this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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A lotta internet atheists seem to care more about hating the specific flavor of Christianity they grew up under and didn't like than the concept of religion in general, but they view those two things as one and the same.
They cry foul at (admittedly, abhorrent) outlier behavior and use that as a generalization against a globe of different religious practices without knowing how they affect the day to day lives of various practitioners.
It seems to me they have a larger problem with vulgar hypocrisy and abuse of institutional power than the concept of theism in general.
Like the people hypothetically sentenced to work a restaurant service job so that they're more empathetic to wait staff, I think many internet atheists would do well with a stint as a half-practicing Protestant who's mostly in it for the potlucks or a Reform Jew who prefers to party most Fridays, but makes a point of showing up on High Holidays to catch up with acquaintances.
Militant Evangelical Atheists are the worst. Give me a good laid back agnostic any day.
I'm really into theological debate/discussion but I gotta admit, I cannot stand atheist communities online. I want to believe all the vitriol and seething is coming from kids who haven't processed their religious trauma... But I get the feeling at least half of it is adults with nothing better to rail against
"one AND the same"
Victim shaming much?
My favorite are the ones that treat science like religion, and don't recognize the hypocrisy.
The phrase "treat science like religion" may be applicable to a few atheists but it's also often exaggerated to discredit science's position of authority.
There a lot of people who aren't scientifically minded that treat scientific knowledge just like scripture. It comes from wize people and they just trust and accept it unquestioningly.
Those who practise science know that all knowledge is to be questioned, and everything needs evidence. They also know that everything we "know" is most likely wrong. It's just the best explanation we have so far and that's a good thing.
I don't think it's treating science as a religion, as it is treating their atheism as a religion.
Science is not something you can believe in, it's reality with evidence. It's a method of finding evidence to explain reality, and when new evidence is found, the explanation, or understanding, is changed, not the reality. The scientific method has been developed, and changed, to try really hard to remove inherent bias. For reference, pick ANY science that you feel attracted to and dive in. Start in at the beginning, or middle, or with the most recent developments. The more evidence you evaluate for bias and truth, the more connections you make trying to grok it all, the more you'll appreciate our best attempts to eak out fundamental truths that exist with or without your beliefs. I love science not because I believe in it, I love it because it reveals truth despite me. My favorite part now is that we are discovering that there are truths we can never know because of the physical limitations of our meat brains, so we're building machine brains to explain it to us. Evidence showed that the universe was probably 13.8 billion years old, now James Webb is showing evidence that contradicts that. Square roots of negative numbers, imaginary numbers, in the 1500's were thought to be useless, now we understand them enough to make cell phones communicate. You can't BELIEVE in science, you can only use that CURRENT method to try and understand and then harness reality. Who knows, maybe one day science will discover the gods or god, or help us create them.
I see I found one of those people.
Take my upvote. It's not much, but it'll keep you warm.
I see you've missed the point