@bee: and once again, bee beats me to the punch

@bleep: I'm pretty sure it's not so much that they like atheism as much as they hate christianity. Most atheists (or non religious atheists not counting Buddhists) live in christian or formerly christian countries.

@bleep: As opposed to your edgy Christianity?

@Anonymous: >edgy
>christian
Please tell me his church doesn't have a "contemporary service" with a christian rock band.

@Anonymous: Can I get a witness?

@Anonymous: Christians who generalize and criticize atheists are just as bad as atheists who generalize and criticize christians.

I use "edgy" because in america, atheism is a counter culture among teenagers, and many of them have not fully explored what it means to be either atheistic or christian. So we end up with charts like these.

Yes, I just generalized this subgroup, but for fuck sake. It's a circlejerk. It's sickening and makes atheists look like condescending assholes. I would have the same problem if a christian group did the same thing.

A lot of users here have some growing up to do.

@bleep: It only makes atheists look like condescending assholes to people who generalize about people anyway. Either that, or all atheists ARE condescending assholes, and why would that be so much worse than non-atheist condescending assholes? What's wrong with a good old-fashioned consensual circlejerk? People wouldn't do it if it didn't feel good. Let the baby have its bottle and get on with your own pursuits.

@Anonymous: But I like dangling their bottles in front of their faces. :(

@bleep: I just see it as hypocrisy.

@Anonymous: I see it as making atheists better atheists.

@bleep: you seem to have about as much factual evidence behind your statements as most christians who believe in god.

@dingo8baby: There are atheists who generalize christians:
#atheism on canvas
http://lrs.moonstar.com/blog/2007/12/05/no-wonder-atheists-make-fun-of-christians/
http://gods4suckers.net/

There are christians who generalize atheists:
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/atheism/videos/2746304/title/dane-cook-making-fun-atheists
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=atheist%20idiot

Atheists are a counter culture in america:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
(see people and socity)

People on this board who need to grow up:
http://canv.as/p/m6j2v?nav=atheism
http://canv.as/p/ldyp3?nav=atheism
http://canv.as/p/kyho5?nav=atheism

I can't find any statistic on age ranges of atheists. That part just came from personal experience.

@Anonymous: I'm speaking purely in the context of young people who claim atheism mainly as a form of rebellion from their parents.

Also counterculture is by no means a negative. I'm in no way suggesting they're less worthy or significant. I'm just suggesting that motivates people to do threads like this.

Sorry if I seemed to hint otherwise.

Also for reference:
Web definitions

"Counterculture (also written counter-culture) is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-culture

@bleep: Also let me further amend what I said, as I can't only blame young people for acting rebellious and stupid.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/atheists-conduct-de-baptisms/story?id=11109379

@Anonymous: I would suggest bettering yourself in your beliefs. Research atheism itself and explore different thoughts on it. Study debate and have answers for the "big questions". The confidence from that will be enough to stand against others being ignorant.

Also learn to understand your opposition better. Learn the mentality it takes to believe in a deity or some other supernatural force. And accept that there are people who won't criticize you for it. There's a fairly good amount of those.

Generalizing and "poking fun" at others is only an ego boost and makes you, and whatever group you represent, look worse.

If you have a sound, logical argument to back your cas and are fairly confident in that, you'll feel a lot better in those situations.

i like monkey butts

@bleep: I'm an ex-christian studying philosophy at university, so that isn't really a big issue for me. I'm just shocked by the amount of intelligent people who'll get angry at me simply for saying I'm an atheist, people instantly start getting defensive and quizzing me about it. I don't have a problem with people having wierd beliefs, but I think they should be the ones who need to justify their claims rather than me having to justify my skepticism.
Also, I don't poke fun at people or generalise, I mock the beliefs and thought processes. And it's less ego-boost and more "thank god, there are people who understand".

You've already assumed that I don't know what I'm talking about and that I insult religious poeple, which kind of demonstrates my point.

@Anonymous: My general consensus is that people should leave other people alone regarding their beliefs unless it directly affects them. I enjoy discussing religion and philosophy, and I find it unfortunate that people actually feel the need to ridicule you about your beliefs.

Also I assumed this because you said "I find it satisfying to relieve my frustration with other like-minded people". Which tells me you're bothered enough by it that you enjoy some sort of intellectual retaliation, and heavily implies it's of a patronizing manner.

My mistake if that's not the case.

@bleep: Yea, we should totally respect other people's beliefs, no matter how strange, perverse, racist, or inflammatory as they may be. We definitely should NOT ridicule groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, KKK, Knights of Columbus, Scientologists, Branch Dividians, Roman Catholics, etc etc.

You've definitely convinced me that people should totally respect everyone because they are all unique snowflakes with something powerful and wonderful to add to society.

@dingo8baby: Yes. So long as it doesn't affect others. What business of yours is it what I believe so long as it's not harming you or anyone else?

It's cute how you cited groups that do not fit these qualities to try to prove my point wrong though.

@dingo8baby: Yes. WBC should be able to practice how they want so long s they're not infringing on the rights of others. They protest on public property and haven't physically harmed a soul.

If people are actually listening to their message and using it to harm others, that's a fundamental problem with society. Perhaps you should be blaming the media for giving them so much coverage, as they would virtually not exist if they didn't receive commercial support.

And where is YOUR line? Are you suggesting we leave it to an authority to moderate the beliefs of others? Are you saying that we should not allow certain people to exist?

I think a group tried that in Europe in the 1930's.

@bleep: The idea of faith doesn't seem to harm anyone on the surface, but if there are lots of people supporting and condoning it, then people can have faith that if they die killing innocent westerners they will get an eternal reward. If faith is acceptable, then it makes it very difficult to argue against extremism.
"The truth is in the bible" also seems fairly innocent until people reject science or stone people to death for working on the sabath.
Bad logic leads to bad society, I'm not saying we moderate the beliefs of others, just that we make an effort to bring everyone up to an acceptable level of intelligence.

@bleep: I'm saying everyone should be able to ridicule everyone. I'm saying that society as a whole should ridicule silly thoughts out of existence. I'm saying it worked with the KKK, and it could work with other hateful groups as well, if we didn't have such a premium on the bullshit libertarian ideals that everyone has the right to be wrong, as long as they aren't "hurting" anyone, which gives moral relativists like yourself a way around having the hard part of using empirical methodologies to actually determine what are harmful beliefs to society and what are not.

@dingo8baby: Again, you're both speaking of physical and sociological actions happening on a mass scale, which is the complete opposite of what I've been saying.

Also last time I checked working with ≠ ridicule.

The KKK committed hate crimes. They didn't use magic to spread their ideas. They simply existed and people chose to join them and commit illegal acts with them. A case example of people not leaving each other alone about their ideas.

Also what is "an acceptable level of intelligence"? And how largely does intelligence intertwine with social responsibility? How much does spirituality alone lead to violent acts? To think that there is no exterior motive going into "religious wars" is ignorant. I suppose the troubles in ireland were purely because of Catholicism versus protestantism. And I suppose the middle east just hates our freedom.

And allow me to amend myself a bit, as I got caught up in the idea of every belief ever.

Yes, there are obviously some ideas that are harmful to society.

My only original point was that generalizing gigantic concepts like religion and being condescending to religious people is stupid. Assuming someone is an extremist because of their beliefs is ignorant.

And the flip side, people who do the same to non-theists are just as bad.

Just thought I would point that out before people started making more assumptions on my personal ethics and I dug myself into a hole.

I really think too much is being asked from an atheist image board.