When Someone Praises God on Facebook…

speaking as an atheist and an american, since when can’t someone who proclaims a faith express it? its got to be a two way street.

As a user of r/atheism. I find it funny, but I don’t think it was serious. 

Considering the usage of “brave” and that the atheist’s name was Nick Beard (neckbeard), I’d guess this is more of a dig on /r/atheism than a serious piece.

I have to admit the God comments do make me angry, but I only respond if they are posted on my wall.  When 15-year-old was in an accident last year, I sat in the Trauma ICU alone, while my Christian friends posted they were praying for me. He’s almost completely healed now, but when one of them tries to praise God for that on MY wall, I counter and I believe I am justified in doing so.  With that said, I would never go to someone else’s wall and do something like that.  It gives non-believers a bad name, even if it is true.

My thoughts exactly. This is one of the biggest criticisms against r/atheism. The constant stream of (probably fake) knee jerk facebook screen caps that nobody gives a shit about. I’ve had my share of facebook arguments, but I don’t post them on other websites for people to mock, especially without giving a chance for the other person to respond. I wouldn’t treat friends like that, even if they are just facebook friends.

Some days I’m glad that I just don’t get Reddit. I feel like I’m missing out on absolutely nothing of value.

Should have been more smart assed IMO. Like “Yes, I see that the praying to Allah and snake charming has paid off”. Something to make the previous poster realize how ignorant they came-off.

The ONLY commandment of atheism:  Don’t be an asshole.

I have a buddy who I went to college with post a this verse  Joshua 24:15 (NIV), “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Now I hate the book of Joshua. It’s a genocidal, fascist tome. Instead of ranting about the evils of the Old Testament this is what I wrote: Here’s my favorite verse from Joshua:  And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. – Joshua 6:21

And somehow we are still friends.

but 
http://www.reddit.com/r/shittyaskscience/ is occasionally hilarious.

It’s laughably illogical to assume that God changes his mind based on some unknown number of prayers, except when he doesn’t because he’s mysterious.

But that’s not a battle I’m willing to spend my energy on.  Usually.  I’d much rather not be a dick to my religious friends who want to think they were singled out for special treatment, and spend my energy advocating a rational basis to all forms of  government.

So funny the timing on this! I just wrote a post talking about the torrent of facebook prayer requests I see: http://southernhumanist.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/the-facebook-prayer-request-conundrum/ but I landed in a very different place. While it might feel good to be a jackass, being compassionate and offering genuine support is the right thing to do.

I’m dealing with these kinds of posts a lot lately, with my cousin undrgoing surgery, chemo and radiation for a brain tumor (anaplastic astrocytoma grade III). His wife is very goddy and actually gives everyone “marching orders” on exactly what they should be praying for this week.

She is also an RN and an EMT, luckily, so we can engage on the scientific side without me having to get dragged through the whole god thing.  And there is no way I’m going to tell a woman with two kids, a third due next month , and a husband with siezures and a brain tumor that what she believes is all effed up.  She’s got enough to deal with.

I’ll support that, Hemant.

I dont know. I get so fed up sometimes with religious status updates there has been an incident or two where I couldnt help myself.

Case in point, one time a girl I know casually decided to post a status with a dialogue about how we all shouldnt complain about when bad things happen to us, like our sandwich is made wrong, or our car broke down, etc, because God always has a “special plan” for everything and everyone.

Faced by the sheer stupidity of this, I decided to be “be a dick” and point out that millions of children die every year under the age of 5, that malaria and HIV and natural disasters kill millions every year, and that this “plan” of Gods is rife with suffering and murder and annihilation – thus being a pretty crappy plan.  Call me a dick if you like, but sometimes I simply cant tolerate bad ideas even if they are posted on someone elses wall – bad ideas need to be challenged if we hope to get rid of them.

 Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. Nope, you’re not a dick for doing that, but my attitude and approach is different. I’ve somewhat mellowed, I guess.
At this point in my life I honestly don’t give a shit what anybody believes as long as they leave me the fuck alone.
That’s really all I ask.
Keep the silly shit out of my bedroom, public schools and government. If they can do that, I’m good with whatever else they do or believe. Fuck ’em, I’m under no obligation to “enlighten” them.
It’s the interference with my life that gets my hackles up.
We aren’t going to change the world, but we CAN influence little ones to think rationally starting at an early age.
I just don’t see idiocy as worth getting upset over until it infringes directly on constitutionally protected rights.

There are better ways to phrase these things, but I don’t think your approach qualifies as such. At least in my experience, such subtle comments are often so mild that they slip beneath the radar of many intended recipients and are not seen as counter-statements to the “praise statement.” There is, I believe, a way to respond more directly without using the tone indicated in this humorous video.

More importantly, however, I could barely disagree more with your comparison of this to Christians saying “dickish” things about gays. As a skeptic and an atheist, I consider the veracity of a claim to be of great importance. As far as any evidence indicates, the work of highly trained doctors and human ingenuity has contributed a great deal to many cases of remission. There is not any evidence that any deity has had a role in such remissions. The theist has already been “dickish” by denying the brilliant work of many individuals and encouraging the helplessness that reliance upon a deity promotes. This attitude is detrimental to society and must be countered.

To further address your analogy, let’s take a look at the scenario to which you referred. In this situation, the Christian  is generally making assertions about a class of people, without evidence to back up this assertion. Furthermore, these comments construct and maintain harmful attitudes which are detrimental to society and to many individuals. It is my sincere hope that atheists, humanists, and free-thinkers would not remain silent and allow such hate mongers to go unaddressed.

In short, the analogy, when properly constructed, does more to further the notion that atheists have a moral responsibility to speak out against ignorance, bigotry, and hatred when we encounter them. Granted, there may be a better way to go about it, but the idea that speaking out against harmful superstition is comparable to gay-bashing is utterly repugnant.

Unless I missed the part of the video where the atheist hacked into Facebook’s servers and deleted the theists post, it *was* a two-way street…

Atheism has no commandments.
Obviously you meant this as a joke, but I think “Don’t be an asshole” aligns more closely with some type of humanistic tenet.

I hope you know that the video was a satire making fun of people who post on reddit their facebook comments “supposing” they are beating up religious people

Meh. “Tone trolling” has suffered so much inflation by now that it’s lost all original meaning. Now there are trolls at the other end of the spectrum, who have high-jacked the concept of “tone trolling” to justify any kind of assholery.

Original Tone-Troll: One who foregoes engaging argumentatively with the point being made in favour of complaining about the tone or language in which it was made.

Amended Tone-Troll: Anyone who points out someone’s being an asshole regardless of whether or not they also engage argumentatively with the points being made by said asshole.

Abuse Troll: One who foregoes engaging argumentatively with the point being made in favour of personal insults, ad hominems, and abuse, and whose inability to distinguish between the Original and the Amended Tone-Troll leads them to dismiss all valid criticism of their content-less assholery as “tone-trolling.”

Fancy seeing you here bro…

Perhaps one could say something like this.  “Wow so glad to hear you are on the mend, I bet you are so thankful to have had such a great medical team on your side.”

That would get the message across I think.