A woman told me that my atheism offends her.

ninjabot · Jun 21, 2018

sleepInsom said:
How many people read the entire the entire thread before posting, though? My point is, the dude was educated yesterday so drudging up an old post just to make him look stupid doesn't help anyone but their ego.

You're conflating. You've no idea the motivations behind responding to his post specifically. And again, I've pointed out that his sentiment has been shared over and over in this thread by different posters. The fact that his post just happened to be the one that stood out doesn't mean he's got some hidden agenda. It just means that it stood out.

Probably because of how wrong it was. He stated his claim was 100% correct. And the responder knows it's incorrect from experience as an Agnostic Atheist (so do I, as I broke down the response to him yesterday as well).

You can't misrepresent someone and then get offended when you correct their misrepresentation.

Muppet of a Man · Jun 21, 2018

As for the OP, I'd tell that woman to go fuck herself as a response to her moral indignation and then ask her if that offended her.

As a defacto atheist and an ignostic, I think there is a very legitimate reason to be suspicious of strongly religious people, as their is a tendency to fold their restrictive version of morality based on irrational supernatural dogmas into politics. This is something which affects everyone's freedoms and access to opportunities within life. So, it is not something to brush off. If you as a believer are able to compartmentalize your beliefs to your private life, are science/reason-based and critical thinking in your public discourse, and politically support freedom of religion and secularism, I will think you are A-okay as a religious person.

sleepInsom · Jun 21, 2018

ninjabot said:
You're conflating. You've no idea the motivations behind responding to his post specifically. And again, I've pointed out that his sentiment has been shared over and over in this thread by different posters. The fact that his post just happened to be the one that stood out doesn't mean he's got some hidden agenda. It just means that it stood out.

Probably because of how wrong it was. He stated his claim was 100% correct. And the responder knows it's incorrect from experience as an Agnostic Atheist (so do I, as I broke down the response to him yesterday as well).

You can't misrepresent someone and then get offended when you correct their misrepresentation.

I do know the motivation because the motivation was stated in a follow-up post. Again, do you read every single post in every single thread you post in? Are you correct 100% of the time? Do you think someone calling you out for being wrong without anything explaining helps that behavior? You seem to be trying to justify venting at others' expense because someone was wrong. Similarly, you can't complain about people not learning something that contradicts what they've considered common knowledge when you're being a jerk about it. If the mistake was rooted in hate, I'd see your point. But this is about understanding a concept most people are not familiar with.

Klosos · Jun 21, 2018

Its funny the people who are laughing at a stupid women for believing in a made up god are the exact same people who get offended if you don't believe in there made up genders.

Different sides of the exactly same coin ,

sleepInsom · Jun 21, 2018

Klosos said:
Its funny the people who are laughing at a stupid women for believing in a made up god are the exact same people who get offended if you don't believe in there made up genders.

Different sides of the exactly same coin ,

See, now this is an example of someone saying something dumb rooted in hate.

Chamberlin · Jun 21, 2018

Francesco said:
Why is there so much hate towards people who choose to believe in something?
You're not smarter than them, it's not a matter of reason.
For how liberal and uptight this place is, the attitude towards religious people is just bullyish. Let people believe in whatever the fuck they want, just like you would for their sexuality, since that's so obvious to your minds these days. Don't be dicks.

Nobody chooses to believe in anything. That's not how belief or human rationality work, and what you believe in definitely is a matter of reason. You can't choose to believe 2+2 = 5, can you? All you can choose to do is whether to engage with opposing viewpoints and challenge your own beliefs, and a change in belief may result from that. Everyone should be willing to put at least some effort into challenging and examining their own beliefs this way, both theists and atheists. That's how social progress and most forms of progress in general happen. Your "let people believe whatever" approach probably doesn't apply to harmful ideas like being antivax, does it? Some portion of atheists are anti-theist and it is their impression that religion, or many aspects of it, are harmful to society. You can absolutely argue that's incorrect, but you can't fault someone for wanting to reduce harm to a society when they truly believe it's happening. An anti-theist, like anyone else challenging any other ideas, can do so in a respectful way or in a dickish way. You don't have to be a dick to think that someone has a harmful belief which they and the world would be better without.

KingK · Jun 21, 2018

This happened to me all the time in high school. Literally had a teacher tell me I was gonna burn in hell unless I started believing. I wasn't even an obnoxious anti-religion atheist. Two of my best friends in school are very religious to this day (just not conservative) and I recognize the positives it provides society as well as the negatives.

But it was a small school in a hyper conservative northern Indiana community, more obsessed with funding football than academics. They didn't offer a single AP course and I was one of 6 students in a school of 600 to even take calculus.

ninjabot · Jun 21, 2018

sleepInsom said:
I do know the motivation because the motivation was stated in a follow-up post. Again, do you read every single post in every single thread you post in? Are you correct 100% of the time? Do you think someone calling you out for being wrong without anything explaining helps that behavior? You seem to be trying to justify venting at others' expense because someone was wrong. Similarly, you can't complain about people not learning something that contradicts what they've considered common knowledge when you're being a jerk about it. If the mistake was rooted in hate, I'd see your point. But this is about understanding a concept most people are not familiar with.

Then why are you trying to make it seem like more than it was if you know the motivation was to correct the person for their wrong statement? Why do you think it was more than that?

And no, I don't read every single post in every single thread I enter in, and I don't see how that's relevant. The poster he responded to tried to tell someone what the definition of Atheist was. He was wrong, so the other guy corrected him in a manner that had no insults or inflammatory language. The previous poster didn't need to read every other post in this thread to know better, since the person correcting him didn't need to read any other post in this thread to know better. He had outside knowledge from living as an Agnostic Atheist (as do I).

So what's the excuse now? "You can't have expected the original poster to know what an Atheist is!" I guess technically you'd be right, but that doesn't mean we can't correct him for speaking about things he doesn't know about. ESPECIALLY when we don't resort to name calling or profanity. All he said is that the guy was wrong. Very wrong. Which surprisingly enough, the first poster attempted when he tried to correct the guy HE was responding to as to what Atheism means.

You're being needlessly confrontational about this. In fact, you're kind of acting like the woman that the OP was talking about: you're getting offended by something that's not offensive.

ninjabot · Jun 21, 2018

sleepInsom said:
See, now this is an example of someone saying something dumb rooted in hate.

I agree. Does it look ANYTHING like what the guy you were trying to chastise was saying?

sleepInsom · Jun 21, 2018

ninjabot said:
Then why are you trying to make it seem like more than it was if you know the motivation was to correct the person for their wrong statement? Why do you think it was more than that?

And no, I don't read every single post in every single thread I enter in, and I don't see how that's relevant. The poster he responded to tried to tell someone what the definition of Atheist was. He was wrong, so the other guy corrected him in a manner that had no insults or inflammatory language. The previous poster didn't need to read every other post in this thread to know better, since the person correcting him didn't need to read any other post in this thread to know better. He had outside knowledge from living as an Agnostic Atheist (as do I).

So what's the excuse now? "You can't have expected the original poster to know what an Atheist is!" I guess technically you'd be right, but that doesn't mean we can't correct him for speaking about things he doesn't know about. ESPECIALLY when we don't resort to name calling or profanity. All he said is that the guy was wrong. Very wrong. Which surprisingly enough, the first poster attempted when he tried to correct the guy HE was responding to as to what Atheism means.

You're being needlessly confrontational about this. In fact, you're kind of acting like the woman that the OP was talking about: you're getting offended by something that's not offensive.

This reads like projecting given that I've dropped the matter and you're trying to start another argument.

HumanRevolution · Jun 21, 2018

The only one offensive was her. But if she calls you an agent of satan, she got some screws loose anyways

killerrin · Jun 21, 2018

These people are the worst. Next time just laugh and throw the statement back at them.

ninjabot · Jun 21, 2018

sleepInsom said:
This reads like projecting given that I've dropped the matter and you're trying to start another argument.

Oh. I missed the part where you said you dropped it. Sorry.

y2dvd · Jun 21, 2018

Francesco said:
Why is there so much hate towards people who choose to believe in something?
You're not smarter than them, it's not a matter of reason.
For how liberal and uptight this place is, the attitude towards religious people is just bullyish. Let people believe in whatever the fuck they want, just like you would for their sexuality, since that's so obvious to your minds these days. Don't be dicks.

There are plenty in this thread alone stating that they are too scared to even express they are atheist and you are staning the other way around? Ok.

samoyed · Jun 21, 2018

Rael said:
How do people keep saying that Peterson is an atheist?

You're right, I had to double check and his fanbase seems to be a weird blend of pseudo-intellectual Christian-lites. My mistake.

Grug · Jun 21, 2018

samoyed said:
You're right, I had to double check and his fanbase seems to be a weird blend of pseudo-intellectual Christian-lites. My mistake.

Peterson's audience straddles both sides of the coin and he isn't going to compromise book sales. So yeah, he just tilts nebulously in all directions over time like the mealy mouthed charlatan he is.