Atheists Never…

Atheists never…

Give an imaginary being credit for everything good in my life.

I have to vent a little and I can’t do it on Facebook since she is on my friends list.

I recently met up with a very Christian friend the other day. I thought she genuinely wanted to see me since she lives out of the country for the time being. She wanted to talk to me about god and how she would be nothing if it wasn’t for god. About how “god is the wind beneath [her] wings.” How she is weak and worthless without her faith. How she views the bible as a history book and how she feels the love of god through it.

She gives herself zero credit of what she has accomplished. She gives all of the credit to god. She feels that he is guiding her life. She feels that she is not making the decisions, god is.

It made me sad to think that she views herself that way although if that is what she was told her entire life, it has to be difficult to think any other way.

I knew this might happen, but I felt very disappointed when it actually did. I did not appreciate the talking to.

She gives herself zero credit of what she has accomplished. She gives all of the credit to god. She feels that he is guiding her life. She feels that she is not making the decisions, god is.

And if only you adopt her beliefs, you too can have zero self esteem, but much more importantly, zero adult responsibility and zero doubt that you’re doing the right thing, even as you pull some asinine, self-centered, myopic, poorly thought out, bone-headed blunder that really hurts other people. All human beings make mistakes once in a while, but the really lethal ones are often because they were soooooo confident that The Great Absentee was the one really pulling all the strings.

What does she say when she really screws up? It was the devil? Or she suddenly was able to usurp the robotic control of the X-box Player in the Sky, and so the only time she does something by her own will is when something fails?

Decisions are the culmination of thoughts. Does she even think her own thoughts, or is she just an action figure being played with by El Insubstantio?

Facebooked. This needs to be spread.

I was going to post this on Reddit, but i’m on this site now so i’ll post it here.
Remember when the talking heads on fox said “All Muslims aren’t terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims”. Well, I was thinking about starting a bumper sticker campaign along those lines.
“All religious people aren’t bigots, but all bigots are religious”.
“All xians aren’t creationists, but all creationists are xian”
(keep it going)……….

And if only you adopt her beliefs, you too can have zero self esteem, but much more importantly, zero adult responsibility and zero doubt that you’re doing the right thing, even as you pull some asinine, self-centered, myopic, poorly thought out, bone-headed blunder that really hurts other people. All human beings make mistakes once in a while, but the really lethal ones are often because they were soooooo confident that The Great Absentee was the one really pulling all the strings.

What does she say when she really screws up? It was the devil? Or she suddenly was able to usurp the robotic control of the X-box Player in the Sky, and so the only time she does something by her own will is when something fails?

Decisions are the culmination of thoughts. Does she even think her own thoughts, or is she just an action figure being played with by El Insubstantio?

Thanks for responding, Richard! I was actually thinking about emailing you an “Ask Richard” because this has concerned me and bothered me.

The weird thing is, is that she is a confident person because of her faith in god. However, strip that away and she becomes a shell of herself. If something goes awry, she would say that is it is will of god. She made a comment on Facebook saying that “she is not one to predict the Man upstairs” regarding her future. Oddly enough, what the “Man upstairs” is guiding her to do is what she wants to do.

It reminds me of the Susan B. Anthony quote “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

I still cannot believe she used our get together for her to preach to me. She even said “I hope I am not being too pushy” so she knew exactly what she wanted to do before we even met that day.

I emailed her when I got home that day. I would share it here, but it is kind of long. I am thinking about writing a continuation of the first one, but I might wait till she responds.

I have learned that if people are around hardcore Christians that think the Bible is a history book since they were impressionable children, there is no changing that mindset for most people.

I’m so going to use “The Great Absentee” from now on.

The site has some broken links but is still quite good. It could do with better layout and a better way to submit stories but it is direct and to the point which is what you want with such sites.

*promptly steals the phrase “The Great Absentee” and scampers off under the couch*

I got plans for this…

Atheists never:

– form a ‘Christian’ militia and plan to kill police officers (Hutaree militia).

– murder a doctor who performed abortions and then claim innocence by way of religious duty (Scott Roeder).

– blame widespread flooding and devastation in the wake of a tsunami on the resident’s failure to embrace Christianity.

– blame a major terrorist attack on the non-religious, pagans, and gays (Falwell & Robertson, post-9/11).

– refuse to honor a Wiccan soldier with the appropriate symbol of his faith on his gravestone.

The Great Absentee… I like that… will use.

Bob, I hate that. It’s as bad as any other woo. Another way it’s often phrased is if you want something bad enough, you will get it. Uh, no. Usually what you want, especially things like success and fame, take a certain degree of both skill and luck. You can work on both but doing so is still not a guarantee of either being able to master the skill or create the lucky breaks.

I can see the points but, overall, I really don’t like this campaign. It implies that Atheists don’t have shortcomings (of course, we do) or that there are not those among us every freaking bit as bad. Uh, yes, there are. I have known some vile unbelievers in my time. They mostly wouldn’t hang around on this site but they’re certainly out there. Believe it or not, some are capable of criminal activity and domestic violence and probably even terrorism. It’s not done in the name of disbelief but not believing doesn’t guarantee a strong moral character.

We tend to forget that because mostly we talk to other nonbelievers who got there through deep introspection and tend to be thinkers and have thought through whether or not our actions are moral. Those who just brush off god as bah humbug, what a bunch of baloney, without much thought aren’t such deep thinkers and, believers, who are deep thinkers will usually also think twice before pulling off some of the things.

Of course, just like drugs, religion does feed the crazy.

Atheists never…

use “va-j-j-” instead of vagina, when they actually mean to talk about a vulva.

Or wait, they do!

Am I the only one who finds this to be very sloppy reasoning? A link to a horrible crime perpetuated by a religious person does not constitute proof that no atheist has done or ever would do such a thing. There are a number of things on this list which it is quite conceivable that an atheist could do, though not for any religious motivation.

I think I’ll defriend everyone who thinks UFO only means aliens. LOL

@Sarah:

She even said “I hope I am not being too pushy”

This is the point where I would cut her off and say “unfortunately, you are.”

@Robert W.:

So do you really think there has never been an atheist pedophile?Or an atheist that has never murdered their child? Or an atheist has never murdered people to pursue his political agenda to control a country?

I crown you King of the Strawmen.

I decided to go through the list until I hit a blatantly false statement–as Robert W. notes, about ten or fifteen posts in, there was an “Atheists never molest young children and then claim it was an anatomy lesson,” or something to that effect.

Sorry, but yes, there are atheist pedophiles, and their actions are just as heinous as theistic pedophiles. The biggest difference stems when the theist is also part of a powerful heirarchy that covers up the crime, not the commission of the misdeed itself.

If you’re going to try to claim the moral high ground with an exercise like this, then you MUST stick to the ethical high ground, as well–primarily by valuing honesty above all else. Stick to the absolutely true claims, rather than invent false ones.

Jeff P

Atheists never justify good (or bad) behavior by saying God wanted them to do it.

Exactly.

We don’t use that excuse.

I shared this on my facebook page and this is what my cousin said to me. I just did not know what to say back. WOW!!!!

“Discriminated against…. How about the biggest bunch of whiners there ever was. I could care less about what anyone believes or doesn’t believe, but don’t tell me your discriminated against because someone else wants a moment of silence so… they can pray. Yes there have been some awful things done in the name of religion over the history of man, and Ive seen some of it first hand,hence the arson I don’t believe in organized religion, but don’t give me that discriminated crap. The best thing about a free country is your free to leave as well, and that goes for all you whinen ass bitches, blacks, whites, Muslims, Christians, budists, and anyone else i may have left out. For everyone that thinks oh poor pitiful me I am so discriminated against, pick another country to live in, and see how much better it is, cause I’ve been there and done that, and you can keep it. Quit being a pussy, and this post goes double for all of the pussy ass Hollywood movie stars that think the United States is so bad, get the fuck out!”

Atheists are capable of anything as shitty as theists can do, we’re just less inclined to do it for no apprent gain.

Atheists never justify good (or bad) behavior by saying God wanted them to do it.

I never understood that line of thinking.

Bad thing happens = god is testing me, making me into a stronger person.

Good thing happens = god is guiding me and is wonderful.