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Fellow agnostics, how do you feel about believers joining?

This is likely contentious, but it needs to be asked. As this is a site "...promoting universal truths and peaceful life without religion" how do you feel about people of faith joining here?

I'm no shrinking violet and I don't need the sort of safe space that so many people believe they do now, but I also don't want to have to engage with people who have been inculcated into some form of unscientific, simple-minded view of the natural world.

I joined in the belief (cough) that this was an exclusive club where I could escape from these folk - but now I find they are joining - with a view to what, I don't know although my hackles are raised.

Not only is this sort of thing wasteful of resources, but if they are here to try to convert or preach at us, that's likely to result in a dissemination to all-out flame wars in a post or two.

I didn't think this was a site to convert people from one way of thinking to another (that sort of thing is nigh-on impossible by the time we're in our 20s anyway.)

I ask because I'm interested what my fellow angostic/athiests think.

I've noted that "theists" tend to butt in to these conversations with their ignorance and that's what I came here to avoid.

I'm getting too old to argue.

Draco 6 Sep 25
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583 comments (176 - 200)

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6

I can in real life and in this community as well as the Facebook community, and the IMVU 3D Social Media Community have any number of conversations and not chat about religion, belief system, or racism. I am an activist. I fight causes for humanity, animals wild or tame, water life, and our planet. I fight for humanity, not against it. As I said before, your information when I looked into joining welcomes all beliefs. After I joined, person after person has attempted to put some kind of label on me. I do not run around in real life labeled. I do not go to church. I do not discuss my belief system in any conversation. I either am accepted that way or I leave. Now they have all these fights. When they start fighting in a room, I quit and I don't join again. My peace of mind is more important than trying to convince anyone what they should or shouldn't believe. As an activist for humanity, I feel I do not have the right to judge anyone. I say you going Hitler in here? Kill off everyone who isn't a disbeliever? I think they will invade as undercover and still their will be fights. The Simple thing is to allow those who are whatever to have a room they feel comfortable in. That way then you don't need to be in the Christian room fighting and the atheists can have their own room where they are happy. I will go to neither. Simply because I respect all humanity's rights and I hate negativity.

6

With all due respect in my opinion your question is wrong. Atheist are the true believers. Faithless are those who seek refuge in religious congregations. Atheist tailor their own faithsuit made from selected faithal fabrics and lined with fine faithal tissue. Whereas the followers of religions get a faith off the shelf regardless of their individual needs. One faith fits all!
An atheist's faith in life and nature is far more nuanced and subtle. We come without an owner's manual, we script it. Welcome!!!

i can't see anything wrong in the question "how do you feel about believers joining?", apart from the fact that a question, any question in itself can not be wrong.
i prefer to trust in my senses, my intelligence & nature, & i say TRUST, not believe. i am a non-believer par excellence, & willing to categorize myself for the sake of this site as an atheist.

@walklightly thank you for your feedback ... I consider myself a true believer, an atheist believer par excellence ... I just don't believe in gods, angels, demons and consorts ... I believe in nature whose existence I am unwilling to deny .. But then I must admit I don't believe in nations and states etc. and they do exists. So this is a different type of disbelief, should probably be non-belief

I shall not concede that my belief in nature and the laws thereof as far as I can fathom them are of any lesser nature than the beliefs of those who need spiritual crutches, I.e. Religions churches, robes and pews.

@PontifexMarximus, what you call belief in nature is plainly the observation & acknowledgment of nature's power.
in my view knowledge renders belief redundant. belief is only required if evidence is lacking.

@walklightly I am still pretty ambivalent whe it comes to the strict differentiation between belief and the observations. When I look at the cloud free night sky I enjoy the view but don't really understand the details of what I am looking at. I have only very vague notions of escape velocities, black holes, quazars ... I just enjoy it. I often this that there could be other laws of physic at work in a black hole. I classify my incomplete knowledge and inability to comprehend as "belief". I read in absolute awe about people who understand this and can talk about this with great confidence.

@LetzGetReal Linguistic background is the key. I was exposed to German as my primary language. Usually to questions that might be answered in English with I think German employs "glauben which means both believe and faith. The German equivalent for 'pagan is "Heide" which induce all who do not believe in any divinity.
I would even argue that scientist believe in nature which leads them to formulate hypotheses and ultimate the experiments that confirm the initial speculative assumptions or not.
If they just loved nature ... Why investigate? I think/believe that they are driven by the belief that they can find out.

Thank you for clarifying that you are ELS (English as Second Language) as this may explains why your claim warrants a rather profound face-palm. I am guessing (hoping) you are simply suffering from a subtle linguistics interpretation error.

Let's define a few words so you can understand how your statement ranks soundly in the whelm of nonsensical.

Faith by definition is belief without evidence.

As all supernatural claims, the foundation of religion, can not be demonstrated, religions peddling the supernatural are based on faith.

In the domain of the faithful, "revealed Truth" usually noted as "truth" is defined as knowledge obtained by a divine awareness given to them by their creator or in other words, whatever a theists thinks his god wants him to know or believe based on faith (again, belief without evidence) is "truth".

I am guessing you may not realize it is widely accepted (especially among the faithful) that your term "true believers" is equivalent in meaning to "Faith Based believers"

With this foundation let's examine your assertions:

"Atheist are the true believers."

No. Atheist means one who does not find sufficient evidence to support the positive god claim. There is no positive "belief" claim associated with an atheist. Let me give you a simple example. Off is not a television channel, Not collecting stamps is not a hobby.

when we replace a few words in your assertion with the meanings of those words we are left with:
Those who do not accept faith (belief without evidence) in the positive assertion of a god are the ones who accept faith (belief without evidence).

"Faithless are those who seek refuge in religious"

No. Faithful seek refuge in religion as religion is founded on faith. Your claim is equivalent to stating people who do not swim seek refuge in deep swimming pools.

"An atheist's faith in life and nature is far more nuanced and subtle."

No. I am an atheist. I do not base my life on faith (belief without evidence) assertions. I will follow the evidence regardless of whether or not I wish something to be true.

"Welcome!!!"

No! For what? Me having to wast my time pointing out how logically offensive I found you flawed assertion.

6

I have several personallites . I'll only let my agnostic one come here.

accentuate the positive....medicate the negative

6

Over 425 comments and still going strong. How about re-posting this as a poll?

6

Also, I do like a good old fashioned, respectable debate. I'm not a fan of echo chambers and I personally DO WANT my beliefs challenged... How else am I suppose to learn and grow as a human being?

The TAMPON TERRORISTS run their echo chambers screaming outside abortion clinics USA BY THE HUNDREDS

6

I think they should join if they are curious about non believers and as long as they are civil and try to keep an open mind, I don't see why not.

Go to any abortion clinic and hear the screams of TAMPON TERRORISTs who on our agnostic posts quote their violent abortion bibles TO SEE WHY NOT

6

I haven't come across any religious believers on this site, but I can't see any reason to exclude them if they abide by the standards of the site and engage in temperate and civilized discussion. It could be that they have doubts and are interested in finding out whether atheists are as bad as they are painted.

yes, exactly. great answer 🙂

@LetzGetReal You don't think it's better to engage them in discussion ? You never know, you might convince them!

6

I joined to be free from that sort of thinking. It is a bit scary in the bible belt to have people know that you don't believe. I guess they can't be kept out because they would just lie to get in. It's better to ask if they believe in God, because they can not deny him, right? I want to be free from religion somewhere. I was hoping it was here. I will stay. There are more people like me here than there are anywhere.

Polly Level 4 Apr 10, 2018
6

No, I'm not ok with it. I get a nice message from a member and I check out his profile: 100% positive there is a God. So what are you doing here, dude?!? Did ya strike out on christianmingle.com? FOH. The whole reason we're here is to escape the knuckleheads, so no, I'm not open to it. I get enough of that nonsense from my FB friends, I don't need it here, too.

6

If they are here for genuine inquiry or understanding then that is fine with me. If however, their goal is to preach, proselytize or provoke then that is an emphatic NO!

6

Odd that people would join a group that is principled against them, it does call into question their motive. I agree an open forum for debate is worthwhile, I'm not sure that this is the place, after all a debate should be in the open. This is a group of similarly minded individuals, nit looking to persuade each other about the validity of their beliefs. All in all, I think that another place would be better.

6

I am really enjoying reading you all. Finally I get to know people that think similar than me.
I have to many catholics, jews and Christians around me and respecting them means that I need to be polite and not really me. They don't respect me when I say "I don't believe" They think "Poor Susy, she will go to hell". I smile and think "poor them, that live in a fantasy world, although sometimes I like to argue with them, but is exhausting.
I agree, they do not belong to this place.

6

Flame wars... only if folks can be civil and not preach. I do not see the point. But I am happy to debate their "beliefs" with my facts any day.

can monkeys not chatter?

I share your position. I have, however burned many hours trying to "education" but in reality infuriating theists on this website.

6

If it becomes to many theists here insisting to share their delusions, we may at some point need a block button. It is not about safe spaces it is about avoiding getting annoyed by the same nonsense many already have to face everywhere else.

6

It would kinda be like if I were to walk into Church on Sunday. Pointless ? Unless they're just truly interested or thinking maybe they're more like us and want to check it out ?

Sometimes methinks they doth protest too much on other unbeliever forums where they're welcome. I think some of them ARE curious. Others want to sharpen their apologetics / debate form, although they are generally awful at it and never seem to improve.

It wouldn't necessarily be pointless to walk into some kinds of Churches, the ones that hold beliefs very loosely or iconoclastically. One can find much common cause with liberal theism, if you can ignore the god talk. My wife volunteers at a food kitchen run by Episcopalians for example. So in a way I could see more open / intellectually honest believers coming by for a chat, but sadly, mostly what you get are the fundamentalist nutjobs and some unaffiliated types who make it up as they go.

6

I personally don't mind as long as they don't try to convert me or talk to me about their faith. I join this site so I could be free to express how I feel without hurting anyone's feelings or arguing with anyone. I am all for live and let live but is nice to have a place where you can meet more people with similar beliefs. I am surrounded with believers in my life elsewhere and enjoy most people in general. If they are here to learn more about us...that we aren't evil or confused/lost then cool beans. I joined some LGBT groups and I am not LGBT. I am simply on I'm there to learn and be more supportive to my son and the LGBT community in general. I learn a lot. I'm respectful and generally quiet on them unless it is to show support.

Good point, this place would have a LOT more "arguing" / heated discussion with theists in the mix, believe me.

I think that's cool Cherish -- that you joined groups to learn and be supportive of your son.

6

I've already encountered one seeking to defend the faith as it were (a generic assertion that god exists, without much in the way of defining the term). I was a little surprised but countered some of the assertions. At some point I might mention it's rather poor form to proselytize in an agnostic forum, but then I used to visit believers' sites and offer (respectfully) my $.02. If it gets to be too annoying, there's always the block feature.

6

I don't see the point of believers coming here, except to proselytize.

Curiosity is born into all of us. Even some religious want to learn and explore.

6

I think believers should be kept out; but, I wonder how long they will stay believers once they hear views not from their "holy book"?

6

A person can have a belief in something(s) without being religious, and without caring what you believe at all. One does not necessarily correlate to the other. There are a lot of theists who do not preach and who do not go to church, yet they 'feel' like 'believers', still - psychologically as more of a 'cultural' expectation. As a counselor, I meet lots of these people - who are sitting on the fence, because they do not know what they believe in and are disillusioned by their churches and cults. This is a very common socially acceptable thing - and they don't preach at people either. I think bigotry is wrong and that if people want to walk the other side of the line and be exposed to different ideas that they should be welcomed here, as long as they are not using this platform to preach at people. I think that your intimation Draco about all people of faith being argumentative and preachy is quite unfair and incorrect, based upon my experience.

Issa Level 5 Feb 2, 2018

"as long as they are not using this platform to preach" being the deciding factor, & so far (3 weeks in this community) i have encountered one xtian (his choice of word, not mine) only, & he is preaching.

It sucks that they are preaching at you, I really hate that.

6

As far as I am concerned - No theists! I am of the position that we are here to be united around the fact that we have already decided its bullshit. No time for foolishness anymore. If you come here to proselytize, expect to reap the whirlwind.

agreed!

6

I received a message from a believer, and after checking his profile, I asked him why he was here and got the sound of crickets chirping.

I haven't seen any proselytizing yet, so my personal theory is that there must be a small percentage of religious folks who think atheists are hedonists who just can't wait to hop in the sack with any or everyone, and these poor suckers are just trying to get laid, something they probably can't do in real life. What I don't get is why you would admit on your profile that you are a believer. I mean, if you've got ulterior motives, why not lie about your beliefs, too?

the fact that they admit in their profile that they don't quite belong here, combined with an annoying persistence to convey their own theist agenda, is pointing towards trollism. my own experience.

Not a troll. Upon further review, l now believe he just doesn't know the meaning of the word "agnostic."

@Nottheonlyone I've run into a level 7 member of this group that has major issues with "science" and "atheists" In defending his positions he posted "We" (agnostics) so he apparently believes that "agnostics" are those that do not like atheists and science.

Because that makes sense.... but I don't get it.

6

I think anyone who is honest with themselves should consider themselves agnostic, since agnostic is a position of knowledge, or lack there of. A theist can be agnostic just as easily an atheist accept that religion almost requires them to believe without question, most still do question.
And thank god they do, for without questioning what you believe how would anyone change their mind?
So yes, believers should absolutely join because those who do obviously have questions and perhaps this is a place to find the answers that will finally convince them that their faith is no match for knowledge.

I like the way that you think, very logical and tolerant. Many of the theists whom I have known over the years do question their beliefs, yet do not have the courage to walk away from the church. I know that I did, and left the church back in my twenties to seek out a more scientific explanation to the way that physics, and energy itself, worked. I learned more from Einstien, than I did from the bible. I had too many questions about the science of religion and mysticism to 'accept' carte blanche what I was being told. They could not answer those questions, and I am still searching for all of the answers that I want, but I am closer to my own personal truth by leaving the Church behind - and others who join here will want that too. It is a pity that so many in this group who could be a light of wisdom to others simply choose to hate everyone instead - offhand. I pity them all. There is a 'middle' way that many people walk and should be allowed to be included, not kicked out of the country because they don't 'look' the same as all of the whities...

I agree with you and @Issa on this. If believers are here, as long as they are not trying to "hit" others with their Bible, no foul. As I mentioned in my comment and see here, believers might be here out of a curiosity about Agnosticism. And, they may not have the type of faith or give lip service to that line of thinking that says you have to be 100% sure within your faith. It is human to have doubts.

I had so many doubts, but got caught up in the helping people end of ministry to think about quitting yet. The service to people was my real desire - not the dogma, which I kicked to the curb as a teenager.

I think that most people who even go to churches now days are doing it not for the 'religious' preachy aspects, but the more charitable aspects - they like to serve humanity, period and the church provides an outlet for this in ones life that does not involve going overseas to do it.

There are lots of people who want to be 'involved' in something where there are like minded people whom they can commune with and throw back a beer, but don't want to go to a bar to meet them. Many are just lonely and want to meet people, no different than this forum. I think that the religious aspects are towards the bottom end of that need for the majority of people who attend a religious 'place'. Many people do not hang out with co-workers as that can get sticky and weird, then there are the many retired folk who are fast becoming the worlds largest demographic who have no where to go - their choices are to sit at home, join clubs, or go to church to have an active social life - no harm no foul. These people don't preach, they just don't want to be alone.

If you want to really address the elephant in the room - it is the Baptist cults, and a few other culty fundamental churches who are into terrorizing the world - everyone else just doesn't want to put forth the effort. I have been slandered and abused by many Baptists over the decades, who are just crazy and unhinged, to be blunt. They are clearly mentally ill firstly, and are just using the religion to express it.

I think that there is enough hate in the world and Donald Trump's followers are like the last vestiges of a dying breed of the churchily perverse. They have absolutely zero scruples and will do or say anything for a perceived deity, and the far religious right, but these people are most likely medicated and would not be in our purview anyway. These people stalk everyone - not just Atheists, but those whom they have perceived in their insanity have dropped off of the 'wagon' and need a good preaching to to get back on board - because them preachers need to get paid!!!!

The bottom line is that we don't need to be like them, and for those of us who are authentically 'comfortable' and secure within our own skin we can afford to be more openhearted towards these religious wanderers, rather than imitate the Donald and other bigots who just like to whine and complain about much more than just Theists. As long as there are no bibles, or intimations of bibles, or quoting of scriptures that are clearly intended to raise my hackles, then why should I care? I know who I am, so I can afford to be easy going about the presence of the 'curious', or even those who may have different ideas about historical religious figures who are not trying to sell me something. The first sign of a bible verse though and you're outahere!!

6

Its a free country as long as they aren't disruptive

6

I joined for refuge as well. I don't know what theists would want out of engaging with us. if we can't get rid of them, I can only hope that the ones here are secretly harboring doubts and are willing to hear us out until they deconvert.

whenever someone is getting obnoxious here you can always report them ... & subsequently block them.

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