Anti-religious anger online

camscott7

You wrote, "you must understand that many who do not support religious convictions do so because they have a love and concern for the human race."

As you said "many", which does not in the least imply ALL, so why does it appear that you imply that ALL with "religious convictions", as you put it, have absolutely no "love and concern for the human race"?

As I have said before, God looks at the person, not the "label", God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof.

You also wrote, " i can speak for myself as being an anti-nihilist. the lie of religion is nihilistic by nature."

Seems as if you group together "religion" as if "all beliefs" in anything "greater or different than that which is 'observable' by our senses is all the same to you, which is just your opinion and not in the least true, there is a whole "spectrum" of beliefs out here in this world which are, to say the least, not identical.

Lots of what people say concerning God and not just about whether there is a God or not, is just their opinion.

I have met God and this is neither my opinion nor something that I can prove, God is Who "proved" to me that God Is.

There can be a wide gap between God and "religion" and also a wide gap between the "reality" of God and what some say about God, even those that know God's Name but seem to know absolutely nothing else about God except for God's Name.

It is about both the here and now and the hereafter, some seem to disagree, but as I have said, many disagree about a lot of things.

Seems to be a very "human" tendency to group "others", especially those that think or believe differently than ourselves, into the elusive "all of them think, do, believe, say, ..." identically, when in reality, there are many, many ways in which "they" are not "clones" of one another.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

to be honest, this is a profoundly stupid article. a thing that best quote i have ever heard about the non-belief (i use this term hesitantly) of atheism is "atheism is a belief the way not collecting stamps is a hobby." so to assert that some atheists express a degree of fundamentalism that radical religious groups often express is to say that a non-belief holds a particular set of beliefs in general, but as the aforementioned quote accurately describes, a non-belief cannot assert common beliefs between people who hold one singular idea.
however, this is not the only example of the stupidity of this article. even if these atheists were fundamentalists, they are still not fundamentalist in the same fashion that radical religious groups are fundamentalists. lest we forget, the genital mutilation crowd is 99% (although, i personally count circumcision as genital mutilation, i do not expect everyone to share my belief, so i will excuse it from the percentage, the suicide bombing crowd is 99% religious. religion, in particular the catholic church, has shown us that you can get away with the most heinous acts imaginable - child rape among many others - as long as you have a religious organization that has the power to cover up your crimes.
you ask why there is a outpour of rage from atheists, which, one again, is a pretty silly and shortsighted question. how could secularists not be angry at religions that openly support terrorism, ignorance, lying to children about scientific facts such as the origins of our universe and our species, child indoctrination, child abuse - sexual abuse included in many cases. religion, and i am speaking generally, because this definitely does apply to all religions, belittles the importance of this life by making us worry about the next one. it tells us that morality is given because a celestial being will punish us. why wouldn't someone who sees through these lies not be angry. when someone sees the cover-up of child rape and they are not enraged then there is something serious wrong with them.
you must understand that many who do not support religious convictions do so because they have a love and concern for the human race. i can speak for myself as being an anti-nihilist. the lie of religion is nihilistic by nature.

PSolus

You wrote, "Yes, it is truly a shame that all this superstitiously-based hostility happens.

You never see non-believers doing the same to believers, do you?"

Can you actually ask this question with a straight face? Or is this one of them "rhetorical things"?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

F I F A - W O R L D - C U P - 2 0 1 0:
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Yes, it is truly a shame that all this superstitiously-based hostility happens.

You never see non-believers doing the same to believers, do you?

If you aren't superstitious, you have respect for others, if you are superstitious... well, I'll let the response to this post say it for me.

Think about it...

Peregrine
Always avoid superstition.

volkmare, religious hostility from atheists has been brought on by yourselves, the religious ones. An you also claimed "You never see religious people doing the same to atheists, do you?". Of course, Sherlock you people have been hostile towards us from the dawn of civilization. Your books tell you to butcher us and ostracize us, etc, etc. For instance the great state of South Carolina, I cannot run for a public office unless I lie. You have the gall to claim that you guys do not get angry at us. You don't just get angry at us, you would butcher us all if you could get away with. You have done that before and would do it again if secularism had not triumphed as much as it has. It should triumph a lot more. Not a moment goes by without you guys pushing your delusional beliefs on us. That includes this charlatan Wolpe too.

Pagaplace, thanks for your response. I also thaough it was a bit amusing to have started that sentence with "in my book...", indeed the words when put to gether convey something totally different from what each one means. So much for that.

The point of Wolpe's article is that Atheists are angry. And he finds that quite astonishing and reprehensible. He can do that kind of hectoring to his flock as they (of his ilk) would like to call their credulous clients. If he was truly astonished, his choice of words would have sounded lot more curious and inquisitive, and not that of indignation.

I have watched him debating likes of Sam Harris and others. He never refrains to take advantage of his position as a preacher but does not present cogent logical arguments. he makes statements like "It has never been established that physical laws always apply", which is nothing but pure rubbish.

When I talk about scriptures I go by whatever the adherents claim to be scripture. I don't need to define the term, I am willing to accept their claims of what is a scripture. The books you refer to are not claimed by many as scripture, except may be you alone. They may well be good books of ethics and morality. But they are not the ones that are being used at the pulpit. So my challenge is about those books.

Now coming to the issue of us treating all the snake oil salesmen called preachers or whatever as the same. Yes I do treat all of them same, not only because of morons like Jerry Fewell, Pat Robberson or Billy Graham. But also because these rascals all come to the table with totally unsubstantiated claims for their morality and their ethics. If even one of them comes to the table with a proclamation that they are willing to consider a godless universe, not necessarily accept it, then may be I would make distinction.

I have cited the article written by that bigot Jim Daly on another blog on WAPO who creates a controversy about Obama's Father's day remarks. When you this kind of utter vile rubbish, yes we get angry. I am not going to apologize for that. Let these delusional bigots stop pushing their dog upon us then we will stop being so angry against them.

Yes, it is truly a shame that all this religious hostility happens.

You never see religious people doing the same to atheists, do you?

If you have faith, you have respect for others, if you don’t... well, I'll let the response to this post say it for me.

Think about it...

Mark
Always seek the truth.

""Paganplace, thanks for the references you provided. But from what I see these are books written by mere mortals, like you and me. In my book a scripture,""

'In your book?' Interesting thing language is, eh? ;)

I'd say they're all written by mortals, ...whether or not they might make fitting moral guides is of course, not really dependent on other sorts of claims.

I suppose Marcus Aurelius, as an Emperor, could be arguably considered in his own millieu to be more than an ordinary mortal, if that's of importance.

(That's really not the important part to me, anyway. "scripture" is an ill-defined word in these senses, for what that's worth, I think. )

In most Pagan traditions, historical and modern alike, while there may or may not be religious writings or teachings *about* religion, or, otherwise, teaching-stories and myths, the writings and stories themselves *are not as such the object of worship or obedience.*

The 'guidance' may come in the form,for some of philosophy, or in the lessons of myth and the world: that varies, but books are what they are.

Blanket dismissals of 'Religion' are part of how Rabbis catch flak for what Falwell or the Church do. And they *do* have holy books per se.

Admittedly, Judaism isn't entirely exempt from many of these criticisms, especially in the past, and anywhere Judaism is an engine of political power, but in the main I have a lot of respect for how Jews handle such things.

And there's a big difference, mind you, between 'I really respect that,' and 'You and your book are above criticism, at least where it affects or has affected others.'

I think one of the problematic things about the aggression of conservative Christians in particular, in society, is in fact that they teach that very all-or-nothing attitude... one which I think a lot of 'angry atheists' embrace where you may find a lot of Rabbis do not.

Allowing for what is, I think, justifiable anger, it'd do us all some good to remember it doesn't *have* to be all-or-nothing.

As much as that anger comes from the very frustration of tring to talk to people who feel they're above such concerns, mind who it's directed against. It's too easy to get rather inured to the notion that the other side just ain't listening or reasoning, anyway.

Rabbi Wolpe here is a good one to speak up and say 'Hey!' I sure don't agree with all of what he says, but he *is* considered, thoughtful, and I think, adaptable. These are some of the best traditions of his tradition, I think, and should be honored as such if we all *do* want anything to get done out here. :)

Paganplace, thanks for the references you provided. But from what I see these are books written by mere mortals, like you and me. In my book a scripture, is book or set of books, that are used by whole multitude of people to organize their lives. These are generally attributed to have been either revealed to a few individual or the books whose existence is claimed from eternity. The citations you provided are neither. My challenge is that all the so called scriptures are really vile, without the merit that is bestowed on them. In general they are very vile books. I have read at some length these books the all three monotheistic religions, and that of Hinduism, some greek and roman mythologies, as well as the Zoroastrian. All of them come up real short.

BTW Wolpe laments about us being angry, he has gall to say such things. has anyone read the piece of horse^&#t that Daly guy wrote on these blogs about Presidents inclusive speech about Fathers day. You theists you wonder why we are angry, read that bigot's nonsense and you demand respect for your divisive, bigoted views. Sorry not from this one.

Actually, Rabbi, I think the atheist commenters on your YouTube debates with Harris and Hitches thought you made much better points than say, Dinesh D'Souza. I know I certainly thought so.

"Remember what G.K. Chesterton said: When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything."

Do you have any idea what Chesterton based this particular belief on?

Was he an expert on not believing in a particular god?

Was he an expert on believing in anything, as opposed to believing in nothing?

Maybe, even, we all take a step back from what the anger is *about,* and acknowledge and think about the *anger itself.*

It's real, it's obvious, ...it's a factor, and it always *has* been, I think, we've just not as a society been able to express it in quite this way before such as the Internet allows.

So, what is it, where does it come from, and what would we each and all rather be doing?

But, you know, back on the theme of the pure emotion and thought-pattern of all this: where *does* the anger come from, viscerally?

Lots of things, but especially for atheists and non-Christians, how about *frustration?* Especially under stress?

That makes people angry, right?

Maybe it's not about the content, so much as the insistence upon *impasse* by certain absolutes.

""You and Mr. Wolpe wonder why atheists are angry. Inherent in your thought process is that an atheist can stumble into being moral. The fact of the matter is there is no scripture, be it of the so called monotheistic religions or the polytheistic religions, ""

For starters, polytheistic religions don't base themselves on 'revealed scriptures' as the same kind of 'revealed authorities' as do those based on the books about Abraham. Bear that in mind.

But you ask for guides:

""that provides any guide to moral living. I will challenge on this forum to present a scripture that can be offered up as a moral guide.""

Err... Let's see, *glancing at coffee table.* The meditations of Marcus Aurelius?
The Discourses of Epictetus?
Lucretius' De Rerum Natura?

That's just between the covers of the nearest such book to hand. Nothing to do with monotheism, or, I guess, notions of 'revealed scripture,' but one could do worse, I suppose.

I mean, I don't set much store by 'scriptures,' but here's something I can *offer.* Maybe check em out. I dunno. :)

Rabbi Wolpe,

I liked your article so much I went out and got a copy of the book (which I am reading now). Remember what G.K. Chesterton said: When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.

SCKershaw, you wrote "I have no doubt that atheists can be moral people - that indeed, most are. But I don’t believe that morality can be sustained in a society of atheists."

You and Mr. Wolpe wonder why atheists are angry. Inherent in your thought process is that an atheist can stumble into being moral. The fact of the matter is there is no scripture, be it of the so called monotheistic religions or the polytheistic religions, that provides any guide to moral living. I will challenge on this forum to present a scripture that can be offered up as a moral guide. All the books of fables are for the most part are vile, amoral treatises of sheer gibberish. You want to indoctrinate the children before they are capable of critical thinking and that we are supposed to object to in only the mildest form. That is not going to work, you want license to hijack the evolutionary mechanisms that had evolved to protect the species for your hidden agendas. We are going to call you on it.

Well said, Rabbi Wolpe. As a mainline Christian, when I read your post I thought "yeah, I agree, good article." I did not take the time to respond because this particular post did not affect me greatly pro or con. Perhaps most of us believers react this way, so you only hear from the people who have the strongest and most emotional reaction to the message. I pray for people who have been hurt by religion, and I try to avoid repeating the mistakes believers have made before me.

Don't stop writing intelligent posts for us to react to...or absorb without responding in some cases (grin).

PS-I wonder what the role of a moderator should be in this situation? I want to hear the responses, even when strongly negative, but I don't want to page through many unreasoned attacks that have little to do with the intended subject.

Also, btw, Littlezach.

That's an excellent post.

Frankly, I still have hopes that once we get used to this Internet thing and maybe all like unload for a while, that's the kind of tone we can expect to find around these issues.

In part, no one acknowledges each other's *anger,* and maybe that's why the Fundies and angry atheists just shout at each other.

I think it'd really be worth exploring this anger: the hard fact for some is that in fact the big religions are the ones who have had all the power all along, and if they are angry about people refusing to surrender what those big religions never had the right to demand in the first place, ...well, certainly that anger and false sense of entitlement to others' obedience is real as well, but that simply doesn't make it just or productive.

Much shouting is done around the idea of 'who's righteous,' ...Obviously, I have my own positions on this.

We haven't addressed the anger among and between ourselves, however, *simply as what it is.*

For that to begin, all concerned have to accept we're all equal as voices, if not as 'authorities' or 'intellects' or whatnot.

The simple human emotions have roots in experiences. And that's not always *about* 'who's right.'

How do we feel about each other, and how would we *like* to, in a better world? That might be a good question for such a discussion.

One wonders, too, Rabbi, if the 'angry atheists' don't behave this way precisely *because* certain forms of religion have claimed ownership of mind and soul and state and family and community, which sense of entitlement to ownership they have in fact used to make people feel terribly miserable about themselves, as well as helpless in the face of what often looks like a slow train-wreck, where there was supposed to be a better and brighter future.

All based on 'If God exists, you are this sinful thing that deserves what is done to you and the world.'

In some ways, I see the angry atheist trolls as simply needing to say 'No.'

Which is the exact thing that people who claim authority via the 'existence' of a God out of a book taught them was important.

Sometimes the only answer to some of the psychological double-binds Big Religion employs to repress the human spirit and the potential of a free society... Is 'No.'

In a context of *freedom,* as opposed to carrot-and-stick threats, then people may explore the world and our heritage as we're meant to.

(One of those double-binds in monotheism, especially monotheism as social-and-behavior control, is 'You're helpless, but what we say is 'free will' means you're still punishable.' But that's not freedom, never mind a place where one can really connect 'religion' with the *spirit* that is our birthright. )

Even the repetition of 'No' means something, Rabbi. Monotheists usually claim it's an 'attack,' (and atheists often employ it as such, but simply not-obeying threats is hardly an 'attack' in any sane worldview,) but, no, it's not an 'attack,' ...actually it's an affirmation that people *have* minds and their souls are their own.

Where we all go from there, can be something else besides an endless circular verbal *battle.*

While religious literacy for kids may be a great idea, we certainly teach it in Pagan communities, ...in terms of institutions and the national debate, authoritarian monotheism has really blown it in recent times. And really needs to *back off for a while.*

Coming times promise to be challenging, and I think it's time to recognize that our relationships as neighbors, with boundaries and connections, both, is the thing that our society, and as such, the dominant religions especially, need to be working on now.

Not trying to prove all this screwing up and hurting people is really 'ultimately right.'

Till then, we'll all keep hearing the *No.*

Mr. Wolpe,

I completely understand the lack of positive discourse in regard to this topic and have come to appreciate the televised debates such as the one with Sam Harris at a Jewish College. However, we are talking about children and thus the emotions will tend to run higher in the case of impressionable, authoritatively adhering captive audiences rather than a cognizant adult willfully walking his way to church Sunday morning. The fact of the matter is children do not have the ability to discern for themselves what a relationship with God means in their life personally, politically and socially until a level of maturity and responsibility is achieved that can be approximately gauged by age and examination of peer interaction and literary competence.

Further you cannot teach one to be faithful. Which is what religion is based on the above mentioned debate. That is an independent journey one must take for themselves when they decide to take that journey. What you suggest is subjecting an underdeveloped mind incapable of discerning for themselves what is allegorical, literal and open to interpretation to what is quite frankly literary work beyond elementary school comprehension.

Is it really fair to society, the educational system and the child to teach stories that give historical, geological, anthropological, etc. claim before they are even old enough to be presented with scientific data that runs contrary to these accounts? I think not.

Personally I feel that secular values should be adhered to de facto. After all, even a Jew is a human before being a Jew and so on. Secular is the path of life until indoctrination.

The objections that atheists have against theism can be summed up in one word - entitlement. Theist claim an entitlement to direct the lives of others from ancient books, social tradition or personal revelation. Whichever one is the source, the claim is an extra-physical manifestation, unchallengeable and unproven. This entitlement has sustained the rule of tyrants and inspired the terror of zealots. Some people are angry about that.

But there is another side. Religion has been a vehicle used to engender some degree of personal reticence, dissuading the performance of many destructive acts. Religion has provided a forum for a level of social organization that made large scale projects possible. And religion has provided comfort and solace for people in desperate circumstances.

None of those things make religion true. But no one, including atheists, can claim a knowledge of the universe so exhaustive as to utterly rule out counterargument. Moreover, while entitlement based on religion seems to be the most robust, a similar sense of entitlement can be derived from economic theories or ethnic bigotry.

I have no doubt that atheists can be moral people - that indeed, most are. But I don’t believe that morality can be sustained in a society of atheists.

Besides what do your sordid vile books of fables say about us that we are destined to eternal damnation. How many of you so called people of the cloth have ever apologized for such vile rubbish.

You pose as though you are open minded and walking the high road by making such statements as below:

"It explained that we should tell children stories of faith, allow them to develop their own questions, draw distinctions between physical and non-physical (e.g. 'love' is non-physical; God is non physical) and encourage wonder. Nothing too religiously radical was proposed."

If you are really open minded then you should let the children grow up to be 16 or so before you try to sell your snake oil. You want a monopoly on indoctrinating the children from the beginning and then let them find out whatever it is they want. You want to stack the deck so to speak and then you call our criticism as vituperative. You are sir quite dishonest in you righteous indignation. Of course nothing ever is too religiously radical.. The problem sir is that religion in of itself, which totally disregards evidence and pursuit of truth is radically wrong. SHAME ON YOU.

Anger may just be frustration. Name one verifiable act of an interventionist god. Physics and the big bang don't count. Cancer cures must show a god in the act. Biblical references must be documented with videos, photos, or other undeniable evidence, otherwise it will be considered just photoshopped UFO sightings.

Frankly, I think the anger is a direct result of the systemic abuse and irrationality that people may deny, downplay, and justify, or claim 'It's not happening, but it's your fault, but it's for your own good,' ...something people grow up to get out from under the thumb of, only to, in recent decades, find that the worst forms of aggressive religion are doing their best to do the same things to us as adults.

The Christian conservatives in particular are pretty clearly to blame for electing the bad governance that's wrecked our country and much of the world in recent decades: all out of promises of social control of others who simply want to live.

The hostility to religion in general certainly can be tedious, and often uncivil, but I do think it's a result of religious conservatives seeming to have departed reason entirely, while getting far too much of a pass on their baseless denigration and oppression of others, and claims to own the world, whatever short term future they may believe in, and *us.*

I don't know if the anger helps anything, but it can't be explained away.

I obviously don't believe religion *has* to be this way, (And I catch my share of random flak from people who assume my religion is of the same sort as they generalize about,) but I share the anger, myself.

If ideologies you'd been abused in the name of, and saw worse happen to others, or just the soul-crushing of those around you... Were wrecking your world and blaming some baseless 'sinfulness' of *you* for it, calling for you to be scapegoated constantly, and still claiming power in a free country over you, you'd be angry, too.

Certainly, you'd not want to let them do the same to another generation of children.

Not in *public* schools, at least.

Yeah, I feel the anger, too. Along with some survivor's guilt. I *hope* I can be more productive about it, but while there may be a lot of trolling, this probably isn't to be trivialized.