If that isn’t a problem for you, I would argue that you are part of the problem.
The things you listed are a problem for me, not to mention other issues (from stem-cell research bans to public displays of religion paid for by tax-payers) so we can move on, yes?
o compare non-believers who peacefully campaign against religious influence on education in schools, against religious indoctrination of children, against the terrible effects of religious dogma on women and homosexuals, with the religious police of Saudi-Arabia, a totalitarian theocracy where the practice of any other faith than Wahhabi Islam may be punished by death or corporeal punishment and imprisonment, is an obscenity and shows a terrible lack of knowledge and proportion.
That would be stupid of me to do. Luckily, I wrote “religion police,” not “religious police.” Religion police are people who police religion… get it? I might also note this post was inspired by a frequent reader and commenter on my site, who is a police officer (who is Christian), hence the comparison.
This is confused. Is it “primarily non-atheists” who keep religion in check, as claimed in the first part of the sentence, or “not as common as might occur from atheists”, as stated in the second part ? Make up your mind.
This may have been confusing the way I wrote it, but here’s what I said: the most common person who criticizes religion will be religious, as a matter of demographics. There are simply more religious people in most places, especially in the US (which is generally my point of reference, unless stated otherwise). While there are more religious people who criticize religion (and I would argue, they are more harsh than most atheists, as when Christians “criticize” Muslims by not allowing them into the community), there are more incidents of criticism coming from certain atheists, this is largely a factor of atheists living in a society filled with religion, so they have more to complain about, whereas religious people complain less often, though when they do, there’s more of them.
I thought that was clear from what I wrote in whole, but perhaps not.
It’s even more of a damn shame to not realize that Stalin and Mao, leaders of personality cults in their respective countries, may have been atheists, but that neither their political decisions nor their crimes were committed in the name of atheism, or with their atheism as a driving force.
Irrelevant. You cannot disown someone who is an atheist. They were atheists, they did what they did, and you cannot revise history like Christians do with Hitler when they pretend he wasn’t Christian. It’s not about blaming atheism for their acts, either. You inserted that concept for no reason.
I note that no evidence is provided for the claim that Atheists burn down churches
You don’t think an atheist has burned down a church, ever? I never even so much as implied this was a common thing, but rather used it as an opposing extreme from the other act mentioned, providing a spectrum ranging from hurling harsh words (something I think every atheist has done) to committing acts of violence (something few atheists have done).
It is not the Atheists’ fault that believers confuse criticism with vitriol and bullying. And to see this nonsense pathetically repeated by a self-proclaimed “Atheist” blogger is quite frankly embarrassing.
For one thing, I’m not an “Atheist,” I’m an atheist. No need to capitalize that in my case. Also, there are people (and from your other blog posts, I might surmise you are one of them, like myself) who go beyond criticism and are occasionally just mean. I even used the terminology “bully” to describe myself in my post, and I quite often am. I’m honestly struggling to not point out what a mindless dipshit you sound like, how your little post here is embarrassing to me as an atheist because it displays a marked lack of not only basic reading comprehension, but also was clearly written because you went out looking for something to tear down without understanding it completely. I can only assume you’re a victimhood-chasing chickenshit based on what you wrote here, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
When have you last seen Atheists preaching to pedestrians in the streets ? Or going from house to house proselytizing ? We are not into the business of convincing people to abandon religion, this is just another stupid strawman born out of ignorance about the nature of what it means to criticize religions and their claims. It is not done with the goal to deconvert the masses, but rather to falsify claims made by religious people based on an interest in what is true.
There are atheists who do [de]convert people, and it was that specific subgroup I was referring to. There are also plenty of people proselytizing to believers (perhaps you’ve chosen not to be one of them), through billboard and bus ads for one, through bogs for another.
Man, can this get any worse ? First the tasteless comparison with religious police, and now Atheists are just like Christians who want to stop homosexuals from doing what they believe is wrong. Again, Atheists are not about stopping anyone from practicing their faith based on some holy Atheist creed that dictates what we have to believe and to do in our daily lifes. Religion is superstitious nonsense from the Stone Age, it doesn’t help us explain the world, it makes people do bad things in the name of non-existent gods, and that’s why we oppose it. Christians who wish to “stop” homosexuals today do so based on Stone Age fiction, they claim a divine right to harass and discriminate against anyone their holy book disapproves of. Can you see the difference here ?
Of course I see the difference, I merely pointed out one similarity. Also, most religion is actually from the Bronze Age.
Where does this person live ? How can anyone be so stupid, and creepily content with the fact that we are “not burning witches anymore” ?
I sounded creepily content? I guess I’m glad we don’t burn witches… I hope that isn’t creepy.
Can the author not see that all over the world, whether in Nigeria or in Egypt or in the USA, religious extremists are gaining influence and dragging their populations not towards progress but towards theocracy ? This is not the time for complacency, it’s a time for heightened alertness and awareness of the problem.
Well, that’s out of left field…
The blog post at “Anything but Theist” is not helping. I note the author proudly states in their FAQ that they haven’t read a book by any well-known atheist. Maybe that would be a good starting point to get some, you know, clue.
How does one proudly write something?
Did it ever occur to you that most of what you wrote about me and my blog post originated in your own head, and has no basis in what I wrote?
