Oh boy, I sure love the ol’ “atheists are filthy neckbeards” canard. Haven’t heard that one before.
Don’t forget the “not believing in god = sadness” one. Realizing it is fake actually brought relief for the ex-religious people that I know (anecdotal, I know. I don’t have the actual numbers).
Thats a little unfair. Most religous people have been religious for most of their lives and it makes up a large part of it. Being convinced their whole philosophy is wrong would crush some people
Exactly. Use your own brain, not rely on a sky daddy who literally gave you instructions on how to own slaves.
To be honest, I don’t think a lot of people are ready. It’s a hard thing to deconstruct your faith and if you’re not careful it can take you to some really dark places. For a lot of people it’s the way they find meaning and solace in a world of pain. Ultimately if you can find that comfort without tying it to religion that’s better but not everyone can. That’s my take on it post-deconversion
It’s more of a generational issue, really. Convincing someone who was already indoctrinated as a baby and began to “pray” as early as their arm coordination allowed it is almost cruel, really. At that point it’s reality-shattering. Let alone if your religion included any kind of body-modification, especially without anesthesia (that shit burns itself into the very fabric of your brain as a baby). In that case it’s even worse, as it’d entail the realisation that your body has been violated (some may use stronger wording).
At the end of the day what counts is that you’re a decent person, no matter your stance on religion or spirituality.
I mean the boomers were the hippie generation so really its only the silent generation that really as a matter of course had that indoctrination and the youngest of them is in their eighties. For those below eighty its about being raised in a culture that can keep you insulated enough to not watch media or meet many people not like yourself.
Yeah, going from finding fulfillment through religion to finding it through other means isn’t something you can do instantly.
I try not to be too judgemental of people who are religious. We are not evolved enough as a species to be able to comprehend the unknown or unknowable, and everyone to some degree has to cope with this somehow, even if we aren’t consciously aware of it. Faith is an easy, convenient and catch-all solution to all of life’s unexplained phenomena, so it makes sense that people tend to gravitate towards it naturally, all it takes is a little push during childhood.
I take issue with it when religious folk try to force their views onto other people. Proselytizing is one thing, but converting people by duress or force, or by weaponizing the government apparatus to conform to their views and their views only, is where I stop caring about the feelings of those religious cults and do everything in my power to stop them or undermine their efforts.
Also, it really just depends on your age. Have you believed for decades? Not believing at some point in your life will be some kind of earth shaking change.
Sure, but the sooner they start, the better off they’ll be.
this guys stuff is great. heres a bit more
Throwing a stone is a dick move. Now he’s imperfect Pete!
Dick move… But not a sin! Still perfect pete!
Honestly, this is why I don’t discuss Mormon history and the massive, gaping chasms in their claims of Truth with my parents. My parents are old–old enough that the family is talking about who is going to call the coroner, who’s going to deal with tying up finances, etc.–and knowing that they’ve wasted an entire lifetime and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tithing on a con isn’t going to do anything useful at this point. Fifty years ago? Sure, they would have had plenty of time to come to terms with it. Now? Meh.
When I worked in a nursing home, I was Christian.
I mean, I wasn’t. At all. But the dying little old ladies who sundowned so bad that they sometimes thought I was their grandchild? When they asked if I believed in Jesus, I’d bite my tongue and tell them yes. I hated having to lie to their faces, I hate even thinking about it all these years later, but some of them had nothing to look forward to except “going to heaven” by that point. Lying seemed the most ethical choice.
I would think you’d need to tell lots of lies to someone in that state to not make things difficult over and over for them. Jesus would just be another one on that pile.
You got it. Sometimes the safest thing to do when somebody’s having hallucinations is to play along, and that means telling lots of lies. Sometimes people think their kids (who are well into their 60s) are still newborns, and they will have a panic attack because they don’t know where their “baby” is. I’ve reassured people that I “just set the baby down to nap” numerous times.
I’ve seen people treat dolls like real babies, too, and one time a lady rolled up to me in her wheelchair, asking to see a doctor because her baby (a doll with food smeared over its mouth) wasn’t eating. I even went so far as to get those “magic” doll bottle things that appear to “empty” when you tip them.
Point is, you’re right. But I don’t feel as conflicted about all the other lies I told, I guess the religion thing is just too … I dunno, “icky” for me? I’m an out atheist with pretty much everyone else. I don’t like having to go back into a closet.
One set of lies is about their past or present. The Jesus one is about their future. It’s a lot easier to lie to someone about the former two than to tell them there’s no future, they’ll never be whole or happy again. We all need a reason to look forward, a reason to keep the chin up and carry on. Most anyone can empathetically understand how crushing it would be if they were told that they were going to die soon, so telling an Alzheimer’s victim that there’s nothing to look forward to rings a similar bell in our heads.
I mean to make it easier I guess I would just tell myself I am convinced that Jesus existed. So I believe in him. But not “in Him” capital H.
Or you could imagine yourself cheering Jesus on and hoping he will do well in sports ball for the Jerusalem league. I could see him as a solid basketball player with the magical powers and all.
Nothing wrong with lying there obviously.
knowing that they’ve wasted an entire lifetime and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tithing on a con isn’t going to do anything useful at this point.
It always gets me how people can be so comfortable with tithing while so prickly about paying taxes. I’ve straight up heard “every dollar I give to the government is one I can’t give to the church” as an argument, when the town and state I’m living in is joined at the hip with the church they love.
Fifty years ago? Sure, they would have had plenty of time to come to terms with it.
Church is one of those third-spaces that the unemployed and retired flock to when they’ve got too much time and not a ton of money. A great deal of the appeal of these places, especially back in my parents’ day, was as a social center with a feel-good energy. As a born-and-raised Houstonian I’ve seen it work on enormous numbers of otherwise-religiously-apathetic people. The whole Joel Osteen model is Good Vibes as a religious experience. One big Jesus Themed Pep Rally.
I think you can probably logic your way to a “God’s Not Real” conclusion with a generic religiously-ambivalent lay person. But I don’t think a simple logic chain is enough to convince folks who consider religion a form of community recreation to stop showing up. No more than you could talk someone out of blaring their favorite brand of Country Music or driving an oversized pickup truck or playing with their toy guns down at the gun range.
These just aren’t logical decisions. They are social decisions.
I got a Father in Law that tithes his retirement income from the military to his church and votes hard republican. But he abstained from Trump voting so he considers himself enlightened.
They are social decisions.
Exactly.
I don’t know that my parents were ever the kind of person that bitched about paying taxes. They might have privately, but i don’t remember it ever being a big deal. Me, I understand that my taxes are too low for what I expect the gov’t to be doing.
And you’re exactly right about the social experience. One of the enormous struggles for atheists has been building a community. Churches fill that need, even though they cause real harms in other ways. If you go to a church, it’s easy to meet people and make friends when you move to a new community. If you don’t, well, good luck because you’re going to need it.
DEAR LORD PEOPLE, SOMETIMES THERE IS NOT A DEEPER MESSAGE AND IT’S JUST A DUMB JOKE!
Seriously, check out the other comics by this artist. They just like absurdist humor, like this one:
Dad’s reaction is exactly what I’d do.
Don’t be anti-intellectual about this silly comic. People can apply intellectual analysis to stupid things if they want to, and they damn-well may find deeper meaning sometimes.
Let people have their hobbies.
Sure, but that also means that I get to make my own contribution to the discussion. 😀
People seem to forget that and think they own the limit in what is related conversation. I could talk about how I knew a group of people that looked exactly like these neckbeards and talk about their hygeine. Somehow acceptable but other works from the artist and a mention of their use of absurdist tone?
It feels it’s not about conversation here often, but an actual competition to be the most analytical and factual.
I’d rather comments be part of the open conversation.I mean, you get to make your own contribution because we’re on an open platform, not for any other reason. quite often intellectual spaces shut down and deplatform anti-intellectual rhetoric and thought-terminating cliches such as what you’ve stated. It serves no one discussing the intricacies of any work to have someone yelling “The curtains were fucking blue!”, and this comment section literally exists to discuss the above comic and its various aspects.
Example intellectual comments being posted here:
I didn’t realize neckbeard atheists oppressed so many people compared to religion, thanks to the author for opening my eyes
So many militant atheists. Saying so much, all just to prove the comic right.
Having said that, my specific objection is not to all of the discussion taking place here, but to the fact that a lot of the comments seem to be projecting their own personal viewpoints onto the comic.
Also, I was not shouting people down; I was speaking in all caps to be funny. It’s fine if you personally did not think I funny, but that was the intent (which in retrospect could probably have been conveyed more clearly if I had also dropped the comma so that it was purely a stream of words), just like it was the intent of the comic author to make a dumb joke rather than to state a strong opinion about atheists. I think that it is useful to separate the intent of what an author was trying to accomplish from your own thoughts on the subject.
That’s somewhat my bad for taking the adversarial tone of your original comment to being serious and about all comments looking into the comic’s unsaid meanings.
At the same time, though, the comic is 100% meant to make fun of militant atheists, as in atheists who make their whole personality atheism. The folks who’s sole goal seemingly is to make everyone stop being religious. And the punchline is that despite achieving his goal, he only managed to make his mother’s life worse by forcing her through an epiphany she wasn’t ready for and then abandoning her with her own thoughts. The comic is partially funny because of it making fun of militant atheists. The other portion of the humor is the absurd nature of the situation.
The first comment you show takes that joke personally and the second resonates with that message. Neither of these are really off the mark, as grating as their tones may be to some.
I agree completely that the comic is parodying a particular cliche of a militant atheist. I disagree that the intent was to provide serious social commentary.
And I did not find either of those comments grating; I was merely citing them as evidence that not all of the discussion here is “intellectual”. Honestly, the real avenue of criticism that was left open to you that I was expecting you to take was to point out, correctly, that they were heavily cherry-picked for their unreasonableness; it actually surprises me a bit that instead you called them not “really off the mark” as if they were inherently reasonable responses.
Sure, that’s what satire is. A parody of something to criticise it. Often using clichés to ensure the subject is immediately identifiable.
This comic is a satire of militant atheists, because the author finds that militant atheists are insufferable and deserve to be made fun of, as the comic is doing. Why else would the author choose them specifically to satirize?
You chose those two comments to point at examples of unintellectual discussion. I am pointing out that they are not as unintellectual as you paint them to be. I don’t strongly agree with what they are saying, but that does not immediately disqualify them from contributing from the conversation. Your comment was the only one calling for the termination of the pursuit of deeper meaning in the comic, which is an anti-intellectual stance.
So you’re saying you should just let people believe and leave them be? /s
Depends on whether or not their beliefs harm themselves or others.
So many people in this thread completely missing the satire. The author is clearly also an atheist poking fun at the highschool reddit atheist stereotype. Taking this way too seriously.
I didn’t catch the self-deprecation. What makes it clear?
To me, what this comic is saying is that even if you’re able to debate someone out of believing in God it’s cruel to do it to someone like your mom who has God as the central pillar of their emotional well-being.
It presupposes that you’re able to “prove” that God doesn’t exist and to me it doesn’t necessarily paint the idea of being an atheist in a negative light, just the neckbeard atheist attitude that you should try to emotionally destroy people who do believe in God.
It’s a three panel comic so yeah, it’s a bit ambiguous, I just think that people are missing that the punchline is really only funny from an atheist perspective. From a Christian perspective the comic is awkward. The last panel wouldn’t be a punchline and wouldn’t make sense at all, how would these obviously loser neckbeards be able to prove God doesn’t exist?
Hmm, that is a pretty insightful point. On the other hand, I think most people I know who are religious are the sort who can appreciate self-deprecating humour themselves – they might think it’s funny for taking an absurd premise to its logical conclusion.
What suggests to me that this author is trying to paint atheism in a negative light is quite straightforwardly “score one for atheism.” It doesn’t really have a hint of irony to me. I think the author clearly thinks atheism just isn’t cool anymore.
Religion may be a lie but it’s a comforting lie and that helps a lot of people get through their daily life.
Thing is it shouldn’t be comforting to anyone if they really take the details seriously. You could do as much damage really educating someone about Deuteronomy and other fun parts of the Bible and ultimately leave them in a worse state than finding a way to make them an atheist.
We forget an atheist is just a non-theist. Someone who doesn’t believe in any specific canonical god. I’m an atheist with a genuine faith the universe has more in store for “me” (whatever that is; I don’t believe it’s necessarily or eternally “ynthrepic”) than a mere human lifetime given what we know about the universe as a whole and how mysterious and seemingly fundamental consciousness is to it all. That gives me some relief and comfort from the existential dread. More than I could possibly get from Yahweh and his totally uncompelling biblical heaven and hell dynamic.
Most people I know who are religious don’t take the bible very literally; most haven’t even read it. The comforting lie is stuff about the after-life, heaven, and a caring universe.
And that’s great so long as it’s a source of comfort and not dread. The fear of God and hellfire is real. We need people who carry faiths to recognize that this is by definition an uncertainty for which no real evidence exists, when it comes to consequences in the real world. Maybe that’s a contradiction to some, but it doesn’t need to be.
You’re forgetting that some people have coping mechanisms for life around systems containing a kind god that’s there looking after them, and will reunite them with people they desperately hope to see again when they die.
Your coping mechanism is hoping the universe is magical and mysterious and has something more for you when you die. You’re not an atheist, just a non-denominational theist with a different hope for continuing on after you’re dead. I hope it brings you comfort, but don’t shit on people who have a different post death comfort they hope for.
Nonsense. I don’t believe in any divine entity, which is the definition of theism. Moreover, my “faith” isn’t predicated on any actions in the world. It’s a musing about the universe. A hopeful fantasy that I think is worth wanting. But it’s not a gospel for how you ought to live in the world. That’s why organised religions are a toxic force in the world overall, and we should never shy away from criticising them.
The drawing of him kicking in the door is hilarious.
Some people just can’t handle being released from Plato’s cave.
The first experience for many is crushing despair. It can take time to get out of that slump and learn to find meaning in a meaningless world.
The world has plenty of meaning that doesn’t involve any kind of faith or religion.
Not objective meaning, though, it’s all subjective. But nothing wrong with subjective meaning!
Faith doesn’t have any objective meaning either.
But they already grew up with it. Finding a different subjective meaning to replace an existing one is what’s hard.
With how sad and empty my geriatric mother’s life is, the last thing I’m going to do is take away her imaginary friend.
As long as they aren’t doing horrible things in the name of religion, then I have the controversial opinion that religion isn’t all bad. Not everyone is an intellectual, therefore some religions can be considered a way to promote and preserve morals. While it’s unknown how his mother used religion, the neckband portrayed in the comic had no regard for his mother’s feelings or beliefs, showcasing the bad side of atheism. In the same way, religion could have similar effects. In the end there needs to be balance, a yin and a yang.
I’ve got a somewhat different take, but similar
We are shedding light on the world through science and philosophy. We first figure out the most effective ways to think about things with philosophy, and then we apply that thought process with the scientific method to further our understanding.
Eventually, we will always reach the shadows on the edge our understanding, whether personally or as a society. Past that point, we are really just making up apparitions in the dark, until we can shed light on that edge.
That process of spotting forms in the dark is always going to be informed by some unfalsifiable ideation, either because we can’t test the ideas we have, or because the ideas we have are inherently unproveable.
To me, it really doesn’t matter what kind of ideation you have past that point of shadow, be it religion or nihilism or panpsychism or determinism, but I hope that whatever idea you have faith in brings you solace and makes those dark forms in shadow less daunting.
The problem comes, when you chose to be in the dark about something and apply faith-based arguments where light has already been shed, or when you use apparitions you made up as an excuse to do harm to others.
As an atheist I have a deep mistrust of proselytizing.
That includes other atheists who think they need to spread their beliefs like a religion.
I have atheist, christian and esoteric friends and family who keep their beliefs to themselves (unless asked for it) and it’s part of my worldview to (while being able to talk about it) not trying to convert someone to my beliefs.
Live and let live, yeah.
But once they try to convert me I go full out.
I mean it is bad, it’s the base of the pyramid that builds up to the tip which is religious extremism. That said religion can’t be banned out outlawed, it will just dig its self in deeper under the pretense of oppression so it’s more a matter of having to tolerate a minor evil and staying vigilant it doesn’t evolve into its final form by keeping life balanced
As long as they aren’t doing horrible things in the name of religion, then I have the controversial opinion that religion isn’t all bad.
You just described the avg Trump supporter.
And this exact sentiment is what let them spread their cult this far.
delivering someone from a lifetime of sexual and gender oppression, and eliminating their need to tithe a portion of their income to an organization that hides and protects pedophiles and rapists?
Mom’s on the floor weeping with joy.
Not every member of a church experiences those things first hand.
lucky! they still subsidize the activity if they tithe tho.
Not every church sends their tithe to the Vatican. Not all christians are Catholic. And not every church has paedophiles.
But I condemn all that do. It’s horrible. Disgusting and despicable. I have two kids, and it drives me insane to think someone would consider doing that to them. 😡
Yeah, there are exceptions in every group
I would go as far as to say that experiencing any of those things is the exception.
Me at 13 discovering I wont see my loved ones ever again and there’s nobody’s hand on my shoulder holding me up:
Me when I try and pet a cat but they run away.
Yeah, I warn those who are challenging their own faith that naturalism isn’t for everyone. For me it was a stark process to come to terms that I’m thinking meat, and my species is looking at some imminent great filters even before we are able to create a dependent colony on our own moon, so mostly harmless is going to be more of a footnote than our society deserves.
As someone who had an early aspiration to add something significant to the collective community that it could take with it into the future, this proved to be a bit of a let-down.
What aspects of naturalism do you feel negate the reality of our collective community? I really don’t see how the one led you to the other.
I don’t think naturalism negates our collective community, but it does mean it is up to us to navigate an instinct for small tribes. Once we took up advanced agriculture and stopped migrating, we built large societies. And since then we have been contending with subversives who favor their own smaller sects over the good of the community, and they are very good at subverting larger systems for their personal gain.
Most theistic paradigms insist that there are higher powers to assist us when we confront existential threats (such as the climate crisis). Naturalism is one of the paradigms (not the only one) that confronts that there are no safety nets or training wheels. The human species can die out without the assurance of self-sustaining off-world colonies, and there are no higher powers to care or even notice. (Again, not to say they don’t exist, but we’ve looked hard and been unable to detect them.)
Human society may, possibly in the face of the Trump regime, finally take class consciousness and community-focused governance seriously on a large scale. (There have been smaller scale examples.)
However, this isn’t the first time we’ve thought about it and been subverted by established political power. Rather historically, often just after a bout of tyranny, societal collapse and its consequential horrors, we decide as firmly as we can that this time we’re going to do it right! and then it gets diluted and subverted within even thirty years.
So to address the matter of uniting our collective community in a global cooperative effort: It’s going to take a sociological miracle. We need to discover some new method, invent some new technology that enables all of us, even Trump, Musk, Vought and Thiel to recognize that every one of our fellow 343 million Americans (or 8 billion plus fellow humans) is, as Jesus put it, our neighbor who we should regard equally, that the worst renegade and the most wretched transient deserve the same benefits and treatment as themselves. And then this new thing needs to be resistant to efforts to subvert it.
(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal imagined such a gimmick, though I can’t locate the specific comic. In it a point system is invented, and it’s noted that people are nice for the points rather than for a sincere interest in community, but the system works, so it doesn’t matter much.)
And we need to do it soon. We’re running out of water, and the global average temperature is now at levels where experts warned us could prove a challenge to responders even at the national scale as hurricanes and wildfires rampage across the planet. The unlucky ones will survive until the global famine.
Naturalistic philosophy doesn’t say we can’t navigate our way to a community-driven society that acknowledges the least of us deserve a comfy life and we should mind the environment, rather, it only acknowledges that if we don’t we risk human extinction, and if we die out, there’s nothing watching out for us. The greatest cosmic horrir: throughout the universe not even a fraction of a fuck will be given as all of our culture, all of our ideas and works will be reduced to another geological layer on a speck orbiting a spark.
And a lot of people are not prepared to confront this.
Don’t get two hung up on great filters. We could’ve easy passed a few of them in the last hundred million years. You’re much more than thinking meat, you have feelings and a perspective over time. its amazing not a liability.
Even if boom over, it was loads of fun.
I’m an atheist but I understand that religion and/or faith makes a lot of people happy and I don’t want to take that happiness away from them.
Agnostic here and yeah, most atheists and agnostics I have ever met are about the same. We don’t care if YOU believe. We care that you care we don’t. Most of us will never utter a word against your religion and beliefs as long as you “do unto others” and all that jazz. This comic reaks of being drawn by a Christian about how they think Athiests behave and feel. This video is ancient now, but I get the same vibes off this comic.
I take this comic to be more poking fun at the portion of atheists who make their entire personality around disproving God’s existence - people who try to spread atheism the same way christians spread their own gospel. It’s largely not applicable to other atheists.
Yeah, those aren’t athiests, they are assholes. Anyone who prosthelytizes is an asshole. Period.
I do. It’s such a waste of time. I’m not going to start anything with people, I don’t have the patience or energy for that. And honestly, i don’t have any debate skills. But I really wish I could just take it all away. Isn’t it better to be right than to be happy?
Isn’t it better to be right than to be happy?
First of all, no it isn’t. If you think it is, please explain why.
Also, Is that a decision that you would want someone else to make for you?
If not, why do you want to make that decision for other people?
