Atheism
Community Guide
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Statement of Purpose
- This is a support and conversation community for people who don't believe in gods.
- Superstition hucksters have no reason to subscribe or post here at all.
- If you are looking to debate or proselytize, options will be linked lower in the sidebar.
Acceptable
- Honest questions or conversations.
- Discussions on parenting or advice.
- Struggles, frustrations, coming out.
- Atheist memes. We can have fun!
- News headlines relevant to atheism.
Unacceptable
Depending on severity, you might be warned before adverse action is taken.
- Anything against site rules.
- Illegal and/or NSFW material.
- Troll posts and comments. There will be no attempt to explain what that means.
- Leading questions, agenda pushing, or disingenuous attempts to bait members.
- Personal attacks or flaming.
Inadvisable
- Self promotion or upvote farming.
- Excessive shitposting or off-topic discussion.
Application of warnings or bans will be subject to moderator discretion. Feel free to appeal. If changes to the guidelines are necessary, they will be adjusted.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.
Provable means able to provide proof to the moderation, and, if necessary, to the community.
~ /c/nostupidquestions
If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!
Connect with Atheists
- Matrix: #atheism:envs.net
Help and Support Links
- Freedom From Religion Foundation
- The Secular Therapy Project
- Secular Students Alliance
- Black Nonbelievers
- The Clergy Project
- Atheist Alliance International
- Sunday Assembly
- Atheist Ireland
- Atheism UK
- Atheists United
Streaming Media
This is mostly YouTube at the moment. Podcasts and similar media - especially on federated platforms - may also feature here.
- Atheist Debates - Matt Dillahunty
- Rationality Rules
- Friendly Atheist
- Making Sense with Sam Harris
- Cosmic Skeptic
- Genetically Modified Skeptic
- Street Epistemology
- Armored Skeptic
- NonStampCollector
Orgs, Blogs, Zines
- Center for Inquiry
- American Atheists
- Humanists International
- Atheist Republic
- The Brights
- The Angry Atheist
- History for Atheists
- Rationalist International
- Atheist Revolution
- Debunking Christianity
- Godless Mom
- Atheist Freethinkers
Mainstream
Bibliography
Start here...
...proceed here.
- God is Not Great (Hitchens)
- The God Delusion (Dawkins)
- The End of Faith (Harris)
- Why I Am Not a Christian (Russell)
- Letter to a Christian Nation (Harris)
Proselytize Religion
From Reddit
As a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.
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I've not been convinced of religious thinking which is why I'm non-religious, but I think it's fair for me to respect people believing in religion, so that they will also respect me not believing in religion. In some cultures in history, people have been persecuted for being atheists. I'm more in favour of people being able to believe what they want without facing discrimination due to their beliefs.
What are you talking about, challenging beliefs and assumptions is not persecution or discrimination.
You should welcome such challenges and have the courage to deal with them head on, as learning experiences, rather than some kind of lame-ass desperation to appease those with opposing views, in the hope they won't ask you awkward questions that challenge your cozy conceits.
I wonder if you even are irreligious, you sound more like a bible basher with this kind of intellectual cowardice and dishonesty.
I'm saying there have been cultures in history where atheists faced discrimination. I think atheists in western countries used to face discrimination and ostracisation. And in some Muslim countries even today, if a Muslim leaves their religion, they can face harsh penalties.
I'm not desperate to appease people with opposing views. I just know that I have met some religious people in my life who I got on well with. I didn't agree with their views, but I could still get on with them. If I come across someone and I think they're a decent person who I can get on well with, then I won't mind what their religious views are, as long as they are respectful of my lack of religious belief.
Don't you think it's important that people are able to think critically and make sensible conclusions?
I get on best with people who think outside the box and don't accept the norm. People who reject tradition, the traditional roles and hierarchies of society. So I don't really meet people on a friendly basis who are religious. Religion is tradition, literally the same thing. I've worked with people who I've later found out believe some religion or other, and from then on I can't look at them the same way, as I can't shake the feeling that they must be at least a bit stupid.
However what I do find is that the kinds of people that I do mix with can often be a bit conspiratorially minded. I meet too many anti-vaxxers. 911 deniers even.
It is IMO the same inability to think critically at play. It's one thing to speculate, and say "this might be true, or alternatively this could be true, or even this". There's nothing wrong with that, I think it's healthy in fact to challenge assumptions. The problem is that people pick one of many possible options - often one of the least likely ones - and then commit to that one position. These people have a faith much like religious faith in the daft ideas they choose to pin their egos to.
This kind of faulty thinking is IMO what leads to MAGA. It leads people to support authoritarian regimes such as Russia's or Iran's.
So I do push back on it when I encounter it, which as I say is far too often. Obviously you have to do so intelligently, and to pick your battles. No one has ever genuinely changed someone's mind through nagging or insults.
I genuinely believe it is important for people like you and me to spread the skill of critical thinking. To encourage people not to pin their loyalties so easily to some daft idea and then doggedly stick to that regardless of the other possibilities.
Maybe I'd prefer a world where nobody is religious. Maybe I'd also prefer a world where everyone shares my taste in music, and my political views, and so on. But people do have differences.
I definitely understand the frustration with some religious people, particularly if they use religion to try to justify hateful views. Then again, there are non-religious people who hold hateful views. I think I'd rather spend time with a non-hateful religious person than a non-religious hateful person. To each their own though.
ah you don't get it. it's not about personal preferences, which of course people are free to have.
It's about being rational. If you don't understand that being rational is objectively a superior way to think about the world, then you are also vulnerable.
I guess I was working on the faulty assumption that people who've explicitly rejected religion are rational thinkers. There are many reasons people have for rejecting religion though.
I definitely prefer rational, evidence-based thinking to thinking which isn't supported by evidence.
If I were to say "all religions are bad" though then I think I'd alienate some religious people who are decent. I might not agree with their religious views but if I think they're decent then I don't want to alienate them.
For example, apparently Zohran Mamdani and Sadiq Khan (the mayors of NYC and London respectively) are both Muslims. I don't agree with those views; I'm not a Muslim myself. But I still think both of those people are relatively decent, more so than some other politicians. I guess I'm more interested in whether a person is decent, than whether a person is religious.
OK but whether someone is decent or not is very subjective. It's going to vary from person to person, even between two people who otherwise have very similar worldviews. I don't know anything about Mamdani, or Sadiq Khan for that matter.
I am however concerned about religious people in positions of political power - I don't think they have any place there. I don't think it is possible to truly understand and apply critical thinking and to be genuinely religious - because of the "blind faith" problem, and also the magical thinking.
However public figures are not always honest about their religious feelings. As you said, followers of the Islamic faith in particular can be hostile towards people who have left the religion, so it would certainly affect his chances at the polls if he were to come out and admit to not believing in any of the woo-woo and the supremacism of Islam. (Just quickly want to point out that all Jewish religions are founded on woo-woo and supremacism, I'm not singling out Islam in particular. Perhaps it's true for all religions, I wouldn't be surprised but I don't know, in any case I'm just talking about Islam as that's the one you mentioned.)
I guess it is possible to consider yourself a believer of a particular religion but just not understand what that really entails. You can't believe that Mohammed was really a Jewish prophet *and* support rights for homosexuals for instance. If you call yourself a follower of Mohammed and yet say that gays should be allowed to have sexual relationships with whoever they please without feeling bad in any way, then you haven't studied your religion enough. The religion is quite clear: not only is homosexuality sinful, but homosexuals must be persecuted.
In any case, none of this changes anything about critical thinking. It is not possible to correctly practice critical thinking and be religious.
If you are religious, then giving up the religion is probably just the first step on the road towards becoming a critical thinker. However there's still a journey to make, and not every person to quit religion will ever start that journey, never mind complete it.
When I think about it, when I first quit religion, I didn't do it through critical thinking. Really it was an emotional decision, just like religious belief itself. I only arrived at my current appreciation for this process of rational thought after many years of continuing to try and understand the universe, making many wrong turns along the way.
Maybe we just have different ways of looking at it.
In terms of how Muslims view LGBT people: I mentioned that the mayor of London is a Muslim, and he has been to LGBT pride parades, so I think he's more supportive of LGBT people than a lot of non-Muslims are. So I guess it depends on the particular person. Some religious people might be anti-LGBT but other religious people are more welcoming of LGBT people.
But yes maybe we just have different ways of looking at it, which is fine I think.
well it's fine unless you're maybe still not getting it.
It's not fine to be wrong. It's not fine to have a bad way of thinking. Not in this day and age, when we are all connected and ideas can spread (and be manipulated) so widely and so easily.
If you know someone who supports gay rights and sex positivity, and they also say that they believe Mohammed was a Jewish prophet (the greatest ever Jewish prophet no less), then they are either being dishonest about one of those two things, or they are ignorant about what those two things really mean.
I don't really know who is right and who is wrong though. I don't believe in God, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a God and the religious people are correct. I just think that there are some religious people I've met, and surely others who I haven't met, who are relatively good people, and I'd like to get on well with them, even if I don't fully agree with their views. I can see why you find certain views frustrating though.
hmm so are you saying that a person who hears voices in their head might actually be talking to Spiderman, or a space alien, or an angel, or whatever it is they say they're talking to?