Word.
For what it's worth, Neil Degrasse Tysons sentiments mirror my own in regards to religion. Although me labeling myself agnostic is a sort of cop out, fact of the matter is I don't particularly care for arguing till I'm blue in the face over semantics. And lets keep it 100, people do perceive you a certain way if you are on either side. The apprehensiveness just makes people more prone to lowering the discourse.
As far as religion threads go on gaf, I don't bother with them. Shit's an exercise in futility.
that's cool. There's no requirement to participate in every religious discussion or whatever (I find them personally interesting for the reasons I mentioned previously, but it's not for everyone) The issue I had with Tyson's sentiments is that he:
1) says he rejects labels -> labels himself an agnostic (even though this label doesn't actually accurately describe his stance on the question, as you kind of admitted above)
2) says he doesn't want to be associated with negative atheist stereotypes -> perpetuates negative atheist stereotypes
I posted in the other thread, but here's an interesting video where NDT basically makes the same point I've been making:
A Story of Race. It's interesting to see how he realizes that he can fight against negative stereotypes in one area, yet he perpetuates negative stereotypes when it comes to another.
onemic said:
Those are terrorists.
When I say evangelical religious nutbags, I mean those dudes that stop you in the street and ask you to pray to god or else you're going to hell. Or maybe that friend you have that keeps pushing you to go to church with them to eventually convert and when you say no they give you bullshit thinly veiled insults. Or they tell you you're stupid for not believing in God. The shit I see in GAF by many atheists in religious threads or things even hinting at God come across exactly the same. Thinly veiled personal insults(sometimes not thinly veiled at all), where if you don't take the atheist ideology as truth you are a dumbass who can't use reason.
I would agree that reason isn't being used by theists on that specific topic (they may very well use reason in other areas though). Of course, I don't think Republicans use reason for lots of their views either. Or faith healers, or millions of other things where I think I'm correct, and someone else is incorrect, *shrug* I'm curious if that would be considered "thinly veiled personal insults", or just the standard "I think my position is correct, and here's why" approach that come up in any other discussion.
And of course, relatively mild criticism is often elevated to "insulting" simply because of the social stigma against criticizing religious beliefs.
It's kind of similar to how some perceive black men as "angry", simply because we may not be smiling. When all it means is...we're not currently smiling. Nothing more. Atheists can be perceived as "angry" or "insulting" in a discussion, when they simply treat a religious claim the same way they treat any other claim about the world.
All that said, I don't dispute that there are snarky non-believers who probably say stupid shit like "lolz religious people are 100% dumb". But what effect on the world do they really have, and why should I pretend that's somehow equivalent to the very real effects mentioned in the article I posted?
There's plenty of black folks who say all sorts of stupid shit that I disagree with, but that doesn't somehow mean I need to suddenly start pretending that "black folks saying stupid shit sometimes sure does remind me of that institutional white privilege they claim to hate!"
It's tiring and insulting, to try and force people to see shit your way when they just have a different perspective of life than you.
discussing on a message board is "forcing people to see shit your way"? Also, describing theism as a "different perspective of life" seems like calling invisible spirits "a different perspective of life". Religious beliefs almost always make claims about the world we all live in, not just a subjective belief. I'm not sure why they get to be off the hook in a mutual discussion by saying "that's just my perspective". It's not a subjective, personal taste discussion.
I consider myself agnostic at best, but it generally leaves a bad taste in my mouth when anyone tries to force their ideologies down peoples throats, religious or not. It's pretty much why I stay away from religious threads in general. If they're not hurting anyone just let people live their life.
Again with the "Force their ideologies down people's throats", lol. We're on a voluntary message board with numerous posts for people to click on, and ignore buttons to use. Again, it seems like you're elevating religious criticism waaaay above what it actually is.
It is actually kind of fascinating how people can deal with snark and smugness in every other topic on GAF, but not with religion. Not saying that snarkiness is always the best way to go about a discussion, but in the grand scheme of things, it seems relatively harmless (again, in comparison to the very real things mentioned in that article I posted)
Of course criticisms on the systematic/structure of religion is fair game, but I find that many times on GAF it's usually goes beyond that into the personal realm, especially so once a thread starts going into the 3+pg range.
Sure. I'm just not sure why that warrants a "stfu atheist-gaf" (shout out to DY-Nasty who got me all crunk now! lol) as opposed to a response to the posters in whatever individual thread someone's reading. Or clicking a different thread. Or doing pretty much any other thing besides telling a diverse group of people to stfu. *shrug*
That said, it's bedtime for me. I'm all atheisted out. Thanks for the discussion, and back to lurking this thread, haha.