OK…I have given Atheists a bit of a hard time for their stereotypical behavior online, but I suppose I should give equal airtime to the religious fanatics out there as well. Though not as bad as other groups typically there are some real idiots that like to push their beliefs on others online.

Typically you just see those that are of a certain religion to be very laid back and respectful of others, but there are those that are just as nuts as any other anti-religious person you see. Religion is not really popular on the internet forums and most people that even bring it up are ostracized by the overwhelming number of “Enlightened” thinkers online, but they are still there.

The religious extremist seems to be even crazier than the “it’s simple logic” guy that has to say that every 5 minutes in a debate. The religious fanatics are just out there though. They are closer to the conspiracy theorists than anyone. Some of them I wonder if they even understand the scriptures they post on boards, but none the less I find the more extreme they are the more entertaining they are. I absolutely LOVE the end of the world Bible beaters and the guy that has to rat you out as a sinner every time they post.

Anything you talk about is met with a Bible verse that is supposed to tell you why you shouldn’t do that. What I never understood about the fanatics is that they feel that they are the judge of you. In my understanding, if you are a follower of a certain faith, you are supposed to believe that “God”, “Zeus”, “the Spaghetti Monster”, etc. is Judge and Jury over others and not you. Apparently many of the fanatics have had the hand of their Creator laid upon them and they are now free to become the executioner.

These guys are the best though. No other group can spark more debate and ultimately hate online when they start to tell you how you are supposed to live and that they are perfect. This is the time when I actually do side with the more anal retentive Atheists in such circumstances. Extremists in any fashion are bad, but those that use God as their way to spew hatred towards others are worse than any.

I read some pretty silly boards myself because I like to read about silly things. That gives me a lot of my material since I like to talk about silly things and the silly people on the internet. OK…I’ll quit using the word silly.

Now when I look at online forums I tend to see some very oddball things that outside of the web you really would never hear people talking about. Incest for instance. Apparently there are a lot of people out there that either have a fetish for incest, or they might just be a product of it. I don’t find anything remotely “great” about incest so when I see people talking about it I wonder why so many people do. Are there really that many people that want to get it on with their brother or sister or cousin? I don’t get it.

On the same note there are some really sick bastards out there too that are looking for a date with Dateline and the FBI. They aren’t shy about it either. Please harass the ever loving shit out of them and let them know that dating a 12 year old is not cool when you are 34 years old.

Alright enough with this BS. I can probably think of more people I’d like to beat the crap out of today, but a tree fell on my neighbors shed in the backyard and it is laying on our power line. Be lucky to get much done today the way they work around here. Power would be going out soon.

Well it didn’t take long. My trolling has been called to attention and now I suppose I have to enter the debate on the terms that Atheists call for. Purely factual and no stereotypical mumbo-jumbo. Of course being the friendly internet PR and traffic helper that I am, I’ll give Austin another link to his article, Debating Religion Doesn’t Require Treating Atheists Like Equals, so that you know what the hell this is all about.

First let me say this. I am not an English major. I do not care if you are and I have no belief that capitalizing a word like Atheism should piss you off so much in a debate that you have to point it out as part of your point. It doesn’t matter. Please do not respond with remedial grammar lessons of this sort as it has no bearing to the context of the argument. I am not going to correct your typos so don’t bother correcting mine. It is wasted space and just re-enforces stereotypes that I have already described. Apparently most of you are happy to re-enforce them on your own so I really don’t need to point them out anymore.

Now let’s get into the recent comments and go through them one by one.

Mr. Troll,

You can be an agnostic and an atheist at the same time.

See: Atheism vs. Agnosticism

~John

I was very happy to see this brought up. Why? Because it is fallacy. Let me explain why. This instance is just another way to rephrase the made up term of “Weak Atheism”. Atheism isn’t a subjective term. All it means is that someone believes gods, God, deities, etc. do not exist. The same as most people believe there is no such thing as UFOs, mystical creatures, or ghosts. You either believe it or you don’t. You can’t be a “Strong Atheist” and REALLY believe gods do not exist anymore than you can be a “Strong Theist” and REALLY believe that gods do exist. You simply believe it or you don’t. Atheist/Agnostic? That’s a “Weak Atheist” and it is the exact same concept. You can’t BARELY believe that no gods exist. You believe it or you do not. There is no level of belief. The word does not allow that. People you might want to call a “Strong Atheist”, or a “Strong Theist” are just extreme people that are typically just fucking crazy and THAT is their label in the most general sense. They either believe gods exist or they do not. I can understand why the “Strong Atheism” aspect isn’t used as much as I used to see it.

I can understand the need to want to fit in and shelter a bit of the blow of taking on the label of being an Atheist since society has been in the past very hostile towards them. Many might call them anything from devil worshippers to just plain sinner, but ultimately those things shouldn’t matter. I’m as ignorant as anyone, but I don’t believe that atheists are evil people with no soul. No one is really that different except in extreme cases. In fact more and more people are taking the belief that no gods exist. It’s simple to understand. People don’t believe in magic anymore. It can neither be proved nor disproved, but obviously you can say that lack of evidence of a god is proof that none exists as well as you can say that the possibility it hasn’t been proved yet is still there.

The Troll wrote, “I haven’t taken an oath to say that I denounce all powers greater than I and that the possibility of no god existing is what i believe, but I’m not far from it.”

~Me

Crap. I must have missed the whole taking an oath part of atheism. Does this mean I’m not “really” an atheist?

~God Isn’t

Yep. Without the oath and the anti-baptism you aren’t a “True Atheist.” You also need to know the secret handshake.

~Patrick Quigley

These comments really amused me and did make good use of the way I wrote the statements about this subject. Contextually they are right on and it is my fault for wording it the way I did originally. Speaking strictly on the oath issue I should have described it a bit differently. I don’t want these guys to think that I believe they are in some sort of cult or secret society…lol

What I should have said is that I haven’t taken a “Leap of faith” and made up my mind to say that I do not believe in the existence of gods. Much as a Theist would when deciding that they believe there is a god someone that believes there are none has to take a “Leap of Faith”. Only reason I say this is because the idea behind the belief cannot be proven with hard evidence.

I think the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous describe this pretty well. Specifically Steps # 2 and 3:

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Those steps are a “Leap of Faith”. The same way that one has to make a decision to believe in a God, supernatural being, or any sort of Deity, someone who does not believe in the existence of a god, or gods must make a conscious decision too. If the idea of a God wasn’t already there there would be no decision to make, but alas it is there so you have to consciously believe in it, or not believe in it.

Finally these comments from the author himself, Austin Cline (his comments are bolded, mine are not):

From personal experience this is a minority.

Generalizing about atheists over all based on personal experience is rather like generalizing about blacks or Jews based on personal experience. Anti-Semites and racists do it all the time, but their claims of “personal experience” don’t excuse them. Why do you think it’s OK for you? Would it be OK to say “Jews are typically greedy” or “Blacks are typically criminal”? Of course not — and it’s not OK to generalize about atheists, either.

You ARE an Atheist. You know why you have that philosophy.

1. Atheism and atheist are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized.

2. Atheism is not a philosophy.

Unfortunately there are many that say they are Atheist although they have serious doubts that no higher power exists.

There is nothing about being an atheist which requires that a person be absolutely convinced that no gods exist,

That is simply all I was pointing out.

You obviously don’t know what atheism, yet you presume to judge atheists through broad, unfair generalizations. That’s what I am pointing out. When you generalize broadly about atheists in the way you did, you are telling reader not to take atheists seriously and not to treat them as equals or with consideration. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t say “all” atheists — using “typically” and “most” is more than enough.

Now there is really no defense for me on most of this. I’m just going to ignore the nitpicky stuff here so don’t expect me to respond to some of it. It is true that I made broad generalizations about atheists. Like I said before I did it on purpose and for the effect. It doesn’t matter if you are an atheist, or a snake worshipper. Apparently the offense that atheists take from stereotypes is more than I had expected. Also, the understanding about my original post and being taken out of context was not expected either. It did provide a nice little argument and subsequent comments to the story and the post.

To be honest with you I feel no need to apologize. I’m just not going to. The political correctness in society today sickens me to no end so I’m not going to apologize when I do not mean it simply because things I said were taken the wrong way. You could have looked at my original post and taken it with a grain of salt like it was intended. Much like I would if a black comedian spent his whole act making fun of white people. That doesn’t offend me whatsoever as a white person so I’m not going to hide observations of my own for fear that someone will become offended. Take the stance that you have and just call me ignorant if you please. My comments should really not drive you to be so offended. I respect your beliefs and I enjoy the uniqueness of different gorups. The funniest things in life are the differences in what people believe and the little personality traits that we observe.

I do appreciate the fact that all of the people have taken it upon themselves to stand up for their beliefs. I have no problem with that and I certainly don’t have anything against what they do believe. Anyone can take pot shots at me for being white, or anything else including my beliefs by throwing stereotypes at me.

As for taking an atheist seriously…That isn’t something that is my responsibility to spread. This blog isn’t about being fair, or nice. It is about stereotypes, plain and simple. It is about the way people act online in various communities. I take offense to nothing, but it does not surprise me when others take offense and try to defend themselves. I am glad that most of the comments tried to stay a bit level headed, and am grateful to have a chance to talk with you all. For the most part I respect your opinions and the help at clarifying anything I may be off on. My “Know it all” aspect is nothing more than an online personality. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I thank you for this conversation very much. For the theme of my blog this is a real life experience for those who read it to learn from. Whether I get owned, or own anyone is irrelevant. Someone reading this should be able to learn from it.

Related posts:

The Religious Debate, The Religious Debate Revisited

It appears my original article The Religious Debate has been quoted and used as the basis of an article on About.com by the Agnosticism / Atheism Expert there named Austin Cline entitled Debating Religion Doesn’t Require Treating Atheists Like Equals. He seems to have taken some offense to my little description of the actors of the message board play that participate in the Religious Debate. He also seems to imply that I am a Christian.

Let’s just give a bit of background about me to clear a few things up. I went to a Catholic school from Kindergarten through graduation. That right there should pretty much tell you that I am not a practicing Christian anymore. The majority of Atheists are ex-Catholic school kids that just got sick of all the doom and gloom of the Catholic Church as well as the disbelief in the concept of magic (ie. miracles). You can add me to the list of disgruntled Catholics, but I really don’t have any affiliation to Atheism either. I’m not against what anyone believes, nor do I really care to convince anyone that what I believe is right either. Let’s just say that I think a lot of religious beliefs are ridiculous to me. Label me Agnostic, Christian, Atheist, whatever.

Now on to what this is really about. My original post was simply an observation as to how the various labeled groups tend to debate this subject online. No more, no less. There are great debaters on every side of this argument. I just chose to pick on the ones that are clueless. Yes, I’m a jerk, and frankly I like to stereotype people. Just read my About page to see what I mean. If people want to debate they should actually understand what position they have taken before talking about it.

I used a broad brush stroke on certain groups here. Mainly Atheists and Christians which was purely intentional. It is simply because the”debate” is usually laughable. Again, here are the stereotypes I am going to use. Atheists tend to think they are superior to Christians online because they use logic. It is more common than not in my experience to see Atheists resort to calling some random Christian names or resorting to mocking them because they don’t agree. Just look at this popular Atheist message board and tell me that the group there is receptive to debate when a Christian shows their ugly head. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with the concept of Atheism, or Christianity. It’s the fact that the whole debate is just not educational on a message board when I see it. The smart ones don’t bother to join the debate which leaves us with all the idiots.

The Religious Debate shouldn’t be an argument of right and wrong and escalate into name calling. A real debate happens when someone says one thing, someone who opposes it responds with a logical answer, and the debate continues from there. It isn’t about being Atheist, Christian, Agnostic, or anything of the sort. The labels are meaningless. If I say there is no God then you try to convince me there is. If you have to say Christianity in your response, or call me an Atheist at any point the debate has failed.

Emos are the fad of youth on gaming boards everywhere. Emos are people that don’t care about anything in life and are the saddest people alive. They dress like they are half goth/half punk, but don’t really try too hard to look good. Black hair and crappy clothes you would get at a Goodwill are the styles of these introverted morons. They listen to music that should make you cry and are considered those who are prone to cut themselves on a regular basis. Nobody likes emo kids and they are ones that are easiest to make fun of. They tell you that they want to die all the time and you should encourage them. Emos basically make everyone on the boards feel better about themselves because they are so sad.

If you see an emo on the boards post this:

/wrists