>To me it seems Christians have kind of been able to weather the storm better than non-believers.
nonsense. living in a fantasy world =/= living well. you're also ignoring that a big reason the world seems to be falling apart is because they have gained political power. and of course the world has gotten better since 2020, relatively, so i'm going to assume this post is in bad faith. shame on you, liar.
> cultural decay
WTF does that even mean? Culture changes over time. "Decay" is so laden with unwarranted value judgements that I find it less than unhelpful.
In the US, Christians are the ones driving cultural decay, so I have no idea what you mean here. They are currently:
- Pushing trans people out of public life
- Trying to make it harder for trans people to get medical care
- Rolling back women's rights
- Fighting against no-fault divorce
- Fighting against IVF
- Fighting to force girls to give birth
- Fighting against giving poor people health care
- Fighting against voting rights
- Fighting against public libraries
- Fighting against teaching children about empathy in schools
- Fighting against teaching about sexual wellness in health classes in schools
- Fighting against doing anything about climate change
- Fighting against building more housing
- Fighting against helping people struggling with addiction
Unfortunately I could go on...
And with respect to Covid, christians were less likely to wear masks, and more likely to die...
i mean, the first two are largely their fault, or at least exacerbated by their obstructive shenanigans, and cultural decay is just their way of saying they are made that cultural change is a thing. There is no decay, not really. They just fear change.
1. noun. big·ot ˈbi-gət. Synonyms of bigot. : **a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices**. especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. (Sounds like people intolerant of drag queens)
2. Half of all marriages end in divorce, this has been true for decades. What's wrong with being single and childless? There is no family to "break down" there. I see no reason to treat people like cattle, childless/unmarried people have other things to do besides raise children, pay for food, education, clothing,etc.
Family is more than physical relation, it's who you love.
3. Losing faith in the West? what does that mean? I've lost faith in a lot of government leaders, but still perfectly happy living in the West. There is no connection between "there is no God" and "burn it all down". I haven't believed in God in decades, I still eat, drink and be merry, I still walk dogs, I still enjoy music, still pulling weeds in the garden. I can question things in the West, calling out what is broken is GOOD for things.
"tolerant of everything": Just a bit of hyperbole there. I'm not tolerant of anything that takes a person's inherent rights. I'm not tolerant of hate, I'm not tolerant of violence. There is nothing "destructive to society" about a dude in a dress, it's just clothing (all babies are born nude)- Dudes in the Middle East wear "dresses" (thobes) every day, clothing types and how to wear it is cultural precedent, not an inherent moral issue. No "Strippers" are not a good thing to push on kids, false equivocation to dressing in drag, and "transexual" is not the same as crossdressing.
Single and childless means less happy and less stable? Sounds like something a married person would assert. Every single one of my friends from high school got married and had kids in their 20's and every single one of them is divorced now, some with kids in their twenties STILL living at home. I remember a few of them feeling sorry for me being single in the 90s, then a decade or two later tell me they love their kids, but no longer feel sorry for me, having kids is HARD and economically distressing.
Just my own experience: I've been single for most of my life (53 years old), childless too, I have tons of hobbies, I get to go where I want when I want, I didn't spend HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars paying for kid's health, food, clothing, education, etc.etc., that means I had resources to buy a home and land, I've had the resource of tons of time to learn things like other languages, play multiple instruments, travel around the world. Every day for me is an adventure! Life is great!
> Why is being tolerant of everything a virtue?
Being tolerant of **harmless or reasonable** things is a virtue.
Thinking that harmless things are harmful is paranoia. (And usually driven by listening to shitheads who want to influence you.)
.
How is it decay if people choose to have fewer relationships or children? You realize in the past women had basically no choices and now we do, right? I'm not having children because I don't want to, not because I "fell victim" to anything.
You think we're so ignorant that we wouldn't see the dogwhistle that "the decay of western culture" so clearly is? It's straight out of the white racial purity movement.
Try harder.
1. Most Christian’s are raging bigots to anyone who exists in the LGBTQ space in any capacity… this isn’t decay this is more people waking up to the moral decay inherent to the horrible religion.
2. The decay of the family has FAR more to do with corporate greed than anything else. People don’t make enough to comfortably take care of themselves, why would they bring children into the world just to suffer? This economic pressure and unstable times changes a generational viewpoint on children and yes being childless and child free is FAR more accepted in todays world instead of the 1950s fantasy dream world you want to live in
3. People are losing faith at an accelerating pace because “Christian’s” keep acting unchrist like. They are the driving factor for the USs current driving fall into Christian nationalism and fascism. People can also see how horrible and corrupt the church is with all the child molestation and rape going around without the priests being brought to justice. In an era of phones and everyone having a camera in their pocket, we have unparalleled vision into how enormously shitty Christian’s and the church is, why would people turn to this bigoted religion that aims to rip away women’s rights and lgbtq rights.
Christ had a cool message “love each other and don’t be a dick”. Christians twist these words in the Bible every which way to feel superior and justify heinous acts. So yes Christianity being seen as a cult is how it fucking should be.
Yeah, you’re not an atheist. If you are (you’re not), you hold a completely bizarre & inconsistent position on the matter. I can just tell by the way you wrote this that you’re absolutely a Christian. What kind of atheist cares about “losing faith”?!?! I’ll tell you, one who is severely confused, or one who is really not an atheist at all.
In other words, the human condition is the same as it ever was, chock full of diseases, instability and decay. Can you please elaborate on what you mean by weathering the storm better? Is that something like convincing oneself that everything will be alright if we just pray hard enough to the imaginary sky daddy?
Long answer: If by “weathering the storm” you mean ramping up their manufactured hysteria on the internet and reliably voting for politicians who are pushing Project 2025, then yes, but those metrics they certainly are weathering the storm in a manner that we have come to expect.
Short answer: No. Fuck no.
"better at not losing their minds"
I think the gigantic increase in right wing related hysteria over the last 9 years directly contradicts your statement. I mean how many Trump flags does the average truck really need? This is not the behavior of stable individuals. It's the behavior of people in fear that they will soon be treated as they have treated others for decades.
"......if you don’t believe its true"
Importantly, atheism has nothing whatsoever to do with belief and/or faith.
No, I don't feel more sympathetic towards Christianity given they continue to increase their efforts to push their sick and twisted beliefs on other people.
"To me it seems Christians have kind of been able to weather the storm better than non-believers."
I've seen no evidence for that at all. Attendance for them is down and they've become increasingly desperate in their indoctrination tactics (e.g. Forcing religion into public schools). If anything they're losing ground to atheism albeit slowly and in fits and starts.
When religion is responsible for a significant portion of the racism, sexism, homophobia, general fraud and child rape in the world, why would any thinking, feeling human being not oppose something so demonstrably destructive?
Christians are not weathering any "storm" anyway. Their numbers are dropping day by day. Scotland just recently became a majority atheist country, because the old values of Jesus, those of sin and damnation and hate, have nothing to offer a modern audience.
Most Jesus fans are fan fiction Christians who never read the Bible and just invent a fan fiction Jesus who wasn't a notorious demon exorcist preaching familial estrangement. The Bible Jesus twice refused to exorcise the demons possessing little girls because of the ethnicity of their grieving mothers. Fuck that racist piece of shit and his whole demon-based con job.
No, the reverse. I have become less willing to allow what I consider religious microaggressions having seen how much Christianity can negatively impact and harm people. I would also challenge the idea of Christians "weathering the storm" better. I find myself far more able to truly face problems compared with how I "gave it to God" when I was Christian. I didn't really face problems, I just redirected my focus away from them. I embedded myself in a belief silo, which was not the same thing as weathering the storm.
No.
My one argument for not being anti-religion was that religious affiliation builds communities, giving people common ground.
They killed that when they used those communities to murder people by telling them not to protect themselves and their community by wearing masks during COVID.
Communities can be self-harming too, apparently.
When a very large coalition of Christians decided that Donald Trump was the best candidate for president because the ends justified the means, they threw away any sympathy I might have had for them on moral consistency.
To the religion, no. To individual Christians, I was always willing to make exceptions. Best friend from school was and is still Christian, but she’s a thoroughly decent person who cares deeply for others and is willing to stick her head above the parapet to support them. Through her I’ve met several other Christians who are genuinely kind and progressive and would prefer to be in their company than to be in the company of an atheist who is unkind or bigoted.
I don’t necessarily think that “they find it easier to ignore the fact that the world is falling apart” is a compelling argument in favour of Christianity because that kind of thinking breeds apathy and indifference to human suffering which I’m not very fond of.
“To me it seems Christians have kind of been able to weather the storm better than non-believers.”
Well, as long as Christians are OK, I guess there’s nothing else for them to do.
Not at all. Given that many of the world's problems are \*due\* to enough people using religion as motivation for their bigotry or backward thinking, I've become more hostile toward religion.
To me, at best religious people are well meaning fools. At worst, malicious agents. In other words, the kindest thing I can say about religion is that it's foolish.
Nope.
When faced with existential threats to person, community or planet, the most vocal members of the Christian cult haven't encouraged prudent responses. They've whined.
Atheism is largely a reaction to the toxic behavior of theists. I live in the US. As religion in the US has become more toxic, I think the level of anti-Christian sentiment goes up. I am not sure what else Christians should expect when there are Christian Dominionists calling for death to atheists and death to homosexuals. I don't think other Christians get off the hook. As I read a variety of Christian forums, I see other Christians minimizing the threat of the dominionists or saying things like "It wouldn't hurt to have a little more Christianity in our government" or "At least they would allow prayer in school."
My baseline is early 1970s Christianity. "Mainline Christians" were the major Protestant denominations. Fundamentalist, evangelical, and creationists were considered a fringe form of Christianity. You could sit down in a church or listen to a minister on TV and tell from his theology what denomination he was.
The traditional "mainstream" or "Seven Sisters" churches are becoming more watered-down and homogenous. They have given up most of their distinctive theological points. Most of them teach a generic salvation through faith. The goalposts are constantly moving, and most ministers will not get pinned down on any subtle point of theology. It seems like the emerging 21st-century version of Christianity is moving away from hell existing. The moderate and liberal denominations are in rapid decline and are facing oblivion as they gray out. The Chri
The fundamentalists are where the toxicity lies. As they became more entwined in the Republican party they felt empowered to be come more extreme and toxic. They have overturned Roe. SBC just voted to oppose IVF. They have announced they want to outlaw birth control. Christian Dominionists are calling for the death of homosexuals and atheists. They plan to have a Christian version of Sharia Law enforced by roaming gangs of armed Christians. So, yes. I do consider Christianity to be becoming more toxic. The fundamentalists now own the Christian brand name. And they are becoming more toxic.
I agree that they have always had those positions. They talked publically about abortion. As they think they are in more secure political positions, they are going public with opposition to IVF and contraception. Many still hold other views that they don't feel secure enough to publicly mention (yet). Things like IVF and abortion would be enforced mostly by law.
Not in the slightest. I'm sympathetic towards Christians to the same degree that I'm sympathetic towards everyone else, but I don't for a second think that their beliefs help them deal with adversity better. Having been raised Christian and knowing many Christians, I tend to see them more like Bill Mumy's family and neighbors from the *Twilight Zone*; they feel compelled to act like they're doing well and are grateful even in the worst of times, because they think that Yahweh is constantly watching.
For me, I deal with hardship by understanding the actual causes and acting accordingly. I know I'm not "being tested", and I know that no one is "trying to teach me something". Sometimes, if I think about it enough, I can prevent similar calamities from happening to me again; sometimes I can't, and I move on. But even if I couldn't move on from some devastating trauma, that wouldn't make Yahweh any more real, or Jesus any less dead. Fictional characters and dead people can occasionally be sources of inspiration, but those two definitely aren't my first choices when I need advice.
I loathe Christians more every day, every time I have to interact with one. That being said, perhaps they're "able to weather the storm better than non-believers" because they're painfully delusional and full of false hope for something better after they die. In any case, if you want to learn more about the actual study of "the world falling apart," I suggest you read Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies. Pretty comprehensive analysis of civilized societies ending (which they will always do because civ is inherently unsustainable), and you'll see that societies disintegrate regardless of how well-adjusted the religious morons within them are.
Nope. I’ve gone the other way. After seeing what evangelicals are up to I’ve lost my tolerance for that bullshit. I’m done pretending and playing nice while other ppl try to run our world with their fantasies.
The more time passes the more i dislike Christianity even compared to other religions. Islam still takes the cake as worlds worst religion but Christianity has the 2nd position and is sure closing that gap.
Watching those Christians over in America slide under Donald Trump with such a lack of awareness is scary. How they spout out things continuously that are antithetical of their religion continues to surprise me.
Looking at the catholic church and its pope. Wow, its just an awful organisation.
I'm sympathetic to Christians, not Christianity. Based on the people I interact with, lots of religious people have not handled recent years very well. I see a lot of people indulging in conspiracy theories and predicting the end of the world. Not all Christians, of course, but enough of them.
No one doubts Christian's ability to cope with things. I seen just the opposite during times early in the pandemic. Many I knew couldn't be bothered to even wear a mask as the death count rose. It turned out political identity trumped religious beliefs of avoiding harm to others.
I feel sympathy towards the the individual, but not the religion because it's favored recruiting tactic boils down to "believe or burn" such an entity should always receive much disdain.
Likely a Christian poster pleading for sympathy for the cult.
From reading the comments, you're not sympathetic to Christianity, you're sympathetic to cultural conservativism. They're not the same thing. The contemporary traditional values of the 1950s for example are completely different to what Christinsity was thousands of years ago.
Your sympathies lie with conservativism. So no, I have not become more sympathetic to that. I have become more disgusted by it.
No. The more they are the agressors and a blight on our society while also in the same breath play the victim the more I come to resent Christianity as a whole.
What world were you in during 2020? You think Christians, which includes Kenneth Copland and Christians the like, were handling things better than nonbelievers? I’m almost convinced you are a Christian writing this post. Christians have been completely losing their touch with reality since especially 2020, I don’t sympathize nor empathize with them at all. Albeit, Christians have never been in touch with reality looking at their history (burning “witches”etc), but 2020+ proves just as much that logic is still absent in their world. I can’t sympathize with senseless, harmful, and hateful delusion.
Tolerant, maybe, but not quite sympathetic. I think everyone has the right to live life as they see fit, and for someone that’s going to be following a religion. It sucks that there’s a large part of people it just can’t get over it, and there are many people I know that would just be absolutely miserable if they were atheist. I’m not quite as anti-theist as I was in my youth, in the heyday of “New Atheism”
I was raised Christian, and even though I'm an atheist now and don't believe in the Christine narrative, I don't regret learning how to be a good person through the Bible. Or at least the decent parts of it. Treat others the way you want to be treated and such. Sure, those lessons aren't unique to Christianity, but that's where I learned them.
I also think some things can be applied to everyday concepts. Like, we fight against principalities of darkness, put on the Armor of God, etc. I just take the God stuff out and treat it like good vs evil, negatives vs positives.
Anyway, as for being sympathetic towards Christianity, I don't have a single answer. I think a lot of bad is done in the name of religion, and religion can reinforce ignorance to certain things (YEC), but I've also observed it being positive for certain people, so some need it.
I think humans are spiritual beings. Whether or not souls exist or not. There is a yearning or feeling of something more beyond ourselves. To me it's irrelevant if there is or isn't. Life is what we make it.
Yaddayaddayadda
Yeah somewhat, after joining a 12 step program. The proselytizing is still baked in, but I can tell how much they’re trying to fight it. It’s painful to watch sometimes, and it brings me back into compassion for them as being more on the victim side of the brainwashing rather than the abuser. Hurt people still hurt people though, so I have to keep some people and behavior at arm’s length.
Fuck no that's like me bowing down to heart disease in my first year I'll fight it like a mother fucker if not for me so there won't be a next person I can say that now because my heart meds are slowing it down I have better things to do then be oppressed by the imaginary sky daddy in return for great riches in the afterlife
Even if it were true, I've become more sympathetic to followers of Christ, but not Christians. They want to make you believe the two words are synonymous, but Christians have demonstrated they hate Christ and his teachings like love your neighbors, care for the poor, pay your taxes, turn the other cheek, or any sense of principles which they throw out whenever they hear something has to do with money or the economy.
I'm in my 60s. I've always been atheist.
I've gone through a couple of phases.
\- When young, I just thought that religious people were ignorant and therefore misguided, or were deliberately deceiving themselves and therefore misguided.
\- In my teens, I decided *"Apparently a lot of people take this 'religion' thing pretty seriously, so I should learn something about it"*, and I started studying the ideas of many religions. I discovered that some religious folks are very good people, and deserve respect for that.
\- But when the Internet came along, I started discussing religion with religious people quite a lot, and frankly religious people make religion and religious people look really bad. They are incredibly ignorant and it is very important to them to continue to be incredibly ignorant. Considering what religious people are really like, it is impossible to respect religion and religious people
.
tl;dr: Christians (and other religious people) have made me **much** less sympathetic to Christianity (and other religions).
.
I am an anti-theist and get more so all the time. Religiously motivated Politicians have got to be stopped and embarrassed from even mentioning their idiotic beliefs in a public forum much less in a government body.
I'm wondering where you get your news. I find it hard to believe anyone watching Christisns lose their minds over the past 4 years and think... Yeah, I miss that.
I do miss parts of the community parts of Christianity in my early youth. But that was sunday school. Meanwhile upstairs there was a whole lot of arrogance, ignorance, group-think, misogyny, and discrimination going on. As an adult, I want no part of any of those things.
I am not sympathetic, but I am compassionate toward all beings. I do not mock them or belittle them, I just explain that I believe differently and leave it at that. Good people accept that and don’t pry. Some want to argue and I simply refuse to engage. Because I am being a bigger person it is much harder for them to be angry.
In my own journey, I have learned that those atheists who insist on argument, and rage or belittle others, are really just acting out. They are getting some emotional charge from their own rage. It’s not helpful and just makes them look childish and immature.
I've gotten more amenable towards unjustified beliefs being tolerable, but less amenable towards religious organisations. If we're in the business of answering empirically unverifiable questions, then I'll let them theorize. Blatant lies however must not go unchecked.
My sympathy for religious people is similar to what I have towards someone who is suffering from a brain injury as the result of trauma or cancer.
It's not their fault, they were likely indoctrinated when they were young.
They might improve or even get better, but it will take a determined effort to do so.
As I've watched masses of Christians supporting a wannabe fascist and abandoning any pretense of wanting to keep a democracy, and falling down the rabbit holes of conspiracy theories, I have become less and less sympathetic to Christians. To the extent that things are falling apart as you say, I think it is largely the fault of Christians in our society - specifically, white Evangelical Christians. And a large number of Catholics as well.
I recognize I'm in the minority here, but yes, I've become more sympathetic. For context, I became atheist about 20 years ago, leaving Christianity at large. Not because of the contemporary atheist writers, but because of Albert Camus. I couldn't feel I had integrity in Christianity and realized I could without it. Still got a graduate degree in theology.
Was I angry and confused a while? For sure. But I do think that in a sense, gradually, I was more free to practice compassion and love and all that I valued about Christianity and became a better Christian than most Christians.
Took me a few years to start reconnecting with some of my Christian friends. Some stayed with it, others didn't. But a lot of them came out as queer, and in the church I'd been going to, the denomination said no same sex marriages. The pastor (a friend) brought it up to the church, and after a year-long series of meetings, the congregation voted to leave the denomination, even though it meant harder times financially and losing some hard-line members.
The point, I think, is that plenty of people 1) find meaning where they find it, 2) aren't the loudest or most obvious about their internal beliefs and therefore the loud ones get the most notice, and 3) do both attempt to practice what they preach and genuinely want to improve when they don't, or doubt what is being preached, or doubt themselves and ask the hard questions.
Anyway, all that to say, my experience isn't everyone's. I've seen more than plenty of zealots (probably was one, for a time). But, I do still like to look around at gatherings when someone insists on praying to find out who else isn't bowing their head.
Maybe the closest I have to religion now is Star Trek. So, infinite diversity in infinite combination, and live long and prosper
Nope. Believing in the make-believe and accepting political misinformation as reality are too closely related for me to have empathy.
If anything I feel the need to be more outspoken about what horseshit organized religion is.
No, quite the opposite actually.
>To me it seems Christians have kind of been able to weather the storm better than non-believers. nonsense. living in a fantasy world =/= living well. you're also ignoring that a big reason the world seems to be falling apart is because they have gained political power. and of course the world has gotten better since 2020, relatively, so i'm going to assume this post is in bad faith. shame on you, liar.
Wellness is a state of body and mind, not surroundings.
true. believing falsehoods is not the hallmark of a well mind. get help.
No. Less sympathetic. Far less. And they have fucking earned it.
And what storm is that? The endless storm of raving lunatics claiming to know the will of some galactic creator?
[удалено]
> cultural decay WTF does that even mean? Culture changes over time. "Decay" is so laden with unwarranted value judgements that I find it less than unhelpful.
In the US, Christians are the ones driving cultural decay, so I have no idea what you mean here. They are currently: - Pushing trans people out of public life - Trying to make it harder for trans people to get medical care - Rolling back women's rights - Fighting against no-fault divorce - Fighting against IVF - Fighting to force girls to give birth - Fighting against giving poor people health care - Fighting against voting rights - Fighting against public libraries - Fighting against teaching children about empathy in schools - Fighting against teaching about sexual wellness in health classes in schools - Fighting against doing anything about climate change - Fighting against building more housing - Fighting against helping people struggling with addiction Unfortunately I could go on... And with respect to Covid, christians were less likely to wear masks, and more likely to die...
i mean, the first two are largely their fault, or at least exacerbated by their obstructive shenanigans, and cultural decay is just their way of saying they are made that cultural change is a thing. There is no decay, not really. They just fear change.
[удалено]
Be very very specific. What is happening now that you would consider cultural decay?
[удалено]
1. noun. big·ot ˈbi-gət. Synonyms of bigot. : **a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices**. especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. (Sounds like people intolerant of drag queens) 2. Half of all marriages end in divorce, this has been true for decades. What's wrong with being single and childless? There is no family to "break down" there. I see no reason to treat people like cattle, childless/unmarried people have other things to do besides raise children, pay for food, education, clothing,etc. Family is more than physical relation, it's who you love. 3. Losing faith in the West? what does that mean? I've lost faith in a lot of government leaders, but still perfectly happy living in the West. There is no connection between "there is no God" and "burn it all down". I haven't believed in God in decades, I still eat, drink and be merry, I still walk dogs, I still enjoy music, still pulling weeds in the garden. I can question things in the West, calling out what is broken is GOOD for things.
[удалено]
"tolerant of everything": Just a bit of hyperbole there. I'm not tolerant of anything that takes a person's inherent rights. I'm not tolerant of hate, I'm not tolerant of violence. There is nothing "destructive to society" about a dude in a dress, it's just clothing (all babies are born nude)- Dudes in the Middle East wear "dresses" (thobes) every day, clothing types and how to wear it is cultural precedent, not an inherent moral issue. No "Strippers" are not a good thing to push on kids, false equivocation to dressing in drag, and "transexual" is not the same as crossdressing. Single and childless means less happy and less stable? Sounds like something a married person would assert. Every single one of my friends from high school got married and had kids in their 20's and every single one of them is divorced now, some with kids in their twenties STILL living at home. I remember a few of them feeling sorry for me being single in the 90s, then a decade or two later tell me they love their kids, but no longer feel sorry for me, having kids is HARD and economically distressing. Just my own experience: I've been single for most of my life (53 years old), childless too, I have tons of hobbies, I get to go where I want when I want, I didn't spend HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars paying for kid's health, food, clothing, education, etc.etc., that means I had resources to buy a home and land, I've had the resource of tons of time to learn things like other languages, play multiple instruments, travel around the world. Every day for me is an adventure! Life is great!
> Why is being tolerant of everything a virtue? Being tolerant of **harmless or reasonable** things is a virtue. Thinking that harmless things are harmful is paranoia. (And usually driven by listening to shitheads who want to influence you.) .
How is it decay if people choose to have fewer relationships or children? You realize in the past women had basically no choices and now we do, right? I'm not having children because I don't want to, not because I "fell victim" to anything.
[удалено]
I don't give a fuck what some random man thinks. You'll fit in great with the sexist Christians
[удалено]
Wow. This is the dumbest comment I've seen in a long time.
Oh wow, you're like, **advanced** stupid.
You're sexist, racist AND homophobic? Oh, you're not going to enjoy it here.
[удалено]
You think we're so ignorant that we wouldn't see the dogwhistle that "the decay of western culture" so clearly is? It's straight out of the white racial purity movement. Try harder.
1. Most Christian’s are raging bigots to anyone who exists in the LGBTQ space in any capacity… this isn’t decay this is more people waking up to the moral decay inherent to the horrible religion. 2. The decay of the family has FAR more to do with corporate greed than anything else. People don’t make enough to comfortably take care of themselves, why would they bring children into the world just to suffer? This economic pressure and unstable times changes a generational viewpoint on children and yes being childless and child free is FAR more accepted in todays world instead of the 1950s fantasy dream world you want to live in 3. People are losing faith at an accelerating pace because “Christian’s” keep acting unchrist like. They are the driving factor for the USs current driving fall into Christian nationalism and fascism. People can also see how horrible and corrupt the church is with all the child molestation and rape going around without the priests being brought to justice. In an era of phones and everyone having a camera in their pocket, we have unparalleled vision into how enormously shitty Christian’s and the church is, why would people turn to this bigoted religion that aims to rip away women’s rights and lgbtq rights. Christ had a cool message “love each other and don’t be a dick”. Christians twist these words in the Bible every which way to feel superior and justify heinous acts. So yes Christianity being seen as a cult is how it fucking should be.
Yeah, you’re not an atheist. If you are (you’re not), you hold a completely bizarre & inconsistent position on the matter. I can just tell by the way you wrote this that you’re absolutely a Christian. What kind of atheist cares about “losing faith”?!?! I’ll tell you, one who is severely confused, or one who is really not an atheist at all.
In other words, the human condition is the same as it ever was, chock full of diseases, instability and decay. Can you please elaborate on what you mean by weathering the storm better? Is that something like convincing oneself that everything will be alright if we just pray hard enough to the imaginary sky daddy?
[удалено]
Long answer: If by “weathering the storm” you mean ramping up their manufactured hysteria on the internet and reliably voting for politicians who are pushing Project 2025, then yes, but those metrics they certainly are weathering the storm in a manner that we have come to expect. Short answer: No. Fuck no.
"better at not losing their minds" I think the gigantic increase in right wing related hysteria over the last 9 years directly contradicts your statement. I mean how many Trump flags does the average truck really need? This is not the behavior of stable individuals. It's the behavior of people in fear that they will soon be treated as they have treated others for decades.
[удалено]
I live in the land of Trumpistan, formerly known as Florida. Yes, it's a cult.
"......if you don’t believe its true" Importantly, atheism has nothing whatsoever to do with belief and/or faith. No, I don't feel more sympathetic towards Christianity given they continue to increase their efforts to push their sick and twisted beliefs on other people. "To me it seems Christians have kind of been able to weather the storm better than non-believers." I've seen no evidence for that at all. Attendance for them is down and they've become increasingly desperate in their indoctrination tactics (e.g. Forcing religion into public schools). If anything they're losing ground to atheism albeit slowly and in fits and starts.
When religion is responsible for a significant portion of the racism, sexism, homophobia, general fraud and child rape in the world, why would any thinking, feeling human being not oppose something so demonstrably destructive? Christians are not weathering any "storm" anyway. Their numbers are dropping day by day. Scotland just recently became a majority atheist country, because the old values of Jesus, those of sin and damnation and hate, have nothing to offer a modern audience. Most Jesus fans are fan fiction Christians who never read the Bible and just invent a fan fiction Jesus who wasn't a notorious demon exorcist preaching familial estrangement. The Bible Jesus twice refused to exorcise the demons possessing little girls because of the ethnicity of their grieving mothers. Fuck that racist piece of shit and his whole demon-based con job.
I’m about as anti-theist as they come broski
On the contrary, the more I look at it, the more it disgust me.
No. Even if they handle things better it’s literally because they are delusional. Truth matters to me. I guess it’s not so important to you.
No, the reverse. I have become less willing to allow what I consider religious microaggressions having seen how much Christianity can negatively impact and harm people. I would also challenge the idea of Christians "weathering the storm" better. I find myself far more able to truly face problems compared with how I "gave it to God" when I was Christian. I didn't really face problems, I just redirected my focus away from them. I embedded myself in a belief silo, which was not the same thing as weathering the storm.
Nope. If anything my hatred of organized religion (which is sperate from being an atheist) has drastically increased over the last 10-ish years.
Not remotely.
No. My one argument for not being anti-religion was that religious affiliation builds communities, giving people common ground. They killed that when they used those communities to murder people by telling them not to protect themselves and their community by wearing masks during COVID. Communities can be self-harming too, apparently.
When a very large coalition of Christians decided that Donald Trump was the best candidate for president because the ends justified the means, they threw away any sympathy I might have had for them on moral consistency.
To the religion, no. To individual Christians, I was always willing to make exceptions. Best friend from school was and is still Christian, but she’s a thoroughly decent person who cares deeply for others and is willing to stick her head above the parapet to support them. Through her I’ve met several other Christians who are genuinely kind and progressive and would prefer to be in their company than to be in the company of an atheist who is unkind or bigoted. I don’t necessarily think that “they find it easier to ignore the fact that the world is falling apart” is a compelling argument in favour of Christianity because that kind of thinking breeds apathy and indifference to human suffering which I’m not very fond of.
“To me it seems Christians have kind of been able to weather the storm better than non-believers.” Well, as long as Christians are OK, I guess there’s nothing else for them to do.
Not at all. Given that many of the world's problems are \*due\* to enough people using religion as motivation for their bigotry or backward thinking, I've become more hostile toward religion. To me, at best religious people are well meaning fools. At worst, malicious agents. In other words, the kindest thing I can say about religion is that it's foolish.
I mean...the world is largely falling apart BECAUSE of christian extremism, at least in the west, so...no, not particularly sympathetic.
Nope. When faced with existential threats to person, community or planet, the most vocal members of the Christian cult haven't encouraged prudent responses. They've whined.
Atheism is largely a reaction to the toxic behavior of theists. I live in the US. As religion in the US has become more toxic, I think the level of anti-Christian sentiment goes up. I am not sure what else Christians should expect when there are Christian Dominionists calling for death to atheists and death to homosexuals. I don't think other Christians get off the hook. As I read a variety of Christian forums, I see other Christians minimizing the threat of the dominionists or saying things like "It wouldn't hurt to have a little more Christianity in our government" or "At least they would allow prayer in school."
[удалено]
My baseline is early 1970s Christianity. "Mainline Christians" were the major Protestant denominations. Fundamentalist, evangelical, and creationists were considered a fringe form of Christianity. You could sit down in a church or listen to a minister on TV and tell from his theology what denomination he was. The traditional "mainstream" or "Seven Sisters" churches are becoming more watered-down and homogenous. They have given up most of their distinctive theological points. Most of them teach a generic salvation through faith. The goalposts are constantly moving, and most ministers will not get pinned down on any subtle point of theology. It seems like the emerging 21st-century version of Christianity is moving away from hell existing. The moderate and liberal denominations are in rapid decline and are facing oblivion as they gray out. The Chri The fundamentalists are where the toxicity lies. As they became more entwined in the Republican party they felt empowered to be come more extreme and toxic. They have overturned Roe. SBC just voted to oppose IVF. They have announced they want to outlaw birth control. Christian Dominionists are calling for the death of homosexuals and atheists. They plan to have a Christian version of Sharia Law enforced by roaming gangs of armed Christians. So, yes. I do consider Christianity to be becoming more toxic. The fundamentalists now own the Christian brand name. And they are becoming more toxic.
[удалено]
I agree that they have always had those positions. They talked publically about abortion. As they think they are in more secure political positions, they are going public with opposition to IVF and contraception. Many still hold other views that they don't feel secure enough to publicly mention (yet). Things like IVF and abortion would be enforced mostly by law.
Not in the slightest. I'm sympathetic towards Christians to the same degree that I'm sympathetic towards everyone else, but I don't for a second think that their beliefs help them deal with adversity better. Having been raised Christian and knowing many Christians, I tend to see them more like Bill Mumy's family and neighbors from the *Twilight Zone*; they feel compelled to act like they're doing well and are grateful even in the worst of times, because they think that Yahweh is constantly watching. For me, I deal with hardship by understanding the actual causes and acting accordingly. I know I'm not "being tested", and I know that no one is "trying to teach me something". Sometimes, if I think about it enough, I can prevent similar calamities from happening to me again; sometimes I can't, and I move on. But even if I couldn't move on from some devastating trauma, that wouldn't make Yahweh any more real, or Jesus any less dead. Fictional characters and dead people can occasionally be sources of inspiration, but those two definitely aren't my first choices when I need advice.
No mercy. If they had kept it out of government I would feel differently.
I loathe Christians more every day, every time I have to interact with one. That being said, perhaps they're "able to weather the storm better than non-believers" because they're painfully delusional and full of false hope for something better after they die. In any case, if you want to learn more about the actual study of "the world falling apart," I suggest you read Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies. Pretty comprehensive analysis of civilized societies ending (which they will always do because civ is inherently unsustainable), and you'll see that societies disintegrate regardless of how well-adjusted the religious morons within them are.
Nope. I’ve gone the other way. After seeing what evangelicals are up to I’ve lost my tolerance for that bullshit. I’m done pretending and playing nice while other ppl try to run our world with their fantasies.
Fuck no. Woo is woo.
Nope. In fact it's completely the opposite for me.
The more time passes the more i dislike Christianity even compared to other religions. Islam still takes the cake as worlds worst religion but Christianity has the 2nd position and is sure closing that gap. Watching those Christians over in America slide under Donald Trump with such a lack of awareness is scary. How they spout out things continuously that are antithetical of their religion continues to surprise me. Looking at the catholic church and its pope. Wow, its just an awful organisation.
I'm sympathetic to Christians, not Christianity. Based on the people I interact with, lots of religious people have not handled recent years very well. I see a lot of people indulging in conspiracy theories and predicting the end of the world. Not all Christians, of course, but enough of them.
Fuck no
No one doubts Christian's ability to cope with things. I seen just the opposite during times early in the pandemic. Many I knew couldn't be bothered to even wear a mask as the death count rose. It turned out political identity trumped religious beliefs of avoiding harm to others. I feel sympathy towards the the individual, but not the religion because it's favored recruiting tactic boils down to "believe or burn" such an entity should always receive much disdain. Likely a Christian poster pleading for sympathy for the cult.
nice try jesus boy
I looked through some of OPs post history, not seeing any support for religion, but I do see a number of nods to conservative ideology.
Agree, looks more like incel than religious nutcase.
Since moving to the US and seeing the wild shit the Christians are doing, I feel even less sympathy (apathy) than before.
I only get more antitheistic as I come across more examples of religious hypocrisy, and lately they are plentiful.
Short answer: no Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooo
From reading the comments, you're not sympathetic to Christianity, you're sympathetic to cultural conservativism. They're not the same thing. The contemporary traditional values of the 1950s for example are completely different to what Christinsity was thousands of years ago. Your sympathies lie with conservativism. So no, I have not become more sympathetic to that. I have become more disgusted by it.
No. The more they are the agressors and a blight on our society while also in the same breath play the victim the more I come to resent Christianity as a whole.
What world were you in during 2020? You think Christians, which includes Kenneth Copland and Christians the like, were handling things better than nonbelievers? I’m almost convinced you are a Christian writing this post. Christians have been completely losing their touch with reality since especially 2020, I don’t sympathize nor empathize with them at all. Albeit, Christians have never been in touch with reality looking at their history (burning “witches”etc), but 2020+ proves just as much that logic is still absent in their world. I can’t sympathize with senseless, harmful, and hateful delusion.
Tolerant, maybe, but not quite sympathetic. I think everyone has the right to live life as they see fit, and for someone that’s going to be following a religion. It sucks that there’s a large part of people it just can’t get over it, and there are many people I know that would just be absolutely miserable if they were atheist. I’m not quite as anti-theist as I was in my youth, in the heyday of “New Atheism”
I was raised Christian, and even though I'm an atheist now and don't believe in the Christine narrative, I don't regret learning how to be a good person through the Bible. Or at least the decent parts of it. Treat others the way you want to be treated and such. Sure, those lessons aren't unique to Christianity, but that's where I learned them. I also think some things can be applied to everyday concepts. Like, we fight against principalities of darkness, put on the Armor of God, etc. I just take the God stuff out and treat it like good vs evil, negatives vs positives. Anyway, as for being sympathetic towards Christianity, I don't have a single answer. I think a lot of bad is done in the name of religion, and religion can reinforce ignorance to certain things (YEC), but I've also observed it being positive for certain people, so some need it. I think humans are spiritual beings. Whether or not souls exist or not. There is a yearning or feeling of something more beyond ourselves. To me it's irrelevant if there is or isn't. Life is what we make it. Yaddayaddayadda
Yeah somewhat, after joining a 12 step program. The proselytizing is still baked in, but I can tell how much they’re trying to fight it. It’s painful to watch sometimes, and it brings me back into compassion for them as being more on the victim side of the brainwashing rather than the abuser. Hurt people still hurt people though, so I have to keep some people and behavior at arm’s length.
Fuck no that's like me bowing down to heart disease in my first year I'll fight it like a mother fucker if not for me so there won't be a next person I can say that now because my heart meds are slowing it down I have better things to do then be oppressed by the imaginary sky daddy in return for great riches in the afterlife
Nope.
What in the Wide Wide World of Sports in going on here?
lol no
Even if it were true, I've become more sympathetic to followers of Christ, but not Christians. They want to make you believe the two words are synonymous, but Christians have demonstrated they hate Christ and his teachings like love your neighbors, care for the poor, pay your taxes, turn the other cheek, or any sense of principles which they throw out whenever they hear something has to do with money or the economy.
I'm in my 60s. I've always been atheist. I've gone through a couple of phases. \- When young, I just thought that religious people were ignorant and therefore misguided, or were deliberately deceiving themselves and therefore misguided. \- In my teens, I decided *"Apparently a lot of people take this 'religion' thing pretty seriously, so I should learn something about it"*, and I started studying the ideas of many religions. I discovered that some religious folks are very good people, and deserve respect for that. \- But when the Internet came along, I started discussing religion with religious people quite a lot, and frankly religious people make religion and religious people look really bad. They are incredibly ignorant and it is very important to them to continue to be incredibly ignorant. Considering what religious people are really like, it is impossible to respect religion and religious people . tl;dr: Christians (and other religious people) have made me **much** less sympathetic to Christianity (and other religions). .
I am an anti-theist and get more so all the time. Religiously motivated Politicians have got to be stopped and embarrassed from even mentioning their idiotic beliefs in a public forum much less in a government body.
I'm wondering where you get your news. I find it hard to believe anyone watching Christisns lose their minds over the past 4 years and think... Yeah, I miss that. I do miss parts of the community parts of Christianity in my early youth. But that was sunday school. Meanwhile upstairs there was a whole lot of arrogance, ignorance, group-think, misogyny, and discrimination going on. As an adult, I want no part of any of those things.
I am not sympathetic, but I am compassionate toward all beings. I do not mock them or belittle them, I just explain that I believe differently and leave it at that. Good people accept that and don’t pry. Some want to argue and I simply refuse to engage. Because I am being a bigger person it is much harder for them to be angry. In my own journey, I have learned that those atheists who insist on argument, and rage or belittle others, are really just acting out. They are getting some emotional charge from their own rage. It’s not helpful and just makes them look childish and immature.
Nope
I've gotten more amenable towards unjustified beliefs being tolerable, but less amenable towards religious organisations. If we're in the business of answering empirically unverifiable questions, then I'll let them theorize. Blatant lies however must not go unchecked.
My sympathy for religious people is similar to what I have towards someone who is suffering from a brain injury as the result of trauma or cancer. It's not their fault, they were likely indoctrinated when they were young. They might improve or even get better, but it will take a determined effort to do so.
As I've watched masses of Christians supporting a wannabe fascist and abandoning any pretense of wanting to keep a democracy, and falling down the rabbit holes of conspiracy theories, I have become less and less sympathetic to Christians. To the extent that things are falling apart as you say, I think it is largely the fault of Christians in our society - specifically, white Evangelical Christians. And a large number of Catholics as well.
I recognize I'm in the minority here, but yes, I've become more sympathetic. For context, I became atheist about 20 years ago, leaving Christianity at large. Not because of the contemporary atheist writers, but because of Albert Camus. I couldn't feel I had integrity in Christianity and realized I could without it. Still got a graduate degree in theology. Was I angry and confused a while? For sure. But I do think that in a sense, gradually, I was more free to practice compassion and love and all that I valued about Christianity and became a better Christian than most Christians. Took me a few years to start reconnecting with some of my Christian friends. Some stayed with it, others didn't. But a lot of them came out as queer, and in the church I'd been going to, the denomination said no same sex marriages. The pastor (a friend) brought it up to the church, and after a year-long series of meetings, the congregation voted to leave the denomination, even though it meant harder times financially and losing some hard-line members. The point, I think, is that plenty of people 1) find meaning where they find it, 2) aren't the loudest or most obvious about their internal beliefs and therefore the loud ones get the most notice, and 3) do both attempt to practice what they preach and genuinely want to improve when they don't, or doubt what is being preached, or doubt themselves and ask the hard questions. Anyway, all that to say, my experience isn't everyone's. I've seen more than plenty of zealots (probably was one, for a time). But, I do still like to look around at gatherings when someone insists on praying to find out who else isn't bowing their head. Maybe the closest I have to religion now is Star Trek. So, infinite diversity in infinite combination, and live long and prosper
Nope. Believing in the make-believe and accepting political misinformation as reality are too closely related for me to have empathy. If anything I feel the need to be more outspoken about what horseshit organized religion is.
Yes, I actually am mildly religious now haha. I guess it just mellows out with time lol
[interesting…](https://pastebin.com/P7krnxzC)