To wonder why some atheists are so obsessed with being atheist?

[Fanfeckintastic]

I say this as an atheist myself, so many people seem obsessed with "not believing"! I don't mean just being vocal in their disgust at the Catholic church etc (completely understandable) I mean Ricky Gervais for example, somehow I have "liked" him on Facebook and he never stops posting skeptic stuff.

Why do non believers put so much effort and thought into "not believing"

On a side note, I'm in Ireland and sometimes get very pissed off with how much control the church still has, it sickens me actually. But I'm talking about just atheists almost making a hobby of being atheists?

AIBU in my observation?

I am not an atheist. I am fully prepared to accept there may be a god or gods. I don't know.

What I do know however that he/she/it has done a spectacularly poor job and I have nothing but contempt for the way that many followers of religion are quite happy to murder people in the name of their god, even little boys playing on a beach.

This is part of my identity and I will confes to posting articles, making comments on Facebook etc that support my beliefs. If I have any profoundly religious friends - which I highly doubt as I can't see what we would have in common - they are at liberty to de friend me or block my posts. I don't go I to their houses and lecture them.

No atheist has ever door stepped me. Many religious groups have. I tell them I am a life member of the BHA and shut the door.

Why do you care? We are all interested in the things that make up our identity, we like to talk about them. This isn't a 'thing' unique to atheists, you are choosing to notice it when they do it.

"It doesn't help anyone, religious or atheist, to start talking in such black and white terms and trying to ascribe all blame to the other side.

OfaFrenchMind Thu 17-Jul-14 10:49:05 - ^Nazism: created by atheists, for a millenium of good atheist paradise (Hilter and his cronies despised Christianism).*

Then, later, Oxford arguing for Nazis being Christian.

It's like some people have a knee-jerk reaction: I am religious, they are evil so they must be atheist; I am atheist, they are evil so they must be religious."

But OfaFrenchMind is wrong- Oxford is right. Them's the facts, I'm afraid.

It's like some people have a knee-jerk reaction: I am religious, they are evil so they must be atheist; I am atheist, they are evil so they must be religious.

Hmm. I can't speak for anyone else, but for my part: I am an agnostic atheist because I care about facts, and accuracy, and how the world has worked and works. I don't think I'm alone in that.

It's nothing to do with a kneejerk reaction of "I am atheist, they are evil so they must be religious." I don't suffer under the delusion that all nasty people are religious.

It's a kneejerk reaction of "someone is posting crap on the internet again!"

P.S. Above is not meant to imply that religious folk cannot care about facts, and accuracy, and how the world has worked and works. I am merely explaining my thought process.

It's also worth remembering that not all people born into or professing a particular religion are actually either genuine members of that religion, have any faith at all, or would be accepted by other members of the religion as displaying the actions expected of that religion. I am well aware that the two shithead atheists I know are not representative of all atheists - and I'd know that even if I didn't know plenty of lovely atheists (I do - some of the kindest, most generous and downright good people I know are atheists). Just because two people use their power and ability to get entire projects cancelled if they aren't happy the everyone 'in the room' is paying lip service to what THEY think they should all think (thus directly threatening people's livelihoods) doesn't mean that all atheists are like that.

I think that the idea of being evaluated by your actions not your words is a good one to apply not just to people who are members of particular faiths but to basically everyone. I also strongly believe that there are things of value to be found in most (every?) religion, and also in the attitudes and actions of many of the secular/sceptic movements too.

I am Atheist because I don't have religion and I don't believe in god(s), not because I rejected God(S) - it was never there to start with. How can that be a belief. Nonsense.

I have an open mind about it all. I believe as much in us being a bigger scale Big Brother style entertainment for some advanced species as I do in any big God in the sky type of bunkum.

I just think it would be great if everyone totally refuted all religion and started behaving and thinking like the intelligent species we are supposed to be, rather than doggedly plugging their various fables and mass delusions as something to be taken seriously and respected.

Will never happen in my lifetime, but it will eventually. People of the future will look back at us and laugh at our crude stupidity, just like we do when we talk about how folks used think the world was flat.

We're laughable.

I think it would be great if everybody thought exactly like me too.

Like you, I'm wrong.

Pictish - you may like this

oneEgg You clearly don't know much about star trek. Without the Prophets of Bajor the alpha and beta quadrants would have been overrun by the cardassian/Dominion alliance.

Egg - exactly.
What a bunch of morons we are. I'm embarrassed for us. Truly.

I'm embarrassed for people who don't know about Star Trek. :(

Brilliant link Egg

The thing is Herc that religion is always addressed in terms of alien races, and even then (with the exception of Bajor) it is usually shown as cultural rather than spiritual. On earth humanity has moved beyond the need for religion (yes there are exceptions like in Balance of Terror in the original series, but on the whole life on earth is shown as being entirely secular. Bet this is a tangent no-one thought this thread would go down

Bring it on. Given the privilege of religion in our society, I think the more vocal the better.

The people who are sniffy about the prophets are rather shown to be shortsighted though! I think that Trek actually handles cultural and spiritual religiosity pretty well - the various shows have examined things like fundamentalism, corruption, religion as an avatar for power, religion as politics, religion to suppress the lower orders, the positive aspects...in a very balanced way. And the majority of the humans are shown as being very tolerant of all the weird and wonderful belief systems they encounter. Obviously offering thanks to the prophets didn't work out well for poor Jadzia...and believing the founders were gods didn't really work out that well for the Jem Hadar.

The key message to take from Trek is tolerance, I think. But Sisko's struggles and his journey from reluctant non believer to where he ends up is really well done.

One Chakotay's religion is definitely spiritual although it has a cultural component as do most religions. I think some of the Klingons are quite spiritual too, even though a lot of their belief systems revolve around, you know, biffing.

I agree Chakotay is spiritual, but not so sure it is religion as such (there's a question) - he doesn't actually worship a god does he? The Prophets raise an interesting question too - whether they are wormhole aliens or whether they are gods, and how would you define the difference?

There is definitely more spiritual subject matter after GR's passing than during his lifetime. I agree though that the overriding message (at least later on) is one of tolerance, but it is more for the individual's freedom to follow their practices, than support of organised religion.

This is a bit like discussing Taoism through the media of Winnie the Pooh!

Ancestor worship. Usually accepted as a religion?

Star Fleet calls the prophets wormhole aliens, doesn't like calling them prophets - Sisko is very strict on that at the start - by the end he is in full prophet mode. I don't think it actually matters if they are aliens or something else, does it? The word alien just means different. They are different. They move in mysterious ways (aka 'we are not linear'). It's only (some) atheists who insist that god is a giant in the sky. They only care about Bajor though, but they clearly aren't just another inhabitant of the alpha (or Gamma) quadrant.

I think if anything the support is directed away from the organisation (after all, look at Kai Wynne) and towards the prophets themselves and the spiritual aspect (Sisko became a prophet (was always a prophet?) rather than becoming a vedek or a Kai).

Tolerance is definitely the key message though. And just generally 'be nice'.

I think the invention of the replicator and the consequent ability to dismantle capitalism is a far more interesting aspect of the future envisaged by trek. Although I can't help loving (some of) the Ferenghis.

My main point though, was that it is totally inaccurate to present Trek as a vision of a future without religion. Religion, belief etc are key elements of Trek.

Yes it is. I am not saying "I don't really know" I believe there is no god. I don't believe in an afterlife other than we all live on by way of our children and by the effects our words and deeds have on our world. I may be wrong but my belief is as firm as that of any religious person in her or his gods.

do you think that abigfootism, afairyism, and aleprachaunism are belief systems? Most of us don't believe in a lot of things, and there are no special words for those types of people.

Many people who label themselves as atheists take the position that there is no strong evidence for god, so they don't believe in his existence. That's different from thinking that he necessarily doesn't exist, or that one thinks they have evidence he doesn't exist.

YABU. If I check my typical FB feed I seem to get sent a lot of crappy soft-focus pictures of sunsets with Church Of Clinton Cards messages urging me to pray for this that or the other. Only one guy I know sends atheist equivalents but, as they're mixed in with a lot of anti-US stuff and he's an Englishman living in the US, I have to assume he's just spoiling for a scrap.

As an atheist myself I find the concept too self-evident to get worked up about. It would be like taking to the streets to tell the population that the sun will come up in the morning...

Meh some people get overexcited.

Religion just gives the excitement a flavor and atheists come across in pretty much the same way.

I don't trust anybody who claims to know 100% what the deal is.

They are all full of shit IMO and are just guessing/taking it on faith.

Basically there is no way for me to know whether there is a god or not and if there is which one is in charge. So I am not going to worry about it.

written I don't understand your post. To be clear I personally have no doubt about the existence of a god.

Sorry about the non-existence of a god. I firmly, without doubt, do not believe god exists.