The questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread VI
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holy king
Deity
i've never seen that.
Probably because most people who call themselves freethinker are atheists. It's become almost like a brand name.
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
In Singapore, people do not understand the term Atheist but know the term freethinker, and when I explain it to them, they say that it the same thing so I get a little annoyed.
They cannot understand the difference between "rejection of religion base on logic" and "rejection of religion base on preference". I think that is what are confusing people. By right Freethought isn't a belief/religion. Dunno whats wrong with people.
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
On religion, Two views "I believe in a God and he is all omnipotent and omnipresent" and "I believe that God is a human invention and was created for self-fulfillment".
Why is the man with the latter view usually considered the offensive person and the former always the victim?
That is how it always works out to be when I have a conversation about Religion with religious people.
Why am I always the bad guy?
Why is the man with the latter view usually considered the offensive person and the former always the victim?
That is how it always works out to be when I have a conversation about Religion with religious people.
Why am I always the bad guy?
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Because the latter usually works out to or gets read as "You're lying for your own benefit", which is an offensive accusation.
Huayna Capac357
Deity
There's another view, God is not completely omnipotent...
EDIT: Though I agree with your point, atheists are discriminated against.
GoodGame
Red, White, & Blue, baby!
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Meh, everyone is self-centered and thinks they're discriminated against.
It's a propaganda tool. The Big Lie. Conservatives in the US figured out that the way to take control of a dialog on a topic is to take control of the language used on that topic. So one of the things that they have done is appropriate the "language of victimhood" to make it appear that they are the discriminated against minority rather than the discriminators. This generates sympathy for their possition among the uninformed and the people with no strong opinion on the issues involved. And it undermines the arguments of their opponents.
GoodGame
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That was great spin. I loved it.
If there was a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh, you should write for him.Further recommended reading:
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=10322
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
There aren't any atheists in public office. I would think that's a sign of discrimination.
GoodGame
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It's been brought up about the military....i.e. allegations that people have been held back from promotion because of atheism, though I doubt that. It's probable that until there's a big populist athiest movemnt (like Bill Maher might like
), then politicians don't sell themselves as such. But might it not be taken as a victory for athiests if politicians don't get vocal about their religion during a campaign?
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
A rather minor victory, I think.
There aren't any Dachse in public office either, which is even more blatantly discriminatory.
GoodGame
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But therefore, do you know what they keep in their closet? They might very well be athiests, and not disclose.
Zack
99% hot gas
Gays over atheists? Wow...
Zack
99% hot gas
Fixed
GoodGame already nailed it: everyone feels that he's discriminated against or isn't appreciated enough. Take an arbitrary person, and ask what he does for living. Then dig out how he feels about the respect his profession gets, and with 95% probability he'll blabber endlessly how the world doesn't understand the importance of paleontology to the science or something like that. If he's in theoretical work, the world respects only material things and wealth. If he produces material things, world doesn't understand how important they are, and we wouldn't survive without.
Theism/atheism thing is very much region and population dependent, but I'd suggest to make little survey on off-topic discussions: There's about always on the first page at least one thread where atheists are saying that others must think like they do. Then count all the threads started by theist to convince people to believe in god. I don't mean that no discussion is appropriate about religion, but much of those threads lack the respect people should have to the people they are debating with.
And I don't think vocal atheists compare to missionary theists, but rather to fanatical theists, those who preach death to gays and abortionists, and they are considered offensive. Missionary theists are trying to inform people*, not to convert them.
Actually I don't think that there's any difference between theists and atheists. Most of them are just normal people, and then there's little group which ruins the reputations of the others. And I'm just hating it if I'm giving ammunition here to one or another. But since this took a while to write, maybe I'll post it.
If it works always that way, perhaps you should consider the possibility that the fault is in you.
EDIT: Black Jewish lesbian... You must suppose that the preferences are dependent on each other. If they were totally independent, it would be more likely that none-other minority atheist would be chosen. They probably are somewhat dependent, but how much, who knows?
*Which can be quite amusing too. Not long ago two women asked me in a park "Have you heard that Jesus can forgive you all your sins", and the first thing that came to my mind was act surprised: "Really? Wow! Well who is this Jesus bloke? I've heard his name somewhere, but can't now recall, was he that Polish guy?"
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