An atheist's grievances

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Ignoring the what, 50-100 million who claim to be evangelicals/born again?

Also, hmm it seems like both sides are starting to hate each other.

I'm Agnostic and believe in Religious Pluralism ("One water, many streams"). Many ways to get to enlightenment/communication with your beliefs and no one can say this is worse than that.

And what is the US population? 300 million was reached a couple years ago, and we're still growing. I wouldn't say "most" Americans are nonreligious, but most conduct their day-to-day lives as though they were.

In a population of 300 million, it's teardrops in a great big ocean. Besides, a lot of evangelicals are disgraceful and nasty people, and I think that a lot of them are so militant that they care more about the hate within their hearts than their own savior.

Untrue! Although evangelicals are admittedly dogmatic and closeminded, to say they care more about the hate in their hearts than their own savior is unfair.

Old family friends of ours are evangelicals and they're the warmest most loving people I know. Yes, their extreme views can be troubling, but to compare them to the KKK is wrong. These people have more important concerns besides persecuting gays.

I do not trivialize what you've been through, but making it all about your own victimhood is egoistic.

I hope you don't mean me in any of them, because I for one didn't give any effort to convert you, and I had no clue you were an Aithiest. I thought you replied harsh to me, when you replied to Imnotaparekeet. (that Imnota guy can be a little 'holier than thou" sometimes.. )

SM, evangelicals rarely give me any trouble for being a gay man. It's mostly over me being an atheist. When I say, "nah, I'm an atheist, sir," I don't just get a respectful, "Oh, but can we talk about the Lord anyway, and maybe you'll come around?" Some of them are nice about it like that, but others will act like I've said or done something really horrible and try to make me feel like mud. They can get pretty mean, too.

In fact, the main people that I've gotten grief from over my sexual orientation are teenaged or twenty-something year old punks who like to pick on and demean anyone they percieve as weak. Most of THEM are functionally non-religious. SM, please, I'm NOT playing victim over my sexual orientation. The only people I have hard feelings against are idiot rednecks who go, "HO! HUM! That ain't natural! This guy is doing something that makes him different! He must be wrong!" That's not just Christianity talking. It's straight-up closed-mindedness. I have nothing but spite and resentment toward those who are closed-minded and have to be intolerant toward anyone who's the least bit different. It has nothing to do with religion. Well, maybe a little, but it's mostly a deep-seeded problem with their character that would still be there if they were avowed atheists. They're the type of people who are only "Christian" because of their idiotically conformist attitude. That has LITTLE to do with Christianity.

And SM, it's gotten a little bit old that you keep playing on the idea that all my feelings toward Christianity have something to do with my sexual orientation. Look, SM, I know I can be pretty crass. I'm sorry for that. You trying to exercise a little bit of patience with me has gone a long way in mellowing me out, and I appreciate that. The last thing on my list of "things to worry about," though, is stuff connected with my sexuality. I'm perfectly at peace with it. Most of the people I put up with are ALSO perfectly at peace with it! It's not a problem, man! It is the LEAST of my worries! Woohoo! I'm a happy gay guy! What, you want me to prance about in short-shorts to prove it? I'm a jeans and t-shirt kinda guy, really. Never been into the fetish scene, never really have been. I'm too high-strung for it.

My major problem with the majority of Christians is the ignorance about the origins of Christianity and the fact that they're unwilling to admit that early Christianity was a very different thing than modern Christianity; it grew and developed just like anything else and it will continue to do that.

Griff, I'm so glad we understand each other like this!

It does my heart good to have gone through such a rocky process with another person and come out of it with positivity.

If this is why you won't reply, then whatever

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

I applaud you well-thought post, Griff! ^_^

Do non-atheists really attack you, and demand that you must prove your belief in order to have it? I would assume that is quite rare, and when it does happen, I would not worry to much about having a serious dialogue with such a person. Rather, I would turn my attention to those who truly wish to discuss the issue.




Well, it's natural for people to assume the common phenomena of a person with a position opposite of yours not speaking his or her thoughts 100% directly during a debate with you, but will instead argue for his or her side. I'm sure you do the same. When discussing atheism with someone, you probably don't list out all the weaknesses you can think of which pertain to your beliefs.



I agree with you here.



As a Christian, I necessarily believe in sharing my faith with others (Mark 16:15), and also in defending it when it is attacked (1 Peter 3:15). But I don't believe in harping to someone who is not listening. I am secure in my faith and will enter Heaven in the afterlife. It does not benefit me directly if other people accept Jesus, even though I know that it would directly benefit them, and so I'm hopeful for that. My point is I have inner peace even when people don't listen to me.



"Another red herring" -- you're making me hungry! That's it -- I'm having seafood tonight.
It's pretty hard to attack evolution, since, as far as any scientist acutally knows, it exists purely in the realm of ideas.



I don't believe religion can bring us true peace. Only the Prince of Peace can do that (Isaiah 9:6).



Should we be indifferent?



I agree.



Well, you've certainly charged one side with offenses toward the other.
But it can be nothing other than an incomplete portrayal, until you account for
the offenses that atheists cause toward those who care enough to reason with
them about what Christians firmly believe is the absolute most important thing
that must be discussed in the here-and-now with the unbelievers. To never offer
them the hope that Christ has given us for eternal life is the purest hatred we could
ever express. Surely, that's logical to you.

I rethink my views and beliefs regularly. You're talking to a Pyrrhonist, man. The validity of what I regard as truth is one of my central points of obsession. It is one of the great preoccupations of my consciousness.

That works.

Well, that and various well understood natural phenomena. Whether or not you do consider genetic "kinship" to reflect common descent, it's a very reliable and measurable premise on which to organize phylogenetics, not that I'm asking you to appreciate the fact that your very life depends upon the metabolic wastes of the millions of primitive prokaryotic symbionts that infest every oxygen-reliant cell in your entire body. It's no big deal or anything, man. It's not like the scientists are going to stop trying to use this kind of information to find new ways of saving your life. Scientists aren't like that at all. Really, man, don't let the fact that lungs appear for all the world to be specially adapted swim bladders or any inconvenient similarities between the microvilli-bearing goblet cells in our digestive tract and the flame-cells in flatworms fool your surely far superior mind into supposing that there could really be anything to this evolution stuff. After all, it's just a theory, isn't it?

Flatworm.
Intestine.

Them? Related? Nah! Couldn't be!

Hey, man! Isaiah's amidst my favorite subjects of late! We should get together sometime and talk about that over lunch, so what you say?

No, I think you misunderstood. I was speaking out against those who are willing to use unscrupulous or manipulative methods to make believers of people. All this seeds in me is more paranoia than I already suffer from. You've seen me go into paranoid panics, man. They're not pretty. This goes on TOP of religion being a pre-sensitized subject for me, so really the slightest impression that all the cards aren't on the table is just going to get me screaming and raving again like some maniac.

Ragtime, I really honestly think you'd agree with what I'm getting at in particular here.

As long as someone's being straightforward with me, man, I can ride with almost anything. I have no problem having a sensible conversation with an old-school street-stomper who comes up to me and says, "I want to save your soul," because, as long as we've started out the conversation on clear terms, I don't see anything to feel threatened by. Just the other day, I parted with one of those nuts on mutually smiling terms. He was loud and aggressive, but he didn't make any secret of what his agenda was. He turned out to be a nice guy. I'm not sure about his mental stability, but I'm not one to talk.

me too!

Um, ya...

The problem of evil is clearly dealt with in Christian theology, as it would have to be in order to gain any converts.

The world's evil is caused by both Satan and mankind. We all know that suffering does not discriminate: Be bad, and you'll suffer. Be good, and you'll suffer. There's no absolute way to get away from natural suffering in this life. Therefore, it has to be accepted as simply part of life by those who wish to ever get anywhere in life and eventually accomplish great things. It's in the next life that the most major rewards and punishments are dealt out by God. Can theology answer the problem of evil on a case-by-case basis? No, and nothing else can either, because we don't know God's reasoning. We do know, however, that God sees the universe better than we do, both as a whole and in its parts. And if you couple that with believing in His love for mankind, the logical outcome is that God accomplishes the best good that can exist for us all, even while He Himself admits that His methods are unorthodox to us:

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways', saith the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.' (Isaiah 55:7-9)

So, many of our natural ways get us into trouble, and cause us pain down the road, because our methods were misguided.
But the passage also gives a good analogy between our finite knowledge and God's infinite wisdom. (Which of those would you rather put your faith in?)

But this is where faith becomes a kind of special power, if you think about it. A blind man, if he has no faith, will never leave his house. But if he has faith that the world he cannot see exists, he can get a seeing eye dog, leave his house, and live quite a full life by comparison to where he would be if he remained without hope. Therefore, his faith gives him the power to live his life. And that's the same for us all.