that it is impossible to prove a negative. So an atheist accepts that proof that god exists might emerge tomorrow, in the same way that she accepts that the sun might not rise tomorrow, or that water might cease to be wet or that an apple might go up rather than falling on Newton's head. It's not going to happen, but technically it might, so the possibility has to be nodded to.

That is how you see atheism, rather.

Atheism is saying "I don't buy it" to the God hypothesis. That's all. It is not assigning probabilities to the said hypothesis, which would not be a fact-based stance, since we don't have a statistically significant database of known universes (some created by a deity, some not) to base such a calculation on.