The poll doesn’t mention trolling.

@skado I am aware of that. I'm also aware that one of the few reasons an atheist would have for visiting religious sites would be to stir up shit. Did I need your permission to mention trolling?

@Deb57
Engaging in discussion is what we do here. No permissions required, in either direction. I just wonder why people assume the only reason to examine an idea different from their own would be to pick fights. I thought agnosticism was supposedly about open-mindedness. (I’m not trying to pick a fight here - just genuinely curious.) Best regards.

@skado I certainly would never imply that trolling or picking fights would be the only reason for visiting a site promoting beliefs that differ, but your comment prompts me to wonder about your motivation for wishing to "correct" me on my statement. It's not like I deviated from the topic or tried to commandeer the conversation. I do consider myself open-minded, and am a strong advocate for free speech, which is why it rankles a bit when someone appears to want to control what I can say. I have to wonder why.

@Deb57
I have no desire to control anybody - I wouldn’t want that responsibility. Apologies if my tone was too abrupt. I tend to assume we’re all “family” here, and can be casual. I’m quite open to correction if you would care to suggest how I might have asked my question in a less confrontational way. Thanks.

@skado I would gladly offer a better way to ask a question, but you didn't ask a question. You shut down my original comment with a statement. Your responses to anything I have posted here come off as quite manipulative.

@Deb57
Thanks for the feedback. I had no idea.

I have no interest in “manipulating” anybody (toward what?) or shutting anybody down. I thought the idea here was to open up and talk to people.

I guess I felt my question was implied… several people responded similarly (about trolling) I just wondered why they all introduced trolling into the discussion when trolling wasn’t mentioned in the OP. That is all.
I don’t see how that shuts anything down.

@skado I'll allow that you probably didn't mean to shut me down. The wording was abrupt enough to make me notice, though. Having come out of a 17 year marriage with a covert narcissist, I tend to look at the words people use, and question what prompts a statement. Why and when people say things is often more telling than what they actually say. Also, atheists trolling believers, and believers trolling atheists are both pretty common occurrences. I tend to leave a snarky comment on Ken Ham's "Answers in Genesis" Twitter account, when I'm in the mood or when one of his minions posts something too banal to ignore.

@Deb57
Please accept my heartfelt apology. I have nothing but the greatest sympathy for past injuries, and will try to be more mindful in the future. The very reason I question the automatic assumption of ‘trolling being the only reason to visit an outgroup site’ is because I am so aware of the potential damage it can cause. No one has a deficiency caused by insufficient trolling, manipulation, or gaslighting.

I love engaging people in dialogue, even challenging dialogue, but from my perspective, it’s all in the service of building better understanding - not for the sake of “being right” or putting other people down. I’m genuinely interested in other people’s views, and why they hold them. That’s the only reason visiting sites with opposing views would ever cross my mind.

Best wishes -

@skado apology sincerely accepted. I will remember and try to give you more benefit of doubt when we communicate.

Actually it should count, come to think if it.

Here are some questions, assumingly by theists, dropped in the above atheist space:

How come atheists see religion as contentious but not science, when science is just as diverse?

Christians base their morals on the teachings of Jesus (the whole Bible), what do athiests base their morals on?

Why is it that evolution feels threatened by the evidence of creation science?

How can atheists look at a massive great white shark, blue whale, hippopotamus, or giraffe and think a creature like that just came together by random chance and without divine intervention?

Why do people get so upset when I tell them that I don't believe there are such things as atheists or atheism?

Weirdly, one of those platforms seems to be this one.

@Ryo1

"How can atheists look at a massive great white shark, blue whale, hippopotamus, or giraffe and think a creature like that just came together by random chance and without divine intervention?"

This is an argument from incredulity, and isn't a compelling reason for believing in anything, let alone a diety. Especially your deity.

"Why is it that evolution feels threatened by the evidence of creation science?"

It doesn't. Because evolution is not a person. And because science is a method and not a person. People feel threatened.

Scientists don't feel threatened by creation science because there is no evidence to support creation science. And because, unlike creation science endorsers,they know the difference between evidence and assertions.

If they feel anything, it's worry that, despite overwhelming evidence that shows creation science to be bullshit, so many people are stupid enough to endorse it.

And those people are very loud, and command the attention of people who are even more stupid.

"Why do people get so upset when I tell them that I don't believe there are such things as atheists or atheism?"

Because there are. And you're saying it to them.

It's a bit like saying you don't believe in donuts, rocks or Charlie Parker records.

"Christians base their morals on the teachings of Jesus (the whole Bible), what do athiests base their morals on?"

The teachings of Jesus are wholly unremarkable. The sentiments therein were expressed long before he arrived on the scene, in every culture, all over the world.

They are human values, not religious ones, and exist because adhering to them helps us survive.

There is no such thing as objective morality. Here's why:

1. If the only thing keeping you from being a monster is the threat of eternal punishment or eternal reward, then you aren't moral.

2. Even if morals are objective, that doesn't mean they come from God.

To wit:

He gaslights Abraham.

What kind of God tells a man to kill his child? What kind of God tests a man he already knows to be faithful in that way?

And what kind of man would unquestioningly kill his own child?

I think if God told you, Ryo, to kill your child you'd say "no" and not even think about it. You'd go to hell first.

Why? Because, by ANY standard, killing a child is immoral. Anybody telling you to kill your child is immoral.

Refusing to kill your child is precisely moral.

3. If "being saved" means that you are forgiven for everything you've done and everything you will do, what's stopping you from being a monster anyway?

You can get away with anything secure in the understanding that your personal relationship with Jesus gives you a "get out of hell free card."

Because of this many, many Christians see themselves as not bound by moral standards, including their own. Many Christians are willing to lie to advance their own agenda.

For example, a group of Christians accused Planned Parenthood of selling fetal tissue to stem cell researchers, and were convicted of manufacturing evidence and for attempting to sell fetal tissue when it was discovered they faked video evidence by filming themselves trying to buy it themselves posing as PP employees.

Last I heard, bearing false witness is a sin. One of the biggies.

Many Christians still behave in immoral and monstrous ways, despite the teachings of Jesus.

And you can jam the "Those people aren't REAL Christians" dipshittery straight up your ass. If you believe in the precepts of Christianity, you're a real Christian, no matter what you actually do.

Most prison inmates are Christians. Just ask 'em.

4. The Bible, especially the Old Testament is filled with people, HEROES, doing unspeakable things oftentimes on God's command, or with his consent.

They commit genocide.

They commit rape.

They commit mass murder.

They commit incest.

They are ready to throw their own children to a vicious mob to appease it.

Their penalty for infractions we wouldn't see as such is almost always death.

They do things that any civilized society would agree to be barbarous.

The Bible gets slavery wrong. In BOTH the Old and New Testaments.

5. What that means is that God himself is not objectively moral.

The overriding Christian consensus seems to be that if God commands it, that makes it moral.

But in Bible, God himself behaves in ways any decent person would consider immoral.

He tells Moses to commit genocide against the Midianites, and Joshua to kill every last man, woman and child in Jericho.

He gives Samson's murder of 3000 innocent people is blessing.

God himself admits he sometimes commits acts he wouldn't condone in his children (but sometimes condones anyway) out of jealousy and anger.

This is a double standard. Double standards aren't moral.

They're merely arbitrary.

God's morality is SUBJECTIVE, and prone to his whims.

If anything, the God of the Bible seems to be prone to the same weaknesses, foibles and faults as the ones he finds in the people he supposedly created.

The Bible is fascinating this way.

You should read it sometime.

@Toonman Thanks for your rsposes to those questions. I should've made it clearer that you will find those questions, and more, in 'divine atheist', an atheist group formed within Quora. You might be interested in joining the group so that you can directly respond to questions like those I quoted.

@Ryo1

I doubt it. And no, thank you.

@Toonman Why did you bother responding to the questions, then? Just showing off?

@Ryo1 I only have time for so much nonsense. There's enough disingenuous religious assholery here to last me a lifetime.

The poll doesn’t mention trolling.