I was banned because I said that a meme wasn’t Atheist but plain Islamophobia. No explanation given.
This is such a huge problem in atheism communities, which is why I don’t spend any time in them despite being secular and non religious myself (yeah, I honestly don’t even like using the term “atheist” anymore). Religious or not, you shouldn’t be telling people what to believe or how to believe. That goes for hardline Christian nationalists just as much as it goes for hardline Atheists attacking anyone of faith. If it’s not hurting anyone, let people believe what they believe.
Thanks, Sam Harris.
I read “The Moral Landscape”. 90% of it is pretty good, but he’ll randomly drop “and that’s why we need to be worried about Islamic takeover of western Europe” into something completely unrelated. He spends a lot more time complaining about Islamic fundamentalist than he does the Christian fundamentalist who actually have political power in the US (and to a lesser degree, western Europe). Then you get to a chapter that’s all about religious influence on society, but it’s all about relatively relaxed Christians who have Ph.Ds in some field and show up at scientific conferences.
You might expect a word somewhere about the fundamentalist Christians who control roughly half of Congress, but no. It’s all Muslims and Christians who make it a more personal thing.
Wow, that is pretty ridiculous
The constant angry circlejerk abounds. Deadass I got way more atheist mileage out of the DankChristianMemes sub than any atheist sub on the old place.
Some fuckers are too euphoric to have fun it seems.
I agree with this sentiment, but Christianity is partly defined by “spreading the word of god”. So “telling people what to believe” is par for the course (think missionaries).
Curious though, why do you not refer to yourself as atheist? Non-religious is actually not very specific. Non-religious can mean Agnostic Theist, Agnostic Atheist, or Atheist.
Really I prefer the word secular for myself, and for me that means I am comfortable within my own ignorance. Scientifically, we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a god/gods, afterlife, etc. They are unfalsifiable, and therefore inproveable either way. So I just say I am comfortable not knowing. I neither assert the existence of god or the nonexistence of god, because I have no way to know either is true. That, and as I stated previously I just don’t like some of the connotations aetheism has gotten. Long ago I used to be a very loud, annoying, self-proclaimed atheist. But eventually I realized that just as there is no way to prove theism, there is no way to prove atheism. That, and I recognized that in my efforts to “spread” atheism and debunk religion I’d basically become what I was originally trying to “fight against,” essentially. Now I should be clear that I very much do still massively criticize those who try to exercise their religion onto others. I’m trans so I’m very used to it at this point. But I know plenty of religious people from all kinds of different religious backgrounds who practice in a way that is accepting of all people and does not impact those who do not share their faith, and I really see no problem with that.
From your description, it sounds like you are an Agnostic Atheist. It takes some faith to be an Atheist. Personally, I agree with your points, so I’d be more of an Agnostic Atheist too; but I am somewhat convinced that science has decent evidence which disproves the old and new testament god. I believe our scientific understanding of our universe suggests god would not give a shit whether it was worshipped and it would not be some moral judge. It’s consciousness (if we can even call it that) would be so far beyond what humans could comprehend that our puny human morales and ethical dilemmas would be irrelevant to it. Nevertheless, I still think human morales and ethics are important, because us Agnostic Atheists don’t need the fear of divine retribution to do the right thing.
Thank you for sharing your beliefs in such detail. I appreciate it. Sorry to hear about your experience with those forcing their religion on you due to being transgendered. I am cisgendered, but I like to consider myself an ally. I have a lgbtq+ flag flying in my classroom (I’m a teacher) and I already had to give a student a stern talk for telling me that “god loves you” after looking at my flag
First off, thank you for having that flag in the classroom. It does more than you know for showing people that they can be accepted.
As for religion, I suppose my point and the biggest question really goes back to the big bang. Science can explain or at the very least approximate just about everything with the exception of the Big Bang. i.e., why does something exist instead of nothing? And I’ve heard the perspective — even from people who follow Abrahamic religions — that the only time God interfered was with the Big Bang, and that this was the actual “let there be light” moment. And that since then, we’ve been left to our own devices. What I find intriguing is that this interpretation does not really contradict anything in science. Personally, I see a striking symmetry between the Big Bang singularity (nigh instantaneous explosion of matter, energy, and information from seemingly nowhere) and the singularity at the center of black holes (nigh infinitely drawn out implosion where matter, energy, and information go seemingly nowhere), making in my mind a very strong case that the two are connected; that perhaps black holes create their own universes and we are but one of those universe offshoots. However, despite being succinct and elegant, this is also improvable and unfalsifiable. Faith in that this is how the universe began is, in my mind, no different than the faith that the Big Bang was started by none other than God.
(One could probably also make some argument about indeterminable quantum phenomena being of divine origin, but that goes even further outside the scope of the initial discussion hahaha).
Christianity is not a homogenous group, of course. Actively spreading the word is only part of some of the churches. I do agree it’s a very obnoxious part of any religion. And unfortunately it’s a winning strategy. The actively spreading branches of any religion tend to actually be able to gain more believers by their missionary practice, so the “telling people what to believe” continues with no change in sight.
Religious or not, you shouldn’t be telling people what to believe or how to believe. That goes for hardline Christian nationalists just as much as it goes for hardline Atheists attacking anyone of faith. If it’s not hurting anyone, let people believe what they believe.
I would agree, but I’ve actually become sympathetic to the opposite viewpoint recently. It is hurting people. Look at the policy decisions in the US that are driven by religious fundamentalism. Heck, just think about the core premise that faith is stronger than reason. That’s an inherently problematic and extremely exploitable viewpoint. I don’t think something like religion can be counted as harmless by ignoring all the examples of harm that it causes. If a belief is only not dangerous when it agrees with other beliefs, and is dangerous when it disagrees, then that is a fundamentally dangerous belief all the time, which only becomes apparent sometimes. I think religion has a purpose, to give community to those who need it, but fundamentally it is not good.
spoiler
If God is reading this, I’m sorry, but I do hope I get points for trying to hold good beliefs from fundamentals. It’s also a reasonable religious viewpoint that organized religion has been taken over by the literal Antichrist. You could say that I hold faith that good acts are judged accordingly regardless of religion.
…I would make a really weird Christian.
The thing is that is exactly what I mean by having a problem with people who force their religious values onto others, which is expressly not okay. But I know plenty of people, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or whatever else who practice their faith in their own lives and do not disrupt the lives of others according to their beliefs. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of religious people I have met and know in real life are like this. Christian nationalists are different, they don’t respect the beliefs of others and want to force their faith onto other people. That’s where the line is. What I have a problem with is those who attack people who are not past that line, who are practicing their faith in their own lives without forcing anything onto others.
I think that’s fair. I generally follow that philosophy in my personal life; many members of my family are religious to various degrees, but we don’t really discuss it much, and their beliefs don’t really effect my perception of them, because we don’t try to force our beliefs on each other.
The mod clearly is not an atheist. What kind of atheist is afraid to demonize islam?
Without knowing the situation, in the world as it exists today, there’s a lot of racist people that use Muslim or anti-Muslim rhetoric to refer to or denigrate any person of roughly Middle Eastern descent. Think of how many stories there were of Sikhs that were assaulted physically or verbally after September 11.
A moderator or admin who is aware of this could easily still allow criticism of Islam, the religion, while taking actions against those who are just being racist assholes with a veneer of anti religion. I have seen this many times before.
I can find a comment by you that got removed a year ago, but no ban.
Are you insinuating someone would LIE in a shitpost?
Where’s the “lie”, my guy??
I can no longer post in the community, and they found I once commented on a grandpa-tier ‘me stand against the IS-LAMS’ meme as a possible reason why.
Trust me, if i could shitpost in my people’s meme community, I would!
Why are you mad at God? Y’all need Jesus.
If I’m mad at god, why wouldn’t I be mad at jesus? They’re the same person
That’s leaning real hard on the toe line triune biblical interpretation, my friend. To get the trinity out of the bible you gotta be lookin for it really hard. The history of christianity is littered with groups advocating and being persecuted for every imaginable interpretation of god, but the trinity folks really knew how to murder their way to top dog better than any other group
Get you some Holy Ghost!
You should be able to. There is no ban on record.
They look like this:
Oh wow ig I mustn’t know what I’m talking about, I tried to post and all I saw was:
Why are you getting combative? There’s no need for that.
I was curious for the reason behind your ban, so I went looking. But it’s not there.
You’re welcome to check the modlog yourself, and find that there is no entry for your ban.
Just curious - what do you think is the reason for OP’s posting problem and the “banned from community” message? Is it some kind of a bug?
I’m not sure. I’m inclined to believe there is a ban, but that an entry for it for some reason got omitted.
Sounds about right, if I saw disgusting Islamophobia I would call it out, IDC if they believe in X fairytale, there’s generally a line.
It’s a real shame that a lot of atheist communities online are just circle jerk condescending bs. There are some interesting discussions to be had but I guess we’ll have to look elsewhere.
Deadass, it seems like atheist communities are full of these vibes
Like I was that kid once, but grow up please
Well maybe many of those communities are actually filled with 14 year olds
they absolutely are. Where else can a teen growing up in a religious family and forced to attend church/mosque/temples vent their frustration, and they are definitely going to be edgy about it, that’s what being teen is about after all
If you don’t let your inner 14 year old atheist out every once in a while what’s the point?
Yes.
That is a real possibility and it’s good (but hard) to keep it in mind when communicating online.
Can confirm, was an edgy atheist when I was 14 then real life managed to chill me the fuck out.
I mean, if you wanna talk about the multiple books that I’ve read about Judaism and early christianity this year, I’m down.
One was about Jesus as a messianic Jewish preacher. Another was about how he went from messiah to God after his death. Another was about how he ingeniously social-engineered his way to the cross because he believed he was the messiah because he was so clever that he was able to make it happen. Another is about the author’s thesis that he was never intended to be seen as a historical person and that he always existed in heaven but was crucified in the firmament between heaven and earth but then the new idea developed. That’s half so far.
Hey some guy, if you wanna talk about books you’ve read this year, you gotta list the titles to attract people who have read said books.
Or… at least to enlighten us poor stupid fuckin idiots who can’t surmise what you read from your vague ass descriptions…
See above
Very cringe, very nice
Very based, very cool, thank you Kanye
I made fun of their very early reddit-type edgelord memes and they banned my ass too
Back on the old place I subbed to the religious meme subs of all the religions I did not beleive in, because they actually had fire memes, rather than the Atheist sub cringers.
Have you tried sprinkling a random reference to “sky fairy” in your post? Teenage atheists think they’re clever every time they hit that one.
Fuck off, everyone knows it’s the magic sky fairy, fake fan
Meatball man…🎼
In the sky… 🎵
Flying high… 🎶
I think teenage atheists are right that they’re clever using it. It’s kind of age appropriate.
yeah i get the feeling that some of the trigger happy reddit mods have migrated here and on .ml
Maybe because you didn’t have enough faith
Impossible. I watched the music video for Faith by Limp Bizkit every afternoon on TRL for like three months straight in 7th grade. I was up to my eyeballs in faith!
Orther! I got a plan! We just gotta HAVE FAITH
I think I am banned from there too, don’t even know why, I think I managed to find the log once and it something like “no idiots” I don’t even remember posting there, I just remember it being annoying as fuck and being full of le fedora atheist circlejerk shit.
I’ve posted something unintelligent as an experiment. Now we wait 😉
You’ll be accepted in kind, I assume ;)
Task succeeded catastrophically.
Why do all the fedora guys look like Dollar Store Matthew Lillard?
Good meme, butthurt community
Amen
Thank you for sacrificing yourself for our memes.
(/s) Probably bc it reminds people of the site-that-shall-not-be-named?
Unrelated to the post but is /c/communityname a valid link on some apps/platforms? Or is it just a carryover from the /r/ days.
Just a carryover. You reference communities here with an exclamation point. For instance:
!atheistmemes or [email protected]
No it’s not “just” a carryover - it’s a valid link actually, if you put it into the link portion of a URL, even without the http part.
Also, your first exclamation link does not work. Probably bc it lacks the ending part so like [email protected].
This is all explained much better than my words here: Guide | How should I link to a community?
!atheistmemes works for me, I think that might be a client thing, which is why including the @instnance is recommended, since it works for more of not all
Interesting. I did check that it was not merely my instance being different, bc even on Lemmy.world it still didn’t work, though both of these from the webpage UI.
The link also does not work on Voyager for Android, which iirc is the most popular app.
So not working for these two approaches means that it’s not a safe bet that it will work for most recipients, I believe.
On a related note, if you allow the webpage UI to finish the completion, then it will turn it into a link that will work, like [email protected]. But I don’t know about all the variety of apps and how each one would handle it - Voyager for instance seems to do nothing at all with the exclamation point, at least while you are still composing the message.
!ligma
This will help: Guide | How should I link to a community?.
I assembled that link specifically for you on lemmy.world, but for anyone else on another instance who wants it, note that links to posts do not really work well since they take you off of your instance to go there, but you can either paste the link to the search bar to “translate” it into one that works on your instance, or in this case it’s easier to just go to [email protected] and it’s one of the posts near the top.
Just a carryover, I’m not typing out the fqdn for that circus
I believe in all the gods, goddesses, and spirits. Join me :)
M’lady.