#and a lot of r/atheism discourse

[randomnameless]

and of course the worse bit is that the leader of the religion is actually an Atheist cause God never answered his prayers.

If you played the game, that's not the worst Idore did lol

But bar the general implication that someone is using faith to push his own agenda that has totes none irl comparisons, there's the fact that Idore, in a way, manipulates his people and uses their trust to further his plans, getting rid of every Rozellian and ultimately seize control of Norzelia.

Then comes the game's "your religion is based on nothing!" very terrible take, and while the game doesn't spend a more seconds than necessary talking about post war Hyzante in the non Roland endings, how the fuck are we supposed to buy the "uh akshually they will be alright because Layla will develop medicine and they will continue on living!" nonsense?

To avoid dragging further irl events, I'd say this reminds me of the very emotional moment in FMA, when Bradley shits on Ishval's culture and beliefs, saying their God doesn't exist, since said God isn't striking him on the spot for leading an operation that basically consists or eradicating Ishvalians in Ishval.

Guess what happened after Bradley made Ishvalians realise their God "wasn't real" with the few survivors of this "war"?

That's why I love to think of future AUs in the Benedict ending, because it has all ingredients for darker gens - Gustadolf'n'Cornelia's kid notwithstanding, now you have Hyzantese who live in slums and are lower than trash being riled up by Idore out of all people, who also preaches to everyone left behind by Serenor/Benedict's joint rule, Roland is so going to be used as a rallying figure to gather all disatisfaction in the land by, maybe, Idore himself and give or less 15 years, the continent will be plunged in chaos, again.

a bit like eventual Jugdral 3rd gens AU

[iyezarik]

"The death of God is about the drying up of a horizon of meaning."

R: Before language can have meaning again, "meaning" itself must come back into the world. A: We have to bring God back to life? R: Or wake it up. A: Or acknowledge Her unchanging presence obscured by ideology. R: Yes, it may very well be that God is still alive but we just can't see it. Or if God is to be conceptualised as the meaning by which we orient our subjectivity toward, we will be able to see it again if enough of us turn towards it. A: This is a very admissible reading of Qur'an 2:17-20. B: So what's the accepted interpretation of that line around here? I'm only vaguely aware of the one where "God is dead" refers to the peoples' turn away from the church as the primary source of ethics/morality and towards secular institutions. R: I don't think "God is Dead" has ever referred to people turning away from the church. At least in Nietzsche, where the term originated, that's certainly not what he's talking about The most succinct way I know of putting it, "God is Dead" refers to the paradigm shift, starting in Europe but has now become the dominant paradigm globally, of a mass re-orientation of subjectivity. People went from being "subject to X" to "subject to I", X being something outside of the individual and for Individualism to become dominant God had to be killed first. As Zizek says "We are no longer subjects to something else, whether that be God, or a cause, or some larger Truth but instead have become subject to ourselves, to our wants and desires" This outward oriented subjectivity is also how we formed communities in the first place. The idea that you are obliged to the service of others It's not as simple as "selfishness" or "selflessness" per se A: I haven't read practically a single thing you're talking about here, but this lines up very closely with a train of thought I've been developing for probably years now. Away From The Hindus talks some about how a change in religion is a real change in nationality, for that exact reason, because when you convert into a tribe, you're accepting their gods as your own. You have no god, you have no tribe, you have no subjectivity except for yourself. It's why a lot of lower caste organising is so skeptical of outside allies, I feel. Speaking as one. When you convert out of your religion by becoming an atheist, you also give up that tribal affiliation and convert into what's really a particular metaphysics of secularism. R: I sometimes think Atheism is just the worship of the non-God. It's another religion but without any of the positive aspects of religion. All the negative ones, though, lol. It has those in spades. A: Absolutely. Like every other "new religion", it leaves a lot of its fundamental metaphysics untouched and you can't truly understand it outside the context of its Christian milieu. It hasn't acquired a new identity of its own the way, say, Islam has, and it will never do so. R: Agree. One cannot arrive at Atheism without first passing through Christianity. Just like how we dunk on Protestantism for being so so soooooooo deeply heretical precisely because it replaces God with the Believer-in-God at the center of its cosmos. Fucking Protestants. I think we've discussed it here before but my take is that most of Protestantism and especially Evangelicalism is secularised Christianity. That isn't to say Catholicism is the bee's knees or anything but at least they're still Christians. A: I think yes. I think we're also dealing with a secularised Islam, and that Hinduism per se is a product of secularism as well. Wicca and Neo-Buddhism are very interesting as attempts to self-consciously create a religion in the context of secularism, as opposed to doing it accidentally as in the 3 above mentioned cases. R: How much of that purposeful construction is just the commodification of spirituality? A: I think none or close to none. Ambedkar when he made Neo-Buddhism absolutely wasn't targeting people who'd even been acquainted with the commodity form. Though neo-Buddhist twitter discourse is... twitter discourse. Wicca very quickly

became a commodity but I don't think much of that can be pinned on its founders. R: My brief exposure to neo-paganism movements left a very sour taste in my mouth but that might simply be my anecdotal experience. A: My more-than-brief exposure hasn't sweetened them to me. They are inert. When we talk about Wicca, there are actually a handful of lineaged groups, but your average Wiccan teeny bopper reading Silver Ravenwolf or whatever isn't really scratching any of the itches we've identified. A lot of neo-paganism is about as revolutionary as kinning. R: And in particular when it comes to anything to do with Celtic paganism. Anyone claiming to inherit that mantle, I'm sorry, is just a liar. There's nothing to inherit, the world it thrived in is dead and gone and appealing to a misguided sense of the weight of time/tradition belies the very real tragedy that it is lost. A: I don't think I'm in principle opposed to reconstructing, I think there's a real argument that my own approach to Islam is basically reconstructionist... however, when you do reconstruct something, you're making something that is not the original thing. It's still Islam, because Islam is Islam and there's a clear continuity Whereas for say Celtic reconstructionism you absolutely do not have that, unless you're connecting it through Christianity. R: Exactly. Like I said it's anecdotal but this space of neo-paganism just strikes me as a con. Not as in they are worshiping false gods or anything but that the continuity they are claiming does not exist. The monstrous grind of history has ensured that A: There are Celtic reconstructionists who consider themselves to be inheriting both the legacies of the Celts and of Irish Catholicism, and I'm much warmer towards that.

[sophrosynic]

i think many atheists who happen to be on the left also have their own generalizations similar to the ones made about atheists by religious ppl. they will think that it’s not possible to be progressive or subscribe to leftist politics unless u become an atheist thus shooting themselves in the foot by disqualifying the vast majority of humanity who are religious from the movement. that makes progressive religious ppl suspicious. also ex-muslims r often useful tools for western islamophobes

Here’s the thing: none of this actually justifies or excuses the specific attitude I’m talking about that a lot of religious people seem have when it comes to atheists. If your issue is with atheist critiques of religion regarding its compatibility with leftism or progressive movements in general, then your responsibility is to discuss that. If your issue with atheism is the racism and bigotry that tends to be prevalent in public discourse by white atheists, then critique that specifically. 

What you should NOT be doing, under any circumstances, is sit around acting like atheists are heathens due to their lack of belief, that we automatically live less meaningful, less joyful lives because we don’t believe in god, that our atheism automatically predisposes us to an inherent lack of morality, that we are sinful, egotistical, what have you, and then try to justify this by insisting that it’s okay to believe that a lack of faith in a deity instantly means you don’t have a moral compass, because hey, some atheists happen to be assholes, don’t you know???

I’m genuinely baffled at just how often people use this argument. “Well SOME atheists are assholes, therefore it’s okay for me to instantly assume that ALL atheists are joyless, godless freaks who automatically hate religious people and think they’re better than them.” The fact that this is the knee-jerk reaction that some of ya’ll have when it comes to ANY type of vocal atheism? That says a lot about what ya’ll think, and it definitely requires some examination on everyone’s part as to why so many progressive religious people are content to fall back on these shitty stereotypes and generalizations at literally ANY mention of atheism, especially considering how, outside of the small, vocal subset of atheists represented in the public discourse, the overwhelmingly vast majority of us are approaching our lack of belief from a completely different context and environment.  

As for ex-muslims--look, I’m not a Muslim myself. But I would sincerely endeavour to be careful with how you talk about ex-Muslims and the type of language you use when discussing them. Calling them “useful tools” for islamophobes when a great many ex-Muslims are likely to be targets of islamophobia themselves is, in general, not a good idea. The type of language that’s used here strikes me as something people often say to atheists/ex-religious people in non-white circles to invalidate their often real concerns and worthwhile criticisms of religion. It also reinforces this idea that atheism is somehow an inherently western thing that’s incompatible with non-western ideas/religions. 

This is what I mean when progressive religious people need to be careful about how they discuss atheists and atheism. The types of things you say matters. Thinking a little about why you make these particular set of associations about atheists is important, especially given the fact that many of us don’t conform to those expectations but have to bear the brunt of dealing with people who think we do anyway. 

[automatismoateo]

Typical hypocrite Christian coworker. via /r/atheism

Submitted July 28, 2021 at 05:21PM by TexasPooneTappa (Via reddit https://ift.tt/3zLBBni) Typical hypocrite Christian coworker.

I’m on mobile blah blah blah.

So this happened at work yesterday. I work in a building near downtown, not a huge city probably 250k people, but we do have an unusually high homeless population. My coworker is Uber Christian, always singing Christian songs to himself and praising Jesus whenever something mundane works out in his favor.

My work overlooks a park where there usually some homeless people camping in the summer months, but camping I mean sleeping in the ground with a blanket under a tree. So my coworker goes on this tirade last night about how he doesn’t think homeless people deserve any support, that their situation is self inflicted and they’re all lazy drunkards who need to sober up and get a job. Just out of the blue. We hadn’t been talking about anything else, he just saw them out in the park and went into typical hollier than thou mode.

I am familiar with Christianity, so I called him out on it. I said that isn’t very Christlike of you. Well this started a 45 minute discussion in which he dodged and deflected every logical argument against his bigotry ie; Cost of living in my city is crazy high, the job market is not great around us, a lot of homeless people have untreated mental health or medical issues, he had an obscure bible verse for all of his hateful positions and felt completely justified in his stance.

Then he goes on to tell me his sad it is that I’m not Christian anymore, I had to bite my cheek to keep from getting personal and telling him flat out that his religion turned him into a bigoted asshole and I’m sad that he is wasting his life based on lies.

So we ended our discourse him feeling like a great guy and me, blown away by his ignorance, and thanking god I don’t believe in god any more. Because I was him when I was a believer, narrow minded, intolerant, judgmental, sexist and racist.

/rant

TLDR: Christian coworker being typical hateful Christian under the guise of his religion.

[obiternihili]

I want to like ssc, but every time I go to the site to read stuff there's... something in the air that really rubs me the wrong way. And I'm not really confident in my ability to articulate it and definitely not in a way that would make ~respectable discourse~ or whatever it'd be called. Of course I'm gonna try because, ???, I'm a prick???

But it's like, not really that major anyways. Just maybe hopefully some insight to be had about people who don't like his writing style? I hope?

But like, if I tried to articulate it at all, he's too Sam Harris-y. That's something bad about EY, that's something bad about rationalists as a whole. That's something bad about para-rationalists as well, including fucking me so maybe I'm throwing stones. If you finish this, do please keep in mind that my opening paragraph is admitting that I don't really read him in a habitual aspect. Anyone can rub anyone else the wrong way and first impressions count for a disproportionate lot, even if it's multiple first impressions over a period of a few years. You can feed even a rational inference machine unrepresentative data, like the point of that post of mine that went viralish a little while ago But some Sam Harris-y traits:

We like to be married to our strawmen, even after it's been repeatedly explained to us that the strawman is (shockingly) not a good model of the inner motivations of the people we're criticizing. But unfortunately when you throw out strawmen, the most likely people to respond seem to be the most like the strawmen for some reason, which I feel is happening with the lazy garbage commies who go on hate campaigns against him (the serious ones ignore him actually). And I supposed that almost certainly what happens with me and ancap-types, but I don't really have evidence to support that like I feel I have with Scott's situation.

We have a tendency to talk about new studies like they're objectively correct while ignoring the consensus. That's... not how science works. It's especially common when the conclusion is convenient to our biases, which in Scott's case really seems to mean "is interesting" more than any particular ideology. But like for Harris types it's one thing to think pomo's influence on the sciences has issues, it's another to think that while also using the same philosophical tools to critique sciences that aren't achieving concordance. Like you're going too meta there and throwing the baby out with the bathwater instead of really doing the work to get out the good data in your own framework. It's probably my own biases in assessing my writing but I don't feel like I'm as guilty of this as I used to be, with my being worst at it ironically around the time I started reading rationalist-adjacent stuff; maybe it's because I came into this with a strong allergy to that kind of pattern from my own experiences in the atheism wars and alt-medicine.

Scott mostly just ignores trolls (and ineffectual critics) which is really good behavior, but Sam Harris types also have this tendency to mistake "trying to talk in a neuter tone" with "talking in a neuter tone" (and with Scott he doesn't seem to take a lot of blogging very formally to begin with, which, that's fine, it's incredibly fine, but it affects the synthesis of a wannabe neutral tone and laid back assumptions) and feel offense when someone else doesn't understand them or gets mind-killed early on. Instead of looking over their own work for their own weaknesses as a "neutral writer" they (we) instead have the unfortunate habit of talking about mind-killing like it's the other party's fault. Scott kind of gives off this vibe (I probably do too).

But this comes off as incredibly snide and condescending and is almost a pan-rationalist vice. Like I'd name names but this is already me being an ass as it is. Most of the people I follow do this to some degree, actually. And this might be a bad opinion, but, some topics are not neutral no matter how much you want them to be and your bias is gonna get the better of you if you don't mindfully wrestle with it. Maybe I over-anthropomorphize as well but ideas aren't to be trusted, because they want to take advantage of you so they get passed along; so do expect that they have ways of breaking into and fucking around with your cold, distant, neutral demeanor even if you think it's a game or at least you have no stake in the game.

To be honest - and maybe this is a terrible thing that negatively effects the strength of what I try to say - this is why I try to wear my biases on my sleeve. Because when I don't the impact tends to be heavier than I'm usually prepared to deal with. And when I see my thinking in plain english instead of trying to cover it up I generally feel like I'm handicapping myself when the discussion eventually devolves to tone. Because on there should be my own mistakes so I can avoid trying to be a hypocrite, instead of the shadows of my mistakes obscured even from me such that I defend myself as if I don't cast a shadow.

(Which - casting a shadow, as opposed to deity-like glowing radiance (and which I'm quick to point out radiant bodies also cast shadows, such that not even the gods are perfect even if it's not obvious) - is a metaphor I've used for imperfection and probably isn't an obvious metaphor, sorry if explaining this feels condescending)

There's also probably something to be said about ~revealed preferences~ but I don't really like that piece at all. It seems true to me that people that like certain models of the mind tend to think that way themselves, though, but in general I think the revealed preferences assumes people are more rational than they really are and that people's actions don't really correlate to their inner worlds. There might be *something* to the argument that if you give off the impression of being a reactionary (or tankie, or psycho, or narcissist, or pedo-lover or gay-hater or brown-people-genocider or [positive and neutral things I can't juxtapose against the previous because it would imply they're a natural set] or whatever) through the actions you take such as who you fight or policies you support or mistakes you're willing to make, it might be because you have reactionary (etc) pattern-matching biases in your writings creeping in from your own world, but like if inner worlds really correlated with actions I'd be dead so it'd probably come across as incredibly hypocritical to try to point out that it seems like model held to be true has negative implications and bullets you're willing to bite about yourself. Don't even know if Scott buys into that piece anyways, maybe barking up a wrong tree.

At least this shit is why places like r/badphilosophy have anti-Harris memes. Their applicability to rationalists and para-rationalists and really anyone is probably more of a subjective impressionistic thing than an absolute fact. Harris fans like to say he's taken out of context, for example. My own experiences with the guy are like he's like Marx - taken out of context, but the context gets taken out of context because he's kinda low key a pompous windbag and actually at the next level of context above the context looks like the smallest layer of context again. Like Marx's opiate of the masses quote.

-

Like I said I don't (habitually) read ssc tho. I'm particularly quick to confuse disagreement with moral failing probably, half this shit's probably not even characteristic of his writing and is just an incorrect set of impressions I've gotten over years of only reading his weakest pieces or second-and-triple hand exposure to him. I really like the anonymized-esque quasi-professional advice he's given on things like depression and he's had a number of jokes I've laughed at or points about non-psychiatric topics I've thought were well articulated. I don't have anything against him and he's a worker who does something I could never do with less free time than I could manage with blogging mostly casually in that free time, so like having lofty expectations that he caters to my preferred writing styles is dickish anyways.

I just tried reading stuff of his again yesterday while running errands because a reactionary-feeling blog was shitting on him, was put off by something I couldn't actually put my finger on while wanting to like him, and tried to describe nebulous gut feelings 12 hours later in a moment of lucidity while being woken up from medication side effects augmented by stupidly poorly managed time on my part, so take me with a boulder of salt

EDIT I also wanted to add a point about how people have this habit of talking about things like everyone else assumes the same points. I'm particularly atrocious at this and basically it can come off as really snide and patronizing if you don't and feels like going A > C because A > B without establishing or referencing why B > C but I forgot to add the point. Rationalist jargon is basically all about shorthanding A > C and Harris is particularly atrocious about it as well, and between it and the other Harris-y stuff is why everyone hates rationalists

[randomnameless]

Day by day, it's quite fascinating to see how badly Pat and co wanted to make 3H a religion bad narrative and given the constant discourse that we're still seeing after 4 years, they sadly succeeded to an extent.

Yep !

Thing is, Pat'n'co at Treehouse, sadly, aren't working in a vacuum and some people already developed it more than I could ever do, but in some places in the world, organised religion (or religion in general)... Isn't well-seen or well-considered.

There's a reason why the r/atheism jokes existed soon after the game was released or why some people discoursed for +300 notes about a pseudo parallel and I don't think it's only because "church is usually bad in jrpgs so church must be bad in Fe16"or because they had to sell Hresvelg Grey so Rhea/Church must be "BaD".

Like, how are you supposed to talk (seriously !) to someone about a fictional organisation if their to go answer is "religion BaD"-

Tl;Dr : the religion BaD narrative only works because "Religion BaD" has some foundations IRL and "projection 101" is something a lot of the fanbase used to justify why they drank a lot of tea - but I expected more of a localisation team than to be on the same level as devoted fans who make the "fictional organisation of religious people called church = real life organised religion who also has churches bad = fictional organisation then also BaD"

And the fact that Treehouse straight up modified/edited the script's meaning to convey this thing still baffles me even nowadays, we all know what kind of mess Fates's lolcalisation was and thought people would have learnt about it, but no, in 2019 we still had professional people editing the "everyone supported their wedding and blessed them!" to "only the faithful supported their wedding and said faithful felt blessed by this wedding".

That's, imo, not acceptable.

[randomnameless]

So much of these woes would've been avoided if the game bothered to show things instead of telling us. Cause I'm so sick of the lizards bad crap from these people who want to cling to preconceived biases, alternate truths and "death of the author".

But that's the main issue!

The game shows you/us/the player things, and yet says the contrary! And no one in the entire cast realises that, no, all those things you're spouting or buying are disapproved with 10 exemples here'n'there.

Imo, Clout in Nopes is hit the hardest with this, but we also have Nopes!Ferdie spouting shit about Kingdom nobles being all descendants of Crest bearers when, lo, it's more accurate in Adrestia than in the Kingdom!

Funny thought, I've seen yesterday on my dash a post reblogged by someone a Anakin and Padmé meme aboutnot liking people saying they hate canon (Anakin) and wondering (Padmé) if they hate them because they usually come up with cliché ideas and uninspired tropes.

And, it was hilarious because iirc the original poster of that, well, post, was someone who advocated for death of the author, how the CoS is totes the catholic church and theocracy etc etc and Supreme Leader opposes them because sapphic lord opposes conservatism/feudalism/religion/whatever etc etc.

Of course I'm not saying a transformative work sucks or doesn't - my motto has always been don't like, don't read - but when "Death of the Author" is used to parrot something as canon, as some people did (still do) I'm more annoyed.

Those games played hard in the "unreliable narrator" shit to make things sell, but I wonder, even without tea bags and dakimakuras, some people - as we've seen them do - would retrofit the game to fit in their narrative - remember the "Magvel dragons bad and the reason why the DK returned?"

[randomnameless]

At least I'm glad Engage is kinda acknowledging that SS is Billy's route/story rather than the "church route". I just wish Intsys would acknowledge Edel is the villain and that it's okay to like villains, buncha cowards.

Well,

Supreme Leader is the marketing waifu of the Fodlan games, if the sailor fuku was any indication, and you can't tank a waifu :(

I mean, with all the excitement around the Fallen Heroes banner in FEH, or at least with people cheering when Fomortiis was released, you'd think some people would realise that no, liking a character who's Satan himself isn't any indication about your personal beliefs or if you are a "GoOd" person or not but...

Waifu sells, and controversy around her writing/agency/role/whatever you want managed to make FE16 still relevant after a year of global pandemic and still kicking so, yep, if you add a copious dose of "uwu waifu" it'll make your game sell like hotcakes.

I mean, look at Vero from Feh.

IS is still using the "tried'n'true" recipe, bad woman was "brainwashed sad uwus" or "lonely uwu" when she isn't manipulated by a man because she had feelings for him or wanted to use her womb, so all of her agency will fly over the window and you can sell a lot of cute alts in the gacha game.

Back to SS, the more I think about it, the more I think that it couldn't have been a Nabatean/Church route for the kind of same reasons, if you shed too much light on Nabateans, then opposing them because they have pointy ears or what not will look dubious, and if the Fodlan games are a masterpiece in writing fog and smoke to avoid calling an ox an ox, full-on refusal to consider another sentient race as deserving to do things/live because they are "different" would look way too bad for the usual "controversy" needed to sustain discourse for years.

(even Nopes erased it because you can't have Sailor Adrestia suddenly tell people they cannot rule over humans because of their race!)

So yep, SS is half-baked, as is the rest of the game (except maybe AM because it doesn't even pretend to give a fuck about Fodlan's history and the Agarthans) because of the pathological need to shed any light on Nabateans - and is an unconclusive Billy route -

where Billy can't even react to the fact they are not 100% human (that is learnt in the DLC!) and their daddy dearest found them too "unatural" to stay in the Monastery with the person who saved their life and is most likely the only other family they had.

And yet it's the route where Billy (regardless of the player wanting to join the r/atheism sub) realises they can do much more for Fodlan than being a mere person who kills for money and ascends to their destined - but ultimately chosen - path as Fodlan's leader.

[automatismoateo]

Psychedelics turned me from a christian to an atheist via /r/atheism

Submitted August 09, 2020 at 06:34AM by SweatyGenitals (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2XJv1Ns) Psychedelics turned me from a christian to an atheist

I’m sharing this story here because I’m wondering if there’s anyone in this sub who’s had a similar experience. It seems like everyone else I know who’s done psychedelics, with the exception of two people, has turned to hippy dippy deistic bullshit and very few people seem to have had the same experience as me. If this is too long for you, there’s a TLDR at the end, but you’ll miss a lot of important details.

I grew up in a very conservative Christian household. From early childhood I was constantly lectured on the horrors of hell, the importance of daily prayer and scripture, how cruel and sinful humans are by nature without God, and how atheists are “arrogant, cold-hearted fools who willingly ignore the truth” (ironic, I know).

I was groomed to be a very devout Christian and frantically tried to be as godly as possible on a daily basis. Not because I felt any sort of connection to God, but because I was so terrified of Hell I did everything in my power to ensure I wasn’t sent there.

I avoided television because my parents told me that the “satanists” in Hollywood put subliminal messages in TV programming to subtly coerce me into becoming loyal to Satan.

I didn’t listen to any music that wasn’t Christian because my parents told me listening to worldly music would make my soul impure and displeasing to God.

I avoided girls like the plague because my parents told me that being physically or sexually “immoral” (which is really just another word for normal) would get me sent to hell.

Didn’t go to secular concerts. Didn’t play video games. Wasn’t allowed to have atheist friends. Only went to Christian schools. You get the idea.

When I hit my teenage years I became a little bit more open minded and willing to listen to other people’s perspectives, but I would always listen through the mental filter of “I need to show this person why they’re wrong so I can save them from Hell” and I was still as preachy as preachy could get.

In my high school, I was only able to associate with other Christians and I always assumed they were sound minded, intelligent people because I had been brainwashed to believe so. Then a new student came along who really intrigued me. I can’t say his real name, so for the sake of his privacy (and honestly, probably his safety too) I’ll just call him Joseph.

Joseph was BRILLIANT. He spoke 12 languages, literally built robots for shits and giggles, and was so articulate he might as well have been a Harvard professor. He really intrigued me, so I decided to strike up a conversation with him. After about an hour of talking I came to the conclusion that this guy was the coolest, most intelligent dude I’ve ever met. Then the alarm went off on my phone signaling that it was time for my afternoon prayer and scripture so I told him I had to leave but I invited him to join.

He politely responded with “no thanks man, I’m not the religious type. Thanks though”

This absolutely blew my mind. All my life I had been told atheists were dumb, arrogant and disrespectful yet the only atheist in my school was polite, kindhearted, soft spoken and LIGHT YEARS ahead in cognition of every other student there. Shit, to be honest, he was more intelligent than all of the teachers there too.

I asked him how he could be an atheist while going to a Christian school and he said he keeps it a secret from his parents because he was afraid of retribution. I immediately started my preachy nonsense and told him he should be more afraid of God’s retribution, he was gonna go to Hell, blah blah blah.

I was expecting him to go on the much feared “atheist rage” that my parents warned me about. But he didn’t. He calmly and respectfully dismantled every circular, presup argument I threw at him with logic and reason, but of course I didn’t listen. We went back and forth for a little while and I eventually gave up and went to pray.

I thought about it for a few days, and I figured I should probably at least TRY to listen to what he had to say because he was incredibly intelligent and treated me with kindness and respect, and that’s gotta mean something.

After a few debates, he asked me if I would be willing to read the origin of species and the god delusion and in exchange, he’d read any two religious books I wanted him to. I agreed and he gave me his two books and I gave him Heaven is for Real and the Case for Christ.

I started reading both books, but of course I read them through the filter of “I gotta figure out how to disprove these so I can save Joseph” instead of just reading them.

Two days into reading them, my parents found them in my room and absolutely lost their shit. They asked me where I got them and I had to say I ordered them online because if I told them Joseph gave them to me, I would never see him again. My mom started crying about how I was gonna burn forever and my dad made me eat 3 pages out of each book then made me burn them, and said I was grounded for 6 months and could only leave to go to school.

I went to school the next day and profusely apologized to Joseph for getting his books destroyed. He laughed it off and forgave me right away. Then he gave me a hug and asked if I was okay, only further dismantling the “asshole atheist” stereotype.

At this point I was pretty close with him so I admitted that I was terrified of going to Hell but I had always wondered if the only reason I was so quick to believe everything I was taught by Christians was because I was too scared to believe anything else.

He said that was likely the reason and I was a victim of social conditioning and brainwashing. I asked him if he ever felt the same way I did and he said yes, but he got over it. I then literally BEGGED him to tell me how he got over it. He told me that he gathered up a bunch of atheist books and documentaries that his parents had banned from the house while they were out of town, took 3 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, and went on a reading/watching spree. He said the mushrooms helped melt away his “ego” (AKA his sense of self and the years of social conditioning that came with it as well as his fear of death and the afterlife) and he was able to view all the information he saw objectively.

I told him my parents said that all drugs were evil and Satan uses them as tools to corrupt our mind and soul, but at this point, I was reluctant to believe anything my parents said and I respected and admired Joseph far more than my parents. He showed me a bunch of informative videos on the transformative power of shrooms and the mental health benefits that come with infrequent use, and I was sold. I told him if he could get me those same two books again I would hide them better this time, and I would try to find some mushrooms.

He ended up hooking me up with both, and I literally cut open my mattress and slid the books and mushrooms inside there before covering the hole up with duct tape and a sheet.

2 months later, my parents finally decided to leave town for their anniversary. The first night they left, I took 3 grams of shrooms and started reading the god delusion. When I first started reading, I was reading from the perspective of a scared Christian but as the shrooms kicked in I could literally feel that mental filter melt away.

It was incredible. My fear of death, God, Hell, and Satan completely disappeared. All social conditioning became completely irrelevant. I wasn’t reading through the lens of a brainwashed Christian. I was just READING.

I ended up staying awake all night and finished both books by morning. I felt completely transformed and no longer afraid of God. But at this point, I wasn’t a complete atheist, more of an agnostic/half-assed Christian.

So at this point me and Joseph’s discourses became far more intelligent and logical as I wasn’t a preachy Christian anymore. I was learning so much from him and starting to feel free from the bondage of religion, but I still wasn’t quite there yet. The lingering fear of Hell still bothered me from time to time.

So Joseph had one more idea. He brought up DMT and how it pretty much solidified his belief in atheism and the fallibility of the human mind in the right circumstances. I didn’t believe him so I did some research on DMT and eventually decided to try it myself.

I did it one night while my parents were out on a date and after the first three hits I blasted off into what felt like another dimension and “spoke” to what seemed like multiple gods. It was cool and trippy as hell, but I was fully convinced that I was dead and in the afterlife.

When I sobered up, I called Joseph and told him what the experience was like.

Then he said these words that converted me to full blown atheism right then and there.

“See how easy it is to trick the brain into believing its met God? Now imagine you were a public figure thousands of years ago, in an age where knowledge was hard to access, and accidentally ingested this stuff or something similar without knowing what you were taking.”

Boom. Instant atheism.

Admittedly I did DMT one more time after this. Not because I needed more convincing, but because that shit was honestly really cool.

Fast forward three years later. I’m no longer chained down by religion. I feel physically, emotionally, and sexually free. I can enjoy music, television, and books that I like with a clear conscience. I can go to fun concerts without worrying about eternal damnation. I can be friends with whoever I want. I’ve never been happier.

Even better, a year and a half ago I somehow managed to convince my dad to take mushrooms and read the Origin of Species and it changed his life too. He’s not an atheist, more of an agnostic. He ended up divorcing my nutjob mother when she refused to change and apologized for all that he put me and my siblings through in the name of religion.

I’m now living with him while going to college and I’m closer to him now than I’ve ever been. I love the new person he’s become so much because I always felt deep down he was a kind soul. I think my mother is too, maybe time will soften her a bit.

Joseph, my Dad and I can’t be the only ones who have had this experience. Has anyone here been through anything similar? I’m really curious to find out.

TLDR: I was raised/brainwashed as a devout Christian. Met a very intelligent atheist at my Christian high school and became friends with him. He convinced me to take psychedelic mushrooms and read The God Delusion and The Origin of Species and the mushrooms helped me read the books objectively and actually learn from them and turned me agnostic. Then I took DMT and became a full fledged atheist and I’m wondering if anyone in this sub has been through anything similar.

[automatismoateo]

Just had a muslim try to convince me that pedophilia is not morally wrong. via /r/atheism

Submitted May 12, 2020 at 06:04PM by Etrigan_Constantine (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2AhqJDX) Just had a muslim try to convince me that pedophilia is not morally wrong.

This one muslim today told me I was going to hell for not believing in Allah (I'm agnostic deist). SO I told him, why would I follow the quran, Muhammad is literally a pedo who statutorily raped ayesha.

He said that as long as the child is "consenting" then it should be okay. I told him about the profound psychological effects that it has on children, he just made a comparison to boxing.

I told him that yes it's wrong to let a 9 year old put on hard ass gloves to punch another 9 year old hard as he can. There are other martial arts out there for your son. Since we're making a pedo analogy, then it's DOUBLE wrong to let an older kid or adult start punching this 9 year old. I don't get it, how could you rationalize something so inherently evil. All of the gods sound like terrible people but Allah sounds like the worst of them all.

Ridiculous. Truly. And then he told me to "stick to football/drugs/coffee". Like British kids don't do lots of drugs either huh? Then he told me that "educated discourse is not my thing". Like what????/ You just denied science and he even said that atheism has no proof/hasn't debunked ANY of religion. I said, they just recently debunked the egypt plagues. Adam and Eve sounds stupid cause science has also debunked the notion that humans have only existed 2,000 years, also that the world was created in 7 days was disproved.

He was an English Muslim btw, I told him to stick to soccer, drugs and tea. I'd like to punch people like him in the face so badly

[automatismoateo]

What is with theists using "I used to be atheist too!" in arguments? via /r/atheism

Submitted November 11, 2019 at 03:09AM by Ryuunotaki (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2X7sKdl) What is with theists using "I used to be atheist too!" in arguments?

So I've been arguing with quite a few Theists recently and one thing I noticed is that many of them use "I used to be an atheist too!" in the argument, as if it lends weight to their argument. Like, I don't care if you used to be Atheist, or are one: I care about your arguments and how solid they are.

Incidentally, these people tend to be very much vehemently anti-evolution, saying that it's 'full of unfounded claims' and 'claims that need as much faith to believe in as the existence of god'. Using the Fallacy of Incredulity on Abiogenesis and saying that their arguments 'it's too complex to come about by chance!' against this subject invalidates evolution (which is separate from abiogenesis). They also rest a lot of their 'faith' on scientists like James Tour as 'decisive blows' to 'evolution'.

They also show a poor grasp of scientific discourse.

If it's not against the rules, here are the logs to one such convo (names censored).

Really, has anyone encountered people like these before? Do you really buy their 'I used to be an atheist' claim? Part of me thinks they were simply non-practicing, and conflate non-practicing with 'atheist'

[automatismoateo]

Is it time to shift gears to organized, active anti-theism? via /r/atheism

Submitted May 21, 2019 at 02:29PM by enuff2Bdangerous (Via reddit http://bit.ly/2WWjmbF) Is it time to shift gears to organized, active anti-theism?

I've read a lot of stats recently that suggest the churches are emptier than ever in most Western nations and that more people than ever consider themselves to be non-religious . Yet, religion's influence in the West remains shockingly potent.

I am not an expert in atheism/anti-theism by any stretch, but have been one or the other all my life. Recent news like Alabama's abortion laws (where state legislators stand in session and talk about how god creates life), the rampant abuse within the Catholic and Mormon (and other) cults, and, here in Canada, the degree to which our liberal society's values are used to protect and celebrate Islam as a shining example of inclusiveness etc. all make my head explode.

So, what would it take for atheism/anti-theism to go on the offensive and start to dismantle religious infrastructure as much as possible, so that politics and public discourse are not shaped by someone's silly ideas about a being in the sky who controls the universe? I am thinking of things like:

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1) Legal challenges to churches' tax-free status

2) Legal and other challenges to religious school funding (like here in Ontario where there is a public and a Catholic school board)

3) Full court PR and social media presses to highlight how much influence religion has on politics, child abusers within the church, etc.

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Of course, it would take serious financial backing -- but if that was in place, what else could be done?