Agnostic.com

32 7

What are some of the things professing christians have done to irritate you and why did you find it irritating?

I have had some irritating experiences but the one that stands out was when a distant relative came to visit my family and switched off the music I was listening to (I had headphones) and yelled at me saying that I was going to go to hell for listening to secular music.
Why was I irritated? What happened to respecting each other's personal boundaries irrespective of their religion or lack of beliefs??

GladToBeFree 5 Apr 5
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

32 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

9

When they pass Federal or state laws which enforce their religious views. Such as LBGT is a christian sin but not a human sin. When they tell you to love jesus and all his followers and then watch them spit on the buses carring children from the border. When they turn their back on the very item they preach, If they would just shut up and leave us alone, then fine

EMC2 Level 8 Apr 5, 2018
8

The complete hypocracy that they all exhibit.

6

Well one just f*×$ing messaged me on here to tell me I'm wrong about religion. That's pretty irritating.

Really? On here? Damn. I kind of hope they try that shit with me. I could use the entertainment.

@KKGator like 5 minutes ago!

@Beach_slim I am wrong about many things. Don't give a shit either.

@Blindbird If they try it again, please feel free to suggest they message me.

@KKGator will do

@KKGator Can I sell tickets and popcorn?

@RobAnybody As long as I get half of the profits.

5

Her, during a church picnic: "That poor guy over there, sitting all alone!"

Me: "Why don't we invite him over, then?"

Her: gives me a weird, disapproving look

"That guy" turned out to be the former owner of a past gym to which I had belonged for a couple of years (who just happened to be at the same public park) and we chatted amiably for a few minutes, catching up. Another church member witnessed this exchange and later asked me, "Who was that guy?" with a furrowed brow and a slight air of disdain.

That's when I knew that for all their talk of this and that, their compassion did not come from their hearts. And I was done.

4

One thing that Christians do that really jerks my chain is why they don't hold themselves accountable to their own standards. For example if one Muslim is a terrorist them to them all Muslims are terrorist. However if a Christian rapes a child that Christian is either not a real Christian or is possessed by a demon. You can't take these Christian clowns seriously.

Dont all muslims wish all infidels must be put to death? Isnt that following islam doctrine to the letter?

@GipsyOfNewSpain Are you thinking of apostates (most of us), for whom ALL the abrahamics propose instant (ok, drawn out and painful) death?
AFAIK Islam only prescribes death for infidels under certain circumstances where they break other laws.

4

My only issue is that when you make assumptions, you may misunderstand the reality of the situation. The hell you're supposedly going to for listening to music is one of many assumptions made by Christians. You need to make a million assumptions just to accept that there is a god, let alone a specific one.

3

I really don't care what others say, but, rudeness is annoying. What I really hate is seeing Trump suck up to Evangelicals, and they use him to abet their creeping theocracy, and hear them say he was sent by God. They know he wasn't but the lie to your face and support him no matter how destructive and vile he is, because he appoints Uber conservative judges. That really makes me sick.

3

The Evangelicals are also Trumpets and Trumpettes! They wear blinders when confronted with his blatant immorality! I would never call them “hypocrites” to their faces (but, I want to)!
IHateTrump!

3

The most irritating thing about hardcore Christians period is not being a good Christian to begin with.

3

Yeah that is arrogant and controlling, completely independent of whatever dogma was being used as the excuse for it.

99% of my interactions with believers post-deconversion has been in online discussion forums. I have found that since they have no logical / rational / evidence-based arguments at all, they most often work by intellectually dishonest techniques -- not responding to arguments, questions or issues raised, or responding obtusely, or raising vaguely related but irrelevant or non-sequitur points or deflections; moving the goalposts; ad hominem attacks, and the like.

Typical pattern:

Theist makes assertion A, B and C.

Atheist addresses A, B and C with counterarguments.

At this point theist either just re-states A, B and C, possibly claiming you didn't understand it; or raises points D and E while simply ignoring A, B and C. Or redefines terms used in original argument, or any number of such things.

Often, a half dozen thoughtful and very thorough responses thoroughly debunking or demonstrating the logical implausibility of A, B and C will come from different people, the believer will go silent, and then a week or a day or an hour later they will raise A, B and C again in a different thread as if it was a new idea that had never been presented before.

This kind of thing goes on and on and on until you become irritable about it and then they just accuse of you being an "angry atheist" or "hateful" or "rude" as if it's entirely your problem and they have no role in it whatsoever. Or to be more concise -- they gaslight you.

Some atheists respond to this kind of thing with harsh, profane-laden rhetoric (including, but not necessarily, rants). The theory being, if they can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, otherwise maybe they will back off and at least make a pretense of playing nice in the sandbox. One site I'm on (thethinkingatheist.com/forum) is very lightly moderated and allows profanity, harshness, tough-love sorts of rejoinders; another (city-data.com/forum under either atheism & agnosticism or religion & spirituality) is more heavily moderated, has profanity filters, and enforces at least a faux civility.

Either way, it doesn't matter; they simply won't engage on a rational, empirical, evidential level in any way. Even the ones clued in enough to understand that we don't accept quotewalls of scripture as any sort of argument or proof, will still argue for "just believe" or "try for yourself" or some other such BS. (As if most of us, being deconerts, haven't already done that ... but they have circular reasoning to deploy for that to: "you were never truly one of us" ).

It can, to say the least, be maddening.

3

Oh, good grief, there are too many instances to list. At least, there used to be, when I would let it get to me. Nowadays, I don't care enough to get upset. 🙂

marga Level 7 Apr 5, 2018
3

I even heard Christians say that it is a sin NOT to eat meat even though it is nowhere to be found in the bible.

I have heard that one too, smh

3

I don't get Irritated. I am under my control. It is up to me to grant that power over me to others.

3

Once when I was at a sales meeting in Salt Lake City a couple of Mormons followed me and a friend around. Ignored them until we got lost and they helped us back to our hotel - lol. On Saturdays they would knock at my door week after week until I got a second German Shepherd.

2

QUIT church, thanks to a "youth minister". Although it was no real loss and was inevitable, the actions of the y.m. at the church I was attending was what prompted me to say, "this is it, I won't be back".
At the time I was a social worker, doing children & family services. I was assigned a self report of abuse by a 15 y.o. girl. On interviews it was apparent that the girl was unhappy with the limits her mother had placed on her, limiting her contact with an older male. The girl said mom had hit her (no marks) and yelled at her and she was "uncomfortable" with her mother being gay. She proposed she move in with her "aunt", actually family friend-grandmother's age. I proposed, we would put services in the home to help her and mom work out their differences.

Not what she wanted so she went to y.m. and told him that her gay mom did "inappropriate things" in front of her. Y.m. Calls police, police hear same story from girl, put her in protective custody, with "aunt". Limited supervision there, few rules.

Interview: girl could not explain "inappropriate" things she had witnessed, implied sexual but could give no pertinent details, i.e. "they were, like on the couch, together, it was disgusting" but no description of why it was disgusting.

Interview: mom denied ANY overtly sexual conduct in front of girl, she and 'partner' would sit together on the couch, sometimes held hands. Even kissing limited to "peck" when parting if girl was present. Agreed to services, concerned about girl's involvement with older guy. I recommended to court girl go home, services in place, no convincing evidence of abuse.

In steps y.m. Fought in court against return, claimed conviction as "counselor" (clergy training only) that girl was really being sexually abuse by seeing mom engage in sex acts. Outside court he was clear to me that he thought the mom had no business raising a child as she was sinful and this trumped any parental rights she might have, regardless of whether the girl was really witnessing sex acts or just "knew" that her mother was gay.
Sorry that story got so long, tried to pare it down. Anyway, not the first time that minister had revealed bigoted attitude but this was the last straw for me. I did not actually identify as athiest at that time but it was the last time I attended church. Figured if they could not live by what they claimed to believe, I didn't want them telling me what to do.

2

Where does one start? That they support trump? That they hate the LGBT? That they believe the earth is only 6000 years old?
I feel like releigion is a cult, but to each is own...

2

Where do I begin !!?? The built in guilt, and sheep following behaviors. The talk about "in the next life" and being in heaven, and the next "coming". The "bless this" and "bless that" and "oh, thank gawd"... The often overly dramatic before meal prayers. The unwillingness to let any other ideas enter their mind, for fear of new thoughts - or .... heaven forbid.... questions and doubts !!!!!

2

The judging, persecuting, and general hypocrisy. It seems the ones who profess their Christian values the most seem to have the least.

2

Personally I find the so-called faithful's need to proselytise the most irritating. This and the fact that the back away the moment they are challenged to think.

2

All the preaching of acceptance no matter what then having that all turn around in a second when they find out you are bisexual. That is what kinda turned me away from the church in the first place. What finally broke the camals back was when I got pregnant at 15. MAN Never have I ever seen more of a hatefull, hypocritical, judgemental group of people in my life.

2

Well, it's not just Christians. From my life, I've seen it with Hindus also. It's a "holier than thou" complex. When someone preaches, it is a time where they can profess that they are correct.

I've heard the music argument before. Sometimes it gets ridiculous, like someone getting ticked off about white flowers. In "old testament" Hinduism, white flowers are symbolic\iconic of the god Bramha, where in legend it is noted that people are not to worship him. Having white flowers in your home, in a painting, etc. is basically showing reverence to Bramha and is a trigger for hyper religious people. Most Hindus don't care about this detail.

1

In Australia, we recently passed laws allowing same-sex marriage.

Some (definitely not all) religious folk spoke out negatively on the issue. I support their right to do so, even if arguments were illogical or unreasonable, or even (to an extent) when they say nasty things.

What I found infuriating was, when others responded and countered their ideas, many religious folk decried this as against freedom of religion (or even decried it as being against free speech). Both these reactions are utterly ridiculous and are really an attempt to stifle non-religious opinions.

1

Simply saying they are Christian and expecting that's enough to determine whether they are decent or not. By identifying themselves, it tells me that they to be watched and not trusted.

1

I get irritated when a Christian won't answer a straight forward question. I already know the answer I'd have given when I was a Christian and it may be why I'm no longer a believer. I just wish they would answer honestly instead of dodging the question. I guess if they gave it as much thought as I did we wouldnt be having a debate.

1

...in response to your scenario, I would have turned on and up AC/DC's "Highway to Hell' and danced throughout the house.

Personally I really don't what anyone does or doesn't believe in.

....but! I get really irritated with any person of any faith when they profess the greatness of their particular god while denouncing any of the others. I usually ask them but what "about the Norse, Roman and Greek gods?" Don't they matter anymore.... the typical reply is that, "...those gods aren't real."

Which then prompts my reply... but why? I've read more books about those gods than yours? They have many books written about them while yours only has one?

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:50662
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.