ok so im an atheist myself but i find it hard to understand why most atheists find it necessary to bash religious people is it that hard to except the fact that other people have just as much of a right to believe what they want as you do if you think about it in the long run we all have the same problem after death religious people will not if know they were wrong and atheists will not know if we were right and on the same note religious people will know if they were right and atheists will know if we were wrong just a thought
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It is not a question of “a right to believe” in something. You set up a false dichotomy, that atheists hold a ‘belief’ just as theists do, therefore one cannot judge one perspective to be superior to the other. They are both equal and valid claims because no one knows what the afterlife holds for us and after all they’re all just ‘beliefs.’
I’ve noticed that theists not only tend to be close-minded, it is actually enforced in religious education and sermons, with some more radical sects declaring atheists to be equivalent to the devil. Then theists refuse to actually read atheist views and invent strawman arguments grounded in their own narrow religious worldview.
Is it any wonder than that often times discussion/debates between atheists degenerate into ‘bashing’ and ridicule. And please don’t act like it’s one-sided. Christians are guilty of bashing atheists as well as theists from other sects too.
However getting back to your original question-if like me you believe there are right and wrong answers to certain questions, like those posed by religions, then you will accept that there will be ‘winners and losers’ in certain debates.
Religions make claims that routinely step into the realm of science, that science can better address. Such as: is there a god, afterlife, heaven/hell, etc. There are moral questions that can be answered by scientists as well-I could write a book on this subject but I’ll keep it brief.
How can you know (or claim/pretend to know) something, that you do not and cannot know? Take your question of an afterlife. How do you know there is one? To say one has faith, is nothing short of a guess-since we don’t have any evidence.
However we can turn to science which can tell us if other “supernatural” realms exist and if souls/spirits exist and they leave the body. Well these things have been well studied and there is no evidence of souls/afterlife, which is why we (atheists) call bullshit on theists.
Theists stubbornly, arrogantly, obnoxiously persist in holding these views, despite the lack of evidence and they cite their manmade bible, faith and their gut instincts/feelings. Well I could have a feeling or faith that I could jump off a cliff and fly like superman-but science will win that argument. The laws of physics have never been suspended by the religious.
People have “a right” “to believe” whatever they want, but they don’t have a right to force their beliefs on others-and that’s where Christians come into direct conflict with secular society. I’m an ex-Christian but now I see Christianity as much of a crazy death cult as Islam, except that it is for the most part, largely non-violent. However it is still a very dangerous, cult that wants to drag us back to the dark ages. Religion has no place in modernity and should’ve died off long ago…except the believers keep reproducing and brainwashing their brood with their same idiocy they were brainwashed with so the cycle is never broken.
Funny that you posted this, since today i had a conversation that made wonder about religion and atheists (not in the same subject that you mention, but still). You seem to forget that it’s two-sided, since religious people take the same stance that you use to describe atheists (and in my experience, they are a lot worse).
Now, i don’t hate religious people, but i do dislike some things about them that i don’t see atheists doing (i consider myself as an agnostic). I don’t see atheists trying to shove down their beliefs down other people’s throats, condemning people to hell because they don’t share their beliefs, ridiculing people, and don’t even get me started on the double standards most religions use. Were i live (maybe it’s a cultural thing) no atheist has ever attacked me when expressing my opinions, but i can’t say the same about religious people.
I could go onto the witch hunts, the killings, the rapes and cover ups, etc, but discussing religion is pointless, since people will believe what they want to believe until they want to believe it (and i’m perfectly fine with it). Now, if religious people would respect that freedom to belief as well… heh, i’m guessing things would be a lot different.
i believe in evolution i believe when you die youre just dead i believe that we only live to reproduce and die i believe atheists have beliefs just not in anything that requires blind faith