Theories on Why Atheists are met with Hostility

[asterism]

What justification do you use to discriminate against gays? YOUR RELIGION! If it weren't for god(s), what other reason could you have for discriminating against gay people?

I don't discriminate against gay people. In 1993 argued in front of multiple Republican Congressmen that discharging Marine linguists for being gay was a stupid policy (that's what I called it). In 1999 I told the Bishop of the Atlanta Diocese that restricting marriage to only straight people was only going to serve as a wedge and that the Church needed to consider the changing world.

I'm glad that our President caught up to me in 2012, I just wish he was as "thoughtful" in 2008.

 

[asterism]

I'm thinking about my really stupid christian cousin and the attitude he has when he tells you that you won't go to heaven if you don't believe or you'll go to hell if you don't believe. He is so sure of himself and so cocky and arrogant about how we're going to hell and he's going to heaven.

And in reality he looks and sounds like a god damn fool if you ask me. What a dope. Ever notice the lower the IQ the more belief people have in god? Go down south to the bible belt and see if those people will even let you suggest that god is fake.

So idiocy runs in your family? Color me surprised.

 

[asterism]

Without freedom FROM religion there can be no freedom OF religion. That you don't understand this fundamental concept means that you don't understand the 1st Amendment at all.

As far as lamenting goes I don't see lamenting the considerable number of vocal theist assholes that are doing more harm than good to your religion.

Read the Constitution again.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Theories on Why Atheists are met with Hostility

Fundamental human nature, for the most part.


Many theists don't like to hear that there are those who reject their religious dogma; theists perceive those free from faith as some sort of a 'threat,' and theists will respond to that perceived 'threat' in a hostile manner, where such a reaction is completely unwarranted.


That many theists respond in a hostile manner to the truth – that there is no 'god' as perceived by theists – is telling indeed.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Without freedom FROM religion there can be no freedom OF religion. That you don't understand this fundamental concept means that you don't understand the 1st Amendment at all.

As far as lamenting goes I don't see lamenting the considerable number of vocal theist assholes that are doing more harm than good to your religion.

Read the Constitution again.

Read its case law, as the Constitution exists solely in the context of its case law:

“[T]he First Amendment's language, properly interpreted, had erected a wall of separation between Church and State.

Recognizing that the Illinois program is barred by the First and Fourteenth Amendments if we adhere to the views expressed both by the majority and the minority in the Everson case, counsel for the respondents challenge those views as dicta, and urge that we reconsider and repudiate them. They argue that, historically, the First Amendment was intended to forbid only government preference of one religion over another, not an impartial governmental assistance of all religions. In addition, they ask that we distinguish or overrule our holding in the Everson case that the Fourteenth Amendment made the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment applicable as a prohibition against the States. After giving full consideration to the arguments presented, we are unable to accept either of these contentions.

To hold that a state cannot, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, utilize its public school system to aid any or all religious faiths or sects in the dissemination of their doctrines and ideals does not, as counsel urge, manifest a governmental hostility to religion or religious teachings. A manifestation of such hostility would be at war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment's guaranty of the free [p212] exercise of religion. For the First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere. Or, as we said in the Everson case, the First Amendment has erected a wall between Church and State which must be kept high and impregnable.”

Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education of School District LII Legal Information Institute

Consequently, the First Amendment does in fact codify the right to be free from religion, where government is prohibited from both exercising a religious preference and from seeking to facilitate religious practice.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

i
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/u...chool-prayer-lawsuit.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

A federal judge ruled this month that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.

Keep in mind us atheists have not made any threats and no theists have had to to be escorted to school by police.

State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from a national atheist group. The group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.

“We haven’t seen a case like this in a long time, with this level of revilement and ostracism and stigmatizing.”

“Our Heavenly Father,” the prayer begins, “grant us each day the desire to do our best, to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, to be kind and helpful.” It goes on for a few more lines before concluding with “Amen.”

For Jessica, who was baptized in the Catholic Church but said she stopped believing in God at age 10, the prayer was an affront. “It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, ‘You don’t belong here,’ ” she said the other night during an interview at a Starbucks here.

In Cranston, the police said they would investigate some of the threatening comments posted on Twitter against Jessica, some of which came from students at the high school. Pat McAssey, a senior who is president of the student council, said the threats were “completely inexcusable” but added that Jessica had upset some of her classmates by mocking religion online.

“Their frustration kind of came from that,” he said.

We don't threaten you or get that angry because you believe in god. Why does your side get so angry at us?

Doesn't change the fact that there were no signs like that where I went to school, does it? Since the question was about my personal experiences, your post is less than useless.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Without freedom FROM religion there can be no freedom OF religion. That you don't understand this fundamental concept means that you don't understand the 1st Amendment at all.

As far as lamenting goes I don't see lamenting the considerable number of vocal theist assholes that are doing more harm than good to your religion.

That is the most ridiculous argument in the history of the universe, and you should be ashamed to repeat the lies you were force fed by idiots.

No one has the right to tell anyone else what they can, or cannot say. The fact that you think government and individuals should be held to the same rules shows how shallow your understanding of the issues are. I don't blame you though, you were never taught how to think things through. You do not have the right to tell anyone else they cannot preach on a street corner just because you don't understand the 1st Amendment, which applies solely to the government, and guarantees you absolutely nothing as far as freedom from religion is concerned.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Please provide links to where Santa, the Easter Bunny or Hindu gods are on public land and buildings.

Not even a challenge.

Which religious holiday displays are unconstitutional

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Read its case law, as the Constitution exists solely in the context of its case law:

“[T]he First Amendment's language, properly interpreted, had erected a wall of separation between Church and State.

Recognizing that the Illinois program is barred by the First and Fourteenth Amendments if we adhere to the views expressed both by the majority and the minority in the Everson case, counsel for the respondents challenge those views as dicta, and urge that we reconsider and repudiate them. They argue that, historically, the First Amendment was intended to forbid only government preference of one religion over another, not an impartial governmental assistance of all religions. In addition, they ask that we distinguish or overrule our holding in the Everson case that the Fourteenth Amendment made the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment applicable as a prohibition against the States. After giving full consideration to the arguments presented, we are unable to accept either of these contentions.

To hold that a state cannot, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, utilize its public school system to aid any or all religious faiths or sects in the dissemination of their doctrines and ideals does not, as counsel urge, manifest a governmental hostility to religion or religious teachings. A manifestation of such hostility would be at war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment's guaranty of the free [p212] exercise of religion. For the First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere. Or, as we said in the Everson case, the First Amendment has erected a wall between Church and State which must be kept high and impregnable.”

Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education of School District LII Legal Information Institute

Consequently, the First Amendment does in fact codify the right to be free from religion, where government is prohibited from both exercising a religious preference and from seeking to facilitate religious practice.

Let us assume you are right, which I am only doing to make a point. Cite the case law that gives anyone freedom from religion.

 

[Agit8r]

People who willing to doubt--in spite of fearful tales--are seen as a threat by those who want to wield power over others.

"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
-- Adolf Hitler, from speech in Berlin (October 24, 1933)

___

 

[pinqy]

Certainly we want to keep it out of our government. And you really should keep that shit to yourself. If you want to think about god all day and go to church on Sunday, cool. If you don't like gays, that's your choice.

We just want your god out of our government. It doesn't belong. Not to us it doesn't.

If that was all you "just" wanted there would be no issue with me. But that's obviously not all you want is it?

(Why the comment about gay people? Are you showing your ignorance again?)

What justification do you use to discriminate against gays? YOUR RELIGION! If it weren't for god(s), what other reason could you have for discriminating against gay people?

Ask the Russians. The USSR did not use religion as an excuse to persecute homosexuals.

 

[PostmodernProph]

and why they often feel threatened by our nonbelief.

it would have been easier to understand if you had phrased the statement accurately....
"why they often feel threatened by our lawsuits".......

 

[pinqy]

Without freedom FROM religion there can be no freedom OF religion. That you don't understand this fundamental concept means that you don't understand the 1st Amendment at all.

As far as lamenting goes I don't see lamenting the considerable number of vocal theist assholes that are doing more harm than good to your religion.

That is the most ridiculous argument in the history of the universe, and you should be ashamed to repeat the lies you were force fed by idiots.

No one has the right to tell anyone else what they can, or cannot say.

Do you really want the full list of exceptions to that? Slander, perjury, false advertising, copyright laws and other intellectual property laws, revealing classified information, Doctor-Patient/Attorney-client privilege, etc.

The fact that you think government and individuals should be held to the same rules shows how shallow your understanding of the issues are. I don't blame you though, you were never taught how to think things through. You do not have the right to tell anyone else they cannot preach on a street corner just because you don't understand the 1st Amendment, which applies solely to the government, and guarantees you absolutely nothing as far as freedom from religion is concerned.

That part is mostly true. However...part of freedom OF religion must be freedom NOT to participate. Being required to participate actively or passively in a religious ceremony by the government or under its auspices is a violation of the Freedom of Religion clause. Government support for any religion or religion in general is a violation of the Establishment clause...required or not.

And that is "Freedom FROM Religion"...being able to choose NOT to participate or be exposed to against one's will. Yes, it only applies to government acts or as applied to anti-discrimination laws.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

People who willing to doubt--in spite of fearful tales--are seen as a threat by those who want to wield power over others.

"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
-- Adolf Hitler, from speech in Berlin (October 24, 1933)

___

What makes you think people with faith do not doubt?

 

[Agit8r]

People who willing to doubt--in spite of fearful tales--are seen as a threat by those who want to wield power over others.

"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
-- Adolf Hitler, from speech in Berlin (October 24, 1933)

___

What makes you think people with faith do not doubt?

And they do so willingly?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Do you really want the full list of exceptions to that? Slander, perjury, false advertising, copyright laws and other intellectual property laws, revealing classified information, Doctor-Patient/Attorney-client privilege, etc.

Sigh.

Why do idiots that don't understand anything think they understand things?

None of those things you listed is an exception to anything other than your misunderstanding of how the world works. The law does not prohibit someone from slandering another person. In fact, the doctrine of prior restraint specifically prohibits anyone from preventing slander in advance. What the law does is give the slandered, or libeled, party the avenue to pursue damages. That is not in any way a restriction on speech, but I do thank you for the opportunity to educate you on the law.

As for the privileges you mentioned, they are a matter of professional ethics, not law. Most states recognize those privileges, but they are not iron clad, and some states totally ignore them for the sake of giving themselves the power to throw people in jail.

Also,. just as an aside, I didn't notice those laws against revealing classified information preventing Snowden from publishing all that stuff he stole.

That part is mostly true. However...part of freedom OF religion must be freedom NOT to participate. Being required to participate actively or passively in a religious ceremony by the government or under its auspices is a violation of the Freedom of Religion clause. Government support for any religion or religion in general is a violation of the Establishment clause...required or not.

And that is "Freedom FROM Religion"...being able to choose NOT to participate or be exposed to against one's will. Yes, it only applies to government acts or as applied to anti-discrimination laws.

What I said is 100% true, not just mostly. The freedom not to participate in religion is the fundamental tenet of freedom of religion, something anyone with a basic understanding of anything would understand without you trying to confuse them by claiming it is a separate issue. That, by the way, is about as far from freedom from religion as it is possible to get.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

And they do so willingly?

Is that supposed to make sense?

 

[Dot Com]

That's the thing. How many religious assholes say he's going to burn in hell when he dies?

We think/talk about god because it is such a pervasive concept.

And if your side didn't do things like insist America is a christian nation or use religion as a wedge issue to sucker gullible voters into voting against their own financial interests, I wouldn't care much what you guys think. So want to blame someone for this? Blame yourselves. What does Christianity say for you to do? Spread the word? Well if you are going to tell us about god, expect to hear what we think about your god.

And don't tell us we'll go to hell if we don't believe and then get offended when we call BULLSHIT on your story. Any logical thinking person would.

^ that

Thumpers are told to convert people and when repulsed, lash out. They also like to belive that their sky pixie favors a certain country or football team

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using Tapatalk

 

[pinqy]

Do you really want the full list of exceptions to that? Slander, perjury, false advertising, copyright laws and other intellectual property laws, revealing classified information, Doctor-Patient/Attorney-client privilege, etc.

Sigh.

Why do idiots that don't understand anything think they understand things?

None of those things you listed is an exception to anything other than your misunderstanding of how the world works. The law does not prohibit someone from slandering another person. In fact, the doctrine of prior restraint specifically prohibits anyone from preventing slander in advance.

Is English not your native language? You are confusing words here. You stated that "No one has the right to tell anyone else what they can, or cannot say." The laws I mentioned are precisely that....telling people that they cannot slander, or perjure themselves, or reveal classified information, etc. And there are penalties for saying things they cannot say. But now you've shifted goalposts by saying no one can actually prevent people from saying what they want. And you're confusing that with prohibiting slander etc. The government does have the right to tell people what they can and cannot say under certain very limited circumstances. Of course that doesn't and can't prevent it except in the cases where people are afraid of the penalties. And of course certain speech can be prohibited, but that's not the same as prior restraint.

What the law does is give the slandered, or libeled, party the avenue to pursue damages. That is not in any way a restriction on speech,

Of course it is a restriction on speech because th... a penalty attached to it. Penalties are restrictions.

As for the privileges you mentioned, they are a matter of professional ethics, not law. Most states recognize those privileges, but they are not iron clad, and some states totally ignore them for the sake of giving themselves the power to throw people in jail.

It depends....some of them are covered under laws. But you said no one has the right to tell anyone what they can say or not....the Bar Association certainly thinks it has the right to regulate abuse of privilege...the SEC certainly has the right to penalize insider trading.

Also,. just as an aside, I didn't notice those laws against revealing classified information preventing Snowden from publishing all that stuff he stole.

Of course not...but that wasn't your argument. Are you claiming now that the government did not have the right to tell Snowden he couldn't reveal classified information? And he did sign a pre-publication review agreement that requires he submit any writings, including his resume, that deals with classified work to Security before he publishes. Whether or not he obeyed or will obey what he was told he cannot do is separate from the right to tell him he can't.

That part is mostly true. However...part of freedom OF religion must be freedom NOT to participate. Being required to participate actively or passively in a religious ceremony by the government or under its auspices is a violation of the Freedom of Religion clause. Government support for any religion or religion in general is a violation of the Establishment clause...required or not.

And that is "Freedom FROM Religion"...being able to choose NOT to participate or be exposed to against one's will. Yes, it only applies to government acts or as applied to anti-discrimination laws.

What I said is 100% true, not just mostly. The freedom not to participate in religion is the fundamental tenet of freedom of religion,

And the freedom not to participate is freedom from religion.

 

[Rikurzhen]

"OVERTHINKING"
The art of creating problems that weren't even there.

A year ago one of the nicest people I have known in my life passed away. His name was Dave. A simple man, nice to everyone, giving, thoughtful and genuine. Everyone on the office liked him, it was basically impossible to dislike him.
He was an atheist.
He wasn't disliked by anyone, despite everyone knowing this. He was, however, never judgmental or "holier than thou". He never talked about atheism or religion. Why would he? Usually if a person doesn't believe in something, they don't really think about it. I do not believe that Big Foot exist. I never talk about Big Foot.
Many atheist love to talk about themselves. And love to tell everyone about this badge of honor as they perceive it. That they are enlightened. Smart, not gullible and dumb like everyone else.
An asshole.
Stop being one and people will like you. The best advice anyone can give an atheist.

Atheist reporting for duty sir!

I hate Atheists like we're seeing in this thread. My lack of belief is my own business and I'm not inclined to jam it in anyone's face. It's not my business to convert anyone. I respect religious people for trying to live by a code which gives meaning to their life. I don't dwell on the fact that I find the source of the code to be nonsense, the real world benefits of the code that Christians live by are many and so there's no need for me to go out and "save" people from their religion.

I do not attack people. In fact, I resent the accusation. I try very hard to be respectful and maintain my decorum during discussion on this forum. However, voicing a difference of opinion is the name of the game here and if you see that as an attack I'm sorry for that.

You're like a Hare Krishna at the airport, constantly badgering people with your Atheism. I keep seeing you starting Atheism threads. You're a damn embarrassment to me and other Atheists.

You are ignorant.

We are not trying to impose our beliefs

For some reason Atheism and Leftism have a high correlation. If you object to religious people trying to inject their beliefs into the political system then why aren't you actually launching a damn revolution and rounding up Leftists who have had far more success in terms of IMPOSING their beliefs onto an unwilling society. Leftism is just as much a religion as Christianity.

The reason you haven't is because you like those Leftist beliefs and you have no problem with imposing them on the unwilling. At least be honest - you don't object to Christians advocating their beliefs because this violates your principle, you object because they're your competitor and if you can knock them out then you have a clear field within which to operate and impose your beliefs onto others. You're just using Atheism as a cover for Leftism.

What justification do you use to discriminate against gays? YOUR RELIGION! If it weren't for god(s), what other reason could you have for discriminating against gay people?

I'm not religious, and I'm full out in favor of discriminating against anyone and everyone. It's my human right to do so. You're so damn transparent - discrimination concerns are a LEFTIST worry, they don't arise from Atheist positions. Quit sullying the reputation of Atheists with this Leftist garbage.

Ever notice the lower the IQ the more belief people have in god? Go down south to the bible belt and see if those people will even let you suggest that god is fake.

Clearly you must be the outlier here, right? How to explain your idiocy and your proclaimed Atheism? One would think very few scientists would believe in God and yet many do. Don't they have the mental firepower to figure out what you've figured out?

Don't flatter yourself with the IQ association, trying to capture the spillover effect from some smart people being Atheists. Other smart people believe in God, so does that mean Christians can use the same tactic as you?