Sorry, it's the presumptions theists make about atheists that made me need to vent. Been dealing with an annoying "happy Christian" at work. One of those people who doesn't realize those who choose to distinguish between facts and beliefs might not necessarily value happiness above all, and is constantly asking me obnoxious questions whose answers, quite frankly, I don't want to address on the job.

I think my new tactic of dealing with theists is this:

"I'm sorry, we just don't speak the same language. If you can phrase your dialog in secular terms that do not require faith to have relevance, maybe we can talk, but the language your entire ideology is simply so useless to me. It's not that I don't understand it, it's just that I live in the real world."

It seemed to work on my co-worker.

I know how you feel. It is very hard for me to nod and smile, feigning interest when friends share their beliefs. It gives me a detached feeling from them, like if I admit I'm atheist they'll look down upon me somehow.

Which is one thing that annoys me about religion. It's so one-sided.

I always show courtesy and respect to the person while I tell them they believe in complete bullshit. I have no respect for beliefs in myths and legends as real and refuse to give their belief the power of legitimacy. I have had enough of people telling me God Bless or expressing their delusions of deities. Enough already. Several years ago I reached the point of openly criticizing the belief in Christianity and will not allow assumptions to be made of inclusion in their ignorant position. Prove it with facts or please go talk to yourself elsewhere.

On Easter Sunday 2 years ago I was in a 7-11 buying a drink and this guy in front of me hands me this handout from Northwood Church in Longwood Florida where Joel Hunter is the pastor, he's the guy that turned down the job of leading the Christian coalition of America. Anyway, this guy is just so hopped up after being filled with BS from Joel Hunter he is evangelizing to people in line  in 7-11s. I was in no mood for this as I had just discovered a restaurant was stealing electricity from one of my stores (illegally wired into my meter). So this guy is all Jesus filled and happy. He hands me the flyer saying have you been saved? I told him, not anymore since I learned God was even less real than Santa. He then says, so you are an atheist now and you have lost your way. I said no, actually I have found my way to reason and I wish that you too could be fortunate enough to have the peace and tranquility that comes with understanding. I handed him his flyer back as he told me he would pray for me to reawaken to Jesus. I told him, sir I wish that someday you realize how you have wasted your life on beliefs of the ignorant. After this he just paid for his stuff and left.

I sometimes have to suppress my desire to tell the religious pushers they are fucking stupid, but I use the learned practice of years of marriage where you tell the wife, no the dress doesn't make you look fat.

And I don't mean to sound "objective-er than thou" but I don't even respect my own beliefs. I try to subject them to intense scrutiny and test them and see if they hold up to reality and if they don't I change them. For example. I am no longer:

A socialist, a primitivist, an anarchist, a pagan, a jew, etc... See, I don't respect my own beliefs unless they hold up against the same standard.

God I hate that. When people tell me they will "pray for me", I usually tell them "thanks, I'll think for YOU".

As soon as they know.... your fucked, I made the mistake of telling one person when they asked me what I believed in. Now everyone is trying to get me fired, if I loose my job I am going to sue on the grounds that I am being discriminated against. I didn't even say anything negative all I said was " I don't believe in a personal god an the notion is preposterous to me." I also said everyone is free to believe whatever they want, but apparently that wasn't enough.

  ...  Are some people just too stupid ?...  Is this a trick question...  Maybe one I should think about before responding ?  And Kathie G has the correct answer although I really don't think these idiots will understand.  

Statistically the vast majority of people cannot be average or below average intelligence.

Are some people too stupid to be atheists?

Not in the way you mean.  Some of the mental hardwiring we get in childhood is too strong to ever be rewired.  For instance, think of any women you might know who were sexually molested as a child.  Statistically speaking, you show me such a woman, and I'll show you a woman with sexual problems.  It's not a pretty reality, but it's true.  The same thing goes for religious indoctrination and education.  By the time we're twenty(ish) most of our thinking circuits are hardwired.  That is to say we're not going to get much smarter.   We may attain more knowledge, but our IQ scores are unlikely to go up.

My observation is that many people have a hardwired reality in which certain logical fallacies cannot be overcome.  For many theists, it's the god of the gaps.  For others, it's the presupposition of God.  Still others simply cannot understand or accept the fact that faith is just bad science and that there is no way to gain knowledge except through empiricism.

This is why I think indoctrinating children is so harmful.  They don't yet have the mental capacity to overcome brainwashing, and they won't develop it if they're brainwashed thoroughly.

I don't think it takes much intelligence at all to be an atheist.  It just takes the thought, "Gee, that sounds made up."  You show me a very unintelligent adult who was raised with an empirical rationalist model of the universe, and I'll show you someone who is probably not going to be swayed by religion.  It's not a hard worldview to understand.  It's just really, really difficult to convince someone to believe it after they've already formed their own worldview.

To answer the obvious question -- some people do leave religion, and that's because their worldview was not so thorough that it kept them from thinking critically when they were presented with evidence that theism is a false belief.

I think he means either that someone must be above, at, or below average intelligence, but not more than one; or he means that most people are of average intelligence and only a minority are below-average.

      At  work and other places when irritated,  I tell any religio to take their leap of faith and leap  out  a high rise window;  but do not worry their faith in god will keep them alive.        The next day I ask them point blank why they didn't trust in their own god enough to  "leap"; funny how I never hear  about their god again from them.  

      Or it could be my bulk  (6'2" 240) or my voice  (3 octave operatic baritone) that tells them to keep the eff out of my face.

Ok, just to finish the little side-track here:

I was told once by a mental health "professional" that an I.Q. of < 90 is below, 90-110 is considered average, and around 110+ could be considered above average. By those measurements, I figure people with an above average intelligence are the minority. Or you could say something like the top 10% intelligence levels constitute a well-above average intelligence. Obviously a figure like 10% is a small minority. And being part of that minority and dealing with approximately 90% of people being not as smart you would be frustrating. I think that was my original point. Actually, I think atheists are a less than 10% minority in America (it's hard to find good numbers on this though), and not all of those atheists even know why belief is false, they just accept it the same as many theists accept religion. So being a freethinking atheist makes you a itsy-bitsy little minority here, and that's just no fun, unless you just like being against the majority, which I think does account for some professing to be atheists.

My original point was that being a freethinking atheist will always be frustrating, living in a christian society or not.

I actually agree with the comment that "freethinking" people risk lives of irritation, and indeed other unpleasantness. I'm glad I'm not one myself.

A mind that thinks freely, untrammelled by adherence to reason, uninhibited by the desire to remain logical, unable probably to retain the concentration required to explore causality since it retains instead the freedom to wander, must be a terrible burden to bear.

Semantics - I love 'em!

Feel the same way, how can they preach the shit in their fairy tale book yet go around and do the opposite. W/e happened to the christian, love thy neighbor. I guess now its, love thy neighbor unless he isn't a christian. Hypocrites are so fucken annoying. I especially love it when a thiest calls me stupid. Now, I know im not the smartest guy, but I do pride myself in not believing in giants, imaginary friends, magic, virgins giving birth 2000 years ago, Zombies (aka Jesus).

Nordmann- I'm curious now, which Muslim countries have you lived in? It sounds like you're describing a secular country like Turkey rather than Afghanistan or Malaysia, where I can only imagine that you would have had a very different experience.

Hi FullTimeDefendant

Iraq, Dubai, UAE, Qatar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and I have frequently visited or had extensive contact with people from others.

I'll give you one example which, in light of what has happened since, illustrates my experience best.

You might not get the impression from the media, and especially since the whole issue has become embroiled in an extremely violent political mess that few in Iraq could ever have envisaged themselves caught up in even a decade ago, but the Shia/Sunni dichotomy was a popular source of very profound and long-standing philosophical discussion in that country. Now and again it was hijacked by politicians and things could turn nasty (I arrived after the Iran/Iraq war when I believe this was quite common), but that was essentially what it was - a hijack. The vast majority of Iraqis followed the ongoing debate via newspapers, TV programmes etc with the same attentiveness their US counterparts might then have been following LA Law or the NBA. Mullahs on both sides had the same celebrity status as the most respected US TV pundits, and the debates that ensued between them were considered of such importance that the thugs in power never dared take action against any of the leading debaters, even when they were critical of the regime, which they often were even from the Sunni side of the street (old ex-pat joke from Baghdad).

This respect for debate extended throughout society - in fact the media version had its origins in that respect too. I could sit in a coffee shop in Baghdad and engage in religious debate with anyone (many seized on such opportunities to practice their English). Local christians too were often roped in, whether they wanted to be or not, simply if some of the muslim sects' representatives felt that they were going to be accused of "winning by numbers". That was a no-no and against the spirit of the debate, which was not to say which side was most right but to discuss the implications of applying diverse ideological opinion to virtually any subject under the sun worth talking about. As an avowed atheist I received huge respect, since they are few and far between in that society. Another nice thing, by the way, was that social class played no role. The garbage collector sat and debated with the local bank manager and both people's views were mutually respected. Rhetorical victories were appreciated (and applauded by the opponent) even if they emanated from the mouth of a beggar.

In the Gulf states the situation was much the same but society lacked a ready-made eclectic mix. There, conversations were conducted one-to-one normally, or in larger groups through introduction (which carries cultural obligations regarding how you behave yourself) but I still encountered frequent and genuine curiosity about how I, as an atheist, viewed the world.

In Malaysia, or at least in Kuala Lumpur, it was the same too, but there I was restricted to socialising with colleagues and, as their guest accordng to their culture, could have espoused satanism and still have been treated with respect, however forced. But I never - and I mean absolutely never - experienced even the slightest inkling of gratuitous offence being taken by anyone from anything I said. As long as I was respectful of their viewpoint and criticised only its inferences, then they were doubly respectful of mine - and that goes even for the many times I pointed out that their professed religious tenets of toleration and respect meant nevertheless that it was only males who enjoyed the freedom of discourse. No one ever tried to convert me either. The Koran was referred to in inter-muslim dialogue to settle a difference of opinion , but rarely to non-muslims as a vehicle to justify some superiority of viewpoint. Christians could learn a lot from that.

IT consultant, doing various bits and pieces - mostly getting Bill Gates products to work even half-way efficiently.

Or, as we liked to joke in Iraq, builder of accounting systems of mass destruction.

This reminds me of this dumbass, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheProdigyTony48219 , he's so stupid he believes he's smart. He made a video called "Proving Atheists Are Mentally Retard It." Pretty funny. You guys might know this guy as the dude who thought venomfangx disproved evolution and won a nobel prize. Be prepared to hear alot of atheists are stupid motherfuckers, sub-human dipshits, moronic sons of bitches, fucking retards, blah blah blah. Funniest part is he can't even make a coherent sentence to save his life.