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Why all the hate?

I realize not everyone here is filled with hate, resentments, etc., but it seems there is so much negativity and incredulity toward the topic of religion. Im not saying it isnt justified, but I am curious in everyone's experiences that have either led them to scoff and ridicule religion, or just simply walk away from it. Genuinely interested; happy to share my own experiences as well.😁

Brodney 4 Apr 3
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2

Most of the people I met in my catholic days were sweet people, gentle souls who would give you the shirt off of their backs if you needed it. They were also, however, judgmental and quick to criticize and ridicule. It was the Jesuits when I went to college who gave me the mental and philosophical basis to reject religion outright, and catholicism in particular, so to that extent I sort of owe them - I might still be on the circular path (I might not, too). Where religious people run afoul of me is when they try to force their beliefs on others, or hypocritically do privately what they condemn publicly. And mega church pastors or rabidly anti-LGBTQ zealots, ok, I hate those assholes. But normal religious people, I don't hate. However when I discover a reliance on magical thinking rather than logic and knowledge, I hold those guys in very low esteem.

11

Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay.

I used to believe in "live and let live", I don't anymore.
All religion is evil.
It's adherents try to influence public policy all the time.
That cannot be allowed.
If they want to be delusional assholes, fine, but when they try to tell everyone
else how to live, it's a problem and they must be stopped.
Further, the religious indoctrination of children ought to be classified as felony
child abuse.

I still believe in "live and let live." I also believe that all religion is evil. That does not stop me from shaking my head when I tell my longtime religious friend that our current pandemic appears to be the beginning of the New World Order that Bush Sr. often spoke of, only to have my friend instantly say he knows it is, then start filling everything in from his bible that only came to prominence under Constantine some 300 years after Jesus died. Why the bible? It isn't the only book from the invisible man, but now my friend knows and has meaning in his life because he believes nonsense. He's one up on me and knows how "everything will play out" in the end. Those over us use this knowledge every way they can to get every dime. Call this hate if you like. I see it differently and there is much that I do not know.

@Brodney You get to do you, I get to do me.

9

I hate religion from being exposed to vicious sadistic nuns in catholic school when I was a child who brainwashed me and made me fear god ,hell etc. I was forced to go to church which I despised and was instructed to recite ridiculous prayers at night that I did due to the ultimate consequences if I did not .One incident that stands out is the time when one of these horrible nuns made my poor mother cry in front of me as she berated me for my poor grades in religious instruction classes.

Sorry for your unfortunate experiences. Religious people can be extremely overbearing.

@Trajan61 Yes I know but I most definitely do not hate religious people ,It is the religion that they have been indoctrinated in to that may determine their interaction with other people .

@Bobby9 Good for you 👍

8

I'm opposed to all diseases, natural and man-made.

8

Where does an atheist have to walk away to in order to be far from religion and religious people? Mars?
Religion does so much harm and there are definitely people who have been hurt personally by religious persecution, so some of them may hate religion but most of us are just fed up with it and its intrusion into our daily lives. Try doing a Google search with just 3 words: Atheist, Religion, Persecution - you will not find a single hit that is about Atheists Persecuting the Religious, not one.
A more interesting question would be: Why do some Atheists feel the need to apologize for religion and the religious? OR Why do religious people feel the need to haunt Atheist websites masquerading as Atheists?

@Brodney There are plenty of religious types that come to this forum, they want to save the Atheists. I would have lumped you into the first group of Atheist Apologists based upon your post, no insinuation there at all.

7

What I came to see, upon joining this site, is the depth of harm suffered by many and in some cases, how it hangs on because of family members. We all need love from family growing up and in the present and so many have had to pay a price for extricating themselves from the confining and hurtful yoke of their religion and religious community. The price being condemnation and rejection. Some who think they're free and not yet free because they are still reacting to this onslaught. It may color their thinking, unbeknownst to them, for the rest of their lives. In contrast, some of us have never experienced the overwhelming chains of religion. We're just free souls who follow the dictates of our logic and, perhaps, cannot understand how hurt these others have been.

What an insightful and empathetic reply! Thanks!

7

I don't hate religion as such. I hate ignorance and hypocrisy. Those traits are found in religion more than anywhere, along with politics and sport (which both resemble religion in their blind devotions to "my team, right or wrong" ). Along with these is the fact that religion considers itself above criticism. A public policy may be debated and decided, but if it's because of religion, it's now immune to debate. Claiming "God says this is so" is supposed to settle it all.

Which would be okay, I guess, if the religious did not feel they have the right to impose their rules on everyone else, by law and sometimes war. If they want to live by the rules of their "god", fine, but the choice should be made as consenting adults, not by indoctrinating children and by coercing unbelievers to follow the same rules. Face it- if kids weren't exposed to this mythology from the age of 2, but instead were taught science, religion would be seen as ridiculous fairy tales.

👍👍👍👍👍👍

I couldn't have said it any better myself. No, really, I couldn't have. lol.

@Beowulfsfriend Least I can do is give you 1 thumb up in return

@patchoullijulie Aw shucks

@Paul4747 lol

7

maybe what you read as hatred is actually frustration with what we encounter, sometimes daily. it is easy enough to walk away from religion, but it follows us. my objection is to religion's being legislated, adjudicated and executed, not to mention bullied, into our lives, unbidden. objecting to those things isn't hatred. shall we just be silent and let ourselves be dealt with in such unfair ways? if we raise our voices, shall we be accused of being hateful? i don't think so.

g

7

This is a place to vent and speak freely among somewhat like minded people. To put what one has been thinking in writing and talk to others. Where else can we freely do that. The religious folks wish death on atheists and agnostics and gays and blacks and feminists and foreigners and Jews and muslims. Have you not ever gone on one of their sites to see what they say about anyone who doesn't have the same beliefs as they do.

Excellent answer...you got it right.

@FrankA We come here to vent. We don't blow up clinics, we don't hang people or burn crosses in their front yards or fly planes into buildings, or run cars into crowds. We don't go into churches and shoot people because of their skin color or they worship a different way. You are a troll.

6

I hate religion for the same reason I hate all abuse.

6

Everyday some religious leader gets away with crimes. Too often against children.

(The catholic church should be labeled a terrorist group given what they have done in africa and s. america.)

Everyday, dozens of times, religionists are attempting to change laws, take taxpayer money, and restrict freedoms.

Muslims are the worst: true evil: 36,600+ attacks since 9-11. 500,000+ killed. 500,000+ injured. Europe may already be lost to the darkness.

They all require ridicule.

Everyday people in power get away with crimes, most against the vulnerable.

I agree with your comment, but disbelieve that a lack of religion will solve those issues.

A few Countries claiming to be Communist don’t seem to have solved these issues, although true reporting is also questionable in them too.

@girlwithsmiles China is an emperor worshiping insanity. No atheism there.

@Jacar I don’t feel this is a good forum to discuss China 😉

6

I'm not full of hate at all - frustration, and extreme annoyance though !

6

Take another look with objective eyes. There is far far more negativity, incredulity, hate , and resentment directed against the non-religious by the religious than the other way around. It is considered to be a normal characteristic of society that religious people will thump the Bible, do missionary work, witness for Jesus, etc., much of which involves ridiculing and insulting non-believers. But it is not a normal characteristic that the non-religious will similarly assault believers with their own conclusions, so such behavior is noticed and often condemned. This is the double standard of our religious society. If you want to ask, "Why all the hate?," start by asking religious people.

@FrankA Well of course the comments IN THIS FORUM are one-sided. This is agnostic.com. Internet forums are not what I am talking about. I'm talking about the culture in general. Religious people and churchgoers talking down to the non-religious is part of the background noise of society in general. It is so ingrained that they do not hear it.

@FrankA "Anyway...in EVERY Internet forum in which I have participated...the atheists almost always show more scorn and contempt toward the religious...AND TOWARD AGNOSTICS...than the other way around."

Really?

Please demonstrate your assertion!

Post the exact meme that started this thread (reverse the role and replace atheist with religious etc). on a fundamentalist or hard core theist forum and screen shot or link us to the page so we can confirm your assertion.

Your claim in not consistent with what I have observed.

@FrankA I also want to say that the scorn shown by religious people often takes the form of patronization, such as, "I don't hate you. I love you enough to tell you the truth" and similar comments. The people who say this do not see it as scorn and contempt, but it is every bit as disrespectful as outright derision.

@editor20 You nailed it!
In face to face encounters with theists I have often been confronted by their exhibiting such a profound levels of condescending: a unfounded sense of deep superiority and entitlement sarcasm. "Oh I love, you, I'll pray for you. God loves you. . ." In face to face I really enjoy taking their complements apart and revealing them for what they are. Fun watching them squirm when I see through their BS. It is difficult to read intent with words online. Back in the bad old days when I burned time on Facebook I would often have to preface any (what I thought was obvious sarcasm) with SARCASM ALERT because some people just don't get it.

@FrankA Not your job dude.

@FrankA Maybe, but you don't get to tell the rest of us. Who the hell you think you are, GOD? For goodness sake, get a hobby or something. NOBODY here is gonna change their mind based on what YOU say.

@ReadyforaChange Frank has the same right to post his opinions as anyone else. My advice to him is that if you want to change the dynamic, start by looking around in society and see how non-religious people are seen by religious people as something less than a fully formed person.

@editor20 I don't give a flying fuck what religious people think of me. I reserve my concern for those who actually matter in my world. People like you and Frank, not even on my radar honey.

5

I was raised as a member of the United Church of Canada, went though Sunday School, and believed i was a Christian until my tweens.

When i asked my parents why my relatives were Jewish, i was told that it was because they had married Jews. But what they told never made sense to me, just like the teachings at in Church or Sunday school.

So i became a curious athiest after graduating high school, taking extension courses at Loyola College, a Jesuit College in Montreal, which at that time offered both religious and secular instruction.

The eye opening history and philosophies showed me the similarities between religions, how they evolved, and how they affected the human race collectively and individually. .

Most importantly i began to learn the importance of differentiating between institutional behaviour and individual behaviour; the knowledge enabled me to separate God from the institutions, the institutional leaders who espouse them, and the believers who follow them.

Most important to me was accepting that i didn't need to slag or trash people for what they believed, even if i disagreed with their views. In conflict, separating the people from the issues is a critical catalyst to collaboration, resolution, and peaceful coexistence.

So i never hated religions, or those who practiced them. In fact, i prefer to believe in intelligent design and accept that i will never know who engineered our universe.

As for being Jewish, many years ago when i was in my early 40s, i learned from my Jewish cousin that i was Jewish and that my Grandfather had been an elder in the Warsaw ghetto until he died at Auschwitz. I learned that my parents were both Holocaust survivors and like many others, had denied their Judaistic roots after they survived, They and other survivors abandoned their cultures for the sake of their children's future safety.

Understanding my parents, why they did what they did, allowed me to empathize with them even after they're gone. The knowledge has given me more peace of mind than any religion ever could.

5

I do not hate the people who are scammed by religion. I dislike the scam itself. I try to do the people a service by pointing out that it is just a scam, and backing up my position with facts and evidence.

5

What?!

You begin with "Why all the hate?" then you defend/define "hate" as "negativity and incredulity towards the topic of religion."

Lame!

Why do I feel great pity for those burdened by religion?

I have seen many suffer unnecessarily because of religion. (long true stories)
I knew a lovely person who died as a direct consequence of religion.
I have seen many being indoctrinated to hate those outside their religion.
(my favorite example of this was after I helped a Catholic recover from his baseless superstition based fears of hell and those his church had told him to fear and hate. When he finally broke through in to the light of reality over fiction, (his last brick that held him back was his belief that priests were ordained by god so there must be a god. . . so when I introduced him to Edward Tarte (spent 5 years as a Catholic priest then figured religion was BS and is now an honest atheist (his videos of being a priest are worth watching)) Here is a random video of his work:

The young catholic that I de-converted thanked me greatly. He told me his life was now better as he no longer feared burning in hell forever and he told me he no longer fears and hate those his church had instructed him to fear and hate. Hate in this context is defined as to wish death and suffering upon those who do not follow his religion.

Why do I dislike religion?

The foundation of all religion is the dishonest assertion that faith (belief without evidence) is a path to find truth (things that are demonstrated with evidence). Such nonsense pollutes a person's ability to distinguish between facts and fantasy. This is evident in the high positive correlation between science deniers and religious (damaged by their belief system not dependent on reality but what they want to believe or are told to believe without evidence). As a society, we all loose when those in power make decisions based on what they want to believe as apposed to what is factual. For example: Climate change deniers, etc.

@Brodney You're not a believer "really, anymore"? This is a site where we are supposed to be able to escape the fairy tale BS with which we are inundated constantly. My question is, why to people who don't believe "really, anymore" feel the need to stir up shit? Religion as practiced today is self-serving and oppressive. Enough said.

@Brodney Thanks for you expressing your position. I do care about the way words are used and when people loosely change the meaning of a word, I get rather annoyed and feel it necessary to point out inconsistencies.

Sound like you are searching for information about the way different people see the world. I highly recommend [atheist-experience.com] Hundreds of hours of interactions that will address almost any position you wish to explore. You are also welcome to call into the show. Enjoy.

5

You can believe that the earth is flat and the moon is made out of cream cheese, no problem. But when you want that taught in schools, make laws around it, then...?
Like anti-vaxxers, it not just them it affects

4

Because, sadly, it's easier to hate than to work on one's own pain that enables said hate.

4

You will find far more hatred coming out of religion than going into it.

4

I hate/resent/deplore certain beliefs. For example: The belief in hell. The belief that "holy" books (any holy book) are infallible and are the answer to all our problems--if we just follow them; and a person's belief that THEY have the correct interpretation. The belief that we don't have to worry about the planet because Jesus is due back any day now. The belief that the US was established under Judeo-Christian principles/denying that we were established as a secular nation and that Christianity was no more favored than any other religion--and even viewed in a worse light by some. The belief that we need to "get back to Jesus" as a nation if we want to make things right; and the belief that tRUMPf was chosen by god to do just that. The belief that your god wants you to destroy/kill those who don't believe as you do (persecutions/planes into buildings etc). And, the list goes on...

4

coil effect. Religion puts so much pressure that when released you go full bananas on it.
My opinion, you are just free from it when you can see it as it is, not as a hate object.

4

Many of us come here to get away from religion. Constantly faced with religious posts is annoying. I do not hate religion, I just see it as an annoyance when I have to deal with it. Religion hasnt been a plart of my life for over 45 years.

What this site needs is a religious rehabilitation area where new converts can workout their confusions and get the support they need to make their transition. It would reduce the extraneous religious noise.

I am not part of the religious & spirituality group, but I keep getting their posts.

4

I don't "hate" religion, I hate what it does to people. Essentially it comes down to because I don't believe like you do, you are going to use your authority to prevent me from having the same freedoms you do. For example: Your religion says I can't wear pants, so you want to cover myself from head to toe. I hate that people who haven't read the damn book are trying to persuade me that the book says. Yes, I've read that damn book 3 times. I hate that the religious pick and choose what they want to enforce of what they think their book says. Walk away from it? How is that possible when the most godless man in the world is sucking up to the religious and making laws based on what they tell him that disastrously affect my life and the lives of children, women, and disadvantaged individuals. I am for whatever gives a person peace, but keep your beliefs out of my government and out of my life.

4

I never had a religion, nothing to hate, just nothing credible to believe. Not all of us are haters, as you yourself pointed out, however there are a number of people who have been very damaged by either religion or by religious practitioners, and naturally they feel resentment and even hatred. Those of us who don’t have these negative experiences of religion don’t feel the need to post here, that is probably why the majority of posts seem to be rather vehement.

4

I think its that fact things are so one sided. You are applauded for your opinion if you applaud religion. You are immediately denigrated if you say true but negative things.

4

A lot of people have had to suffer due to religion and now they had enough.

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