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I can't say I'm very shocked by these comments, but it does make me wonder how these people could possibly ever claim to be moral when they are calling for the death of other human beings based soley on their lack of belief.

I have often thought that religious belief leads to a certain dichotomy of thought which makes them unable to parce reality from their idealized versions of the world. I feel as though this meme(Dawkins/actual defintion) has crept into many other aspects of the social sphere as well; creating idealogues that are unable to accept nuance in discussion and creating an Us vs. Them atmosphere, which only serves to divide us further. Ultimately, I believe this mentality will be our undoing. How do we procure balance in the world when people are unable/unwilling to have a rational discussion over their own perceived beliefs? Or is it even possible?

"Every act of violence is the result of a failed conversation" - Sam Harris

Kenny82 6 Feb 2
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67 comments (26 - 50)

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6

Are they advocating for violence because atheists don't believe in religion or is it just because we dare to disagree with them. Sadly, I see the same dichotony of thought amongst so called non religious people when you dare to disagree with their ideas. Rather than accept differing viewpoints it becomes important to them that you accept their view as the only correct one. Perhaps it is because of the right/wrong dichotomy taught within religion but the same dichotomies exist in other areas. Sport perhaps being an example. Personally, I think it wasn't until I was at Uni that I was given examples of competing theories and asked to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each. Perhaps this is a concept that should be part of child training.

5

I don't know about anyone else, but this is actually kinda scary that people think this way.

Yes, and that this is the base Trumps tapping into.

5

Totally engulfed in Ego, because their god never intervenes on their behalf to teach them about love acceptance, they rationalize that they must act in behalf of their omnipotent, all loving creator .

5

This is how the trash make themselves feel superior...but a gun in the hand is nothing without a brain behind the finger...and if they are christians they have probably all been molested by a pastor or preist...

Well maybe not all of them.

You already said 'probably.'

I felt bad...its so likely to be true.

5

BUT
Its a God of Love and turning the other cheek right?
Oh yea, the get out of jail fee card . . .
"For all fall short", so I guess murder is ok, if you repent?

Reality is they never think of it like that, they see it as TRIBAL.
They feel thier world view is becoming overwhelmed by other worldviews, having been the dominant cultural force for centuries losing that status makes they feel threatened, by our existence.

5

In my process of deconversion, I struggled with the idea that religon made or at least helped them to be moral, but it isn't true. Being moral/ethical is a choice an individual makes and they continue to make as they internalize the value. Religion may provide the moral code they choose to internalize but choosing a set code does not detract from the fact of the decision to adopt the religious code.

The worst situation is someone who believes themselves to be moral because they belong to a religion but then know nothing or very little of what tneir religion requires of them in order to comply with the religion's moral code. Then there are the codes that essentially apply only to other believers. Open season is then understood to be the case with non-believers.

Religion does not necessarily translate into any kind of real morality. The Divine Command theory says anything God demand of the believer is moral. So, if God demands a believer to kill or commit mass murder, it is moral. If God demands a believer rape someone, it is moral. Actually, if God demands one of these things of a believer, they would be immoral to refuse God's command. The Bible provides an example. After wandering in the wilderness for 40 years and having recieved one of the 10 Commandment not to kill, God commanded the Israelites to cross the Jordan River and "cleanse" the land of Canaan. To fulfill the commandment, the Israelites commensed with a genocide. So much for "Thou Shalt Not Kill".

5

Can you blame them? Have you met some of these atheists? Smug and arrogant pricks who refuse to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ or worship the Holy Father. Hell, I'd kill me if I were a Xian.

5

A) This is why there aren’t more atheists. Christians have a long history of killing nonbelievers.

B) This is why we have to hide in the closet.

I'm out.
I pretty much dare any of them to come at me.

I refuse to hide the fact that I don't believe in their bullshit.
I'm not hiding from anyone.

@KKGator just have to admire anyone with the "lead, follow, or get the fuck outta the way" attitude.....I could follow someone like that....probably not till death....not that brave, or foolish....but close.

@KKGator We likely have different life experiences. I live in the Bible Belt and value having friends and peace in my life more than having people know my stand on religion. Though I do admire those who can put that aside and wear their atheism without fear of care.

@Apunzelle I have lived in the bible belt most of my life. When I was younger I was very much like you. Now, I am who I am - they can like me or not, I don't care. The funny thing - I have found there are actually more people like me and they are quite happy to find out they are not alone.

@Apunzelle I live in South Georgia. It doesn't get much more bible-belty than that.
I prefer having friends who know who I am and accept me for that.
I have "peace". I've had much more of it since I stopped caring what other people think about me, too.
As @Heidi68 pointed out, many people are relieved to find out that they aren't alone in their disbelief. Especially here in the South.

By all means, do whatever you think you need to do. We're all different, and all travel different paths.

@KKGator Great points. Maybe I’ll be more like you one day. 😉

@Apunzelle There's NOTHING wrong with who you are. I just wish more people could be unafraid to be themselves. Losing the fear usually gives more peace.
Know NO fear.

The people who posted all those hateful things in the OP's post, really count on atheists and agnostics (and 'other' believers) to be afraid of them.
Usually, when they're confronted with people not being afraid of them, they back down. Most bullies are like that.

@HankSherman Thank you for the compliment, but I didn't come outta the box like this.
It's taken decades of disappointments, mistakes, learning to trust myself, and the hardest thing of all was to just STOP worrying about what others think of me.

I also have no desire to "lead" others. I just want everyone to trust in themselves, be unafraid to live their own lives, and be their most authentic selves.
We can all travel together without having to push one another out of the way. We can all be "successful" without anyone having to "win" at the expense of everyone else.

@KKGator well said, great attitude....keep on keeping on. ..and, no one comes outta the box, standing up and walking tall......takes focus, and concentration....gotta put the work in.

5

Charming, just charming....WWJD?!?

5

This is typical of a lot of religious people not just christiens many have kill the unbeleiver attitude. Most though stick behind the key board and hurl there irational comments like this few ever taking it any further. Yet it only takes one with a gun or bomb or a car to cause havoc.

4

The psychology of religion is very dependent on fear. Fear and ignorance are what motivates hatred. People being played since they were old enough to understand language. And this is the end result.

Deb57 Level 8 Feb 4, 2020
4

Shoot them? I love the right wing snowflakes talking about shooting ppl, like it’s nothing. Yet these same types will lose their mind if a woman has an abortion?!? “It’s a life” they scream and cry. They talk about free will yet we you use if you should DIE?!? What the hell? Atheists threaten the cult aka religions, can’t have ppl thinking on their own and not tithing to these false prophets. the American Taliban needs to Disappear. Enough already!

4

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible. Humanity has been like this at least as long as written records have existed. I have preached rational thought & tolerance to my family for over three decades, & it has not helped much. While I have succeeded in convincing some of them to be less bigoted, they are still bigoted. I honestly think it's correlated with I.Q. As intelligence increases, violent & irrational tendencies decrease. If there is an answer, maybe it's in selective breeding for the increased intelligence of our species. I think this is the answer to A LOT of our problems.

Nunya Level 6 Feb 3, 2020

You can’t live in US be white and not be a racist it is every where. The entitlement, privilege, and everything else that comes with it. Watch

Jane Elliot she will explain. Some white people wake up see the truth and change—doesn’t happen often enough.

@Logicforme I watched all of it. I really enjoyed it and it brought up very good points. Thank you for sharing this.

@Kenny82 no one explains privilege better than her.

@Logicforme I liked how everytime they tried to point out something, she had an immediate response to their argument that redirected their focus to what she was trying to point out. It was impressive.

4

Atheists don't get to meet God, experience the joy of 'salvation' or get to populate heaven. Curious how we - ostensibly denying ourselves so much - are regarded as enemies by these 'kind', 'moral' beings rather than deserving their compassion.

4

Do I need to buy a gun to protect myself from these idiots? I need aa answer. How dangerous are we getting? I am not going to let these bastards come and get me without a fight.

Unfortunately, yes. You can always throw it away if things get better.

It just got a lot more dangerous with their divinely anointed King Trump

4

An atheist writing this kind of stuff would be held up as proof that we're violent extremists. In religious circles, though, this is just considered "overzealous". We provoked them and deserve whatever we get.

4

Typical Trump territory Americans, morons with no morals, brains, reasoning but they do have souls and god loves them! 😉

4

Reminds me of the Dark Ages mindset. I remember the story of how in Europe, the church blinded heretics/unbelievers and chained them together in a line and paraded them through towns to strike fear in the populations against rejecting any aspect of the church's dominance. In their "mercy," they left the heretic in the lead with one eye.

4

Normalizing hatred of others for arbitrary reasons seems to be a key factor of many pernicious and delusional memes. Where the hatred is based purely on a group of people not believing some made up thing that your group believes... that's particularly odious, repugnant, and dangerous.

If you actually look up the FBI definition of terrorism you'll find that comments like those cited sounds like those of people who could be "radicalised" to commit terrorism in the name of their sky god at the drop of a hat. Give them an excuse like bad hombres, rapists and murders taking over the country and they already have. It's scary stuff.

4

I wish I could say that I have never heard anyone say things like this, but I have 😟

3

It's a load of hot air. People say all kinds of incredibly dumb things on social media, especially when they're relatively new to it (i.e. ignorant of its effect) or when they believe they are safely contained inside an echo chamber. When it comes down to it, most of these people do not want to actually inflict harm on anyone. There are exceptions, of course, but we are wise to classify them as such.

What social media allows, however, is this impersonal platform from which people can just spout whatever stream of consciousness nonsense they like to a broad audience. The harm in this is the low signal to noise ratio, or as you put it the hardship it adds on top of already difficult rational discussion on a given issue.

Frankly, though, I feel conversation is overrated these days. There's already too much information in the world to reasonably parse through. I feel our education systems ought to be better starting grounds to build reasonable world views.

3

Sharia anyone? Religion is completely anti-human rights.

3

They are all a bunch of ball-less big mouth assholes, I have yet to see one of those fucking couch-potato warriors get off their ass and actually do something. When they find out there is someone packing something that would blow a hole in them large enough for a blind man to piss through, they aren't so fucking brave. Obviously, no one in their right mind would kill someone else over a forum discussion, but it can be one hell of a lot of fun when you call them out for their shit, and even if you do find some dumb ass crazy fuckhead that wants to meet you, you can always give them an address on the other side of town of a local police station . . . . Then they will drive all the way over there only to discover that you have turned them into more of a fool than they already are.
What I find concerning is that there are so many people who are not christians who are anti-gun, while these right-wing religio-nazis are all gunned up.

3

Sounds about right. As for me, I'm stocking up on ammo for the old S&W my great-aunt left me when she died. I am all about shooting these sheep straight in the face if they threaten me or mine. #FuckReligion #StupidisForever

Stupid is forever.... 😂

3

Which right wing website?

Not sure. Found it on r/insanepeoplefacebook on reddit

@Kenny82 inflammatory statements looking for a reaction, sarcasm, intimidation, or bait. If the person posting on reddit actually had a concern regarding the right wing website, think the name of the website would have been shared. Its fishy

@thinkwithme for sure. But my point in posting and my comment made about it had nothing to do with the right-wing FB group, but that this type of thing is prevelant across the entire spectrum of our social sphere. The group that this may be taken from doesnt really interest me as much as their reaction. I don't care what group someone belongs to. I have friends of all sorts and am able to have discussions with most kinds of people. It just so happens that the post this was taken from had pointed to a specific group. I did my best to clarify that this is not prevelant in one group or another but that everyone seems to be engaging in this way these days. If this still seems irresponsible on my part, I apologize. It was not my intention to single anyone out other than people who have a certain "religiousity" about their perceived ideals.

@Kenny82 I don't think you need to apologize. Breeding fear and hate is a method of control. Still, people are more often stupid than scheming so it is hard to know. Not pointing at you friend. No worries

@creative51 if you can call it thinking

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