This Will Get Your Blood Going…

Have fun with this argument from one Christian:

Every Atheist I’ve ever known has been some sort of loser. They may have used drugs. They may have been really overweight. They may have been whiney or sketchy. Whatever the case, I’ve never known an Atheist I could exactly qualify as “normal.” It doesn’t mean they were mean or overly negative, on the contrary many of them were very nice. But they weren’t the kids who scored the goals, who got the grades, played the “cool” instruments, or got the girls and boys. They were those lovely social outcasts, and I think because of this, even though I disagreed with their theological views, I felt a certain kinship with all of them. This led to many of my first interesting religion discussions.

Know that I’m speaking only from experience when I say this. I’m sure a lot of Atheists out there probably get laid all the time and play a mean guitar. But sometimes I do have to wonder. Take the new Atheists for example. I’ve joked about this and ranted about it in the past, but now addressing it seriously, they do act rather strange don’t they? Richard Dawkins speaks in the most bitter angry tone, which is somewhat unnatural, and has been divorced three times. Sam Harris became an enlightened atheist after using ecstasy. Christopher Hitchens whines incessantly, but doesn’t really have a job. Victor Stenger is pathologically obsessed with his grandchildren. And the entire reason Daniel Dennett became a philosopher was to disprove dualism, which he read about when he was sixteen years old. Why? What’s the point? What do they get out of this? Money and fame yes, but what else?

There’s too much crazy there to rip apart every point.

(Though there must be some contradiction with atheists not being able to get the girls and Dawkins’ personal history. He got multiple girls, no?)

I just want to say that there are plenty of atheists who come to atheism NOT because of some traumatic event, but rather because it Just. Makes. Sense.

Would any of you drug-using, overweight, whiny, abnormal, unsporty, boyfriend/girlfriend-repelling, low-GPA-ing, tuba-playing atheists like to back me up on this?

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NOGODZ20

WICK

likewise, there are plenty of Christians who are dorks/nerds/losers/etc.

Someone should remind this guy, the Jesus he follows is described as “no form nor comeliness”-“no beauty that we should desire him”-“despised and rejected of men”, and “as one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53)
Branwen

I always knew I was special. ROFLOL.
Susan

I’m so confused. I graduated from high school with A’s and B’s, and I have a 4.0 GPA in grad school. I play the guitar (not well, but hey), I’ve never used illegal drugs, and I like swimming, snorkeling and ice skating. Nor am I overweight. The whole atheist decision was a series of events which were finally clarified within me a few years ago. However, I have been known to whine.
Kevin

I utterly despise the arguments made by theologians that presuppose we have gone through some traumatic event, which in turn caused us to become atheists. I encountered it on a Youtube reply to, “10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer.”

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5wv1R50dhhQ

Here, she essentially brings into to question whether or not the poster of the original video is an amputee himself. And uses that as a means to hopefully dig deep into the psyche of the original poster bringing him into God’s nonexistent arms. Disgusting.

My girlfriend came across an interesting book earlier this year, it was called “The Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism” by Paul C. Vitz.

The argument it makes is that those who had a neglecting father when they grew up consistently turn out to be atheist. This, he thinks, offers the best explanation for atheism. I find it curious given my experience is the exact opposite. While initially a person with such a childhood may turn away from God, as soon as a (insert member of some faith here) get ahold of them they will sooth that anger away and show them the light.

I guess my point is that, atheism based on some sort of spite or flimsy realization will crumble quickly, especially if they target that part of you.

Anyhow, I have yet to read it fully, mainly because it is such utter drivel, but if you are looking for an interesting blood-boiling read look no further.
Mike Cohen

But I don’t *want* to get laid! I’m celibate by choice.
Joe

Such an inane rant doesn’t even deserve the time to “debunk” it.
Eric

I haven’t used drugs. I’m not overweight. I’m far less whiney [sic] than most of the Christians I know, nor do I think I am “sketchy” (whatever he means by that). I was one of the top scorers on my Ultimate Frisbee team in college, as well as being the MVP of my Cross Country team in high school. I got all A’s and B’s in high school and a 4.0 in college. I played a lot of “dorky” instruments like tuba in high school, but currently play more than 20 different instruments including electric and acoustic guitar. I have been told by female friends that I’m a “chick magnet.”

In fact, I was a pretty big loser until the last year or so of high school… and I was a Christian then. It wasn’t till I stopped being a loser that I started losing my Christianity. Once I was confident and comfortable with myself, then I could start questioning my beliefs.

So I’m pretty much the opposite of what this guy describes, I guess.
mike

Boy, it’s refreshing to no longer have this junior-high-school mentality of who is cool and who is weird. And it’s sad to see grown adults still clinging to it.
Jodie

He’s right. I never got boys in high school, didn’t lose the V-card til college. But, I think that is because I was a born again fundie all though high school with a lot TLW bling. Crazy as this sounds, the few dates I did have were kind of unromantic due to all of the Jesus talk.
DV82XL

I haven’t been in high school for forty years, but even back then the description presented would have closer fit the Christian Fellowship Club members more that it would have any of the lapsed Catholics that made up the bulk of my school’s population.
Ron in Houston

Hey – tubas are cool.
Andrew

As far as I can tell, the people who play all the cool instruments are the same people using all the cool drugs.

Can we turn this around? Can I say that I’ve never met an ex-Catholic who didn’t love anal sex? Can I say that I’ve never met a southern baptist who wasn’t fat? Can I say that I’ve never met a Jew who wasn’t either cheap, obscenely rich and privileged, or whiny?

No, I’m sorry. That would make me an intolerant bigot. My bad.
Jen

I am amused that he doesn’t talk about Christopher Hitchen’s drinking, but rather seems to think he doesn’t have a job. He does have a job- he’s a writer. That’s why we know about him- he writes things, not just about atheism.

Also, I bet the only reason he only met loser atheists is because cool atheists wouldn’t be seen dead with him.

As for me- yes, its true that I am not a sports star. But I did very well in school and I have never used drugs (though I am not exactly against them, either- I tend to think your business is your damn business, mostly).
Joey

I would hardly call this guy’s posting an argument unless you want to put the word fallacious in front of it.
chion

wow… i played tuba TOO!!! Just. Makes. Sense. is all i need. I don’t subscribe to beliefs that don’t make sense, or don’t seem REAL. Simple… right?
Emily

I think when this person says ‘social outcast’ and ‘loser’, they really mean they never were invited to atheist parties because, lemme tell you, the faithless know how to have a good time. Perhaps they’re even jealous of our rockin’ parties. Perhaps one day this lonely kinship they claim to have with us social outcasts will manage to win them a pity invitation…. but after this post? I doubt it. 😉 :p

(Emily is a celibate teenager by choice. She plays guitar, electric bass and viola. Athletically she is a colorguard co-captain and swims regularly and has been known to dabble in ultimate as well. She graduated from high school with a 4.3 GPA in June and is headed to university in just a few weeks. She admits that she spends too much time on the computer but also spends late nights with her friends at bonfires, swimming pools and hardcore drive-by dance parties, all drug-free.)
Lord of Dorks

I shall forever love the Euphonium, coolness or lack thereof notwithstanding.

I suppose that I am something of a loser – but, then again, once a person takes the conceit that all atheists are losers, they’ll start to look for loserly qualities in every atheist they meet. Humans being what we are, it’s not hard to find some little social “flaw” in anyone you’re trying to find one in.
Jennifurret

Hmmm, let’s see…I’ve had straight A’s through high school and two years of college, including many, many honors and AP courses. I was chosen as Outstanding Freshman and Outstanding Sophomore in Biology at Purdue University. I work in a ecological genetics laboratory and will probably have my own paper published by the end of this year. I co-founded the Society of Non-Theists, and am going into my second year of president. I volunteer for the National Organization for Women and Science Olympiad. I was the number one player on my high school golf team all four years, won our sectional competition, and hover around an 8 handicap. I’m also an artist and have won many awards in local art shows (including a statewide award for best newspaper cartoonist). I’ve never used any drugs.

And I came to be an atheist through a long, introspective thought process because religion and God just does not make sense. Loser? Um, yeah, that’s your opinion.
Ngeli

Well, yes, I was the typical uncool nerd in school: overweight, bad at sports, friendless (which didn’t matter that much to me at that time), occasionally unhappy (aren’t we all), book-obsessed, played the piano (not even in school orchestra, just because I liked it), and I participated in various (computer) science competitions (again: just because I wanted to, not because it was some form of class- or school activity). I got good grades though, often without bothering to study at all. But I think it didn’t cause my atheism. What however might be true is that the nerds, who do not care what others think about them have less issues figuring out for themselves whether they believe or not.

It gets worse if you turn the ‘argument’ around, that you need to belong to a certain social group, so to say, to keep your faith. It would show that religion is far more a social concept than an intellectual one.
ungullible

Count me in as another atheist who does not fit the stereotypes in the original question. I consider myself an pretty average guy – except for the Darwin fish on the back of my car, you would not have a clue I was atheist.

I think the question’s author should consider the possibility that his observations are both biased and from a self-selecting sample. It’s pretty obvious that there is some strong negative bias when the best you can do to lump an atheist into your preconceived stereotypes is to point out that they “speak in a bitter angry tone.” That’s so weak, it’s indefensible.

And the sample is self-selecting because people who are willing to speak out publicly for atheism are naturally going to be your more confident/arrogant/flamboyant/different/etc types. It takes somebody willing to go against the public norms to consider atheism, and it seems natural that that tendency to go against norms may show itself in other visible ways (tatoos, drug use, etc). But the quiet atheists like myself who go about our “normal” daily lives (going to work, coaching soccer to your kids, volunteering in the community, etc) will not be included in your sample because you don’t know we are atheists. So your sample is severely skewed.
CJDeak

I think this is a matter of post-factual causality, because it wasn’t that all the atheists were the social outsiders for whatever reason, but that the social outcasts, every school’s “geeks”, usually had the HIGHEST GPA, and probably paid more attention in science class, and actually got their mind working on other things to have even discovered atheism anyway.
Transplanted Lawyer

Well, he has a point. Consider, for instance, atheist Lance Armstrong.

No athletic ability there (just seven victories in the Tour de France). A glance at the man will tell you you need to know about being morbidly obese.

No ability to get girls (like, say, Sheryl Crow).

Quite a social outcast (which is why his endorsement of products is so valuable).

He’s personally quite bitter and unpleasant (explaining how he overcame cancer to return to the world of competitive bicycle racing).

Does he even play a musical instrument?
elf_man

The real argument he’s presenting is that Christianity is natural and produces healthy individuals. But of course, when Christian morality in a general sense defines the norm, anyone who disagrees will find themselves in conflict at some point, thus appearing “not normal”. Strange. Other. Especially when “whiney” is on his list of things that are strange.
Shit, I used to work reception in a welfare office. Whiney is perfectly normal for a large part of the population, I’ve seen bullshit entitlement attitudes from every ethnicity and a lot of religions, natural citizens and immigrants. Seriously, I’ve been called racist by a Russian immigrant who believed we were favoring Hispanic people because we ran out of the English version of a form; they only saw the Spanish form and assumed we weren’t putting in effort for the English speakers, and bitched about it.
Clearly this guy’s just looking for anything to support his “unnatural” theory.
David W.

“Every Atheist I’ve ever known has been some sort of loser. ”

That’s ok, every theist I’ve ever known has been some sort of a loser, too. We’re all just human, after all.
Tyler Nothing

Hrmm… steady girlfriend for five years now, graduated from college with honors in digital systems technology, always hated sports, and I don’t do traditional instruments, I prefer Fruity Loops and Reason.

David W, your comment is great.
lo-rez

Overweight eh?

I could stand to lose 20 pounds but I’m no Jerry Falwell. For that matter, what’s the percentage of overweight adults in the US now? 66%?
Anne

Has this person looked around their own church? I bet you’ll find a few fat friendless tuba players there, too.

And I’d dispute the notion that atheists didn’t get good grades in school. I graduated summa cum laude and I think academic achievement would be the norm.
monkeymind

I’m sure a lot of Atheists out there probably get laid all the time and play a mean guitar.

FWIW, Peter Buck of REM is openly Atheist. I think he plays a pretty mean guitar. But that’s maybe because I’m a nerd.
Secular Planet

Why did I get a sense of déjà vu while reading that? I swear I’ve read that exact same rant somewhere else. Maybe it was just one really similar. Similarly lame.
James Cape

This isn’t an argument. It is a bigoted ad-hominem directed against an entire class of people based on the author’s anecdotal recollections.
miller

This is the classic case of confirmation bias. He wants to think that atheists on average are abnormal in some way or another. And so he sees what he wants to see. When he encounters an atheist, he searches their entire character until he finds a single “abnormal” aspect, and then he forgets about all the normal things. I mean, just look at all the different things that qualify as abnormal to him. He would see the same thing in everybody else too, only he doesn’t want to.
Noadi

Let’s see, I had good grades in highschool, took the most advanced classes, ended up at a magnet school for gifted students. Did okay in college but left because it wasn’t for me, now I’m not making loads of money but I’m doing reasonable well as an artist and I love what I do which is even more important than monetary success. I’m curvy but not outside the normal range for weight and played drums which is probably one of the ‘cooler’ instruments. I think this guy needs to get out more and meet some atheists who don’t match the stereotype he’s built up in his mind.
vjack

I’ll have to get back to you after I finish eating this baby.
Allytude

Consistenly high 4.0 GPA, good looking , very popular, lots of boyfriends, happily married, steady employment, now PhD.
But my god-fearing people…. umm 😀
postsimian

Obviously, this person has no idea what they’re talking about. For example, I was getting ass left and right after I dropped religion from my life. Pardon the crudeness, but Jesus is the ultimate cock blocker.
Alex

Her opinion (it’s not an argument) is rather parochial. In less religious Europe, overtly religious people are in the minority. This is just another case of the most populous group thinking it’s intrinsically better, while retaining a condescending pity for the stigmatised “lovely social outcasts”.
Darryl

Vjack, RFLOL.

I’m impressed with the bios here.

I object to generalizations and stereotypes. Has there ever been a fatherless loser that in his or her anger rejected every social expectation, including religion? Sure. But, as this blog shows, there have been very fortunate, successful, well-adjusted ‘winners’ that were free to choose what they wanted to believe or not, and, for many different reasons, chose not to believe in God.

I doubt the author is serious about his argument; he’s likely just trying to derogate atheists and convince himself that Christians are not losers. Fear is the motivator that I have found often explains the desperate deeds of Christians. But, I should be cautious here lest I generalize or stereotype.
Spook

Childish little ad-hominem nonsense.
Nwsart

People, don’t even bother to counter this argument. It’s faulty logic to the core. It’s a patently ridiculous statement and should just be trounced. No one has to justify ANYTHING to this arrogant loser.

After all, I have NEVER heard of a Christian doing such things as lying, sodomizing children, hoarding child porn, using prostitutes, doing drugs, embezzling church funds, being a closeted homosexual (or not) [Note: for the record, this stance is simply to counter the typical Christian stance. I view homosexuality as completely normal], a closet sodomizer (and lying about it on national news), being a divorcee, or ANYTHING like that, oh noooo. Never.

P.S. RIGHT ON, VJACK! 🙂
Anatoly

One of the biggest and simplest reasons why I went openly atheist is because I saw no difference in my life and the lives of my Christian friends.

The guy needs to get out more.
Mike Haubrich, FCD

I was a tuba player, too! Now I’m thinking of starting a new group in Atheist Nexus – Tuba Playing Atheists!

I was high in my class rankings in high school, played basketball and football (although not very well.) I played trombone, bass and acoustic guitar and had a pretty good social groups of friends. But all that was when I was a Christian. It was only later that I became an atheist loser.

But what’s all this about Christians getting laid more? Aren’t they supposed to be saving themselves?
RHawk68

Let’s see…

In high school I was a varsity football player – started on the offensive line for two years and was a pre-season Texas all-state pick. I won the distict championship in Shotput for our Track & Field Team. I was Spanish Club President, a member of the Drama Club and a team member for the Mock Trial and Academic Challenge Team. I was awarded the “Mr. School Spirit” Award – selected by the teachers, the “Best All-Around Senior Boy” Award – selected by my classmates and the Principal’s “I Dare You” Award. I was selected to attend the National Hispanic Institute’s Lorenzo DeZavala Youth Legislative Session and the American Legion’s Boy’s State. I was a fully-funded attendee at the National Association on Secondary School Principal’s National Leadership Camp at Outlaw Ranch in South Dakota. And I was elected Student Body President.

In college, I was accepted into the Intensive Production Sequence of the University of Texas’ College of Communication Radio-TV-Film Department where I graduated with 6 straight semesters on the Dean’s List.

I’ve worked in television – first at KXAN-36 in Austin and then at KBTV-4 in Beaumont. In 2000, I took a job as a high school teacher and have taught World Geography, World History, US History, Psychology, Communications Applications, Intro to Debate, Advanced Debate, Oral Interpretation, Multimedia Technology, Video Technology and will this year add Teen Leadership to my resume. In 2007 I was named my district’s “Secondary Teacher of the Year”. In my union I have served as local VP and president, a regional VP, a statewide ambassador and have been elected for the past three years running to represent TSTA on the National Education Association’s Resolutions Committee.

I’m a pretty popular guy, if I do say so myself. I am not now, nor have I ever been an outcast or a loser. And I am an atheist. Hmmm…
Aj

News just in, Christian moron has a blog, writes moronic posts. Some of it is comedy gold: atheists don’t play cool instruments or get girls and those people don’t take drugs, atheists don’t get good grades but they keep over representing at higher education levels.

This person bizarrely thinks Dawkins’s tone is bitter and angry, may not realise that Richard is British thus has a pretty standard British accent and manner. Also, there’s nothing wrong or unusual about divorcing twice in a lifetime.

They’re right about one thing though, being an occasional columnist isn’t a real job. Yet anyone who sees a problem with not working much while earning quite a bit, has demonstrated a kind of stupidity not easily equalled.
Seth C.

Wow, I’m quite surprised at the amount of Christians who have their head up their ass…(actually, I’m not but I’d like to think they would eventually rid of their biases…)

*Shudders*
cognitive dissident

Sorry, but I have to call Poe’s Law on this idiocy; if serious, this anti-atheist rant is fractally wrong.

And I’d love to “not really have a job” like Christopher Hitchens…except for the prodigious Scotch intake, anyway…
writerdd

Frankly, those sound like the types of people who become born-again Christians to me.
Michael

Of course, we can all agree that not all atheists are like this…

But at the same time, I have seen atheist student groups and D&D student groups with very similar membership…
Winston

I played tuba in high school too! I was all-state! And like a lot of people here, I also did extremely well academically, had a bunch of friends, went to a great college and have an awesome job – but tuba playing is NOT nerdy.
Or maybe it’s just that all atheist tuba players are, you know, brilliant and extremely good-looking 🙂
Sarah

The worst part of that quote, in my mind, is how it others any person who is overweight, has used drugs, etc. etc. We’re not normal, despite the fact that statistically, overweight Americans and drug users are in the majority.

The description of atheists is meant to be offensive, but I’m not offended at all – just puzzled at the dismissive tone.
Darryl

They’re right about one thing though, being an occasional columnist isn’t a real job. Yet anyone who sees a problem with not working much while earning quite a bit, has demonstrated a kind of stupidity not easily equalled.

SWEET! (or, as Hitch might say, “has acheived a measure of stupidity not to be rivaled.”)
sean

I hope someday to find this shit, run him over a bit in my Porche, get out of the car and assault him repeatedly with my skateboard, pausing only long enough to share some of raunchy stories spent wasting my youth drinking and fornicating on Bondi Beach. What a sanctimonious prick.
Darwin’s Dagger

Just another example of the massive insecurity Christians have always felt about their faith. For 2000 years that insecurity fueled antisemitism, as they tried to deal with the contradiction that they were worshiping as the Jewish Messiah a man whom the Jews had rejected. They can’t deal with the reality that some people choose a belief structure that denies their massively irrational and unsupportable delusions and the only way to justify such people is to assume that they are somehow substandard. Of course this is not true of all Christians and many atheists are equally eager to assume that all believers are losers or in other ways deficient.
ollie

Well, this person nailed me. I am a pathetic loser. But so what: my being a loser doesn’t make theism make sense. 🙂

Ok, I am not overweight now but I was as recently as 1993. Getting a PhD in mathematics does firmly put one in the nerd category. I share an undergraduate Alma mater with John McCain though I did a bit better academically that he did. 🙂

And no professional women’s beach volleyball player ever asked me to pat her backside (as Misty May just did with President Bush).

Athletically, I was never offered a shoe contract; every time I finished a marathon (or longer) the winner had long since finished an departed.
hoverFrog

It’s a little “a”. Gah! He can’t even get that right.
Epistaxis

I’m glad I’m not an Atheist, just an atheist.
micketymoc

I owe to atheism all that I am today: I’m well-known, intelligent, attractive, successful.

Most of all, I’m humble.
Siamang

Yeah, I stopped worrying about who thinks I’m cool about 20 years ago.

I vaguely recall that being important to children and very young adults.
Indigo

At one point or another, I have heard all of the following denounced as “losers”, or at least, a little bit off: people who work in office jobs, people who work in non-conventional jobs, people who have *no* jobs, people who drink until they pass out, people who don’t drink until they pass out, people who don’t drink at all (similarly, people who get high or don’t), people who have unconventional sex, people who have vanilla sex, people who have gay sex, people who don’t like sex, people who play videogames, people who are obsessed with sports and/or a particular sports team, people who maintain very tidy houses, people who are slobs…
And so on, and so forth. Not to mention that some people think atheists are losers just by virtue of being atheists.
As such, you can point to *anything* about a particular individual and claim it makes them pathetic and so obviously they resort to [whatever you’re criticising about them]. It remains completely irrelevant to how tenable their position is.
stephanie

Ha ha ha! I’m a little surprised you gave this kid so many pixels for his trolling. But if I can recall back that far, I did score goals (in soccer, although bicycling was my sport) and went to both proms.
To be fair though, I could imagine if the author was in parochial school the only exposure s/he would have to an agnostic/atheistic viewpoint would be either from the more creative thinkers or the teens who are acting out. That might fit with their description.
Miko

Victor Stenger is pathologically obsessed with his grandchildren.

Wait… atheists have strong family ties? Wow, that’s creepy. It’s a good thing Christians are there to show us the way of misanthropy. 😉
Cade

Whatever the case, I’ve never known an Atheist I could exactly qualify as “normal.”

Who the hell wants to be normal? Besides, if you look closely enough at anyone, you’ll be able to find something weird about them. It’s easy to unconsciously link them together if you know who the atheists are already.
Saint Gasoline

I love it when people ask what the point is of theological debate, or inquiry in general. There’s a rather famous quote that serves as a more than adequate rejoinder to such people, originally said by Rutherford:

“What use is a newborn baby, m’aam?”

Indeed.

Also, I don’t use drugs and I’m in great shape. I don’t get laid constantly, it is true, but this is because I generally seek women who are both attractive and atheist, and it’s damn hard to find such people. If only I were attracted to Christians who happen to be idiots, the world would be my oyster!
Agersomnia

Here is an atheist, raised Catholic.

Top 3 in class at elementary and high school, high performance scholarship the last 7 years of education prior to entering into Grad school.

I have a beautiful girlfriend, tons of female friends. I love travel, walking, mountain-trekking, know how the basics of playing music with a flute, find my way in a map, I talk and write in two languages, do haikus and short stories in one of them. I have had under my command 20+ people at a job.
I am kind of geek/nerd (whatever you use for someone who does have social skills – it’s a known fact depending where are you from one of these has a non-pejorative sense), but after all: there is the saying that a geek is the one you pick at school and end up working for.
Todd M

That quoted text is some of the most ridiculous stuff I have ever read. On the author’s behalf, though, they do say that it is based upon their experiences. Unfortunately, though, many of our experiences are self-fulfilling prophecies; we see and hear what we want to see and hear.
Fabulously in the City

I have run 3 marathons.
I play 5 instruments.
I weigh 160.
I have never done drugs.
I have a 3.6 GPA and I’m going to grad school.
I’m single by choice (see above “going to”)
I have 574 known friends on Facebook.
By no means am I bragging on any of those, but I’m just saying the dude isn’t right on a single one…
Zen

I don’t do drugs, I’m nowhere near overweight, I whine as much as any other person, I’m not terribly abnormal, I play sports, I’ve had two boyfriends, I’m in the top three percent of my class, and although I don’t play the tuba, I’ve played the piano since I was five. >D

The whole text was completely ridiculous.
Vincent

Never used drugs. Played trombone instead of guitar. Ivy league grad, have 3 degrees, was a varsity fencer in college, and now am a lawyer.
Wife (1st and only, 11 years running) went ivy league and MIT and is an engineer.
We’re both atheists. Most of our friends are agnostic or atheist and in happy families.

Oh, both of our extended families are Catholics. Go figure.
rae

so the only traumatic thing that happened in my life was attending church multiple times a week every year until i left for college.

somehow, i don’t see this guy making the concession that my experience is to be considered traumatic.

also, does the piano count as a cool instrument or not?
Steven

Am I the only one who is deeply disturbed by the inordinate number of tuba players commenting on this site? Clearly the tuba is an instrument of the devil as it fosters atheism to an unheard-of degree. 🙂
Congratulations to those commentors who are “celibate by choice”. I could never get the hang of that (oh, I’ve been celibate plenty of times, just never by choice).
Thankfully, like most human beings I don’t fit into any stereotypes atheist or otherwise. I was (sigh) an athlete once upon a time but my sport was fencing which may not be 100% cool.
I did end up as a dad and my daughter’s mom was a model at one time.
I have a job too, but I’ll never be rich.
Aside from my atheism I’m really not that different from any Christian I’ve ever met – since here in Canada we tend to have more of the “religion lite” folks and not a lot of fundamentalists.
Mr. Vorhias

I don’t think this guy’s in any position to say that atheists are uncool when he’s in the same camp that gave us (UGH…) Christian Rock.
EKM

A lot of Christians are either unable or unwilling to grasp the concept that there are people who have looked at Christianity and rejected it as false. Christians want or need to think that people become atheists due to some problems.

Which is incredibly ironic. Jesus spent time with social outcasts, and now it is the Christians in the USA who do the condemning and rejecting.
Brayton Cameron

Man, I hate to be the asshole here, but I’m overweight and play the accordion in a German Minimalist Art Rock band.
Karla

I think I’m a normal girl. I’m attractive. Never had a problem with the guys. I made decent grades in HS and college. (However, I did play percussion in HS band.) I didn’t have any traumatic events happen in my life… I just really like science and logic. I would post a picture of my non-nerdy/freakish self for all to see, but I’m still a closet atheist. 🙂
Robin

An acquaintance in college told me once that I was not normal. I countered her saying that, in fact, normal is just a range of human behaviour and that my bahaviour falls well within the middle band. I just make a point of accepting all of the traits that make up me AS normal. She thought about that for a while, and then she loosened up and stopped worrying so much about what other people thought.
As for the rant that started all this, I don’t know about the male experience, but when a woman wants to get laid, all she has to do is say yes, atheist or otherwise.
Siamang

I notice that “One Christian”, who wrote this post, seems to have stopped approving posts. My response to him has been sitting awaiting moderation for two days.

Here’s what I wrote:

Some people have composed thoughtful responses to your unthoughtful post. You have ignored their thoughtful points and calls for elevating the discussion, dswerling, and responded only with snark.

This was after his smug response to all the reactions:

Fascinating

It seems that the best way to get a response from people is to insult them. The same way writing a book called “The God Delusion” will result in tremendous notoriety and popularity for its offensive message, writing a blog entry about how all atheists are losers also yields massive response. I had never realized what a brilliant bussinessman Richard Dawkins must be.

He’s not interested in dialog. Just another troll.
Metro

Why waste thread time on this dink?

But since you asked …

Most of the Christians I met in the Forces were ex-drunks, often divorced, usually deep in debt, many with deep and painful problems in their past. None of them had any musical ability that I noticed.

But they weren’t strong enough to fix their own $#17 without propping themselves up with a good dose of god.

By this poltroon’s logic, I should assume Christians are weak and unable to face the world as it is, alone. They need to lean on the great sky fairy for help.

Which point of view has actual evidence on its side?