So have you own thread and debate. This thread has another purpose. Why push your stuff upon this thread? And how do you think atheists feel about these following sort of threads? None of them want to debate their believe in god, they want to celebrate their belief in god.
Fine with me. I won’t interfere. But why do you feel the need to do so here? Let those who don’t want to join in believing in a god have their own thing. Nobody is kicking nobody in the balls. Unless it goes the other way too. Just some examples, there are literally 100’s of these around. BTW, 40 million people? Which 40 million people? There are over 4 billion monotheists in the world. Which 1 procent of those do you refer to?
Or don’t believe. Considering “atheist” a religion is like considering “non-smoking” as a habit. Been back to the Catholic faith recently, but after years as a “strict” agnostic, I learned a thing or two. If a faith tries to impose itself on others, regardless of who they are, showing contempt for “outsiders”, you’d be better stay far from it.
I’m OK with my spiritual side right now, although sometimes saying you’re a catholic here is like saying the same thing in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, let alone agnostic or atheist. The african religions? “DEVIL!!!”, for the fundamentalists, radical zealots.
Fundamentalism is the real disease in this case. I’d have a halal or kosher meal anytime, have a blessing from an african religion priest, sing in a protestant choir, no problem with thy neighbour, if said neighbour doesn’t want to erase your existence and think you’re morally destroyed.
This has literally blown into something it didn’t need to be and it’s so incredibly selfish… someone was reaching out to find other people who believe in what they do… to build a support system that they feel comfortable in… and now it is somehow being viewed as us atheist being disrespectful to 40 million people? I’m so disappointed honestly…
I’m not blacklisting or flaging you. I’m trying to talk with you. You, on the other hand, are talking to me. I asked you a couple of things. No answer. Just a stating of “facts” by you which to the best of my knowledge are not facts. Here’s the conclusion from a recent study:
"This study helped to clarify the question of what works in recovery. The results from this study indicate clearly that while believing in a higher power as promoted in AA is an important tradition and an important part of the culture, it is social support that stands out as the most significant variable in recovery. Social support was significantly associated with length of sobriety, with satisfaction with life, and with quality of life. This important finding provides the professionals who work with people in recovery with a clear understanding of what works. Thus, treatment programs can focus their recovery programs on building structures of social support around new members to increase their chances of long-term success"
I completely agree. Anyone has that freedom to believe whatever they like and it should be the same for atheist without being questioned or challenged.
You know one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard was when talking about diets and looking at whether it should be low-carb, high-fat, intermittent fasting, nothing but Cheetos (boy i wish this was a thing lol) but whatever the options are, the correct answer is whatever resonates with you enough for you to be successful is the right diet! That’s it. There is no one-size-fits-all to anything in The Human Experience because we are so unique in our experiences, our dispositions, and our capabilities both in resources and cognitive faculties.
One bit of advice I would give them given your current situation is this
Use every part of the animal!
Ultimately I found buddhist techniques to be the most effective for me so I have followed Dharma & Refuge recovery. That being said I see wisdom and insight into my own problems every day from people posting the big book so even if you know when your heart there is no God, that doesn’t mean that what people call God and the different representations of the human psyche through various spiritual disciplines and ways to manipulate that for success doesn’t have significant values. While you’re there brother take everything you can! any tool because the reality is that even if somebody believes that all the planets are round because God is playing marbles so they must be round it doesn’t change the fact that all the planets are round!! so you can be very right for all the wrong reasons which I think is often the case in religious Concepts.
I think this turned into religious ppl pushing there beliefs onto us honestly surprised it took them that long once again trying to shove atheist back into a hole at least we can stand up and say we are atheist and not afraid to be ourselves at least we aren’t pushing our beliefs onto them
I just want to say that I really don’t feel like this topic belongs in the derailment void because by doing that it’s kind of like saying that all the people that were here trying to contribute in a meaningful way are lumped in to the area of destructive threads due to some people that perhaps ineffectively communicated.
In essence it feels like the moderators have effectively silenced, pigeon-holed and stopped the conversation of atheist who were simply trying to communicate and build connections.
Also I didn’t feel like there was anything that belligerent in the thread and I do not see anything that I think should have been flagged. I believe that the flagging process and the way that this stuff is handled contributes to the frustration of this forum and the shortcomings of social media.
I considered moving the side conversation to a totally new thread, but thought that might just go south real fast. A catch 22 in trying to help OP feel supported, while allowing a conversation to continue unfettered.
I moved previous comments that were off topic to derailment. I left your non derailing comment in the OP.
I also moved your question above to this Derailment thread…as well as my answer (this post!).
Yes, it is a fine line and do feel free to bring concerns about moving, derailing, off topic, etc directly to moderators via a private message. We are happy to discuss how we implement the forum rules and answer any questions accordingly.
We don’t move things here because they are belligerent per se (tho we do often move belligerent things here). This is a catch all for off topic, derailing, dogpiling, etc comments…all of which are clearly spelled out as against the rules. In this particular case, they were all rather off topic. OP is looking for atheists.
I’m not sure why this is in the void cuz I said I feel like this is a positive and helpful on topic statement but as this entire thread has made me realize I cannot stand social media
