I did a long time ago because of how ignorant and stupid the posts and topics were. Honestly, I was sharpening my hatchet for some good Christian hack and slash when I joined it.
I wanted to educate those idiots. But than I got on there and realized that I didn’t have a big enough shovel for the amount of bullshit they were spouting. Nope I ended up closing my account. They didn’t want to be saved by rational thought. They refused and clung to their fairy tales and bedtime stories.
It wasn’t necessarily the horseshit or the dog piling that made me exit, but the being aggressively proselytized to in the same turn. I made the decision that, to quote Hitchens:
"I’m perfectly happy to let people have these toys and to play with them at home and hug them and share them with other people who come around to play with the toys.
“That’s absolutely fine. They are not to make me play with these toys, ok? I will not play with the toys.”
I did give it a try, but left after two or three months. Basically, the members of that forum were not open to thinking or examining, they just repeated gospel.
an echo chamber refers to situations in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.
Never had an urge to visit any Christian sites. Couple of reasons. And these are just my own personal opinions, by the way.
Waste of time and counter-productive - Generally speaking, most of the regular members on those sites are “hardcore” believers with no doubt in their faith. Moreover, they are PROUD of that fact, and they will not tolerate anybody questioning it. They might be willing to help anybody who is there having doubts about their own faith. (It is their sacred duty to protect and bring sheep back into the flock.) On the other hand, anybody who arrives trying to tell them why they are wrong for having faith is instantly seen as Satanic. The Devil is trying to question their faith. It is therefore their duty to purge such evil from their presence before it has a chance to negatively influence the sheep who might be faltering a bit. And the more you try to convince them, it just makes them dig in their heels that much harder to resist. Bottom line, nobody there is seeking to be “released” from their indoctrination. Anybody looking to learn the truth will come here to the AR or to some other atheist source/site. Going to a religious site trying to explain atheism serves only to reinforce their belief/faith. Waste of time. Counter-productive.
Rude and Invasive - Whether religious or not, most folks do not like it when religious folks come knocking on their door wanting to push their own religion on them. Or, imagine what the reaction would be if a Muslim Sheikh entered a Baptist church during Sunday morning services and started telling them how they were worshipping the wrong way. YIKES! The members of the church are not there for debate. They are there to “fellowship” with one another in their common belief. It would be extremely rude/inappropriate (and foolish) for the Muslim to interrupt their service in such a manner. I see the religious sites in that same manner. Sure, they may have members of various sects/denominations debating the different biblical interpretations/practices, but they all have the shared god and bible. And while they are fine bickering among themselves, they will join together in an instant against anybody questioning the existence of their precious god. In other words, I have no business going in there and interrupting their discussions. As far as I’m concerned, they have a right to gather in their own “space” without being disturbed. If I were to go in there without invitation spewing what I know, that would make me no different than the JW’s going door-to-door, or the Muslim Sheikh interrupting the church service. I don’t want to be “That Guy.”
So, what is the difference when the theists come here to spread their faith? Why is that not rude of them? Because, simply put, we are here WANTING them to visit us. They are no threat to us. We WELCOME their arrival. We have no “faith” for them to attack. We have no fear of their god or their Satan or their hell. We have “seen the man behind the curtain”, so to speak. We know what the “Wizard” really is. Therefore, please, bring us your preaching so that we may happily pick it apart and plant the seeds of doubt in your mind. Plus, we are here to answer questions for and give guidance to those who are questioning their faith. In summary, you cannot, and you will not, change the mind of true believers by confronting them in their own home. So why bother?
And then they all did a victory celebration, and patted each other on the back, and prayed to the Lord in thanks for giving them the strength to resist Satan and banish his demons from their presence. Praise God! Hallelujah! Amen!
That’s the conclusion I came to when I had the admin close my account.
It’s not really my place nor is it productive to go on the offensive, join one of their forums, and slam their religion when they haven’t done anything to me.
It’s proselytizers I have a problem with. I’d prefer it if they took their own advice: “don’t ask don’t tell”.
What I mean is, I don’t have a right to slam them until they come at me with “god claims”, than I can let them have it. If they don’t like their bullshit religion being slammed, don’t join Atheist forums, don’t go on General Chat Forums to spread your religion because you’re gonna piss someone off and they’re gonna rip you an ass.
Keep it to the Christian or Islamic forum you’re on. Keep it in the closet and shut the fuck up when you’re out and about.
My grandfather told me that he’s seen more fights over religion than politics. I see why. He told me that it’s bad for your health to go around slamming other people’s religion or trying to spread your religion.
He refuses to ever talk about it.
I feel like my grandma is my biggest support. She calls Christians “Quacks” or “the crazies”. During my brothers wedding at his church when they all went to eat. She made up a story how she needed me to run an errand for her so I could leave.
She saw how the Christian festivities were upsetting me. She could see that I was depressed abd uncomfortable.
Often when I have to sit through Christian bullshit. My mind goes different places. Either I want to fall asleep or I want to punch the pastor in the mouth and anyone who says “amen” or I get darker thoughts or I think about sex.
But almost always. I always walk out relieved that it’s over or Im really aggravated.
Of course. A Christian would claim that I have the devil in me. Puh, fuck that.
Hope you don’t mind my asking, but why do you still maintain so much anger and extreme animosity toward something in which you do not believe? Granted, I can understand the initial anger for a short while after finally breaking away from the brainwashing. Believe me, I can relate. Most any of the “old timers” on here can tell you I would easily hit vicious attack mode toward theists during my first few months here. Thankfully, though, I eventually got it all out of my system, which allowed me to finally start ridding myself of all the anxiety that had burdened me for most of my life. As a result, it led me to a much more “balanced” frame of mind, and my overall thought process in regards to religion cleared tremendously over time. But before that could ever happen, I had to let go of that anger.
Here’s the thing… Holding on to that anger serves only to cloud your judgement and make you miserable. Moreover, in a way, you are STILL allowing religion to control you. Like it or not, and whether you realize it or not, the religion you claimed to have escaped still has a tight grasp on you. Why let it do that? And though you may have said it jokingly, when you display that anger to those of faith, you ARE INDEED indicating (in THEIR minds) that their Satan has “infected” you. As such, you are basically helping to strengthen their belief/faith. In their brains they are thinking, “See? Those atheists are always angry and miserable because they hate god. I’m so glad I have the Lord to help guide me through life.” Why would you want to feed into their delusion like that?
Dude, I live in The South. If I got angry every time somebody told me, “Bless you”, or “Have a blessed day”, or “I’ll be praying for you”, or anything else like that - hell - I’d look like a raving lunatic out in public. Matter of fact, at the store this evening, the cashier told me, “Have a blessed day.” My response? I simply smiled and told her, “Thank you. You too.” And I meant it. She was being sincerely polite/courteous in her own way. Therefore, I responded in a way she would understand as being polite. Simple common courtesy. Isn’t that what we all want?
I signed up, but then found it inconvenient when I learned I couldn’t physically take a steaming shit on any one of their topic boards. So, now I just stick to regular physical churches, and temples, and mosques. Purely for the purpose of taking a giant shit in their bathrooms. It’s not as if I shit on their carpets or vestibules. In a certain sense I respect places of worship. Just enough to take a massive dump in their washrooms … a reminder that I was there with them in that holy space.
You kind of answered the question itself. I only experience distress when I am in churches. Yes, it is because it takes me back to to the emotional and mental abuse that I suffered from when my mom forced her religion down my throat. One of her methods was forcing me to go to church and sit through it or going every day to do group activities with the Youth and I wanted nothing to do with those people. My mom didn’t think she was doing anything wrong to me because of the “God is good for everyone” argument. Not to mention my ex wife leveraged our marriage and stated I needed to go church or she’d divorce me. I should have gotten a back bone and picked divorce seeing as it became inevitable.
I’m not as angry as I was but I still abhor it. When I first came on here, I was trolling Theists BAD in the threads. Atheist Republic has really helped me cope because I’ve never had an outlet where I could vent about how much I hated Christianity. Most people that I know don’t like talking about religion. I couldn’t talk about it to my therapist because he was a devout Christian and he didn’t wanna hear it. Honestly, this is the only place I have been able to escape it and vent about how it annoys me.
I live in Missouri where everyone is a Believer. Kind of hard to escape it in general you know?
I don’t believe in it. I just get sick of people openly talking about it public and at work. I had to quit going to this one gas station of because of all the religious bullshit.
There was this cashier there and we’d talk about random shit. He was obviously a Christian because he wore a cross and wore Christian T-Shirts. He wasn’t the only Christian who worked there. The women there would openly talk about scripture at the counter. But he was a nice guy and I didn’t think about that or discriminate against him because of his religion. That is, until he brought it up because I hate Proselytizers. I think Christians should keep to their selves.
I never brought up his religion to him. Because I knew there is a time and a place for that.
We were talking about politics and suddenly he GOES completely superstitious on me. Starts talking about how the government wants to put the mark of the beast on everyone and how he’ll remain loyal to “god” and than he went ALL OUT with the superstitious talk. After he was done giving me his superstitious conspiracy theory, he asked “Do you know what I mean?” and started asking me questions about “god” and wanting to talk about his religion.
He didn’t know I was an Atheist. But at that point, I quickly shut the conversation down and just said I had to go. I didn’t publicly combat on him on his beliefs. I didn’t feel that would be the smart thing to do.
In fact, I haven’t spoken to him again after that. I’ve maybe been to that gas station 1 or 2 times since and I’m always in and out because I don’t want to talk to anyone there. The family that runs is it are BIG Christians.
I live in Missouri, close to Arkansas. I live in a small town that has 15 different churches scattered about. People are all about Christianity where I live. I don’t openly bad mouth it anymore. 1 because it’s a turn off to women and I’ve been ostracized for it. 2, like my grandpa told me is that it causes fights.
I wouldn’t say that I get angry everytime someone says “bless you”. But it’s just one of those things that if I could choose to mute, it’d be religious responses.
Still, I wish Christians would keep it to themselves the way some of them treat homosexuals with “Keep it in the closet” and “don’t ask don’t tell”. I’d rather not hear about their fairy tales. If they want to do that, go to Church on Wednesdays and Sundays. Don’t bring it to work.
I’m afraid I’m a bit of a trouble-maker. I like to ask which of the two different creation stories in Genesis is true, and then point out that the bible cannot be the word of their infallible god because they cannot both be true.
Do you really imagine the Christians do not have a response? Why would you bother going there? Frankly, if you had ever actually asked that question you would know that it is a usless road to travel.
It took all of three minutes to find a justification: “Genesis 1 describes the creation of the entire cosmos (heaven and earth) over six days, with repetition and patterning, climaxing with God’s rest on the seventh day. By contrast, Genesis 2 (the first chapter of the Garden story) is more straightforwardly a narrative in the formal sense, with a series of tensions and resolutions. And in contrast to the wide-angle view of Genesis 1, which surveys the cosmos as a whole, Genesis 2 zooms in telescopically on humanity on the earth.”
Now you are arguing “Bible Interpretation.” Why in the hell go there. You are in an argument you can not possibly win. 2 more fruitful inquiries would simply be… 1. Why should I believe anything the bible says? 2. How do you know that?
The Bible is not infallable. Your interpretation is simply wrong. Your eyes have been blinded and you are incapable of seeing the truth.
“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2 Corinthians.) There is no point in me even talking to you as you are a member of the blind and ignorant. In the name of Jesus, get thee hence SATAN!
You have accomplishted nothing with your silliness.
Welcome to Atheist Republic. Yes, when one gets down and dirty and points out the obvious weaknesses and holes in the biblical stuff, most theists know deep down inside that they cannot rationally explain it. But that is their problem. They are the ones repeating these stories without pausing and actually applying critical thinking.
Here is another tidbit. According to Genesis it took god just one day to create everything outside the atmosphere of the earth, but five to create everything on the earth.
So? What’s the big deal about that? Sure, the expanse of the universe is several million light years across and full of untold billions of galaxies, stars, planets, black holes, and unknown numbers of meteors, comets, and various other celestial bodies. Ho-hum… That’s child’s play compared to our tiny little microscopic speck-of-dust planet. Earth is COMPLICATED, man. And God wanted it to be PERFECT for his precious human pets. So, OF COURSE, he took a little extra time to put everything in place “just right”. It’s not as if that all-knowing/all-powerful entity could simply snap its fingers and instantly make it happen. Geeez… (Oh, wait… )
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